Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with scip Ricter.
It's crazy. Just watch him as many bats back again not a sign.
Good morning, Glad you're off listening to garden Line this morning. Congratulations
your cup of coffee or tea or maybe you just naturally are an early riser.
No, no liquids needed. Well either way, We're looking forward today
to talking about the things that help you have a more beautiful garden, to
help you have a more bountiful landscape. You know, our landscapes and our
gardens are a source of not only value for our home, but a source
of a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction for us. Whenever you create something that
looks beautiful, there's just a sense of accomplishment in it. I've been working
in my garden, cleaning some things up a little by little. There was
a couple of beds that I just hadn't gotten around to you yet and getting
them ready for spring, and it's just nice looking out there. It's one
of the few places in life, seems like, where you do a little
bit of work on something, you turn around and look at it and you
see the difference. You know, there are a lot of things where we
throw ourselves into it. Maybe your job is a little bit this way.
You know, at the end of a day, you go, Okay,
I worked all day, but I'm not really sure what I got accomplished today.
But I'll tell you when you pull weeds in a garden bed, or
you plant a garden bed, or redo the soil to take it up,
and not much, you just look back and see the results, and that's
a comforting thing. I'm going to be talking about all kinds of things today
to take care of, and I want to kind of tell you the time
for our broad leaf we control our lawns is we're kind of there those lawn
weeds that are broad leaf. They are blooming, they're setting seeds, and
we need to get them out of there. You can approach that a couple
of ways. Some people get out and just do a lot of hand pulling.
Well, if that's not your your gig, or if you got a
huge area and you just don't want to try to go through it like that.
Nitruss has a product that's an early spring green up type fertilizer. It's
got the fifteen to five to ten. When I say spring green up type,
I mean it releases fast. You put it down, you get it
quick, and that would be Nitrophoss fifteen five to ten with the Trimac in
it. Now. Trimac is a three way broad leaf weed killing product.
And when you put it down, you want to put it down on wet
weeds. So turn on the sprinkler just long enough to wet the weed,
put it down, sticks to the weeds, moves in, does the trick.
That's how that works. After about a day watered in, get that
fifteen five to ten in the soil and kick those turf grass plants into high
gear. As it's warming up, they're ready to go. Where do you
get it? Well, you can get fifteen five ten with trimec by Nitrofosh.
You can get it at Plantation Ace Hardware out there in Katie, Texas,
Hiding and feed on. Stubner Airline has it and Bearings Hardware. Both
the Bissinette and the Westheimer stores had that Trimeac fifteen to five to ten available
for you. I I working out in the lawn area right now. My
lawn is all dirt. I think I mentioned this more than once on the
show, but last year took a major hammer on my lawn. I took
a little trip away, and I had the trifecta of drought because irrigation didn't
come on for some reason, the chinchbugs and take all root rot, and
those three together just basically rent it a mass very low grass left not worth
trying to keep and bring back. So that whole thing has been renovated.
I've got put some sandaloam soil down, mixing it in with what I've got.
That's what I'll be doing on Monday and then Tuesday planting grass. And
I've got several I'm trying. You know, for me, everything's an experiment
because I want to learn, I want to have some hands on so I'm
trying some different things. A couple of types of Saint Augustine, a couple
of types of Zoetia in the backyard, and so we're just gonna get it
all planted on Tuesday, And if I'm alive and well and can still move
to crawl up to the microphone, I'll be back next next Saturday to talk
to you about that. If you are planting grass, you want to make
sure and water it in well. And here's what I would do. I
would number one, water the area just a few days before you're going to
plant. Just get some moisture in the soil. If you don't already have
moisture in the soil, then you lay your grass down and you water it
immediately. When I say immediately, I don't mean two hours later. If
it's a sunny, hot day, go ahead and get water on it.
As you move to another area, plant more. Just keep that sprinkler going.
You don't need a lot of water, but you need frequent water.
It's the opposite of how we normally water our lauwns, because that grass is
coming in from the soil from where they grew it from the side company with
just a little thin layer of soil, clay soil on the bottom, usually
clay there. Sometimes it's different. And that's a very little root system,
and that grass has got to get a root down fast. But in the
meantime you got to keep what roots it has moist So I put on about
a quarter of an inch of water, maybe a half inch initially, and
then if it were summertime and hour planting, I would say water in the
morning, water in the afternoon, with just enough to get that little surface
moist to keep it going. By the preplant watering. In other words,
I said, I wedded a couple of days ahead. As those roots go
down, there's already moisture down there, so you're not trying to wet the
soil eight inches deep or six inches deep when you lay your new side.
But you are watering frequently this time of year. I'll probably water it once
maybe twice a day for the first couple of days, and then once a
day, just you know, a good soaking middle part of the day,
and then if the weather gets up in the mid upper eighties, I might
do a little more often than that. After about a week you figure,
okay, we're getting some roots going here. Then maybe go to a day
if you haven't already gone to once a day. And then after about two
weeks you figure, okay, this grass is getting going. You don't forget
watering, but you're not having the water every day. You can back after
every other day, and you just want it to hit the ground running.
Can you get by with less, yeah, But will the grass be stressed,
yes? Will some areas die? Maybe your sprinkler system isn't fully efficient,
and so where you think you've given a good even application, you haven't.
It's just the way sprinklers work. So take good care of it.
That way, When do you fertilize, When it has reached to take up
fertilizer, that's going to be at least a couple of weeks after planting,
you can begin to put a little bit on. I might use a little
fast release at that time. You know, nitros has one called Imperial.
Imperial is a fifteen to five to ten. That's a three one two ratio.
And the three one two ratio is what turf scientists from across the country
really but certainly through our southern states, from Texas on across. That's what
they have determined is the nutrient ratio that grass takes up the nutrients. And
so that's why you will see fertilizers like nitrofoss Imperial fifteen five to ten and
that kind of application, a light application, give it a little immediate nutrients,
get it going. After you do that, I'd probably wait about a
month and then I start my long term fertilization schedule, the slow release fertilization
schedule. But initially let it get some roots and then give it something that's
a little faster released to give it a boost, and then we move on
to the other that's kind of a kind of a schedule for that in that
Imperial You know, just like all night fross products, you're going to find
them everywhere out in Channey Forest in Richmond, they carry the nitrofoss products up
in Willis up at Growers Outlet you can get them. Or maybe you're a
I forty five direction of Tumble RCW Nursery's got night fuss products. You can
get those there, including the fertilizers and other things as well. So getting
that grass established. Now, if your lawn just has some areas that are
areas that are dead, but there's little sprigs of grass or little sections of
grass in it, you can just let that cover back over. If you've
got let's say, between two decent little plugs of grass that are growing,
it can cover over about a foot by midsummer pretty easily if it has water
and fertilizer, and if your lawn isn't struggling with a disease which shuts things
down. Otherwise you're looking at larger areas you're going to have to either put
some sod in it or just resaiwed the whole section, which is the route
I decided to go, and plus I wanted to try some some new types
of turf grass. It's kind of a, like I said, an experiment.
We're going to watch it and see. I've got some fairly some stuff
that's been around a little while but it's just been proven to do well,
and then some that's that's really brand new, and so we're going to see
how that goes. But however you go about it, this is the season
to get that lawn going, get it in good shape you want to,
and if you haven't mowed it yet, I usually on the initial mowing mow
down pretty short and then that gets rid of a lot of the dead debris
up on top, you know, so you've got dead leaves and stuff from
the winter season. I put a bagger on at that time, especially if
there are any weeds, because you want to capture as many of those seeds
as you can. Don't recycle clippings full of weed seeds. Just try to
get them out of there and get them off the property and it'll do pretty
well. Well. We're going to take a little break here. We will
be back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. When I come back, we'll start heading toward your calls to
see the things you have questions about, or you'd like some advice on take
care of Thanks for listening to garden Line, by the way, and we'll
be right back. Welcome back in garden Line. Really far to visiting with
you about the things that interest you in gardening. What are your questions?
You got things about lawns, maybe things about the herb garden, or maybe
you'd like to put in a herb garden that would be a good one.
Fruit, trees, vegetables. We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about,
even house plants. We can do that to Hey, that's gardening,
that's indoor gardening, so that certainly counts our phone number seven one three two
one two KTRH. We love feed stores here on garden Line and Sprint Creek
Feed up there in Magnolia is an outstanding feed store and they just keep getting
better. They've really expanded their garden area this year bringing in plants. They've
got certainly all the products you hear me talk about when it comes to fertilizers.
If you need anything to control pests, diseases, and weeds, they've
got that. They absolutely have that as well, friendly and cardios staff always
at Spring Creek feed I love visiting. That's up in Magnolia on FM twenty
nine seventy eight, So all of you up in that area, just it's
just minutes away by the way from Highway two forty nine and Grand Parkway,
so you need to swing by there and check it out. You'll certainly get
all your livestock feeds and all the other stuff you would expect from a feed
store, but you're going to find it to be surprisingly expensive indoor decorations and
other things. It's it's a fun place to visit, allow yourself a little
bit of time. Every time I go in visiting with the folks, I
just I end up realizing, oh my god, I've been in here for
a while. That's because it's fun. Let's got to conro We're going to
talk to Cheryl this morning. Hello, Cheryl, Hi, I was wondering.
You know, I have my high business that I started in the tray
and it's been about a month now. There all there may be a little
more tall, and I'm wondering, what can you recommend as far as transplanting
him to the next slice of What kind of soil do I use? Because
everything that I've read says not to use garden soil, right, so I'm
not garden soil, I mean cotting soil. But I'm not sure what to
Okay, Well, that's that's an easy one. I think a real simple
thing would be be to grab you some jungle Land jungle lens product that night
Foster distributes it, so it's going to be widely widely available. But get
the flower and vegetable version. There's an indoor version and a flower and vegetable
version for outdoors. I would do that. And when you get that material
and you're gonna pot your hibiscus up into a larger container, use that,
but mix in with it. Nelson's Genesis Genesis is a six one four,
six one two, I believe is the number on it. Anyway, Genesis
products, let me find that right now, six one three. Thank you.
There we go, six one three, and it releases the nutrients,
it's loaded with all kinds of microbes, and it's got you know, the
endo and ectomycorrhizal that connect with the roots and help make the roots more efficient.
But that's the combo that I would suggest to use the jungle land with
the Nelson. Genesis comes in. Genesis comes in a little jar. You
don't need much of it, just follow the label and mix it in.
And we had some caller last weekend that was just raving about how how fast
and well his plants performed on it. Okay, good because my least that
I actually have now we're real pretty green. But now they're starting to turn
like a light green, and I'm afraid they're not getting enough patrious. So
it's you know, I need to edit fertilizer and move them up to your
next Okay, it could be that, but it also could be too much
water. Be real careful not to over water them. Keep them, don't
keep them soggy wet. Okay, okay, yes, sir, thank you
so much for your health this morning. You bet you take care and good
look with those. Send me a picture of them when they finally bloom someday.
Okay, I will do that, thank you. We that stage that
stage at RYL is talking about where you've got a seedling and it's up.
Okay, it's going now, don't leave it there too long and that container,
move it up to the next one and give it a quality saw mix
with a nutrient boost in it. And that that's why I recommended that to
her. You'll just see those things. They'll sit there for about a day
or two and all of a sudden, you're going, wow, they are.
It's like they hit the ground running and the the they'll say their roots
or on the accelerator, if you want to look at it that way.
That sure works. Well. You are listening to Garden Line and I am
your host, Skip Richter, What do you want to talk about? Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was taking care of
the some herbs that I have and I we have an herb bed and in
the bed we've well, we've planned a lot of different things over the years
in there, but right now the chives are going crazy. And it just
reminded me chives, garlic chives and onion chives. But when they go to
seed last year, I did not clip the little seed heads off, and
now that her bed looks like a chive chia pet. I mean there is
chides coming up everywhere. So just remember your chives do receed. And so
I'm gonna have to get in there and probably run some of that soil through
a little hardware cloth screen just to get all those little chip bulbs out of
there, because I like chives, but I don't need a whole herb bed
full of chives. But boy, the blooms are really popular with pollinators,
they really are. Pollinators love chives. That whole alien family is a popular
one. It's important, you know, if you want to attract pollinators,
to plant things that draw them in. And there are a lot of great
plants for that. I mean, I just go on and on and on.
And when we say pollinators, we're talking about a lot. We're talking
about honey bees, We're talking about native bees, talking about there are a
lot of different creatures that will do the pollination for some better than other's.
No, butterflies can do a little pollinating, but that's not their forte like
it is with bees. But anyway, pollinator gardens are a fun way to
go. And you know, we need pollinators because if you have a vegetable
garden, for example, some plants absolutely won't set fruit without pollination. So
that would be things like in the cucurbit family, like squash, cucumbers,
watermelons, candalopes, musk melons, that whole group of plants in that family.
They have to get pollen from one flower to a different flower because they
have male and female flowers separate. So you always want plenty of pollinators hanging
around so that your plants just do super well. That is important and it's
easy to take care of them. You know. Another way we track pollinators
is by providing water for them. And you don't just have like a swimming
pool sitting there. They need to be able to get down to the water.
So you may have a bird bath with some little stones in it so
there's really shallow edge to the water and they can get They can walk right
down there without drowning and just get a little bit of water. That is
an important thing to keep in mind as well. We're gonna now go to
beat Eyes and talk to Dane. Well, hello, Dane, how are
things? And beat Eyes? That skip's nice? Good say it again.
I got three briskets on the pit for you. Oh my gosh, hang
on, I'll be right there. A good deal, hey, I was,
I'm doing a raised garden, and I was talking to a place in
the cells soil. It's a rose mixed soil, but they made the commet
that it was not fertilized. I didn't understand that. And if I need
to fertilize it, what would you recommend to put in it? What are
you going to grow in the garden. It'll be a tomatoes, halipenias,
onions, potatoes squashed, you know, the whole the gamut. Yeah,
and is this a pretty large garden day? It's four feet wide, sixteen
feet long, okay, and about three feet high. Yeah. Well,
you know there's a lot of you can buy fertilizers in the little canisters and
there you have organic and synthetic choices depending on how you want to go.
Microlife is an excellent product for mixing in for an organic. You're out there
and beat eye, so you're going to be really close to Grimes County Feed
and they may have the canisters of microlife in there. It's been a while
since I looked at the shelves inside. I think they have the canisters of
microlife, but I know they have the bags of microlife. Then from a
synthetic standpoint, again, just a good lawn fertilizer is what I use for
most of my vegetable garden. And I realize, you know, we have
a lot of different ratios and stuff, but in the absence of a soil
test, I would just use a good term fertilizer for it. So and
there's there's a number of those out there. You know. If you fertilize
your lawn with something like let's say nitrofos Imperial fifteen five to ten, that
would be a good one to using the vegetable garden as well. Yeah,
I use All's lan program for the fertilizing on the lawn. Okay, well
what kind of what kind of fertilizer do you like to use? What's the
one you'll recommend? I think it's not just sas well, we got it.
Yeah, we have several nitrofoss on there. The spring green up is
fifteen five to ten uh. And then there is a slow release for the
vegetable garden. I wouldn't use slow releases. I would just use, you
know, the regular fertilizers just because you've got a short term crop uh,
and so you want when you fertilize them, you want them get the nutrients
and get that boost pretty quick, makes sense. Yeah, fifteen five ten
impierlet's a red bag by Nitrofoss that would be one that you could use.
And then the micro life it's a green bag as well. Wonderful. All
right, Well that's what I do, man, I appreciate it. All
right. Say hi to the folks, say say that again. How does
the good work? Thank you? Say hi to the folks that the roy's
over at a Spring Creek feed When you're out there, we'll do all right.
Take care. Yeah, Spring Creek Feed Center, it's it's a fun
place. And you know that country beat Eyes and Curtain and Anderson all through
that region. Spring Creek Feeds your hometown feed center. And they carry the
fertilizers that I talk about here. They carry a lot of other things for
past diseases and weed management for those of you and king Oaks and your wood
that that. Those are some lovely new neighborhoods out that way after towards Carlos,
Texas. It's just it's easy to get too easy to find them,
and they're going to have what you need when you go back. Let's see
here. I am going to go now to Cyprus and talk to Terry.
Hello, Terry, good morning, Skip. How are you this morning?
I'm good? How are you? Oh? About a B plus? I
guess okay, I've got a real problem with clover. About a month ago,
I put my early fertilizer, the fifteen five ten nitrofalls on it,
and I didn't use the one that's got the weed and feed the other.
Anyway, It's greened up real good. It's tall and everything. But I've
got a whole lot of clover everywhere, and I'm just wondering, it's been
a month, can I come back with that fifteen five ten that's got the
wed killer in it. Now, you you said you did not use that
the first time, You just use fertile Well, right, I just use
a regular fifteen five. That's what I've always used, and I've always had
good success for it. But for some reason or another, I've just got
tremendous of out of clover. Yeah. Well, if it's been a month,
you could fertilize again. It's a little early, but not too early.
You could. You could fertilize again with the nitropos. You were referring
to the nitrophus with the trimech in it. But you have to get the
leaves of the weeds wet so it sticks. That's an alternative. Another is
just to go in with a spray specifically to go after those. Either way
you go is fine. I you know, six and one half dozen in
the other it may be since you just fertilized a month ago, So maybe
you would just go with a spray and then come back with something that's slow
released to carry you on into the summer, like Nitropuss's Imperial Silver Bag.
Okay, and what kind of spray would I use? I would use Bonne
Eyed weed Beater Ultra and do it before the temperatures get up in the mid
eighties. Do it in the morning, but before we're up in the mid
upper eighties every day. That would be a good one. Fertilo makes another
one called weed Free Zone, and that that would also work fine. Just
mix it according to the label and make sure you get just get the leaves
wet. You don't have to drench them, just spot spray the weeds that
you have. Hey, I got to go to a break, but thank
you sir for the call. I appreciate that. It's time for NICKI in
the news our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Well, come back to Guardline. Hey, it's good to have you
with us today. I enjoy talking to gardeners and answering gardening questions and helping
you with By the way, Dane, whenever that brisket is ready, you
can just drop some off here at the station. It's not too far of
a drive from bet. I was talking to Dane and I mentioned Grimes County
Feed. You know, they're up there on Highway thirty in Carlos and Grimes
County Feed is going to have everything you would expect the feed store to have.
I mean you're talking about livestock food and dog and cat food, and
from a gardening and landscaping standpoint, the fertilizers that I recommend, they carry
in the pesticides and things. But they also have supplies for your pond.
You know, you get do you know ponds get weeds they do, and
aquatic herbicides for weeds. They even do fish stocking. I believe they do
it about twice a quarter. But you just need to stop in talk to
the roy family and find out, you know, when are you going to
do that again? They're two miles west of FM two forty four, two
miles west of FM two forty four State Highway thirty. For anybody up in
that region that needs maybe some stocking of your ponds or supplies, take care
of your garden and your ponds. They're going to take care of you,
that is for sure. I wanted to mention today that I think I talked
about this last week, but OBA, the Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance is having
the Soil Science Conference at the United Way of Greater Houston on wad Drive.
That's Wednesday, April third, and then Thursday, April fourth, the program
continues out at Nature's Way Resources. Now this program is it's gonna be amazing.
Doctor Tom Dishri is going to talk about energy levels and plants, how
to manipulate your crops to bulletproof them against pest insects. And what they do
is they use an instrument called a bricks instrument. What that means is it
measures sugar levels, carbohydrate levels in the plants app and when you do a
bricks measurement, it can guide you. Also, doctor Adam Cobb's going to
talk about the latest in soul microbiology. Adams from the Soil Food Web school
now. If you want to register for it, go to obaonline dot org
slash register, HbA online dot org slash register. There is a fee for
these, you get meal with it, but either way you go about it,
you just need to check this out if you really want to nerd out
on creating and building a quality, quality soul mix. We're going to head
out now to Manville and talk to Adolf. Hello Adolf, Yes, sure,
good morning. I have a question in the larns to mysteria. Yes,
it hasn't been blooming very much. As a matter of fact this year,
you're hardly at all. Okay, and they were small. I don't
know what the problem is. It's been there for at least thirty five years.
Okay. Well, with steria, if it gets a little luxurious,
you know, lots of nitrogen kind of fertilizing and watering it stuff. Sometimes
it does vines at the expense of setting the bloom buds. If you don't
see many blooms, it's because not many bloom buds set on the plant going
into winter. So that whisteria plant is doing its bloom buds setting in late
summer and early fall, and so that's a key time to have success with
it. If you pruned during the winter, you're pruning away those bloom buds,
and so that's another reason for reduced bloom on a whisteria. And then
finally, as the shade grows, if it's in shade more and more hours
of the day, you're going to see a reduction in those blooms as well.
Okay, all right, yeah, in the beginning, I'm telling you
that they were just beautiful large and they actually look like grapes. Yeah,
that's the other largeous plant. Yeah, it is. The other thing is
uh, the blackberries bed. I would just use a standard uh terf fertilizer,
but not any weed control in it, just fertilizer, uh and the
one you use for your lawns. I would use it for your BlackBerry row.
You can be a little moderate with it as well. Blackberries generally have
decent vigor. If you're in a very sandy soil, a little more fertilizing
is needed to maintain that vigor, but in general doesn't take a whole lot
to keep blackberries happy. Okay, good, What is that? Why is
there bags of of soil for raised beds? What? What is that?
What? I'm sorry, I've seen I've seen bags, as a matter of
fact, about two of them. Two bags of soil for raised beds.
Okay, it's confusing. I don't know what that is. That what that
is is a special blend of soil that you put in and you just grow
right in it. The alternative to that is you would go and purchase composts
and things and mix it into the soil that you have. But you know,
if you if you want instead of that to just you know, create
or create an instant bed, you would you would do it the way you
were talking about there, Okay. And then water moon and cucumbers is you
can make a pat seed. No good time right now to do both of
those. Hey, Adolf, I'm gonna have to run, but feel free
to all any time look forward to you, Yes, sir, good luck
with all that that. That sounds like a really good deal. Hey,
if you've been to the Antique rosen for him, they're up in Independence,
Texas, just north of Brenham. You really need to go. Antiq Rosenporium
is the kind of place where it's like you've entered another time. You know,
the buildings, the pathways, the plants, and of course antique Roses.
I mean that's taking you back in time. It's a beautiful show place,
and I would encourage you to grab a bunch of people and go go
out there and visit with them. On the thirtieth the Easter or on the
thirtieth, they're having their Easter egg hunt, so just check them out find
out more about them. Antique Rosenporum can tell you more about it. It
starts at eleven fifteen. It's broken down by age group on Saturday, March
thirtieth, and every time you go out there, you're going to find a
lot more information than you could imagine from both the staff and just learning about
the roses. Do this go to the website antiqu rosenporim dot com or callum
ninety seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight. We are let's see
here. I'm gonna I wanted to Mary. I'm going to have to hold
you until right after the break to have enough time to help with the question.
But you'll be the first one we come back. For those of you
that are interested in honeybees, I talked about pollinators and how do we attract
pollinators? How about putting some beehives in the backyard. You can actually do
that. And no that doesn't mean you walk out the door and the bees
attack. Bees are very docile, but they sure do the work for you
in your gardens. Plus you get honey. What a deal. The Bee
Supply is having classes. Those classes will help you learn about bees how to
take care of them. You can go. The next one's April thirteenth.
There's one on April twenty seventh as well. And if you just want to
go and learn about bees, how about going to the honey Tour where you
get to learn a lot and taste the honey as well. Vbsupply dot comvbsupply
dot com. That's how to find out more. They're out in Dayton and
I can tell you this. Go see the indoor Observational high where you can
and watchbees work. It is amazing. We're going to take a little break.
When we come back, we'll talk to Mary our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line.
Good to have you with us. For those of you out in Richmond,
you've probably already been to in Chenni Gardens. You know about it. I
mean it's a It is a showplace. It's a destination. People come from
all over to go see that place because there's not anything you need for your
garden and landscape that they don't have every kind of plant, I mean,
and when you talk about the accessories and whatnot, they've got you covered.
In Chenni Gardens. It's on the Katie Fulsher side of Richmond, So as
you're heading up north toward Katie direction, that's in Chenni Gardens FM three fifty
nine that's the road. The website enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. They're open
today eight am to five pm, Tomorrow ten am to four pm. It's
always a good time to visit because they always have new selections of everything you
can imagine. I mean, every time I go there, it takes a
while to wander through. It's a beautiful spread out place, quality staff that
know what they're talking about. They're not going to steer you wrong. Another
reason I like to go. We're going to I want to go out to
Mary in southwest Houston. Now, Hello Mary, Hey, good morning.
My question is regarding a rental property we own here in Houston that the large
lot in the lawn just didn't get maintained like it should have during the summer,
and so we just have a lot of weeds. And with the cost
of Saint Augustine, I was wondering if fermuda grass seeds would be a good
alternative, and if so, how do you do that? Will it's less
expensive than sodding. But when you plant those little tiny seeds, they come
up in their spindly little seedlings until they finally get established. And in the
meantime here comes the weed seeds as well, and so it's a little bit
of a challenge to plant from seed, but you can. You can plant
from seed. There are Finding the seeds of varieties is sometimes a little bit
of a challenge too. I wouldn't do the old common bermuda, although you
could, but I'd try to get something a little more compact. There's a
variety called Sahara, I believe that's still on the market. But anyway,
are you going in and out? Okay? Yes, you can plant from
seed. It's a little bit of a challenge to get them established because when
you do, first of all, you're gonna have to kill everything and make
the dirt bear and then plant the bermuda seed and hope that they get established
before the weeds come right back. Wow. Okay, Yeah, Well we
saw a product that has mulch and fertilizer in with the seeds. Would that
be a good option. No, I don't know what that is. I
wouldn't. I wouldn't go that route. Bermuda spreads fast though. I mean
if you wanted to buy some sod and cut it up in pieces and plant
little strips of it to make your dollar go further, it'll spread pretty fast
and you would just you would just mow it and control the broadly weeds that
are coming into it. Okay, thank you so much, Thank you,
Mary. I appreciate appreciate your call a lot. Yeah, when it comes
to controlling weeds, night frost barricade is your pre emergent, and you get
it down ahead of the weeds. That's very important. Get it down before
the weeds sprout, watered in, and it forms a barricade over the soul
surface for grass weeds and broadleaf weeds. Now, if you were going to
plant a bermuda lawn, you would not use barricade before that because it controls
bermuda seeds. It's a seed, right, so don't do that. But
an established turf. Yeah, you can do that. And where do you
find barricade? Well, all over the place. I'll tell you this specifically
speaking, barricade is just widely available number of different Ace Hardware stores. For
example, you can go to Ausbahls Ace up in the Woodlands. They've got
that. Also Plants for all seasons on Highway to forty nine carries and you
can also find the barricade as well as other night Foss products at Plants and
things up there in Brenham. I was talking about Ace Hardware. I'm going
to be doing an appearance at Ace Hardware on April sixth, that's next Saturday.
I hope you can make it. I'll be at M and d Ace
on clear Lake, but at the same weekend. Next weekend for those of
you down anywhere in the Wharton area, they're opening up a store on April
fifth and sixth. Now, the fifth and sixth is going to be at
the Wharton store. Okay, I don't want to confuse you and too much,
but there's kind of two things going on. On the sixth, I'll
be at M and d Ace, which is in clear Lake, but at
the same time those of you done in Wharton. They have Wharton Feed and
ACE Hardware on rich And Road by the way down in Wharton, and they'll
be doing their shindig at the same time. You know, when you go
to ACE, you're always going to find anything you need. They carry it
all Ace. You can just say ACE is the place because no matter what
it is, they're gonna they're definitely gonna have it. Someone's asked me the
other day, where can I get Where can I get this aer ration you're
talking about? And where can I get the accompost top dressing done? I
don't want to go through all the mess and work and haul and equipment around.
Well, if you are down south, down south and a little to
the west, B and B turf Pros covers your region. For example,
Missouri City, sugar Land, and then let's head southeast from there to Fresno,
Siena, Arcola, maybe down Iowa Colony. You were just heading down
Highway six there Manville and as far east as Pearland. They'll cover it.
Now you just need to write down this website. It's B B Turfpros dot
com. Now the company is B and B. The website is BB turf
Pros dot com, bb turfpros dot com seven to one, three two three
four fifty five ninety eight. They are all about customer satisfaction. They do
high quality work and they use quality products. They only use products and companies
that I recommend here on garden Line. They can do the aeration, they
can do the compost top dressing, and they certainly can do both, and
that is a huge thing for getting your lawn looking good, getting it rejuvenated.
You know those old height clay soils. Well, when you compost top
dress with aeration, you get oxygen in the soil, you get organic matter
done in the soil, and it just rejuvenates very good for your lawn and
you see a lot of results from that. It's you know, it's not
inexpensive having come out and do it, because you're hauling equipment, you're hauling
compost and all kinds of things. But I'm telling you it's it's cheaper than
doing an new lawn by far, that is for sure. And if you
just want to see your lawn rejuvenated, that's what I would do. That's
what I would do. Spring fertilizing of our lawns in this season. Microlife
fertilizers provide you that option for a organic fertilizer that's loaded not just with nutrients,
but you've got the microbial content as well, and that is huge.
I would say, if I were doing a spring lawn fertilization, which when
I have a lawn I will be but I no helpe right now, I
would do the six two four green bag for my microlife. I would also
then follow it with Microlife Humates plus. Now that has a four percent of
the potassium in it, but we're really putting it down because it's humus.
It's concentrated compost in a bag and it works over time to build your soil
structure and enhance the microbial content of the soil. Microlife humhs plus and the
green bag regular Microlife fertilizer, which by the way, we talk about it
like a turf fertilizer, but you can put the green bag on anything you
got it just I use it on a lot of different things as well.
If you want more information on these and other products from Microlife, just go
to the website. It's Microlife Fertilizer dot com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com makes
it real easy, easy to find all the products, and boy, they
have a nice selection, a wide so I'll talk about some others as we
go through spring. They have a wide selection of products choose from. If
you'd like to give us a call. We're going to be going to a
break here in just a bit, but I want to give you the phone
number. You can get on the boards with Josh wall Wear at break and
that way you can be up right away when we come back from break seven
one three, two, one two five eight seven four seven one three seventore
write that down, keep it handy. Who knows you may have a question
that pops up in the middle of listening. You can just jump right on
the lines and there we go. Have you been to RCW Nursery. RCW
is that nursery where two forty nine, which is Tomball Parkway, comes into
Beltway eight. So it's real easy to get to. No matter where you
are, you can jump on two forty nine, you can jump on BELTWAYA
a lot of ways to get there. You need to check out their website.
It's rcwnurseries dot com. They're open today from eight am to five pm
and tomorrow from ten am to five pm. This nursery's been open since nineteen
seventy nine. The Williamson family still runs the place. They've been advertisement guardenline
for a very long time. I call them to get it, got it
nursery. If they don't have it, they'll find it. They absolutely will
find it. They carry the fertilizers. You hear me talk about. They
have the biggest selection of roses I've ever seen anywhere, and I don't mean
just Houston, I mean anywhere. Pages of nursery options. They have trees
that they grow themselves up in Plannersville. So you know you're getting a species
that belongs here and that it's going to do well here. That is very
very important. And if you buy a tree, you want to get it
planted as soon as possible. You know, RCW can get you set up
with the tree, but you got to get that thing planted, and you
want to get it staked too, so that it does real well and it
holds, you know, stake it loosely so it can move around. RCW
will say the products you need as you plant that tree to help it during
its early growth. They have roote stimulators. They have the fertilizers like the
Microlife green bag that I was just talking about they got all that stuff ready
to go RCW nurseries dot com. Well, here we go. We're putting
another hour in the books this morning, our first hour. We will be
here until ten am. So I hope you keep listening. It's dark outside,
but you know, if your neighbor's lights aren't on, go bang on
the door, tell them they're missing guardline and they'll rise. A can call
you bless it. I'll be so happy, so so grateful, at least
in time. Maybe not the first thing this morning I mentioned the micro the
Oba Organic Cordic Culture benefits Alliance Soul Science Conference that's April third and fourth.
You can find out more at Oba o HbA online, forward slash or obaonline
dot org, forward Slash Register. Guess where I'm going to be today and
I hope you too. At CNA Mulch. They are having their spring Fling.
It's down at Cenamulch on FM five twenty one and Rose Sharon, I'm
going to be given away just a ton of different products. Please come out,
let's get some in your hands. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse
any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r
H Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's so crazy you just watching as wos
again not a sign and credits. Welcome back to guarden Line. Good to
have you with us today. We are discussing things to do in the spring.
There's a lot of things to do to take care of in the spring.
Our shrubs are going to be starting to grow, so you need to
get out there and be ready to do some sharing. The more you share
a shrub, the densert is. That's how that works. That doesn't mean
you need to share them every day. It just means that if you only
share them once a year, you're not going to have the density that you
would hope to have. But as new growth is about to begin, let
that grow go for a little bit, not long, and then just go
ahead and share it. And what will happen is every terminal that you cut
off, you're going to have at least two sprouts that come out from behind
it, and now you have an even denser shrub as you go. That's
true of the evergreen shrubs, which are the primary ones that we're sharing at
that time. A while ago, I was talking about RCW growing their own
trees, and I was saying, you know, when you plant a tree,
you need to support it somehow, a brand new tree, and if
it's a well grown tree, it's not as wobbly. If you will in
the ground. Sometimes you get these trees and I know how it goes.
You're thinking, I'm going to get a good deal and buy some cheap tree
somewhere, and the thing it moves at the bottom. Here's what I mean.
If a tree is well grown when you put it in the ground,
if you were to grab the top and pull it towards you, it should
ben like a fishing pole. You know, a fishing pole bends up.
Further up you get the more where it bends, and then as you get
toward the bottom, it's not bending at all. But a lot of times
they instead, they're like they're hinged at the bottom. The whole straight trunk
just kind of bends towards you when you pull on it. That's not all
a well grown tree, really. But you can help a tree get established
by supporting it. Now, the old way is to use the wires,
you know, and you got to buy wire. You got to cut off
sections of garden hose to put around the wire so it doesn't cut into the
tree limb. You're tripping over the wires because they're going in three different directions
coming out of the tree. Instead just gets you a three sixty tree stabilizer.
That's a straight stiff arm that grabs the tree and then it grabs a
post. You just stick a it's made in fact in the end. You
can put it on any kind of post, but you can put it on
a T post also. It's made for that too. And the other end
that holds the tree is a rubber strap and you just strap it loosely allow
it to move a little bit. That's very important. Three sixty tree stabilizers
are widely available all over the place. Buchanans has them done in the Heights
Arborgate up in Tomball RCW Nursery where Tomball Parkway comes into Belwa eight plants for
all seasons on Tomball Parkway has them. Southwest Fertilizer, well, of course
they have them. They have everything Southwest Houston and Hare Sidden Gardens down in
Alvin, they all carry this three sixty tree stabilizer. They last, and
last and last. This is an investment that will be around anytime you need
to get a tree steaked, or maybe someone in the family loan in your
tree stabilizer to do that same thing. Makes it really easy. You heard
me probably talking about jungle land potting soil, and I was mentioning the outdoor
soil. Someone was going to plant some flowering materials outside. They also have
an indoor the jungle land water saving potting soil. Now, how does this
potting soil save water? Well, it holds onto water because as these little
crys in it, these little crystals are polymers that absorb many times their weight
in water. And as your potting soil gets a little dry, the roots
are growing up up against that crystal. They'll find it and grow up against
it, and you can draw moisture that's still around. When your regular other
part of your potting mix, the organic part of the potting mix, starts
to get a little on the dry side, those crystals are an ongoing source
of water, making it a little more forgiving. And it's a jungle Land
distributed product, so it's going to be easy to find. You know,
whenever you're talking about doing any kind of an application of a product or anything
from nitroposs including this jungle and you're going to find it so easy. Go
to Katie that Ace Hardware out in Katie, they've got it. For those
of you living in Memorial area, Memorial Drive, Ace Hardware City has got
it. If you're down in alvin Stanton Shopping Center also carries the Jungle Land
product. It makes it easy to find what you need to get that job
done. Hey, if you'd like to give us a call, our phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. I was visiting with Jason's at Jason
at Peerscapes the other day and you know, just talking to how are things
going, what's up? And I'm telling you they are staying busy. They
you know, when you do a good job, you do quality work,
you stay busy. So if you would like to get some work done,
and this could be a total rent landscape renovation, it could be just working
in a specific area, maybe a little patio area in the backyard to get
that done, give them a call now. You need to call them now
because a good reputable landscaper like Jason's at Peer Scapes, they're busy and they're
booking weeks, if not months in advance some of these types of jobs.
But give them a call now. Now something else they offer. I haven't
told you about this before. They have a quarterly maintenance for the landscape beds.
So what does that mean. Well, once a quarter they're going to
come. They're going to do trimming, they're going to do weeding, they'll
fertilize, they'll check the irrigation system just to make sure things are functioning right.
They'll do a neration. They can do that as well. The seasonal
color changes. You know, the pansies that you had in the winter aren't
for late spring and summer, so you need to have new color come in.
And then they'll do mulching. All of that is part of the quarterly
maintenance for beds. So you sign on the line and say, look,
you guys, take care of it, and you know they're going to keep
things looking good now. Pierce Caapes, they've been around a while, they've
been doing good work for a while. That's why they stay busy. Look,
get on the phone and make a call. You don't have to get
the work done right away. In fact, a good landscaper, like I
said, stays busy, but get on the list so that you can make
sure and have your beds in top shape. Here's the number two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty or just
go to piercescapes dot com pierscapes dot com. That makes it really really easy.
If you've looked out in your lawn and you see all these broad leafweeds,
those are cool season weeds. So what are you going to do about
them? Well, one thing you can do about them is you can get
out there and hand pull them, take the weed and its seeds and everything,
put it in the trash and get rid of it. A lot of
people aren't willing to do that. Another option is when you mow, mow
low and get those weed seeds out of there as best you can that way.
But another way would be to use a spring green up fertilizer with Trimec.
And that's what that is exactly what Nitrofoss has created Nitrofoss Weed Control product.
It's like a fifteen five ten fertilizer with TRIMEC. Trimec is three different
broad leaf we control ingredients mixed into one. You have to wet the weeds.
Because you want the granules to stick to the weed. So just a
sprinkling of water just to get the weed surfaces wet, put out the the
nitrofosh product and give it a day or so, let it move into those
tissues and then watered in to get the fifteen five to ten part done in
the soil to help you out and night foss being widely available, is going
to be available in Montgomery at Gem's Hardware. For example, a task a
Seeda ace has it, as does the ace out and Sinco Ranch. We're
going to take a little break. Seven one three two one two KTRH is
the number. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have you with us today.
Today's a day to get outside and do some things in the yard.
It's a day to pick up some good products to fertilize your lawn, take
care of weeds. It's a good day to pick up plants to get those
established. Any kind you want to go about, go for it, get
that done. If you're on Way two forty nine up toward tom Ol direction
plants for all seasons. That is a place, it is well known and
the people throughout that community love it. I mean that place is always busy
because they know when they go there, they're going to get the plants they
need, and they're going to get expert advice and listen. That is so
important, you know, to go to a place where they don't know what
they're talking about. You may buy a plant that really doesn't grow here and
they don't know. You may find a problem on that plant. Now,
what are you going to do? They certainly don't know their products to take
care of it. And plants for all seasons? Does I mean you walk
in with a picture, you walk in with a sample? What is this?
They'll say, here's what it is. You know you just break with
that. That's not a problem, or yes you do, and here's a
product that takes care of it. It makes it easy. Listen with your
plants. You're getting expertise. If you got a brown thumb, you got
to go there. If you have a green thumb, they will make it
greener because they give you the information and the plants and products you need.
Plants for all seasons dot com where are they? Well, if you're going
up Tomball Parkway, exit Luetta and it's just past Luetta right there on the
right hand side. Two eight one, three, seven six, sixteen forty
six. We're going to go now up to Tomball and talk to Alan.
Hello, Alan, Hey, good morning. How you doing. I'm well,
thank you. I'm looking for a shrub that can do some sunshade that
would have a flower on it. Do you have any recommendations a shrub.
When you say sunshade you mean half and half or what? Yeah, I've
got a shady it it's a long afternoon sun. But I'm looking with some
shrubs in that area. Okay, We've got a number of shrubs depending on
the light intensity, that'll do pretty good for you there. If you get
east four hours of sunlight, that opens a door to a lot more options.
Generally when yeah, I do, oh you do? Okay, well,
yeah, you're going to need a little more than four for roses,
for example, to do really good. As we go into the shade areas,
headranges or a really good shrub for bright shade. Now, and if
it's hot, hot afternoon sun, you have to really be extra careful to
keep them moist. The head ranges can be an ongoing summer blooming shrub that
looks looks really good. You might want to try that one Guardena is another
example. If you have an acidic type soil. If not, yeah,
when you fertilize fertilized with an acid loving fertilizer, make sure you have a
good high compost content soil a bed mix that you're growing them in, you're
going to have success. I think with that as well. See I'm living
for more of an evergreen shrub that will last you know at the Yeah,
well, alias and in guardenia's camellias are all evergreen shrubs that are in a
good bright amount of light are going to do okay for you. Uh.
Now getting something that blooms all year, that's are all season, that's going
to be a little bit more difficult. Uh see evergreen about like what about
like red tips? Are they any that they're all years? They're a year
round plant, correct, right, but they don't bloom. Uh they have
some issues that kind of caused them to fall from popularity. Uh. Another
plant that can also get that same leaf spot is indian hawthorn. And indian
hawthorne will put up with some shade, but it likes to have good sun
and it has some blooms on it, and it's an evergreen that would be
a possible. How tall is the all that type of type. There's a
bunch of type. I was talking about the big old mophead types of hydranges
that are common. Listen, you're up there in the Tombol area. I'd
recommend you just swing by Arborgate. Uh. They they're up there in Tombul,
just west of town. Oh yeah, yeah, I go, yeah,
I go. I go to them all the time. Well, if
you talk to Beverly or talk to Kennon or any of the folks out there
and just describe they're going to carry. They carry a wide variety of shrubs,
and they can kind of go, well, here's your options, and
here's the pros and cons, and you get this munch of bloom out of
this one and that much out of that one, and I would just let
them kind of guide you through it. Okay, Yeah, Yeah, that's
my that's kind of my go to place anyway. Well, good okay.
And so, but you want to when you go home, go home with
one of their three bag completely easy system. It's the food for anything with
roots, it's the compost product, and it's the soil product and all three
and that sets it up to where whatever you plant is going to do better?
What is that? It's their completely easy system, that's what they call
it at Arbrogate. It's the one two three steps. So there's a fertilizer
that's a fertilizer for anything with roots. It's a four four to three plus
calcium. They've got the organic soil complete and the organic compost complete and those
last two have uh the expanded shale in them which helps, especially with clay
soils, to keep them open. Oh okay, good deal. Yeah say
that al if you listen to Guardenline at all, you know, I always
say brown stuff before green stuff. So don't just go home with a good
plant, go home with some soil enhancing product. Yeah. Yeah, I
watched my everything I can from them anyway, So well, good, thank
you, thanks for the call man. All right, you bet, good
luck. Yeah. Arburgate is they've got a wide variety. By the way,
at Arburgate, they got this really cool new parking lot in back.
Yay, you're not gonna park out on twenty nine to twenty. Just take
Tresher Road. It goes around behind Arburgate and comes back into twenty nine to
twenty. So if you miss it, just catch it on the other side
of Arburgate. Go in the back, check out the parking lot. You're
you're really really gonna love that. I'm gonna go out to Pasadena now and
we're going to talk to Eddie. Hello, Eddie very stiff, Good morning,
Good morning. Hey, if I just had a question, I ended
up sending you a picture last night via email. So I had a question
about my lime tree. Yes, I did a buy lime tree last February
for my wife from Buchanans and they ended up potting it in a big,
pretty, big, pretty uh pot. And initially when I got it,
you know, the white flowers came out and I saw that it was kind
of growing. But I think about last fall, all the leaves kind of
fell off in a little I guess you can call a little leg from the
ground cards coming up, and I kind of just left that grow. But
the main trunk, I guess this is not really growing, and I'm trying
to decide what do I need to do. Maybe it's root bound or something
else. Yeah, I looked at I looked at your picture, and you're
not gonna like You're not going to like my comment on it. That tree
is the grafted part is dead and what you're seeing is you're seeing the rootstock
and it's a good picture, thank you. By the way it shows up.
Well, that is a specific rootstock called flying dragon. The flying dragon,
So you got two options. You can replace it with another one,
which is what I would recommend, go ahead and get that done. Or
if some people will try their hand at tea budding or grafting and you got
to go find the right kind of lime that you want, get some wood
and get home, I would recommend just replacing it. But at this stage,
all that's going to be is a very contorted thorny thorny thorny bush.
Okay, all right, I'll go. I'll probably go ahead and replace it.
But I guess what, do you know what might have killed it?
Because I was feeding it and watering it fine, it was good throughout the
summer. Yeah, I don't know. You know, cold weather, a
good coal snap can kill a plant. It could be that. I can't
tell from looking at the picture. I just see there's no life and the
original scion that grew from the graft, But I do see the stock from
below the graft. If you follow that original one down and you can see
the graft line and you have even one living bud above that cut off all
the rootstock, and you should and that bud should grow. Maybe there's a
chance there, but from what I can visually see, I don't see living
buds. Okay, sound good, all right, sir, Thank you,
Thank you appreciate that very much. Yeah, that is a that's a common
thing that happens with our citrus and stuff. Just more often than not,
a little shoot will sneak out of the bottom, even if the top doesn't
die, it'll sneak out and it'll say I'm part of the bush. But
you notice it's extra thorny, and you just want to go down and cut
that off as close as you can get to it. Landscaper's Pride has been
around for a while and they've been making quality products for your soil. For
example, they have a Premium potting soil. It's a sphagnum based all purpose
potting soil for indoor and outdoor plants. It's got pearlite but also has color
Star, which is a slow release fertilizer that'll feed up to three months.
They have something called pot Dirt, which is actually organic certified soil It provides
just that potency that you need for your flowering plants because it's packed with worm
casting sand, vermaculi. It's got the nutrients that they need. So if
you've got an annual bed where you're going to do some color out, this
color changes pot dirt would be an excellent choice for that. They have a
rosemix. They have Gardener's Magic soil that is also high quality with nutrients added
to it in the form of chicken pellet fertilizer April. Let's see Landscaper's Pride.
Landscaperspride dot com. Landscaperspride dot com twenty seven products available at that website.
You'll see everywhere you can get it, which is almost everywhere. We're
going to go now to Ralph in Northwest Houston. Hello Ralph, good morning,
good show. I got looking at my butter beans. I put them
out and they got a big venable Gordon and they're just not coming up and
now looking an they're way in my box here that I got them in from
Louisianna. But anyway, it's what they is not germinating the war. Yeah,
they're not germinating. I don't know why. Here's what I would do,
Ralph, do you have any extra seed leftover? Any actually, what
any extra butterbean seed? Yes, I'm looking at them now. Okay.
I take ten seeds, soak them in water overnight and then put them in
a wet paper towel, put it in a plastic bag and check it every
day for the next three days. And if they haven't sprouted, it's bad
seed. If half of them have sprouted, you got a double plant the
amount in order to get the stand you want. But I think that's it.
It could be coal soil, but it's not really cold soil. Butterbeans
ought to be sprouting right now. Everythings come up with you. You've got
a good answer there, Thank you all, Thank you, sir. I
got to bind it to be coming over from a little crosst my but I
know going on how to it would get rid of them from coming over from
it's mine, right, Yes, okay, I got like ten seconds.
Look for a product called that has triclop here t R I cl o p
y R. It may be called uh poison, ivy killer or brush killer.
Whatever that'll get you going. I got it. I gotta run for
the news. Turn it over to Nikki seven one three two one two ktr
H Welcome back to the yard line. What kind of questions do you have?
You can give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Now's the time to get your spring fertilization done. If you
want to do a little bit early quick, green up well, Nitroposs Imperial
fifteen five to ten. I'll make it easy for you. It's the red
bag Nitroposs Imperial fifteen five to ten. It's got that ratio of nutrients that
you want to have success with your lawn. That's fifteen five to ten ratio.
That is what grass takes up and it does super super well. You
can get it out there in Katie at Ktace Hardware. You can get it
at Ace Hardware and City up in the Memorial area. You can find that
in Fishers Hardware, both the one on Southmoor down in the Southeastern area or
Broadway over in Laporte. They've all got that Nitroposs Imperial fifteen five to ten.
By the way, when you put the fertilizer down, you also want
to make sure that your micronutrients are doing as well too, that the levels
are there. You don't need a lot of them. You just need a
tiny amount, but they are essential and that's what azemite's all about. A
micro nutrients supplement. Put on the fertilizer and then follow with the azamite in
a separate spreading. Don't mix them together. Particle size is different. You
don't get good even distribution, So don't mix them. But put them in
same day, put them in different day, doesn't matter. Asmite is something
we try to do about once a year. You can do it more often
depending on if you have a soil test and it shows nutrient micros that are
really low, you may want to do that twice a year on it.
A little bit goes a long way. A forty four pound bag six thousand
to twelve thousand square feet as amite fertilizer. Excuse me, as Mite Texas
dot com. Asimite Texas dot com. We're going to head up to Spring
and talk to Robert. Hello, Robert are you there? Hello? Yeah?
Sorry, I've got a Saint Augustine yard and I've got patches of bermuda
that are popping up here and there, and they seem to be getting bigger.
I demo high and just wondering what options do I have to try to
control that? Uh? Are they broadleaf type weeds that you're seeing bermuda grass?
Oh? The bermuda. I'm sorry, the bermuda is in the Saint
Augustine correct. Oh boy, okay, there is not a good over the
counterway to control bermuda and Saint Augustine. Mowing high is helpful. Making sure
it doesn't go into drought stress, which gives the bermuda the advantage is helpful.
The more shade you have, the better off Saint Augustine does. In
comparison to bermuda grass. It can take shade better. But there's just not
a product that goes in and kills one without killing them both. I guess
I was reading a little bit about I'm not sure how you pronounce is f
fosse late two a herbicide. Can you spell that or f s in frank
U f I L I know what you're talking about. That's fis ofl aide.
Pis ofl aid is a grass only killer, but it'll kill Saint Augustine
too, so it's not selective like that. Okay, I'll got the bummer.
Yeah, it is about the only thing you could do, and the
is the bermuda in a large area through the yard or is it kind of
localized? Well, it's localized to several different areas, Okay, So the
alternative, the only option I see, would be to just kill everything in
those areas and wait a little while. Makes you bermua you probably not cann't
get it all or let it reach brout and then kill it again, uh,
and then resought it with the Saint Augustine. That would be one approach.
If you can say it's localized, you know, if it's here and
there all through the yard, well, that would mean killing the whole yard,
which is probably not acceptable. All right, Well, thank you sir.
All right, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. That is
for sure that I have dealt with it myself. I can feel your pain
for sure. Hey, do you need a quality, quality saw mix.
I'm talking about something that helps your plants just to thrive. If you build
it, you will have success. And Nature's way has already built it for
you. They've got rose soil. Uh, They've got the leaf mold compost.
They have fungal based compost. By the way, they have something called
Fungal Fridays. Every Friday, ten percent off the bag products, twenty percent
off the bulk. Yeah, they can deliver for you, just give them
a call. Nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine three six
three two one six nine nine zero. It's important to get that long top
dressed if you're having a lawn that's struggling. Especially when you put that leaf
mold compost on. You're adding a bazillion microbes in the process, and it
makes it a place where maybe a disease like brown patch that you know,
when we go through mild rainy weather, you could have some of that.
It helps prevent that by just out competing in that particular area. By the
way, when you're in Nature's Way, check out all of the plants at
the head. They really have a lot of natives, but not just natives,
So make sure there's plenty of room in the car before you head out
there, that is for sure. Hey Charlie in Cyprus, how's it going
today, Well, it's good. I'm trying to find out it seems like
we've lost a whole lot of our yard. We have a small front yard
but a large backyard. We're in a coldly sac and I was just wondering
about is there anything you can recommend. My husband did plant some get some
grass and put it around the edges, but the inside of it where we
should we mow it low? What should we do because it's all just looked
like bermuda grass or weeds. It's just it's horrible and green. Is your
lawn Saint Augustine? Yes, okay, well the bermuda as I was just
talking with Robert about if you got Saint Augustine and bermuda, you can't kill
one without killing the other. So he oh, he said, My husband
said, it's chick weed clover. Oh okay, mow it low, capture
the clippings and don't don't return them during that time because those both have lots
of seed on them. Get them out of there and they're going to die
out pretty soon anyway. The alternative to that would be to apply a product
to kill those weeds, and you could do that, so just a matter
of how patient are you on it. If you wanted to use a broad
leaf herbicide spray, you could do that. If you want to use something
like nitrofoss has the fifteen to five Y ten with the trimech in it if
the weeds are wet, it'll stick to them and that works too. So
you kind of have three options there. Mow and throw it away and just
wait, or spray it with the broad leaf killer something that kills many types
of broad leaf weeds. Or use the fertilizer with the trimec in it,
with the trimech t r I MC. It is a kind of off a
blue bag. It's not blues nights, more of a teal kind of bag.
Okay, so what's the brand name? Nitro foss not your fault,
okay, all right, Well, so the first thing goes to it's low
and throw away the things. But the other grass is not that we've planned
on the side. It's really not planning. We just brought a bunch of
things from the grass place included on the it. So that's doing okay,
okay, it's not growing in that area. Well, and let me just
be real clear. If you mow low, then don't try to spray it
or put a trimac nitro trim on it because there's no leaves for that products
to stick to either way spray, So either spray one or the other.
If yeah, if you mow low, it's going to go downhill as your
grass comes on. Hey, Charlie, I'm I have to run for a
break. But good luck with that. That is that's certainly an issue that
a lot of people are dealing with. Well, here we go. We're
going to take a little break for some information. Seven on one three two
one two k t R H is the number, and Marty, you'll be
first when we come back. Welcome back to the guarden line. Good to
have you with us today. We are looking forward to any kinds of discussions
you'd like to have to have a more beautiful garden, a more bountiful landscape.
And I want to tell you if you are interested in a beautiful garden
and a bountiful landscape, you need to go out to Warren's Southern Gardens.
Out there in Kingwood. There's Warren Southern Gardens. There's Kingwood Garden Center.
Both excellent places to visit. And it's just color, color color. Someone
called earlier about some blooms for a mostly shady area, uh, and it
was looking for an evergreen shrub. And I was just thinking what would be
a good thing, And then I realized, well, this isn't an evergreen,
but a shrimp plant is wonderfully colored, very interesting. They got that
out there. It does it does well in a quite a bit of shade,
quite a bit of shady area. So what about Abelia's in the Sun
for a shrub, there's one called Kaleidoscope. You just got to go see
it. It is beautiful. The new growth is just beautiful. The older
growth has kind of a variegation in the leaves. It's attractive. Warrens has
that all. I mean, do you need boogavillias, Yes, they got
them. Do you want annual flowers? Do you want perennials like lantana,
Oh, they have them as well. And if you've never seen the flamethrower
red bud, just got to look it up. Just check it out.
Warrens has got it and it is beautifully like. The older foliage is kind
of a yellowish orange color. The new growth it just has a beautiful burgundy
red. It's really beautiful, excellent plant. So Warren's Garden Center, by
the way, they are, their prices are have been dropped. They have
new lower prices. That is just outstanding. And if you were going to
plant a bunch of vegetables and herbs, go ahead, and buy a flat
of eighteen plants. That's an additional discount that you get for eighteen plants,
and you can and matcham. You don't have to buy eighteen tomatoes. You
can buy some tomatoes, some eggplants, some peppers. You see what I'm
talking about, some herbs, warrens and Kingwood Garden Center. Go check them
out. We're going to go to Fairfield now and talk to Marty. Hello
Marty, good morning, skip morning. I have a little winding area.
It's a walkway in between a west wall of my house and a fence,
and it's a kind of a very small, maybe fourteen to eighteen inches.
And you said something about a shirt plant. I think I'm going to look
at that, but I was wondering if you could give me some other suggestions.
On the other side of the gate, there isn't a fence, and
so I'm thinking about putting some sunshine lau gustrum there. Okay, but once
you walk inside the gate then it doesn't have full eight hour sun How wide
is this area you want to plant along the walkway? Well, it's about
fifteen to eighteen inches. It's not wide. I mean, I had a
bunch of yeah, I had all my sweet potato mines in there, but
I don't want to grow those again. Okay, I'm not sure I'm picturing
it a boy. A photo would be helpful because what you're describing in my
brain picture is jumping around. I can't quite see it. The shrip plant
gets taller, you know, it'll get up waist home and it does spread.
So that's not something for a fifteen to eighteen inch wide Well, I'm
sorry, there's fifteen to eighteen inches on each side of the walkway. Okay,
at least maybe more, maybe twenty to twenty four. Yeah, I
would go something that's a lower, a little more compact. There actually are
some beautiful antennas that are very compact that would be good if it gets a
decent amount of sunlight. I realize it's going to have shade part of the
day from the house probably, or is a fence of privacy fence, Yes,
yeah, that so I would do that. A more compact salvia like
Mystic spires might be a good choice for that area. Or you could do
you know, some annual color just go with some manual color plants in the
area, or you could do a walkway lining plant you know, theriope is
an example as tech grass if the area is not too sunny, especially late
day, as tech grass, which is white type of it's a mondo cousin.
Yeah, I was thinking about putting my veggies back in there, but
I'm just not having success on that side. Okay. Do you think it's
lack of sunlight? Probably like I didn't. I got a whole lot of
vines for the sweet potatoes, but not a lot of produce. Okay,
yeah, I get it. Well, those would be some things that I
would try. I think as far as veggies, if you do things that
are more of a leafy green, they're going to do good if they don't
get as much sunlight as a fruit or a root crop would want. So
there's yeah, well yeah, not for summer, but yes, leafy green.
Also, you might want to consider herbs. There's some herbs that do
okay in a little bit of shade. So just another thing to think about.
Idea, great idea, Well, the great idea. Thank you appreciate
the call very much. Have you ever been up to Nelson Water Garden and
Katie They are on Katie Fort Ben Road, So if you're heading not iten
when you get to Katie Fort Ben Road, you turn right and it's just
a stone's throwaway on the right hand side. Now they are a garden center,
so you're going to get all the different kinds of garden plants that you
want. They also that especially they specialize in water gardens and water features.
So do you want a little pond with lily pets? Do you want some
fish like a choir or shabunk and things like that. They've got it.
They're disappearing. Fountains are so cool. Imagine a big, beautiful, gorgeous,
beautiful piece of pottery and the water is spilling out over the top and
down to the bottom where it just is recirculated back through the system. They
created that system of a big pottery with a recycling water. They do that,
they know how to do that. They are the place to go.
It's a showplace and listen to this. You need to go just for inspiration.
You walk through and you just see all this stuff. It's stuff that
you may not have been thinking I would like one of these, and then
you see it and you go, oh, man, that's the answer to
this spot we haven't known what to do with. Well, that's Nelson Watergarden
the website Nelson Watergardens Plural dot com Nelson Watergardens Plural. They are nationally recognized
as water garden experts. And when you get there you'll see why I love
to visit. Today, I'm going to be out at Santa Mulch when I
get through with the show today, I'm heading out to Siena Moltch. They're
having their spring fling and that means there'll be a lot of folks out there.
Andy, you know, and you know Andy said good night Chidester.
Andy Chidester with the Medina folks. Now, Andy is an expert on all
kinds of things, just fun to talk to, very knowledgeable. She'll be
there. We're going to have Jay White from Texas Gardener Nursery there with us.
Also today, Luis from Heirloom Soils is going to be there. There'll
be someone from Nelson Plant Food as well. Now, Sanna is going to
give away a palette of Landscaper's Pride to some fortunate person. I'm going to
be given away five pound bags and Medina Growing Green organic fertilizer. I'm going
to be giving away the Medina Plus and be given away the liquid Fish blend
liquid. Seaweed has to grow. My gosh, the heirloom will be given
with azemite, sent be given away all at Ciena Molts. What is Ciena
Malts. That is the yard soil, excuse me, the soil yard that
has the brown stuff to make your green stuff thrive. What do you find
at Siena. You find compost, you find rose, soil, you find
mulches, you find rock, you find every fertilizer I talk about on here.
So when you drive off the lot at Ciena Malts, you have got
everything to make sure the brown stuff is set and ready for the green stuff
you're going to plant. It's it's easy, easy to find them. They're
down south, down south, just north of Roach Sharon on FM five twenty
one near Highway six and two eighty eight. Now cienamultch dot com. That's
the website they deliver within about twenty miles of that location. Come out and
see me today, Bring me some samples, bring me some pictures. Let's
talk about what's going on with your landscape and help you have success. And
I'll tell you this, the products that Ciena Molts carry are high quality and
they work. They absolutely work. I when was the last time I was
out there. It was not too long ago. I was out there and
I was just so stunned by the beauty of the rock products that they carried.
And you know, you think about it's a rock. Oh no,
no, no, if you want a flagstone, how many kinds of flagstone
do they have? I don't know, but it's a bunch river rocks and
all kinds of hardscape type materials. They'll get you set up for it.
But mainly, we got to make that brown stuff good so that our plants
thrive. So they do very very well. If you did a spring green
up at least a month ago, or if you have not done a spring
green up. Nitrofiz Super Turf nineteen four ten, nineteen four ten. It's
a silver bag that will feed your lawn for several months into the summer season
or three months. I would expect easily two or three months out of the
Nitrofos Super Turf silver bag. It is the right ratio. It's got a
good amount of nitrogen, a little higher than you may think. Nineteen percent.
That's a lot. Well, you use less of it, but it's
going to feed over time. It's going to gradually release those nutrients over It
doesn't dump nineteen percent nitrogen writ down on your plant in one spot. Now,
it'll feed gradually over time. Works super well, and you're going to
find nitrofoss all over the place. One of the easy ways to say where
to get nitrofoss is just to go to ACE Hardware. ACE Hardware carries a
lot of micro microface products like the Silver Bag, the Super Turf nineteen four
ten. ACE hardwarees are widely available forty stores here in the Greater Houston area,
and everything I talk about on garden line, from fertilizers and so on,
you're going to find there at ACE Hardware, bags of soil and mults
and whatnot. Next weekend I'll be out at the ACE M and d ACE
in Clearelake, and i'll talk about that more tomorrow. And also next weekend
for those of you down anywhere around the region around Wharton, well, they're
opening their new store down there, Wharton Feed and ACE Hardware, and it's
on Richmond Road, North Richmond Road in Wharton, Texas. So I hope
you'll get out there, say hi to them and check it out. But
on Saturday, the sixth, I'll be M and Dace out on clear Lake.
When you go into ace, you know you're going to go home with
everything you need to have success with your plants. Absolutely everything you need to
have success with your plants. For those of you who have not downloaded my
fertilizer, lawn care schedule, and my weed disease insect type schedule, you
can go to skip Gardening with skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com.
That's the website. On there you'll find the lawn care schedule. What
do you fertilize with and when it's synthetic, if it's organic, it's there.
When do you apply trace minerals? Pretty much anytime, but it's on
there. About aeration, core, aeration, compass, top gust, mowing
and watering, it's all on there with the products that you need. Now.
The lawn pest, Disease and weed management schedule talks about insect control.
When do chinchbugs and sod web worms and grubs occur where you would when's the
time to treat for them? How About diseases like take our root rot and
gray leaf spot and brown patch, it's all on there. How about weeds,
when do you put pre emergence down. When do you put post emergence
down? What are the synthetic and organic options for each one? It's all
there. Gardening with Skiff dot Com KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katy r H Garden
Line with skip rictor it's crazy just watching as us so many supposas says you.
Welcome back to guarden Line. Thanks for listening in today. What do
you want to talk about? Give us a call. We'll talk about that.
Well, we'll talk about that. If it's related to plants, I'd
be happy to help you with that. Uh. If it's related to the
fact that your spouse doesn't want to get out there and pull weeds or mow,
or plant or do the other chores you haven't mind for them to do,
I can't help you. Well, I can't help you with that,
but marriage counseling is eight hundred dollars an hour. Horticulture advice is free.
How about that. We'll go about it that way. I went to one
time when I was agrlife extension agent. I went to a site. Someone
called and they had this alleged question they needed some help with and it did
make sense. I thought, well, I'll go out there and take a
look at it. I went on to take a look. When I got
there, the husband and the wife were sitting there and one of them says
to me, will you please tell the other one that they need to,
you know, do whatever. And it's like, okay, I didn't really,
I was brought out here under false pretenses, so I can't. That's
I did tell them that I said marriage advice is a hundred dollar I think
I said one hundred dollars an hour. Horticulture advice is free, which they
laughed at. Thank goodness. At least I thought it was funny. If
you have weeds growing in your lawn right now, the cool season weeds.
We're talking about chick weed and hendnt bit and clover and on and on down
the line. Well, turf star weedinator by Nelson's is made for that.
You wet your weeds and you put out the turf star weedinator. The granules
stick to the weeds, and when it sticks to the weeds, you want
to give it about a day or so to soak into those weeds. It'll
do that. The weeds will take it up if they're wet and they hold
onto the granule and then water it in and get that product down in the
lawn. What you're going to find is you have really a cool chemistry combo
in there where the nitrogen is in forms that are some available right now and
some not available for a month or two or even three months from now.
It can still be feeding as the soil warms up and the microbes become active.
Turf Star Weedinator, that's the product from Nelson's Plant Food nitrogen in it,
and again not all at once. It's gonna gradually gradually feed your plants
over time. Church Star Weedenator works well against broadleaf weeds and certainly is an
outstanding product for having a beautiful lawn. I've tried a number of the Nelson
plant Food products and I've yet to run into any that didn't do exactly as
advertised and above. Let's go out to Huntsville. Now we're going to talk
to Wanda. Hello, Wanda, good morning, how are you. I'm
well? Thank you? Okay. I have about a four to five year
old per cemetry. The first year it didn't produced, didn't expect it to.
Second year, it's got quite a few simmons on it, but it
dropped all the persimmons before the even started to ripen. Last year it had
more per simmons and we got about four or five off of it. This
year, it looks like it's going to be absolutely loaded. What can I
do to keep it from dropping? The persimmons are real bad about dropping the
fruit when they're young. Once they make it a little further down the line,
they don't drop. But things that cause it Number one a young tree
that doesn't have the root system yet to really support it. That is the
thing which you're kind of getting past that now or getting close to past it.
Number two. Excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer can do that as well.
Issues and the roots, soggy wet soil, dry conditions in the roots,
and some percimons. What variety is your percimon? I know it's not the
food, but I can't remember. Okay, some varieties can set without the
pollination, but some of them do a little bit better if you have the
pollination. I think yours apparently, since you've gotten some fruit from it,
the pollination is not an issue at all with it. But I would house
the sunlight is it getting plenty of sunlight all day? Okay, well,
I guess it just needs to settle down a bit. Don't push it with
nitrogen fertilizer. They do pretty well without a lot of additional supplemental feeding.
It's just that early on period when they try to set too many and then
they start a boarding. I'm just kind of wondering out loud here if removing
some of the fruit would help the other to set. And I've never heard
that being a recommendation, so I'm gonna avoid saying, yeah, go do
that, it'll work. But I do know that those trees know when they
have too much fruit and they throw it, throw it off. Okay,
all right, well thank you? Oh oh, good luck with them.
Isn't an astringent per someone When you bite into it, does your mouth pucker
up? No? Not if they're right, Not if they're right? Okay,
good, Yeah, well that's good. I love per Simmons. It
ought to be a more popular fruit than it is. I love it.
Yeah, all right, And all I ask if it sets fruit well this
year and you get quite a bit more, is just make me some percimon
bread, drop it off at the studio and we'll call it even all right,
Okay, thank you, Wanda. Appreciate that per simmons are great.
I think the way to eat a per semon is just to get in the
bathtub and take a good, old, soggy, baggy per semon, you
know that, like a bag full of jelly, and go after it.
And that way you can just clean yourself up when you're done, because they
are It's like eating a bagful of jelly. They are so so good.
Hey, it is important to take care of your trees. It is very
important. They're worth something to your landscape and they provide shade and all the
other amenities. Affordable Tree Service can take care of them, and they do.
Afftree Service dot com. That's the website, the phone number seven one
three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Seven one three six nine nine
twenty six sixty three. Martin Spoon Moore has been doing this for a long
time. He charges one hundred and fifty dollars to come out for a consultation.
He'll tell you exactly what he sees and what might need to be done
if you choose to hire him to do that work, which I hope you
would, and to be smart to Uh. That one fifty goes right into
the cost of the job being done. So don't trust anybody with your trees.
I mean, Martin knows what he's doing. Bad tree work is permanent,
it's for life on those trees, and don't do that. Get on
his schedule for pruning or any kind of work you need done. Affordable Tree
Service Afftree Service dot Com seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty
three. We're going to take a break, Trish, she'll be first when
we come back for the rest of you. Just still seven one three two
p one two kat r h Hey, welcome about your garden line. What
are we going to talk about today? Well, we got a few collars
online here and we'll find out what they want to talk about today. We're
going to start off by going to Trish in Liverpool. Trish, where's living?
Morning? Where is morning? We're in between Alvin and Angleton. Okay,
all right, it's a little little sleepy, a little old town.
Wow. I didn't think you were over there with the beetles somewhere in England.
So that's it. No, not quite. Uh. I have a
problem with my tomato plants. I have a raised bed. And you know,
when we got all that rain, it got pretty saturated, and the
plants that I had transplanted, I planted them pretty deep because they were getting
a little leggy. And now they're turning yellow. I mean that ground's still
wet. Yeah. Is this it's been over a week. Is the whole
plant turning yellow or just older leaves or just younger leaves. It's a younger
leaves, Okay. I mean I did take a picture of it because it
looks like maybe they've got some kind of a fertilizing fertilizer deficiency or maybe I
need to add some bone meal. And I wasn't sure because I'm really getting
prepped the soil like I should have. Okay, well, just for right
now with this crop. Long term, you need to get in there and
really prep that soil, like I'm always harping about on guardline, But for
right now, you need to make sure it's not over soggy soil. That's
the problem. If that's an ongoing problem, you got to find some way
to let that dry out a little bit. But before the plant's going to
pick up and go nutrient wise, you can just you can do a couple
of things. You can provide a dry granular fertilizer that you wash in,
or you could which means adding water, or you could do a liquid that
you spray on, which is adding some water, but at least trying to
get them the nutrients that they need. Not knowing what's going on, it's
kind of hard for me to tell you which way to go. Just something
right in mind, though, is when you add organic matter and compost and
you build up a raised bed, then you don't have soggy you do have
every nutrients you can imagine that's coming out of that compost too. Well.
I did put an I did do a soil amendment. I put a raised
bed soil mixture in there, okay with it to help, you know,
give it some uh substance because it was seemed a little sandy. Yeah,
I would just get a good quality fertilizer mix. You you might say liquid,
either a liquid that you spray on, or do you do you garden
organically? I try to, but sometimes you know, stink bugs don't allow
that. Yeah, I understand my micro life green bag sixty four is excellent
for tomatoes. You could try just putting some of that in mix it into
the soil around them and water it in really good. And I do have
some miracle growth for a folier spread. If you've got it on hand,
just try that, mix it and try that on the plants and might as
I use it. Okay, what's on there? I would direct you longer
term in other directions, but go ahead and try that. Make follow the
label very carefully. Well, let me ask you one more question about it.
Okay, if I dig down, say you know, just about a
foot away from one of the plants, and I dig down where I think
that the base of the plants are, and it's and it's really like like
a mud bog. Yeah, did I dig those plants up? And maybe?
Uh, okay, would that be too much stress? Real quick?
How long ago did you plant them? At least two weeks ago? Well,
we got all that rain in an extreme situation. That might be good.
It's going to really set them back. But if you find out it's
in a swamp, they're not going to get better. So I'd recommend that,
Hey, I got a run trash, but good luck with getting those
tomatoes back on their feet. Buchanus plants in the Heights is they specialize in
natives that's why the actual name is not Buchanan's Plants, it's Buchana's Native plants.
And you're going to find all kinds of things. Do you want to
spring bloomer? How about partially hawthorn? That is one and not a lot
of people are aware of. But Buchana's just going to have a lot of
things you're not aware another great bloomer through the summertime. Even the button bush,
button bush, if you got a wet, saggy area, what am
I going to do with this? I need a plant and I want to
support pollinators. Button bush is an excellent one. And that's the Buchanan's Plants.
Don't forget that. This next Saturday coming up here, the thirtieth,
which is today, I'm sorry, next Saturday today they are having their Easter
egg hunt, so you may want to get out there so your kids can
enjoy that. While you're out there, check out the Plumeria's. They got
a whole bunch of the jungle job Plumeria is in. They got bougain villas
and mandavilla, and mandavilla is one that's an underplanted vine. It's a tropical
vine. It does so well Buchanan's is on East eleventh Street in the Heights.
Easy to find them. Let's go to Oak Forest now and talk to
Larry. Hello, Larry, good morning, my neighbor. This contractor used
part of my yard to do some to get to the neighbor's backyard. And
when there, when they repair the soil, what should I have them do?
It's kind of got compacted down a bit. Well, the main thing
they need to do is air rate it to loosen that up. And I
don't know if they're going to have an air raider machine that'll do a good
job. They could hire somebody to come in and do it. But that
you know, you're just talking about a little pathway right that it's going through
the yard, correct, So you know you can stick spading fork down in
the ground, just wiggle a crack it open, you know, don't turn
over the soil, but just for a little area you can do it like
that. It's probably not worth bringing a machine in to try to do it
and then top dress it with a leaf mold compost. Don't let them put
some old, chunky, woody compost with chunks of wood in it out there.
You want a very finely screened leaf mold compost for that area. Okay,
okay, that's that's the best thing. Putting down some microlife humates plus
would be another good idea on that. So that's the purple bag from Microlife
hum mates plus. You get that down in the soil and on the surface
even and it's going to help with your soil structure over time too. Okay,
all right, Larry, okay, thanks much, all right, good
luck with that. I wish I wish you well that that is for sure.
Yeah. The leaf more compost Nature's Way resources they invented it, they
created I mean, you know, it's been around in nature for since the
beginning, but leaf more compost from Nature's Way is a product that they perfected
there. John Ferguson has been a leader soul scientists and leader in when it
comes to taking care of the brown stuff, which is a basis for all
success in plants. They also have the rose soil, which is a good
bed soil for all kinds of plants, not just roses. If you want
to get McCall nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety, they're up
there on the way to come on the way to conro If you're going up
forty five. When fourteen eighty eight comes in. If you went left on
fourteen eighty eight you go to Magnolia, just turn right instead and you'll go
across the tracks and you're right there at Nature's Way. Got roses. They
have a lot of nice native plants too. They sell stuff by the bag.
You can go pick it up, all right. They sell up bulk.
Bring your trailer. They'll put it on the trailer, or call them,
have them deliver it for a delivery feet to where you live, and
you can get a bulk come out. So if you need lives, better
to go bulk than just bags. But either way, they got you covered
a Nature's Way. Okay, let's go out to Pasadena and we're going to
talk to Frida. Hello, Frida, good morning. How can I help?
I live in the condo and it borders a school, and last summer
they put weed killer along the pencil line, and I'm telling you it went
about a foot into my back little yard here and behind my condo, and
then the hot summer just inundated the grass. They finished it off. So
that's the way I had someone come in and dig up all the weeds because
that's all of us left there. And they broke up the soil and then
the soil looked real good. It looked loose and black, and they brought
in some sand mixed with some some some soil and then put grass, you
know, the sod. So I am fortunately in that I have a watering
system here in the back, and so they told me that water it once
a day for fifteen minutes, and that's what I've been doing. So I
wanted to confirm that with you. And also I want to know what I
need to do for weed killer in the future and to help my grass grow
with you know, what fertilizer or what I need to do. Yeah,
okay, well so you've got you've got some options there. As far as
the twice a day, that's good. I'd do that for about a week,
and then I'd go to once a day for about another week and then
move to every other day, and that way you're working your way toward just
a regular once a week of watering schedule. That would be okay, I'm
sorry. Would you repeat that twice a day for a week, once a
day, once a day for another week, and then you're gradually weaning it
off by going to twice every two days and so on. But the first
week's the most important. One second week, stay with it. It's not
well rooted in yet by the time you get to the third week. You
ought to have some pretty good root system that's down in there. Okay,
okay. Now for fertilizing, I would go ahead and put down you can
do one or two things. You can put down a Nitrophsi's Imperial that's a
red bag fifteen to five to ten, or you could go ahead and move
straight to the summer fertilizer, which is super turf. Super Turf as a
slow release fertilizer. So I think with new turf like that, I would
probably I would go ahead and put the super turf out after a couple of
weeks. Normally I don't start fertilizing a new lawn until it's been in for
two weeks. Since superturf is a slow release, you're not going to get
too much immediate nitrogen out of it, and you could you could cheat on
that and start a little earlier if you want. It's the silver bag,
silver bag from Nitrophoss. Now, now you're down there, you're down there
in Pasadena, right right, Okay, Well, you're not going to have
any trouble, any trouble at all finding the super turf or the Imperial the
red bag if you choose to go that way. Uh, it's it's easy,
easy to find. All the Ace hardware stores for example, they are
they're going to have it. So that's one way I go about finding Okay,
okay, weed killer. Uh, you know, I wouldn't worry about
weed killer. Now, let's get that turf. Let's get that turf rooted
in really good before we start thinking about weed killer. Yeah, some of
the weed killers are a little stressful for those plants, and so I just
wouldn't Yeah, I wouldn't want to just okay, jump on that just yet.
Okay, so when do when do I start thinking about that? And
when I see give me, give me a call it a couple of Are
you seeing weeds in it? You shouldn't because it's brand new. Yeah.
So what you could do is you could do an application of barricade, but
you don't want to do that the first three or four weeks after the turf
is in. And I can go into more detail, but I'm just out
of time on it. Hold off of the weed killer for now that turf
needs to root in. Well, okay, we don't want to inhibit that.
Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate your call. Well,
here we are time for Nikki in the news, and I'm gonna pass the
microphone over there. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two
KTR eight. There we go a little bit of Eagles music for us today.
Don't forget Eagles, Oh my gosh, Beatles. Wow. Well,
thinking about two things at once, I'm going to be at Cinemulch. Speaking
of things coming up, I'll be at Cinemltch today after this radio show.
Sienna is having their Spring Fling. This is the second time. What was
there last year too, is a great event. I mean, they got
food truck. You know, they have all kinds of folks. I'll be
out there. Jay White from Texas Gardener magazine, he'll be out there.
You can meet Andy from Medina, and you can meet Louis from Heirloom Soils,
and there'll be someone from Nelson's also out there. I mean it,
it's gonna be a lot of folks. I'm going to be given away a
lot of stuff, a lot of stuff Medina products. Oh my gosh grow
green organic fertilizer. Five pound bags, quart bottle of Medina plus three bottles
of fish blend for medina, three bottles of the seaweed, three bottles of
medina. Has to grow. There's a ready to spray, has to grow.
You just hook up the hose and you take off heirloom soil. You
get away samples of that too as well, and heirloom or heirlom and azemite
also some samples. But bring me some sample of your plant. Anything you
want identify it, Anything that's not doing well that you want me to take
a look at. Maybe it's a bug, maybe it's a spot on a
leaf, maybe whatever. Just bring it out there, let's talk about it.
I always love to meet the gardening listeners and Ciena Maltsa down south.
Now you've been there before, Sia, I hope you've been there before,
at least I'm looking forward to going myself today. Ciena Maltch is the place
where you get every kind of soil material that you might need. So for
those of you who live down south, you know, we're talking about our
cola and we're talking about Siona and that whole region out there, brasismin State
Park is also out there. It All you gotta do is just show up,
let's talk, let's find out what's going on. Let's get some good
products in your hand as well. It's going to be a good day for
that too, looking forward to it. Let's see, We're going to go
out now to Memorial Area and talk to a lane. Hello, Elayne,
Good morning, Skip morning. I have been fought. We have been fighting
days wower weed. I think it's also called scurvyweed, and it's also called
Coma linga cyanea. And it's got that pretty blue flower on it, yes,
wide wide leaf blade. And several years ago we just decided to go
with the flow and we choked it out with Asian jasmine in a flower.
Okay, and okay, it has come up in another bed that's rather virgin
right now. And I have I have had some success in Harris thirty percent
vinegar diluted with water and that gets rid of it. But there's I mean,
it's got to be very herbicide specific if I'm not going to go organic.
And my question is if I get rid of the patches that we have
now, am I going to be able to plant anything in there for a
bit. Well, the vinegar should just be a temporary you're kind of burning
the top of it back, so that probably something you I don't know.
I would you could do it, but it's going to burn back anything that's
up there, so you would kill your grass, or you would kill a
flower that you got it on, or something like that. So I would
try to avoid that. Those plans are kind of I think of them as
being caught between grasses and broad leaves. They've got the parallel venation of a
grass, but they're they're not really true grass, uh and they have rhizomes
underground, which makes it go back real easily, very difficult, very difficult
to manage. Products containing glyphissay can control that. That would be like a
round up type thing. They can control it when it's really small, but
when they get bigger they tolerate life as a pretty well. I mean,
they don't like it, but it doesn't kill them. The products that have
two four D and them, for example, that would do okay some degree
of efficacy from that. There is an organic thing called pell organic pel orgonic
acid p E L A R G O N I C, and that would
be a thing like your vinegar that you spray on and it burns the top
back. But depending on the growth stage, the oldier this gets, the
more problems you're going to have with it, And so you're kind of left
with repeated sprays or hand digging or whatever. Just you know that once it
goes to flowering, you got to get those seed heads off there too,
because that makes it harder. Well, is there any merit in just replacing
the soil in the bed, Well, that's drastic. I don't think you
should need to replace the soil. You should just you know, dig and
maybe run it through a little bit of a screen, like a hard half
inch hardware cloth or something. I've built a little two by four box.
It sits on my wheelbarrow, and I just throw the soil in there and
just shake that and then you then pick up all the roots and things you
get out and then dump that soil back in the bed. That's easier than
replacing all the soil probably. Well, I know about the rhizomes, you
know, because they just if you try to pull that weed, it breaks
off, and wherever you break off, it's going to start again. That's
true. Well, hey, I'm going to have to run on to some
other questions and stuff, But that would be my suggestion for it. You
may want to try, and I can't guarantee you this will work, but
it is a very broad spectrum. Bone eyed weed beater ultra, the one
that says ultra, it's a spray, see what it does to it.
It's going to have some things in it that should be somewhat effective. But
I'd like to hear the results you get from it, because I'm really doubtful
because so many things have been tried against it unsuccessfully. But thank you Elaine
for the call. I appreciate that very much. If you're trying to prevent
weeds in your lawn, barricade is what you do. It's a pre emergent
herbicide from nitrofoss. You put it down and you watered it in. You
have to water it in because you have to move it down to the soul
surface where it forms a barricade. Now, for those of you planting new
sod, don't do the barricade before you plant the sod because it works on
weed roots work and the sod has to get its roots down. But all
of you with established lawns, barricade by nitro foss put down ahead of the
weeds sprouting will be very effective. You can get it in Shannon Gardens out
there in the Richmond Rosenberg area, Shades of Texas. Up in the woodlands.
We'll carry barricade and other nitrofoss products. Arburgate up in Tombol, just
another place where you can get that product. I want to go now to
Katie and we're going to talk to Marcus. Hello, Marcus Hello. Well,
the reason I'm called I've got concord grapevine and a seven grapevine which is
kind of a wild grape, okay, and I don't know how to prune
them, and then the squirrels get everything that they produce, okay, and
I don't know how to deal with that. I couldn't begin to tell you
how to prune a grapevine on the air. So what I want you to
do is go to the Aggie Horticulture website. There's a section for fruits,
nuts, there's a section for grapes and vegetables. Just click on it,
get into the grape one and start looking around in there, and they will
give you some good guidance on as far as the squirrels. I don't know
a good solution. Some people have tried the little organza bags. I don't
know that that would even work, but that it just is what it is
with the squirrels in our neighborhoods. But Marcus, I hope that, hope
that helps. I got a rhyme, but I'll make clear our symmetry too.
Yeah, I know, I know, I have. I have my
opinions about squirrels. Accent offer on the air. There you go, all
right, Mark, thanks, thank you, thanks a lot, and good
luck with that. I do definitely feel your pain. You've been listening to
Guardline. We're going to come back after this little break. Don't forget.
I will be at Ciena Maltch Ciena Maltch. That is going to be today
from eleven thirty to one thirty. All of you done in that area.
I hope you come out and see me. Sleep at the wheel for are
you on a Saturday morning. If you're looking for a tree, Verdant Tree
Farm has an excellent selection. They also you know, pine palm trees as
well. They have a number of different palms. You walk in there and
say, hey, what's the hardiest palm you got? And they can do
that, but if you want all the others, they they have a good
variety of things that grow well. Verden Tree Farm has three locations now there
and the Heights where Yale and to Iten come together. They're down in the
pear Land area on Broadway Street and then they're in West Houston out on Barker
Cypress. You're going to find large shrubs too, like some of the hollies
for example, they'll carry that. They do turnkey service. You pick out
your plant of all the such and such species on their lot. You go
pick the one you want and they tag it, they bring it, they
plant it, and if they plant it, they guarantee it. They give
a guarantee for one year with the installation, and you need to planet right.
They know how to plant it right. Verdant Tree Farm Verdant Treefarm dot
com. I wanted to talk a little bit about something regarding the soil.
Now you see mixes when you see soil for sale, for example, a
bed mix or something like that. Heirloom soils get real specific. They have
a fruit berry and citrus mix for example. They have a veggie and herb
mix, which by the way, is one hundred and nineteen dollars in bulk,
and they do deliver to delivery comes at a cost. Of course,
you can go to the site and load it up, or you can get
them to deliver a supersack. Put a supersac on your trailer if you want.
It's a cubic yard of soil. By the way, luis from Heirloom
Soals will be done at Cieno Mulch with me today. Will be giving away
some of their products. So come on down and meet them and pick his
brain. He knows a lot about various kinds of soil. Heirloom is widely
available, easy to find, easy to find, works really well. Earlier
I was talking about be Supply. I believe be Supply is going to be
the place where you learn more about bees than you even knew was to learn.
Every time I talked Paul and the guys out there at be Supply,
it's just mind boggling all the different stuff that they know about bees. The
world of bees is astounding. They can get you set up for a backyard
beekeeper. Do you want to do that? They can get you set up.
They got classes. Maybe just go take a class and find out if
it's for you. April thirteenth and April twenty seventh, or the next two
classes. You need to go to vbsupply dot com in order to get signed
up. If you just want to learn about bees, if you've got a
garden club group you want to take out, or maybe maybe a homeschool group
of kiddos, oh gosh, they will love this. And they do a
thing called the Interactive Honey Tour where you even get to taste honey and you
learn a lot at thebsupply dot Com. I would highly highly recommend it one
of the most interesting things that I have ever seen before. A little bit
ago I was discussing RCW nurseries and talking about the different things that they carry.
When it comes to quality plants, they've got you covered. The rose
selection is it's unlike anything you've ever seen. And boy, April is the
big bloom and rosemont it's one of the best months of the year for rose
blooms. But RCWI can get you set up with some of those Ramontant roses.
That's your horticulture fun fact word for the day. Ramonta means it re
blooms. Some roses like Lady Banks just bloom in the spring and they're done.
That's still a great rose to have, but some bloom and bloom and
bloom, that's what you want your landscape. For sure. RCWI can get
you set up. I think they have over two hundred different roses that they
carry from time to time there at RCW Nurseries. They're at Tomball Parkway in
belt Way eight. It's easy to find them. It's easy to get in
there and get out. But now's the time to plant a rose bush.
Get that thing in the ground, get it going. You take care of
it good by watering and fertilizing it on a regular basis, and your fall
rose show will be stunning. You can set yourself up right now for a
beautiful fall rose show. At RCW Nurseries, they absolutely just every time I
go by there, I'm very surprised at the breadth of the things that they
carry. That would include herbs and perennials and annuals and shrubs and native plants.
Yes, they do have native plants and certainly trees, but today why
not put a rose bush in that's a shrub rose. There would be a
beautiful plant all the time, not just something that is for the cutflower garden,
something that is a landscape plant. RCW can get you set up.
They'll give you the products. You'll give you. They'll say the products that
you need to get that plant started, roots stimulator and a fertilizer and things
like that. They carry microlife and they that's an excellent one for getting things
started off to do well. Speaking of the microlife, microlife fertilizers and that
is plural. They have a wide variety of things. Do you need seaweed,
for example, they've got the standard is the green bag that is the
one for lawns, but it's also for a lot of other things. When
when you go to microlife, you're going to find that pretty much every kind
of plant you would want to grow, every kind of way you want to
enhance it, they're going to have the products that you need. Say start
with that sixty four. If you've got acid loving plants, they have a
pinkish bag that is for acid loving plants like blueberries, guardinas camille for example.
They're going to have the supplemental sprays for folier feeding. The everything they
have is loaded with micronutrients, and micronutrients are absolutely essential. It's also loaded
with microbes microbes make the world around, They run the world. Absolutely droned
on about that the other day. But microhizal, fungib beneficial bacteria, all
kinds of things like that. For your spring fertilization of the lawn, let's
do the green bag sixty four, and let's do the purple bag humates plus
concentrated compost in a bag. Two different products. Apply one, turn right
around, apply the other one, and you be off to a good start.
For more information, all you got is go to microlifefertilizer dot com and
you can find out everything that you want to know and where to get it
too. By the way, they're widely available. Our phone number is seven
to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four three two one two five
eight seven four. We have a rare situation here where we had a blank
board, So if you would like to call without waiting, boy, now's
a time doll it quick seven to one three two one two five eight seven
four. Jungle land potting soils and that is with an s plural distributed by
nitropost Fertilizer. Well, they have both the outdoor version that's the flour and
vegetable jungle land. They have the indoor version with the water saving crystals.
That is the water saving version of jungle land for indoor plants. Widely available.
Plants are products for your plants. When we talk about nitrofoss products,
we mean you can get them pretty much anywhere that you want to go.
Uh. You know, they have them up at plants for all seasons.
They got a motor arborgate for example. All the Ace hardware stores are great
places to get those kind of products. And when you're looking at making sure
that your plants are fed properly, well, you're going to find a wide
variety of nitropos for that. But if you're potting up some things to go
outside to go on the patio or redoing. I potted up some houseplants last
weekend, Mike. The nitropos jungle land is excellent for that. It drains
well, but it also holds water and that's very important. If you go
out in Kingwood at the Ice Hardware Store, you can find it there.
Absolutely you can find it. There are shades of Texas down on Genoa Red
Bluff kind of southeast Houston. They carry it there as well as out in
Angleton at Lake Hardware in Angleton. Excuse me, but quality soil is important.
You hear me say all the time, brown stuff before green stuff.
I know it's a broken record, but it is so absolutely true. That
is the I was going to say, is that the number one mistake,
it is in the top five mistakes that people make when they try to grow
things and don't have success, is the soil, the lack of preparation.
You know, you go to a garden center and you find this beautiful plant
full of ballooms in a container, and you just imagine it in your landscape.
You take it home and you PLoP the plant in an unprepared plot.
Say that three times fast, and it just sit there or it declines,
and it's because the soil is horrible. It may be a clay that doesn't
drain well, or you know, you got to build your soil first.
Make that plant ready to go, and it'll hit the ground running when you
take care of your soil. That's true of house plant soils, so mixes,
that's true of containers outside, that's true of the landscape beds. And
one of the easiest ways to get into garden. Maybe you thought about vegetable
gardening and you haven't you just haven't, you know, pull the trigger on
it, put a box on the ground, fill it full of a quality
veggie nerb mix like heirloom soauce has, for example, and then right after
it's done, you're rate of plant and you have absolute success. You're not
banging your teeth loose with a rototiller as you're bouncing along hard clay soils.
You're just putting a box on top of it all and it makes it really
easy. But why is it easy. It's because the soil is absolutely wonderful
for the plants that you're wanting to grow. Soil soil, soil that's lots
of microbial activity, soil that drains well, but also soil that can hold
some excess moisture very important. That is one of the top secrets to success
is make sure when the plant gets there, you've already prepared for success with
the soil. You do it the other way around. I can't help you.
I mean, it is what it is, and you just kind of
have to live with it or pull up the plant start all over it.
Well, we don't have to do that. You're listening to guardline. We're
about to take a little break at the top of the hour. Here we
got another hour in the books today. Our phone number is seven one three
two point two fifty eight seventy four. At ten o'clock when this show ends,
I am making a bee line for Siena mulchis second annual Spring Fling.
It's from ten am to two pm today. They're gonna have a lot of
great folksure I'll be there. They will have Jay White from Texas Gardener magazine,
a lot of reps from the companies like Airloom Soils and Medina for example,
and now some plant food. We'll all be there. They'll be giving
away a palet, a palette of landscaper's pride to some very fortunate person.
They're gonna have a food truck out there. Bring me some plants to look
at and photos or sample and I'll be giving away oh oh, probably eight
or so products. Katrh Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertise it's on this program. Welcome to Katie r. H Garden
Line with Scamp Richter's Mill, the Crazy Gas Trip. Just watch him as
gas so many do takes the soup backs, gass, the clubs back chickens,
not a sound glass and gas the sun bemon of tweet. Welcome back
to garden Line, looking forward to visiting with you today. Uh. You
know, when it comes to gardening, there are so many different things we
can talk about, but one of my favorite things to talk about is the
garden centers that we have. It. Listen, those of you who live
in the Greater Houstonnario, you you may not know just how fortunate you are.
I've been all over to Texas, I've been to other states. I
always have to check out a garden center everywhere I go. I've never seen
a place with this many quality garden centers. And one of the best places
you're going to go is Enchened Forests down in Richmond. You walk in there
and I love the scene. I love the buildings, I love the setting,
the shade trees, and the plants, and it just goes on and
on and on, herbs and vegetables and flowers. They re specialize in pollinators
butterfly plants, for example. They've got an excellent selection of that. They
can cover your pollinator garden and they know what they're talking about. It educated
folks about plants and how to have success. So you come out and you
just enjoy pretty much a choice of whatever you need and someone who can point
you to the right thing. They constantly are getting in new things, always
getting in new things. By the way, Chended Forest is on FM twenty
seven fifty nine, So if you're heading from Richmond to sugar Land, for
example, it's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine. Go by
there and check out what's happening. There's always something going on, always something
going on there at Enchanted Forests. And I promise you you will be very
impressed. Do you need color, color beds, color shrubs. They've got
it at Enchanted Forest. I'm just really impressed with the things that they have
put together. Always a nice, nice collection of things. Let's go to
ray Out in Katie to start off the r HUD. Right, Good morning,
Escape morning, Good morning. I just had a question. I have
cabbages in my garden and I bought some mosquito net, you know, the
really tiny, tiny mosquito net. Yes, trying to prevent the bugs.
But there's still there's still holes in my in the leaves of the of the
plants, some of the plants. What can I do to prevent that.
I was thinking about getting even some lady bugs, but then the lady bugs
will fly will fly away. Yeah, what can I use for that?
Okay, So if you put cabbage out and before the caterpillars get in there
to start eating holes in it, you cover it with that fine screen mesh,
that will keep them out. But so if you have them underneath that
mesh, and you have the mesh sealed aro on the side so something can't
fly underneath it, then you're gonna have to lift off the mesh and spray
them with one of two products either bt BE as in boy teas and tom
that's a caterpillar killer. It only lasts about a day out there in the
environment, and then you know, so a week later you may need to
spragg and just watch for the appearance of new holes. That means you need
to spray. You got to get it on the foliage. So I would
use some sort of a spread or sticker to put it in there with the
mix to make it stick to the foliage a little better. Because cabbage leaves,
the spray rolls right off and big old it balls up on the water,
beads up on the plant and rolls off spinosid s p I n O
s A D. Spinosid's another one for that, and then just hand picking.
Sometimes I'll go through my plants and turn them over and find the caterpillars
and smash them. Uh, that's tedious, but that is also in the
group of options that you have. Okay, so it will be it will
be a bug that I can see. It'll be a caterpillar, but it'll
be the same color as the cabbage, so it's hard. They can hide
if you're not looking carefully, and they're all always underneath the leaves. Okay,
Okay, beautiful, good, you bet, you bet appreciate that.
When you're watering in new plants. Now it's spring for crying out lead.
You need to be planting stuff well has to grow six twelve six from medina.
You need some of that. You put it in. I put mine
in a watering can, mix it according to the label, and drench in
the new transplants with hash to grow six twelve six, and then a week
later, do it again, a week later, do it again. Those
three applications over two weeks helps the root system get off to a really good
start. It's got medina sol activator, and it's got a humic acid in
it. It even has seaweed extracts in It has to grow six twelve six
from Medina. And by the way, Andy from Medina will be down at
Cienamulch today with me and the other gang down there and we'll be giving away
a number of the Medina products, so you don't want to miss that.
Let's now head out to southwest Houston and talk to John. Hello, John,
Hi, stay skeepe. How you doing today? I'm good, sir.
What's up in passing? Let's see. No, you're in southwest Houston,
Okay, southwest Sustina. Have two questions. Trust eggplants week holes in
them? Leaves? Yes? And then the second question is I had a
you know, a papia plant last year and he died this winter. And
I noticed that on the stump above the ground they have several shoots. What
should I Should I pick out some of those shoots or should I just leave
it to grow until to see which one is viable? You can wait a
little while, Yeah, you can wait a little while, but don't wait
too long and just take the ones you're not going to choose, and it'll
be back in business pretty quick. The root system didn't freeze, and apparently
a little bit of the top at the base didn't freeze, so you ought
to be good. The eggplant with holes, John, that is a flea
beetle. It's a little tiny beetle and they jump like fleas can hop,
and so it's kind of hard to find them, but they're there. You're
going to need to use if you can find it. Now, this is
not easy to find. But if you can find a type of BT that's
not caterpillar type. But the type of BT is called San Diego, like
the city in California, San Diego and Diego San Diego BT will control leaf
feeding beetles. Now, that is an organic option. It's probably going to
be hard to find. The other type of thing to use is spinosid s
P I N O S A D. It comes in many different brands.
It seems like every menu, you know, every company on the shelf at
the garden center has a version of spinosid. But spinosid soaks in the tissues
and it kills things that she leaves. So there you go, all right,
thank you, yes, thanks so much. I appreciate I appreciate you
call very much. Hey, Verdant Tree Farm. I was telling you about
them earlier. The website Verdant Treefarm dot com. Three locations in West easton
Barker, Cypress, I ten and Yale in the Heights area, and down
in Paarland on Broadway Street. They can fix you up. They have the
right palm for any budget that you might have. You can go in sit
down in the office with them. It's free for a design consultation. So
they're not going to draw it a big, you know, architecture type design
plant. But what they'll do is they'll sit there and look at your pictures
or your landscape or maybe a layout and say, well, this tree would
go well here, or that tree would go well there or whatever. They'll
help you with that to find the right palm tree for you, or the
right of any kind of tree for you. They offer a one year warranty
with installation veer Dant Treefarm dot com. Really easy. Take a little break
here. When we come back, Tom and Sandy, you'll be the first
up on no other radio show. Can you hear music like that? Yodeling
chickens? Wow? You can thank me later. We're gonna go to Cyprus.
And talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, how are you this morning?
I have a couple of questions. One of them is, well,
gentlemen, before the break already passed you the question about the holes? But
how do I know when the beetles are completely gone because I sprayed them.
My leaves are looking good on my bell peppers and my eggplants, they're looking
good. Okay, but just watch for new holes and remember thus plants can
take a significant loss of leaves before it affects them significantly. So just because
someone has a hole in a leaf, and I know that that's not what
you're describing, but just because you see some leaf missing doesn't mean you have
a crisis. One time years ago, I'll never forget this. They did
a study on green bean plants bush beans, how many leaves do we have
to pull off a bush bean plant before it affects production? And it was
like forty percent the leaves before they saw a significant drop. Now, so
I guess that's just just say eh, a few a few holes here.
Don't don't panic. We don't have to spray everything we see out there.
But I think you'll probably be okay if you've done the treatment. Just just
watch for a lot of new holes appearing. Okay, one more question my
blueberry plant when I pune it, because I puned it during the free last
year, a lot of the branches were dead and so I cut them,
and I've got some new green branches coming up. But the but the dead
ones, how do I get those? Like? Do I cut them all
the way down to the soil or how do I do that? Well?
You cut out anything that's dead. That's for sure is how long have you
had this blueberry? Just a year? A year? Okay? So as
the plant gets older, we say blueberry shoots or canes coming out of the
bottom. They are on about a five year life cycle, and then we
prune them, they'll live longer. But if you remove any one way to
look at is remove one fifth of all of them each year. But you're
not you still have several years to go before you hit that stage. Right
now, I would just focus on fertilizing and watering it to get good growth
and anything that was dead. Cut it all as far back as the living
tissues. If you scrape them with the finger nail and you see green,
well, then you don't have to cut further back than that okay, all
right. And the strawberries or strawberries acid living for they micro Life six kind
of thing. What was the first product you said? Are they acid blueberry?
Oh? Yes, well no, they can take they can take acid
or they're they're fairly giving something anywhere around neutral is going to be okay with
them. There's no problem with fertilizing it with a like a Microlife pink bag,
which is acidic. But if you just want to use the green bag,
that's fine too. They'll be fine on that. Just work whatever you
apply like that. Those organic fertilizers, you want to work them into the
soil surface. Don't just let them sit on top in a garden. If
you can mulch over them or work them in the soil surface, I think
that's a little bit better. Okay, yes, all you too, Thank
you very much. Appreciate that, Paul. Birds go with gardening. Do
you know that birds many things go with gardening? The sound of water,
the sound of birds, wa birds unlimited. They have you set up right
now we're talking about the ruby throated hummingbirds coming through. They're going to be
heading up further north. This is just kind of a stopping off point for
them. Get your hummingbird feeders out there. It is nesting season for a
lot of birds. So whether it's bluebirds or pretty much any kind of bird
you're going to have you're attracting the yard, you need to feed them a
high quality feed because this isn't just bird seed time. This is high quality
protein and the fats that you're going to find in things like sunflowers and peanuts
and dried mealworms and bark, butter and safflower. All of that is compacted
into a nesting super blend by wild birds unlimited. The nesting super blend is
superfood for the birds. It gets them ready for the nesting, It helps
them taking care of their young when they're growing up. That's important. And
those birds are out there catching bugs too. That's a huge part of their
food supply for a young group of birds being raised what do they call them
fledglings. WBU dot com Forward slash Houston. WBU dot Com Forward slash Houston.
That's the only place that I've seen that carries those high quality specialized super
blend and other bird seed mixes where you get every bit of the bird seed
you planted into the bird. A lot of those. The birds don't like
the red babies. They kick it out on the ground. Yes, that
was cheaper feed when you bought it, but when you look at how many
pounds of bird food did you get, it's not cheaper feed. Go with
a quality mix from all birds unlimited. We're going to now go out to
Jersey Village and talk to George. Hello George, good morning, skiff.
How are you doing today. I'm well, I made a big mistake.
I just got some Korean squash. It's a summer squash, about the size
of a softball, and when I planted it, I poured some rootstarter and
now I didn't realize it was a condensed version, and I should have put
like two tea spoons per gallon, and I got the whole thing in there.
So is there a way I can rescue the plants? They should be
okay, just giving them a good slashing of water kind of rinse it out
of the system a little bit. But I think there. I don't know
exactly what products you use, but I think in general they're probably going to
be just fine. Okay, are you a new present days today? At
the wherever we are? Remember where you are to that game remember I'm going
to be at Ciena Maltch down South. Yeah, I won't be doing a
presentation. This is an outdoor event with tables and things and food trucks and
all kinds of stuff. But people come by and we just eye to eye,
one on one. They bring samples, bring pictures. Okay, yeah,
how about tomorrow, You're can do the same thing tomorrow. I will
not be doing that. No, not tomorrow. Okay, all right,
thanks very much. GIP somewhere pretty much every weekend, but not on Sunday.
Thank you. Okay, thanks again. I appreciate you giving me a
call. Those of you you hear me bragging about our garden centers here in
the Houston area. Well for those of you really all over town, but
especially down kind of southwest direction Seabrook. You know that area. Moss Nursery
is your local garden center. And I know people that drive there from a
long distance because they recognize my Moss Nursery is not just another garden center.
I mean it is a place where you're going to find really cool stuff.
I was just looking the other day. I got a picture from the folks
there, and they had some beautiful plants, but in the background, there's
just like a little totem of carved wood with a face in it, and
it's just it's eight acres. People, you walk around eight acres. I've
never seen a houseplant collection like they have. Do you want hanging baskets?
They've got that, veggies and herbs, Yeah, of course they got that.
A while back. They got some new shipments of cacti. In fact,
there's the trucks line up are pretty much up morning to bring in new
shipments of things. Do you want a microlife fertilizer While you're in there,
remember take care of the brown stuff? Well, they've got that my favorite
spring tree, Chinese French tree. They've got that Texas Mountain Lord. I
mean, I could just go on all day. Moss Nursery is down in
Seabrook on Toddville Road. Here's the website Maas Nursery dot com. Maas Nursery
dot com. You need to go see it. That's the bottom I can
describe it, but you need to go see it. Allow yourself some time
to walk through and begin to take it all in, because it's almost impossible
to take everything in because there's so much cool stuff going on. Let's go
down to Crystal Beach and talk to Tom. Now, Hello, Tom,
good morning. Crystal Beach is an easy place for things to grow. And
I have an award winning looking lemon bush in a five gallon bucket that right
now has hundreds of blossoms on it, and same as last year. Last
year, they all fell off and I only got one lam uh huh.
What am I doing wrong? Is it the wind that blows them off?
Or what? Okay, how long has it been in the container for about
three years? Okay? Well, anything that stresses the tree during the bloom
and post bloom is going to potentially cause fruit drop. Overloading of blooms that
the citrus tree is going to produce more blooms than it can develop fruit,
and so it has to cast some of them off. But a stress like
getting dry for just a short time, the container not being well watered,
a soggy wet, the holes in the bottom of the container aren't draining properly,
those are all stresses of it. I don't think the wind is a
big issue, but it definitely any other kind of a little stress would be
a contributor to that. Oh well, it happens every year. Yeah,
I mean every year, and the plant is beautiful. It's not stressed in
any way as far as the plant goes, and I water it. I
water it regularly, Yeah, along with everything else. But it is the
only thing. My onions, my carrots, everything else grow like crazy.
Well, let's watch the excess nitrogen in it too. Fertilizing quite a bit.
It promotes a lot of vegetative growth, but it's not the best thing
to do for good fruit set and development. About fertilizing not enough, You
would see that your tree wouldn't be growing and looking good. It would just
kind of be sitting there, not putting on new growth. The leaves would
be turning yellow somewhere on the plant, and so that I don't it doesn't
sound like that's what's going on there. Okay, one more quick question,
fleas in the yard? What would I what do it? Would I spray
in the yard for fleas? Tom I would go to your narrostase hardware store
and ask them that question. You're gonna want to use an insect growth regulator
that is labeled for outside use or even indoors if you have the problem,
and you definitely want to go to the vet and get that little oily stuff
they put you put up on the top of their haunches behind their head.
That gets into the pet and kills any flea that tries to chew on the
pet. Yeah, one or the other. I have that. That war
great. Yeah, so so just now go out and treat the yard.
Go to ace Hardbro, tell them what you got. Get something you can
put in a hose in sprayer because you got a wet not just the leaves
of the plant, but you got to get that spray done in the thatch
where the the fleas are hiding and developing. Uh hey, I've got to
run. I'm against a heartbreak here for the news, but good luck with
getting that under control. Our phone number here if you like to call seven
one three two one two kt R H and Jim. Uh no, let's
see here. We've got somebody else coming up, but you'll be the first
up. Welcome back to guard Line. What do we want to talk about
today? You tell me. I'm going to start by heading out to Pearland
and we're going to talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey, good
morning, Skip almost asking about fuselage that you spoke earlier today. I've got
a flower bed that has a lot of grass in it, And I was
just wondering if I used that something that had that product in it, would
it affect the other plants. I've got some rose bushes and some other things,
other annual flowers in there, but i also got a lot of grass.
It's got you to pick out, got you? Uh, it's actually
a few salade lade Uh. It in general just kills grasses, but follow
the label. The label will tell you if there's any other closely related plants
that it could damage, so so be careful with it. If I Fusiladed
is a brand name, but you may find it on the shelves as fusilaide.
You may also find a different chemical that does the same thing. Grass
only killer. Uh. And it is the ingredient begins with the boys name
Seth s E t H. I won't spell the whole thing out. It's
the only grass killer that begins. The ingredient begins with Seth s ct H.
Either of those will help clear grass out of a flower bed. A
brand product off the shelf that would have that in there, just you know,
off the top of your head, I just I just don't know.
If you go on to a pair land A's hardware. They're going to have
those there. They may have both of them now, I don't know,
but just tell them you need a grass killer post emergent grass killer, and
it's going to be one of those two things, the awesome thank you solid
type stuff or the seth type stuff. Okay, thanks, appreciate that.
Let's see we are going to now go to Bill and Conroe. Hello,
Bill, I skip question about funder side and till I'm not sure I know
take all rootbrod is So is the one that comes in a circle or kind
of a moon shaped? Is that brown patch? Typically? Yes, that's
it's awesome. God it's called a large patch now, but yes, that's
a large patch. Write that down. So I have got both, or
I had both, and so I want to I'm a little late on treating
it. I guess at the beginning of spring, and I know you're supposed
to do different kinds. I was looking at this code fourteen versus code three
code eleven. So if I'm switching, how often should I switch every two
weeks in the year? Is that correct? Well, you could do an
application of one and then the next time you have to do that switch to
a different class of fung a side if you can find. I want to
give you two ingredients that do a pretty good job on the take all root
rot and then therefore they're going to help with the large patch too. But
propaconasole is one. It's pr PI and then co n A z L E
propacanasole and you'll find it in different brands. And then the other one is
a zoxystroban that's going to be harder to find. There's a productol Heritage that
has it in it, but it's very difficult to get a hold of a
z x Y. Yeah you know where I found that one, in a
product called Scott's Disease X. Yes, it isn't that. It isn't that.
Azoxystroban is better. Probably my first choice for take all root rot,
but you've got to get it down at the right times. If you look
at my schedule that's online at gardeningwith Skip dot com. Got it in front
of me, okay, Well, you'll find in March is an optional take
all root rot through early April. We're in that now and then the most
important time though for takeoll is to do it in October and to repeat it
again in November with the azoxystrobin ingredient. And for large large patch, yes,
can I should be treating that now too, Yeah, well yes you
can. On the schedule, we actually start large patch treatments at the end
of January. If the hit lawn has had a history of those problems,
if we get a lot of rainy, cool conditions, mild conditions, and
especially if you've fertilized really early, you can see some more of the brown
patch or large patch showing up. But if you've got the schedule trout there
in front of you, and then it lists the products as you know,
and it's got two different nitropots kinds of controls, like would alternate those two?
You think, yes, yes, the nitrophos well, yes, the
total brown patch control and nitrophos Eagle are both going to work. Total patch
control will be very effective against your brown patch or large patch, and then
the Eagle also is going to be effective on those. So you got a
number of options down there on those diseases. Those two that you just mentioned
have are different classes. So that's why I like, yes using right and
the Eagle is it's also listed on the take all root rock Control so it
also has efficacy. Good plan. See it there too. Okay, very
good. I think I'm a square away here. A thank thank you.
You're doing a good job with a very confusing topic, I know when we
start talking about all these different products and things like that. Speaking of the
nitrophoss, they're super turf. The silver bag that is a nineteen four to
ten nineteen four ten. That bag has a type of nitrogen, has more
than one type of nitrogen in it. It's got a regular type that it
would just release fairly soon, and then it's got a type that releases gradually
over a period of time, so it extends the coverage. You don't have
to do that every month. You can get two or three months out of
the super turf. The silver bag nineteen four tenths also has iron to help
out on that. Especially in the spring, we see a lot of the
iron yellowing going on in the grass and it'll work well on that. You
can get it up in the woodlands at allspa Ace Hardware. You can get
it a plant for all seasons on Highway two forty nine down up and Brunham
over and Brunham whichever way. Brunham is Plants and things has the nitrophoss products
like the super Turf, for example. I want to go now to Willis
and we're going to talk to Mike. Hello, Micah, Hey, we
get dross speakerphone. Okay, can you hear me now? Yes, okay,
I have My question is I have one very matured freight myrtle in my
backyard. Huh. It has no I guess you would call like saplings or
seedlings popping out of the ground. Has none of that. Okay. I
have other freight myrtles in my yard, but they sprout all of these stems,
yes, splash, yes, yeah. How do I stop that from
happening? Okay? When you get a new shoot coming up around the base
of that shoot, or a bunch of buds that are hiding, they're sleeping,
and if you cut that shoot off and leave about a half inch one
inch stub, you're going to get a bunch of new shoots, and it
just starts a process where you get more and more. I would go down
there around the base and do some surgery, cut as close to where they
attach as you can and remove them and then get a product that's called sucker
stopper because those are called suckers, say sold on. I got, I
got my pen, I just dropped it. Okay, it's easy to remember
because those are those are called suckers, and you're going to buy something called
sucker stopper, follow the label and it will help reduce those. Now,
nothing is going to eliminate them. I've noticed some crapes or worse about that
than others. But the way we prune them improperly in removing the suckers is
part of the problem that we have. And also when is the proper time
to basically prune them, because I see, you know, running through the
woodlands and whatnot. Yeah, I see, they basically chop the top off
of them, right, And so if you're driving around seeing stuff that landscape
care companies do, that's probably not the practice you want to follow, just
because for a number of reasons. But they butcher create myrtles and they shouldn't.
The best time to prune them is at the end of the winter.
Okay, I'm going to have to go to a hard break here, but
the end of winter is the time to get any kind of pruning you need
to do done. Thank you for the call, Michael. We're going to
take a break. We'll be right back. I bet a bunch of you
went bump bump bomb. I don't know why we do that, but we
like to do that. We're going to head out now to Ronnie in Lake
Jackson. Hello, Running, I appreciate you taking my call this morning.
Listen calling. Garden was looking good two weeks ago and got really hammered by
the hellstorm that came through our area. My question is this. You know,
we talk all the time about our Usually I listened about the the roots
not affected on a freeze. Sometimes they'll live through it. My question,
if you had to guess, some of them are getting leaves coming back,
and some of them just look still like they're beat the hell and back.
How long should it be before I start seeing new growth? Or in other
words, if I'm not seeing new growth, eventually, I'm going back here
with other plants. You said, how long do you think I should wait?
Yeah, Ronnie, you said garden. Are we talking about a vegetable
garden or what kind of plants? Vegetable garden? Yes, okay, you
should see some new growth on most things within a week or so. It
ought to be showing a little bit of new growth. It depends on the
extent of the damage and the specific plant, because you know it just something
like let us is not going to respond the same as a tomato plant,
for example, not doing there's nothing. Some of my tomato plants are showing
a little bit of like you say, e leaks coming out on the bottom.
Yeah, okay, yeah, well kind of wait and watch. It's
a little late to be starting over again with tomatoes. I mean you can,
but you'd like to have had that early start that you already got.
So I'd give it as much time as you could. I would say within
a week. If you're not seeing some growth starting to come back, then
I don't know. Hail can at the top of a plant, but there's
gonna be buds that will push out still, even from around the base.
Yes, sir, that's what I'm getting. Like said, they just look
like a little bit of pencil stalks now nothing on them, but getting a
little bit of green. Those I think be fine. And like you say,
said this late in the season, I don't know if it'd be work.
I appreciate you saying that they didn't think about it. Yeah, I
don't think they would have time to do anything before the heat hits. Well,
it's good. It's not too late to plant tomatoes, it's just later
than I like to get them done. So if you want some good tomatoes,
look for the fastest maturing varieties you can get and replant. If you
need to. Cherry type tomatoes hold up better in the heat, so I
would consider those for sure. Definitely, Yes, I appreciate it, Thanks
sir. All right. Sorry to hear about that hailstorm. A lot of
people got hit in certain areas up your direction, or really all through this
region. It was real heat and mess, like hailstorms tend to be.
You hear me on garden line talk about products all the time. You know,
I'm saying this fertilizer, that fertilizer, or you need to go buy
this to kill a weed, or you hear me say that, Where do
you go that has all of that and more and more and more. Well,
that's Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer on the corner of Bismitt and Renwick in
southwest Houston. If you walk in there, I want you to just start
walking through up and down the aisles and look at what they have. I
mean, like weed control. I may tell you one thing. We'll go
get such and such. Well, when you get there and you show Bob
or Aaron or the staff there, here's a weed that I got in my
yard. What can I use? Show them a picture, show them a
sample, samples. Even better, they're going to take you and they're gonna
have three or four options for that one particular treatment that you need. Do
you need garden tools, Well, they have an eighty foot wall of garden
tools at Southwest Fertilizer. That's a good sized wall of garden tools. They
have everything. I like to say. If they don't have it, you
don't need it. A fertilizer spreader for the fertilizer, Yeah, they had
that too. Do you like organic products, Oh my gosh, they have
micro life, They've got Medina. They have an excellent selection on all that
kind of thing. When I recommend something obscure, well, Bob's going to
have it at Southwest Fertilizer. It's just as simple as that. It's real
easy. It's one stop shopping corner of Bisnatt and Runwick. The phone number
if you don't give McCall seven to one three six six six one seven four
four seven one three six sixty six one seven four four, or go to
the website which is Southwest Fertilizer dot com Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Those if
you up around Lake Conroe area, your backyard hometown garden center is a NA
Plants and Produce. It's on the east side of Montgomery on one oh five,
uh so, just just barely on the outskirts of Montgomery. They're on
one oh five. So if you live in any of those Late Conroe neighborhoods
like April, sound like, well you know them all. There's there's a
bunch of them up there. Maybe your garden beds aren't looking so great.
Well. Ana Plants and Produce has an expert landscaping crew that can come out
and do work race such as early cleanup, getting those home beds things cleaned
up. They can do that. Usually you'll find my schedules at the counter
there at Ana Plants and Produce in Montgomery. But I tell you what,
you also will find every fertilizer and related product for such as weed control that
I recommend, both organic, both anthetic. You want some Nature's Way leaf
mold compost, they've got it. You're looking for heirlooms, they've got it.
Mean Ana plants and produce, make sure they stay stocked up. And
when it comes to color, that place looks great. You need to go
by and see it. Warm season color. You need things for shade,
you need things for sun A and a. Plants and produces got you set
up. They absolutely just continue to get new stock and it just looks good.
I love going into a garden. It's kind of like for me,
Well they say a kid in a candy shop, that's kind of how I
feel when I go into a garden center. Let me see what's new.
Every time I walk into one, I learned about some new plant that I
hadn't even heard before. Been doing this thirty six years now, and I
still hear about Well, new ones are developed too, so I guess there's
that, But it just makes it a lot of fun to go and do
that. We've talked about a lot of different things today, a lot of
things, especially taking care of your yard. This is a time of the
season when everybody is hey, il want green grass and need to get it
to wake up. Remember that wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of
weed. So when your lawn gets thinned, you will have weed problems.
Seeds are lying dormant, or seeds come in however they come in from wind
or whatever, and they come in, and then now we got a weedy.
It's easier to prevent them than it is to control them after they sprout.
But the number one goal, and this is on my schedule too,
by the way, the number one go. In fact, I'm going to
read it to you right here, off the schedule. Here we go.
Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Okay, mow
frequently with the sharp blade to build turf density. Remove about a third of
the leap blade each time you mow. Return the clippings to recycle their complete
balanced nutrient content. Lots of information that go to the other schedule, the
lawn pest Disease and weed management schedule in red right in the big middle.
Before we even talk about weed prevention and weed killing existing weeds. The first
and most important step in weed control is to build a dense, healthy turf
over time through proper fertilizing, mowing, and watering. Remember, wherever sunlight
hits the soil, nature plants a weed. There. You have it right
there. We have products that can prevent weeds. We have products that can
control weeds. But your number one weed control in your lawn is mow water
fertilized properly. You get off to a good start on that, and you're
going to find that your weed problems are significantly reduced mow water and fertilized properly.
Last summer, we didn't get the watering done. It was so darn
hot for so long. Most irrigation systems are not very efficient. The coverage
is not completely uniform. Well, so what do we do get that fixed?
Make sure that you're getting good coverage and water with a good soaking on
an infrequent basis. We'll talk about that more when things heat up around here.
But don't underestimate the power of low water and fertilized when it comes to
weed controlled that live in a dense Saint Augustine, they can do that no
matter how well you mow water and fertilize Virginia button weed, dollar weed,
for example. But that's the exception. Most of the weeds are because we
have thin lawn and sunlight is allowed to reach the soil. I'm about to
bolt out of this studio and head to see animals and what are we going
to be doing well? I'm gonna be given away eight different products, including
a lot by Medina, some heirloom soils, some asamite. There'll be a
food truck, Jay from Texas Gardener will be there, a lot of the
reps from Heirloom Soils and Nelson's and Medina are all going to be there to