Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with skip rictorhoes mill crasy, gas can
trim. Just watch him as well. Bidasso many good things to seep back
basin way. The basses like gas and again you das glubs back tacking not
a sound glassies like gas. The sun beamon of tweeting the gassis gas you
starting and treaties like gasca. You good morning, good Saturday morning. You've
got it tuned to the right place. You're listening to the garden line and
we're here to help you have a more beautiful garden, more bountiful garden.
Certainly a more beautiful landscape and lawn. That's what we're here for. As
I like to say, there's no such thing as brown thumbs. There are
uninformed thumbs, and we're going to inform your thumb. You just hang with
us today. We're here till ten am today. After that, by the
way, I'm going to be going to Ace Hardware, Langham Creek, the
Langham Creek Ace Hardware that's over in the Copperfield neighborhood. I'll give you some
more details on that, but north West Houston, that whole quadrants. My
last appearance of the spring season, so I hope you will come on over.
We'll be given away products from Microlife, products from Nitroposs. I'll be
doing diagnostics on any kind of plant you want to bring in or identifications on
those plants. So stay tuned. We'll talk about it more in a minute
a minute, but for now, I just want to kind of get a
give you a heads up on what is coming up here. Some folks have
asked about insects in the lawn. I've had a number of questions about,
you know, I saw a moth in my lawn and do I need to
spray for it? And some other questions like that, and let me just
let me address that. But if you go to my schedule online at gardening
with Skip dot com, that's my website, Gardening with Skip. Whenever I
create something new, I'll post it to there, and we're slowly but surely
getting stuff built up there. But if you go there, there's two free
schedules. One is the lawn care schedule and one is the lawn pest,
Disease and weed management schedule. That's a lot of words I should have just
called them. How to take care of your lawn? How to prevent the
things that want to eat your lawn or whatever. That's kind of what the
two schedules amount to. If you look at the one on pest disease and
weed management, it talks about insects, and you'll see on there that in
June, July, August, September, or all months that chinchbugs and or
soid webworms could be present in your lawn. So we're in the season where
we can begin to see those kinds of pasts. Now typically we're going to
see them a little bit later, especially at chinchbugs, but you know,
got to keep your eyes open. We are also in the time to treat
for grubs, and there's two different bars on there, and you need to
check those out because the products we use in June, which is when we
primarily begin our grub treatment, the best time to treat for grubs. So
I guess you could still say we're in June now are different than what we
would use as we look at July and August. Of course, it doesn't
change overnight from the end of June to the first of July, but those
are the two general ranges, and we use different treatments because of the age
of the grubs and typically the depth of the grubs in the soil. But
it's on the schedule. I won't read the whole schedule to you, but
you need to check that out. And when you're looking at pests in your
lawn. Nitroposs has a product called bug out Max. It's a granular you
put it out over your lawn and it is a persistent product. In other
words, persistent meaning it's going to go through the entire summer season, so
you don't have to apply it over and over and over again at once.
Do it now and as we go through the next month July, August and
even early September. That product is there around helping out controlling ants, fleas,
ticks, chinchbugs, sod web worms, the different insects that we have
in the lawn. It's very effective product and you're going to find bug out
Max at a lot of places, you know how it is with Nitroposs products.
Their ubiquitous plantation ace hardware out there in Richmond. Rosenberg Bearings hardware both
on Bissonette and on Westheimer are places you can get that as well as hide
and Feed on stubenor hide and end feed on stubenor airline. We're going to
go to the phones now and talk to Don. Good morning, Don,
you're our first caller today. Hello, hey Don, I'm here. Let's
talk. How you doing? You know I am? I am doing very
well. Thank you for asking. I hope you are too. Yes I
am, sir, Yes I am. I have a quick coret. I
wanted to know when it's the best time that I could start shaping my roses
and my plate myrtle. I want to try to they've been going. I
have never trimmed them back, but shaped him. All right, well,
let's talk about those in that order. Roses. I will do my rose
prunting at the end of the winter. Typically it's easy to think of thanks
of Valentine's Day, that's the end of the that's a February event, so
we often think about planting or pruning roses, and you can print them a
little earlier than that. Though sometimes you're down in Parland and you know,
we get a little warm winter and they may already be pushing out pretty good.
So anytime when it's winter January February, you can do rose pruning.
Typically February is when we aim for then after the spring bloom, typically April.
Around April is just a great month where roses are blooming like crazy.
When that bloom starts to fade, we'll do a light shearing. Assuming this
is a shrub rose as opposed to a cutflower, long stem rose, we'll
do a light shearing with fertilizing and watering to get another flush of growth.
And often I will do that light shearing again don at the end of August,
because October is a big month for rose blooming too, so we want
to stimulate some fresh new growth as we go into fall for a beautiful show
there. So I need to put something online about all that. But anyway,
that's the over overall look. Crp myrtles primarily were pruning in the winter
when they're dormant before they begin to grow in the spring. But you can
prune a crape myrtle at any time you need to. I prune some just
the other day, and it is not the ideal time to prune, but
they needed to be pruned, and I didn't want them to continue growing in
the wrong way for another few months until we get back to next winter or
this coming winter. So little pruning here and there, if needed, can
be done at any time of the year. Well, okay, thank you
sir. All right, good luck with that. Just remember, don't look
at commercial landscapes and even some home landscapes when it comes to how to print
a crpe myrtle, because people are just traditionally butcher the heck out of them,
and they don't need to be butchered. They're a beautiful plant form that
we can we can train them into that form and they just look great.
So all right, thank you, all right, thank you, appreciate appreciate
your call very much. Yes, sir, we do appreciate that call.
You know, now that we're in summer. Mulching is very, very important.
It is important that we cover the surface of the soil. When you
cover the soil surface with mulch, it does a number of things. Number
one, it keeps the soil cooler, and that is huge. You will
not believe how hot the surface inch and even three inches down can get when
the sun is baking down on uncovered soil. Huge event, huge benefit for
the roots. Secondly, a huge, huge benefit for the roots is that
it prevents the crusting and erosion of the crusting of the soil surface, erosion
of the soil away exposing roots. Mulch prevents that third thing. It does
a third thing. There's the number of things mulching does. But it also
decomposes slowly over time to release nutrients into the soil, and it creates thiss
perfect roots on And think about this. Think about a forest floor, leaves
rotting, more leaves on top, more leaves on top rotting year after year,
and that surface of the soil in a forest is just the richest stuff
on earth. You can do that in your landscape by multching. And Landscaper's
Pride has a number of products that you can use for multing. For example,
the black velvet. For those of you who like a dark black mulch,
don't buy something dyed. I just don't care for that. I mean,
I know people and stuff, but black velvet is naturally that color,
and I really like the look of it. I think it works super super
well. Beautiful velvety, dense excellent molts. Hardwood multes shredded up hard hardwood
trees makes an excellent maltz that locks together, doesn't wash away very good.
Pine park molt is probably the most popular one because of the visual of it
in the slow decomposition rate and cedar and cypress. Those two, both cedar
and cypress a little bit slower to decay away, so you don't melt as
often, but they will in time decay. They there's an aroma to cedar,
especially when it's fresh, it's excellent. And then the cypress as well,
it just kind of hangs it. It's heavier, when it gets wet,
it just sort of sticks in place. A very light colored molts to
very beautiful all from Landscaper's Pride. Landscaper's Pride dot Com is their website if
you want to learn more about their products and where to get them. But
I can tell you this Landscaper's Pride is widely available. A very beautiful economical
mults that just does everything a mulch does for your plants. And I'm telling
you do not leave the soil bear. If you leave the sowl a bear,
you are inviting a number of different problems, including the one I haven't
already mentioned, weeds. Wherever sunlight hits a soil, nature plants a weed.
Save yourself, some work, save your plants, some competition, Get
your soul mulcht. That's important. We're gonna go now to Tom Ball and
talk to Mel. Good morning, Mel, Good morning, I Morney Skip.
I just sent you some pictures on email of a weed that I have
and i'd kind of like to talk about that critter. All right, well,
i'd like to do that. I'm up on a break, So what
I'm gonna do during breaks, I'm gonna look at your pictures and when we
come back, we'll tackle your question. Thank you, Mel, I appreciate
that. For those of you who'd like to call in our phone number seven
one three two one two k t r H, I'll be right back,
welcome back to dark Line'm good to have you with us. We're gonna head
back out now and talk to Mel. Mel. Thank you, thanks for
hanging on. I had I did have a chance to look at your weeds.
There's a lot going on there, and actually I'm having a little trouble.
Some of it looks like a sedge to me, like that sedge or
kalinga. It's not kalinga, but that's also a sedge, but it looks
sort of like a sedge. But then I see some runners that remind me
of torpedo grass or bermuda grass. One. I think you probably know what
bermuda grass looks like, so, oh yeah, do you think it's not
bermuda when you look at the lawn itself and see the weed right when,
I don't think it's I don't think it's permuted because it's got those little stickers
on top. I know you saw those projects. Okay, No, I
can't see that's part of the deal. I couldn't make that out in the
in the photo, thank you. If it has stickers on top, it
is definitely a sedge. The little bird, the soft birds, I mean,
they're not going to get in your foot. Yeah, but yeah,
that's a sedge. You need to do something that contains set. That's called
sedge hammer or sedge ender. Both of those are effective against sedge. Image
is also pretty effective against sedges. Okay, now by my next question is
I had already put down probably a couple of months ago, sub Spectra side
weed stop things, Okay, stop now, I don't know if that's part
of what if that contains it, that contains it or not. Evidently not,
because that's definitely just just settled down right in the middle of all my
Saint Augustine. Yeah, but edge hammer or what else would the other one?
Well, sedge ender or two ended. There's also uh, just one
blank on the next one. I was going to tell you, gosh,
I'll think of it in a second. Just keep listening, say it when
it comes to mind. I'm with you. It's uh, it just jumped
out of my mind. Oh my gosh. Well, anyway, if I
sit here, it's dead airspace. So let me let me think about it
a second. Off, I'll tell you it's the one I normally say first,
Okay, do early in the morning. I guess my brain hadn't.
I did have two cups of coffee, so it ought to be fired up
pretty good. Well, I'm seventy nine years old, so I know about
all those brain freezer. Yeah, that's it, brain freezer. That's a
nice way to put it. Yeah, yeah, that's a nice way.
Yeah, we're on the air. Yeah, there you go. There you
go. But the the weed stop spect fraed we'ed stop is not going to
control this. It's basically a broad leaf weed control. Got a whole bunch
of well real quickly. Now, since I did that, is putting this
stuff stage hammer or stage ender or image? Is that going to put a
lot of stress on my saint Augustine. No, but you want to use
it. You want to use it according to the label. Very very careful,
Yeah, very careful to follow the label because if you if you don't
do that, you're going to end up you can damage with a lot of
different things, especially when the temperature is really hot. So follow the label.
Make your application early in the morning. Early in the morning is always
better. It's it's the coolest time of day, maybe eighty degrees, which
is typically where we see our days. But it's still going to be a
lot better than it's when it gets really hot. That there's a lot of
factors that make that not not really good. Well, I broke into a
train of phone. I'm sorry. Have you come up with that first idea
you were telling you about. I'm sorry, it's just not coming to mind.
It will it will here in a second. I can't think. I
can't talk and think at the same time. All right, Wait, yeah,
yeah, that's funny. Sedge hammer, I said, No, I
said sedgehammer. I'm sorry. Sedge hammer and sedge gender. Those are the
two. I guess there is one other one, but it's just oh image,
I think I mentioned that one. So I think that covers any of
those of work. They're all widely available. You're going to find them,
you know, you're up there on the tombol area. I think you're going
to find them. Both the plans for Seasons and the Arbigate Garden Center nursery
is going to carry those. You're going to find them out there at the
feedstore just we yes, definitely have them out there. These products are easy
to find because a lot of people have sedge issues. Very good, all
right. And if it calls sedge hammer or is that sedge hammer is a
brand name, it is a brand name. Sedge Hammer and sedge Ender are
both brand names, as is Image. But if you buy Image, make
sure it says image for nuts Edge. One thing these companies do that drives
me nuts is to take a famous name, whether it's round Up or Image
or whatever, and start putting different chemicals under that name that have a very
different effect. And so make sure it says image for Nutsedge. Okay,
well, I want to look. I'm gonna look at such first, all
right. I'm gonna hit on over to D and D as soon as we
open up. I appreciate it. I am sure I know it well,
but be ready to stay with it. It's not easy to control, but
just stay with it. Start next year a little bit earlier and significantly earlier
would be even better too. All right, all right, I appreciate you,
sir, Yes, sir, thank you appreciate the call very much.
Uh. We're going to run out to Crosby now and talk to Tim.
Hey, Tim, Yes, sir. You know what I'm interested in is
what can I use to get rid of poison ivy? Okay? And also
the next question is is what I used to I'm make sure I creer a
libelt tree for the forms that scab over. He's the wound. Where's the
poison ivy growing? What? What's the good stuff that's by the poison ivy?
Lawns or flowers or pardon flave oak and long okay? Uh, you
know tree long? Yeah. Is there a big trunk going up the live
oak, the poison ivy trunk? Or is it just like small stuff coming
up all out of the ground. But the trunks are okay. So there's
an ingredient called trichlow pier t r I c l O p y R.
And when you go buy it off of a shelf at a center, a
garden center and nursery and a hardware store Southwest feed and fertilized all those places.
It's gonna it's gonna say triclo pier is the ingredient, but the actual
product may be called something like brush killer or poison ivy killer or or something
like that. Or sometimes it says stump uh control brush and stump control or
something tri cloap here, that's the ingredient. You want to take that and
if you if it were a larger trunk, you could cut the trunk off
and then paint that product straight with a little foam brush like you would use
it a paint store, you know, those little foam wood handled brushes.
Yeah. Absolutely, dab it right on the fresh cut surface after you make
it. If it is coming up as leaves and you don't have a trunk
to work with, then you're gonna have to spray it on the leaves.
But don't get it on any desirable broad leaf plants. And know that areas
of the lawn where you spray it on you're probably gonna have problems with the
lawn right there. But the lawn can come back in, but would it
won't. It will not kill the tree. If it's an old tree and
you've got bark on the outside, you know, a brand new tender tree
with paper thin bark, no furrowed old bark, that would be a problem
on but not on an older tree. So walk around, make sure there's
root sprocks coming up from the tree. And even that, you're probably not
going to kill the whole tree, but it would it would damage it a
little bit. But but the trico peer is very effective on poison ivy okay.
And it's like you're saying tralo pure t r i c l o p
y r try clow p y r pure. All right, okay, all
right, And what about the when your trim the libel tree to where it
scams over. The best healing occurs in spring. The second best healing occurs
in fall. So if you wanted to make a cut and then healing kicks
in quickly, that's why we prune at the end of winter because we're entering
our spring season. You can February, yeah, February, January or February.
The one is fine. But when we get into the before the fall
season, that's a fast healing time too. You can make a cut here
and there any time you want. But those are the best times. If
you can wait and have a choice, that's the best time. If you
need to get it prone prone whenever you want to print. I so like
at the end of February or the beginning of February, I would do it
at the beginning. Okay, all right, I appreciate it. All right,
thank you, appreciate the call. Well, we're gonna take a little
break mark when we come back. You're the first up our phone number seven
one three two one two kt r H and welcome back to guard Line.
Glad you're with us today. Got a lot of things we can talk about
today. I want to mention plants for all seasons. That's one of our
just stellar garden center sure in the greater Houston area. And by the way,
if you've moved to Houston from anywhere, you welcome. But you're in
a place that has more outstanding garden centers than any place I've ever seen.
And I've been to a lot of cities, certainly across the state of Texas,
and I'm just you we are rich with garden centers, north, south,
east, west, central, wherever you are, there are garden centers
near you, and their garden centers were driving across town to see they're so
awesome, that is true. And Plants for All Seasons is one of these
kinds of places. They always have color in stock. They always have,
you know, whether you're looking for shrubs or trees, or annuals or perennials,
or ornamental grasses or vegetable transplants, herbs, on and on house plants,
even they've got it all there, beautiful baskets right now, lots of
color. And listen, just because we're entering summer does not mean you can't
plant color. You can. There are a lot of outstanding plants that can
take this heat. And so don't let the heat stop you from getting some
quality plants, getting up early in the morning when it's cooler, getting out
there and getting them established, because when you do that, you're going to
have color in July and in August and in September. It's going to carry
you all the way into the fall. And Plants are All Seasons has excellent
options for that. For example, they have they have a plant called pirates
pearl and think of it as just a little moundy bush with white daisy like
flowers. All over it, and I mean all over it. It is
a beautiful plant. I don't know why we don't plant that more here.
I put one in my yard and just you can't catch it out of bloom.
It is just always looking good. And so it's a nice little medium
size plant, an annual plant for our area. It does really really well.
Pirates Pearl, just go ahead and ask them, say I want to
see your Pirates Pearl, and they can show you a lot of other good
color plants. At Plants for All Seasons. Remember they are on to forty
nine Tombol Parkway, just north of Luetta. Just north of Luetta Plants for
All Seasons dot com phone number two eight one three seven six, sixteen forty
six. We're gonna now head to Tennessee and talk to Mark. Am I
really in Tennessee? Mark? Yes? All right, Middle, all right?
How can we help? Yeah? Around my house, we've got some
akers and I wouldn't say it's a back forty but I have these huge crabgrass.
Now. I try to treat them with the bone eye pre emergence.
I did it in the fall. I did it twice in the spring,
and they're just huge. And if I dig them out. They're going down.
I do not believe they freeze over to. I think they just come
back. And besides using them round up and wiping with the sponge, is
there a product with celsius or fahrenheit? Could I just spray that those would
not work on a grassy weed like that? If it if it does,
truly, if the plant really survives winter and Tennessee and comes back, it's
not crabgrass now it could recede absolutely new seedlings come up. Yes, but
if that plant survives, we're talking about a different grass. So killing a
grass in a grass? So is your lawn like fescue or is it a
Kentucky bluegrass or what kind of looks you fresh q And then I've sought at
some areas along the dry wet or dryway put in with permuted because we actually
kind of have drought kind of in the summer here, we don't get much
rain, Okay, so I want to permut it. Yeah, it's hard
to kill a grass, and the grass there are a few exceptions, but
the things that will kill the grass that's coming up won't kill or can also
kill you your bermuda. So this grass is like the type of grass when
when the seeds come out, they get real tall and it grows faster than
the rest of it. So would that be Johnson grass or something? Not
Johnson? Uh, it's you know what you don't have. Do you have
some seed heads on it right now? I just mowed yesterday. But I
can say when you get some seeds, I'm going to put you on hold,
and I'm pretty sure I'll give you an email and we use that four
phone questions, not just you know, general back and forth. But if
you want to send me some cloth photos, pick those seedheads and lay them
on like a white piece of paper or something so you can get up close
and take a picture. Because a picture of just grass it's hard to see
the seedheads and a photo with grass behind it. So let me see the
seaedheads if you if you pull it up and you see it kind of has
runners or it's a clump, show me that too in the photo and I'll
get a good idea and then we'll try to help you with it from there.
But if it's crabgrass, then I would use instead. I don't know
that you have nitroposs products up there. Okay, Well, you're gonna need
a grass pre emergent, and Tennessee has a really good extension service. And
whatever county you're in, you've got an extension office. You can call and
say, what are some pre emergence you would recommend, and when do I
apply them? Here and explain here's my lawn types, and you know so
on. But if you see me the picture, I'll I do it for
you. Okay, yes, sir, and I've been listening since the nineties,
back back when. So well, thanks for sticking around. I appreciate
that. Glad to thank you. You take care. I was talking to
somebody the other day and they were lamenting their landscape appearance, you know,
going, man, it just doesn't inspire me. You know, it's not
I don't know what do I do. I don't know what to do.
I go to the nursery, I see all these pretty plants, but I
don't know what to do with them, and so on. Well, here's
one thing you can do. You can call puer Scapes, which they do
landscaping, but they do a lot lot more. For example, they do
have a quarterly maintenance program where they'll come into your beds and they'll plant the
plants for the seasons. You can have them do two color changes a year
or four color changes a year. They'll do the mulching, they'll make sure
that things are trimmed and fertilized, the weeds are controlled. They'll check the
irrigation, make sure it's working. You can get on their quarterly maintenance and
do that now. If you want to redesign, and I would say that's
a good thing, you ought to start talking to them now. Get those
design planned out, drawn out and when fall comes. There is not a
better season of the year to plant than fall. And you can plan any
month of the year here in our area, but there's not a better one
than fall. And so, but get with Pierscapes now so you can get
those designs drawn, get on the schedule to have them come in and renovate.
And if you want to see the kind of work that Peerscapes can do,
go to pierscapes dot com and you're going to see hard escaping, landscape
lighting. Uh, just on and on and on. Drainage problem, you
got drainage problems. Perscapes can fix that. They can do anything that's amazing
two eight, one, three, seven, fifty sixty. If you want
to give them a call two eight one three seven o five zero six zero.
That is peerscapes. Yeah, makes it really easy when you're doing that.
Uh. I was talking with someone the other day about the generators that
you put outside your house that come on, and most people when they think
of a generator think, oh, it's a little gas engine. I got
to you know, fuel it up and pull the lever and pull the rope
and get it going and that. Well, yeah, those are generators too
if you want to run a little power saw out on a job site or
something. But what about your whole house? What about the freezers? What
about keeping the electricity on everywhere in the house so that you've got an online
job, You've got to be on the internet. You got to have twenty
four to seven covered well. Quality Home Products of Texas can come out and
set up a generator for you. Though you use a I would recommend you
get one of their Generat generators. By the way, they're three hundred and
fifty dollars off all the generators that they have, a quality home and a
free ten year warranty if it's an air cooled generator unit. But these once
they get set up and there's a process to that. Quality Home handles the
whole process. I mean, it's so easy when they do it for you,
and they when that's set up up, if the power goes out,
the generator comes on. You don't have to run around the house and look
for a gas can and you know, try to get your generator going.
It just stays on. And they're excellent products. But the main reason I
recommend them Generak is awesome generator. Absolutely when you need you know, no
problem recommending Generac at all. But Quality Home is where you get them,
and that, I would say, is at least as important as the generator
that you buy. And here's your reason. Twenty four to seven three sixty
five customer service. From the time you contact them and say, hey,
I'm thinking about a generator, They're helping you find the right one. They're
helping you get set up out, even putting a slab out at your place
outside the house so you can put the generator on it, Handling all the
hoops you got to jump through with regulations or whatnot, if you've got hoa
or something. They handle all this for you. And after the sale,
their service is immaculate. That is why they eight times now have won the
Better Business Bureau's most prestigious Customer Service Award. Listen, that doesn't come easy.
Neither do fourteen thousand and five star reviews. Quality tx dot com.
Write that website down and just go check it out. You're just doing some
initial shopping Quality tx dot com or give them a call. It's seven to
one to three quality I. You know, we when we choose our sponsors
here on garden Line, and we sometimes have companies we say no, I'm
not going to promote that. I'm just not u. When it comes to
a place like quality home Products, it is easy, easy, no question
whatsoever. In my mind. We look for people that give good quality service
and have good quality products that are proven. When you hear me do a
read, it's I'm putting my name on it, so I believe with all
my heart it's gonna help you in whatever way that product helps. And quality
home products. That's that's easy. Low hanging fruit. We're gonna take a
little break right here. When we come back, Lee, you will be
the first up seven to one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back to
guarden Line. Been heavy with us today. If you have not done summer
fertilization, yet you need to go ahead and get that done. Summer fertilization
provides the nutrients your grass needs to maintain good health and density through the summer,
and even though it's hot outside, your grass is growing if you give
it water and a little bit of nutrition to help it go in. A
Nitrofuss superturf, that's a silver bag that is an outstanding slow release fertilizer.
That doesn't mean you don't get anything when you apply it. You get some
then, but let's just say it's smart enough to hang on to some nutrients
and gradually release that nitrogen over the coming three months or more. Nitrofuss Superturf
again, the silver bag widely, widely available. Like nitro Fuss products.
Are you going to find it out the ace hard restauring Kingwood, You're gona
find it up at the Arborgate, You're gonna find it in shades of Texas.
Nitrofuss superturf are available in a wide wide range of places. Excellent,
excellent product, and it works well. But get it down now, get
it going, and it will prevent that super fast growth that makes you Mowmomo.
Water water water it'll give you a gradual release, and that is the
beauty of the product. Works very well. You can find it at Ana
Plants and Produce too. By the way, if you're up there in the
Montgomery area. Ana Plants and Produce they carry every single fertilizer you hear me
talk about on Guardline. They carry every kind of pest, weed and disease
control thing you're going to need to have maybe a more beautiful, less pest
plagued or disease or weed plagued landscape. They also, of course have beautiful
plants. They've got some cigar plant, a Kufia ignia. I think firecracker
plant's a better name for it, but a Kufia ignea. My hummingbirds love
that plant, and if you just provide a little bit of water, it
just blooms and blooms and blooms, these tiny little tubular blooms. That's why
they call it fire record plant that are red and it's just beautiful. They
also have another one if you like hummingbirds. At A and A ask them
about their turk's cap and take a look at that. I mean that is
a tough plant grows in sun, grows in bright shade and just has beautiful
little red flowers again that are hummingbird magnets, na plants and produce that are
on the east side of Montgomery And you just need to go by there and
check that place out. And I can tell you this for any of you
up there in the Lake Conroe area, this is your hometown garden center and
it is an outstanding place to find all kinds of things that are going to
do well here. Listen, the Floors family has been running that garden center
for a long time. They know what works here and that is what they
buy bring in to sell to you so you can have success. Let's take
a run now out to talk to Lee. Hello, Lee, good morning,
Welcome to guard Line. You mommy Bob flag. Oh My question is
my question? Is I bought the Shelca if you told me to. I
want to know if I put down a first application, can I put down
the second application before six to eight weeks? What do you recommend? What
did you say that you bought Selsius for button weeds? Yeah, I would
give it about six weeks. You just don't with any product, just kind
of hitting your grass over and over with it can be a problem for the
grass. Also on celsius, if you look at the label, it's going
to tell you how much you can use over the course of a year.
Even I mean, we can't just use these things indiscriminately, So I would
give it six weeks and always make sure your button weed is healthy and in
actively growing state when you use it, because it works better. That's true
of many herbicide products that the weed is actively growing. So if we go
into a summer drought and you've kind of cut back on the water a lot,
you're probably not going to get as effective of a control with any product
as you would give it a good water and get that grass or weed growing
and then apply it again. Well, thank you, I appreciate it,
all right. I don't know what it means that I sound like Bob Flag,
but I'm assuming that may be a compliment because he was twenty compliment.
He was a gardener, just like you had his own show, Okay,
on your radio show that's years ago. All right, Well, Lee,
thank you for being a listener still after all these years. I appreciate that.
Right bybee bye bye. Take care if you are done in the League
City area, In fact, if you're anywhere around that area like Dickinson,
Lamark, Baycliffe, Clare, Lake City. Oh, come into Reale,
maybe Santa Fe or sant Leone. I've got your hometown feed store. It's
called League City Feed and they are right there on Highway three, just a
few blocks south of Highway ninety six in League City. League City Feed is
open Monday through Saturday nine to six, are closed tomorrow, closed on Sundays,
but being open till six even after work. You can swing by there
and grab what you need. And they're going to carry the fertilizers I talk
about, as well as a lot of the soil products you hear me talk
about here on garden Line. Of course, you're a feed store, so
if you need pet feed, they've got high quality ones, a number of
options for you there. They also have things for your backyard, chicken needs
or other kinds of feed you're looking for. It's an old time feed store.
What does that mean, Well, that means that they take care of
you. They carry the stuff out for you. It makes you feel like
family to go buy League City Feed two eight one three three two sixteen twelve
two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. You swing by there on a
Saturday. You might even you might even find Rorshack the Dalmatian. I guess
the mascot there on this so you can you can look at the spots and
decide what you see in Rorshack. I like that name for a dalmatian leg
City Feed. That's funny. I like when people are creative with their pet
names. I knew someone one time that named their dog dog and it was
basically spelling dog d og dog the dog. Yeah, that's that's creative.
That's good. Well, here we are, time for the music, Time
for us to take a little break from the top of the hour news.
Don't forget today. Today we finally arrived June twenty ninth. I'm going to
be at Langham Creek ACE Hardware. Langham Creek ACE Hardware is it's real easy
to find, you know, Ace Hardware. You have to do is go
to Acehardware dot com and find their store locator and you can find the store
that is closest to you, so it makes it really easy. Langham Creek
is out there in the Copperfield neighborhood, so if you're out, you know,
just just south of Cypress area, that's where we're going. To they
are where Barker's viprus and two five twenty nine five twenty nine which is also
called Spencer Road. That's where they come together. I'm gonna be there.
We'll be given away microphone, micro life products are rep there, micro clost
products. I'll be answering your gardening question. Come on out to sing eleven
thirty to one thirty. Today's advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r
H Garden Line with Skip Rictor, It's Shoesmi Crazy, Gas can Trim just
watch him as well. Many good thanks to seep back Basic in great season,
Gas Davos back taking not sad credits, Gas the Sun Beaman of between
movies. Well, welcome back to the garden Line. Take a look outside.
Oh it's just a good day. We got sun coming out, we
got closcott. Always good to get out a little earlier and get the work
done. You know, you can take your phone with you and listen to
garden Line on your iHeartMedia app. Listen to it live really on there so
you can also listen to past shows on whatever kinds of apps you have for
doing podcasting. I Heart Media app Live garden Line, I Know Gardeners tell
me all the time they have put my phone in my pocket and get out
there early because it's time to get the work done for it gets hot.
And they just carry guardline with them. Who knows you may run across a
bug or a plant or a question that you have and you got your phone
right there. If you'd like to call in our phone number seven to one
three two to one two k t RH seven one three two to one two
k t r H. Have you been to RCW Nursery lately? RCW is
the garden center that is right there where Tamball Parkway Hoyway two forty nine comes
into boat Way eight, and it's easy to get to and when you get
in there, you're going to find all kinds of plants with just really quality
selections, things that do well very well here. Now RCW they lead the
way when it comes to options for roses. They I don't know how long
the rose list is. I think it's four pages single space that they can
get and so they've always got roses on hand. It's a great place to
go. But they also grow trees and shrubs and things up at their property
up in the Plantersville area, and so when you go to RCW and have
them you purchase a plant and have them planet for you. You're going to
get a quality species, one that wants to grow here. Listen, they've
been doing this for decades. I think RCW really opened that, like nineteen
seventy nine. Williamson family still runs RCW Nurseries. Those plants, those shrubs
and trees, they know how to plan them. They'll come out, but
it's going to be excellent because you got options from fifteen gallons up to two
hundred gallons. Do you want an ornamental blooming tree? Do you want a
shade tree? Whatever? They can get you set up with that, and
they also have the products necessary to go along with it, including every fertilizer
I talk about here on garden Line. So stop by RCW nurses again,
tomball Park win beout Way eight. The website RCW Nurseries dot com. If
you want to find out more information, I would highly recommend you do that.
We're going to head now out to Katie and talk to Todd. Well,
Hello, Todd, how you doing well? Thank you? I was
just trying to see like a granular insecticide or liquid insecticide right now. Somebody
told me that the liquid insecticide. It's so hot outside, you know it
can burn all the grass. Okay, yeah, well not the right mix
right there. If you o anything you do from a dry granular synthetic fertilizer
salt based fertilizer to a pesticide product, you put it out according to the
label and you're fine, there's not a problem. But you overdo something and
you can cause problems. But I wouldn't worry about using either way. The
granule the benefits of it. It's easy to get out there. You just
use your fertilizer spread on a different setting to follow the label to put it
out. You need to make sure you get good even coverage. If you
want to do the liquid spray to kill insects. There are advantages to each
one of those. The advantage you know, to the granulars is the ease
of application, and it washes off the granule and it's present. One of
the advantages to liquid. If you're spraying something that's up there chewing on a
grass blade, like a sod web worm, you can with the spray you're
coating those plant parts that the bug is and it's a little more effective that
way. On those that particular pest for example. But they all work.
They all work well. Okay, thank you so much. All right,
Todd, take care, appreciate your call. Yeah, lots of lots of
different options out there, you know. When it comes to options for granular
liquid, you name it. Southwest Fertilizer is the place if you want the
most options, the most product options, of any place in this region.
I like to say, if Southwest doesn't have it, you don't need it,
because they have it. They have everything. If anything is new on
the market, Bob's going to be bringing it in. He and I talk
periodically about this new product. How do we deal with this particular problem?
What are we what are we going to be recommending and telling people that's going
to work and stuff, And he's just always on top of it. And
Bob at Southwest Fertilizer is going to have any product that you're looking for,
granular liquid, you name it, any fertilizer I talk about on guardline and
then some are you do you look? Are you looking for synthetic products?
Again, he's got a wider selection than anybody I know. Are you looking
for organic products? Probably the widest selection of organic products that you're going to
find anywhere. And that includes for weeds, for bugs, for diseases,
for fertilizing your lawn, you name it, and then the equipment you need.
Do you want a really quality fertilizer spreader? Is it time to get
one of those one of those hand spreaders to put out your fire at bait
and things like that. Bob's got it corner of Bissinet and Runwick in Southwest
Houston. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com is a website. You need to go by
there and check it out just to see what is it that I talk about
when I say things like this, or when I talk about that eighty foot
wall of tools. Oh man, I love it when you can go into
a place and as like they got everything. Thing well that that's Southwest Fertilizer.
Let's see here. You're listening to Guardline. Our phone number is seven
to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one
two five eight seven four easy. Easy to give us a call and talk
about the things that are of interest to you. Don't forget. I'm going
to be at the Ace Hardware Langham Creek Ace Hardware, which is where Barker
Cypress and FM five point twenty nine also called Spencer Road where they come together
up in northwest Houston's my last appearance of the spring season, so it won't
be until fall that I'll start doing this stuff again. And so here's your
chance. Come on out, let's meet. Let's talk about things. We
can help you identify, we can help you diagnose. I'm going to talk
a little bit more about taking a sample of your lawn a little bit later,
so stay tuned for that. Right now, let's run out to Kingwood
and we're going to talk to Fred. Hello, Fred, good morning.
Skip. A week or two ago, you were talking about a a brew
a tea that I can make that I can put water of my house plants
with and get rid of the gnats. Can't remember what that was, Okay,
it is, Well, there's a couple of ways to do it if
you There's a product called Mosquito dunks that we talk about all the time that
I know that. There's also the same company makes something called mosquito bits.
It's a little it looks like grape nuts if you remember that cereal little crumbles,
and that's what Bill Spent was talking about. When we had him on
the on the show the other day. His wife just takes I don't I
think what she's I'm trying to remember what she said. I think is a
teaspoon and puts it in a quart of water or something, lets it soak
a while. And the disease of fungus gnats. The product controls both fungus
gnats and mosquitoes the same ingredient because they're both in the fly family and see
waters or plants with that, and so those fungus gnats then are going to
pick that disease up, just like the mosquite as well when they get in
the water with the same product. And those fungus gnats, I guess lay
their eggs deep in the soil somehow and not that's why you've got it.
They're up near the surface. Yeah, okay, okay. But another thing
you can do for those, Fred is just let it dry out a little
bit. Yeah, if you keep it wet, that makes fungus nats really
happy. So let's disappoint disappoint them today. Thank you again, all right,
Fred, thank you very much for the call. Hey, it's time
for a quick break Mike in the woodlands. You'll be first when we come
up. We'll be right back. The phone number, by the way is
seven one three two one two kt R. Welcome back, Welcome back to
Guardenline. Good to have you with us. We are gonna run right to
the phones. We've got a lot to talk about this morning. I think
we'll start up in the woodlands with Mike. Hello, Mike Hello, still
call from last week. I called because I put a Bonnie wheat beater on
some chamber bitterer right before you know, a hard rain, and you said
not to apply it, and you were correct. It's uh, it did
its job. The call, uh today is what do I do now?
Because I realized that chamber bitterer was was more than the grass there? Do
I just resawed that area or just adds in some soil or what would you
do? Well? How far apart are the sprigs of Saint Augustine that are
still alive? Uh? I don't know. A couple of inches, It's
it's okay, it's pretty thick on here. Yeah. If if you've got
them just a few inches, like lessen the width of your hand or something
apart, they're going to fill back in. We just got to mow water
and fertilize properly to get that grass uh in full swing. So I would
just say continue to provide good care for it. Uh. If you if
you wanted to do something like a compost top dressing, a leaf mold compost
top dressing over that area, that would be a pretty good idea actually because
it does cover the surface of the soil, blocks a little bit of light
out, but it really benefits that grass trying to grow back in as well.
And you can get you a product like that, I know the the
heirloom soils folks have a leaf more compost for compost top dressing that you can
put down. Perfect. That's what I'll do. Thank you. And you're
not you're not too far away from oh actually you're in the woodlow job.
Yeah you're also Yeah, I've been, I've been there. I just I
should have looked where you were from before, because you're just a cross the
street from Nature's Way as well. If you want to run down to south
of Conro right there, Nature's Way is on the right hand side and they've
got it by the bag to or by the bulk if you're going to do
a large area. So yeah, that's what I would do for right now.
I think that that's probably your best step, and just take it a
step at a time. Watch how things go. If you haven't fertilized recently,
go ahead and get them down so that the grass that's there has a
little extra boost, and then just don't let it dry out, just keep
it just moderately. Most silver bag or the red bag, I can't remember.
You could do the one, but I would do this silver right now
because it's a it'll carry you all the way through summer if you've not we're
talking about nitrofosh products. When you say silber bag, i'll carry all the
way through the summer. All right, I probably did it, I don't
know six weeks ago. Okay, so is the time to do it again.
If you did the silver bag six weeks ago, don't you don't need
to do it again. It's it. If you did it six weeks ago,
that's going to carry you at least into August, if not longer.
Yeah, okay, just return your clippings. Let them decompose this summer.
Okay, thank you you bet, Mike, thanks a lot. Appreciate your
call very much. Let's run now out to Katie and talk to Dan.
Hello, Dan, Hey, how you doing. I've gotta with all the
range that we've had lately. I like, you have my grandkids playing out
in the backyard, and last week I noticed I've got a lot of mud
dobbers out there, and actually my grandson got stoned. How best can I
get rid of those mud dobber stung? Your grandson, sir? That is
unusual for them to stay. I mean, if you grab one by in
your hand or step on one with the bare foot, I can understand it.
But they are not like red wasps and other wasps that are so aggressive.
But that's interesting interesting to hear. So you're not going to be able
to just like nuke the place with an insecticide so that wherever a mud dabber
ends up, it's going to kill him. Not having mud is a is
a good start. Any if they have access to mud, that they need
that to build their homes and things, and and so just kind of minimizing
that to whatever degree you can. When you see them under the eaves building
their nests, just knock those nests down. I use just a flat piece
of metal. Yeah, I actually saw them flying. They were actually coming
up out of almost like crowded holes back on the back corner. Are these
really big insects compared to it like a wasp? Okay, is that now
we're making sense? That is actually not a mud dabber. That is called
a cicada killer, and any and especially bear soil areas. They live individually.
They're one of the not social wasps and bees that we have. And
most bees and wasps, you know, live as a group. These live
individually. But you'll have a whole bunch of holes in an area where different
cicada killers have their little single nest where they're raising their young. You can
put an insecticide down in that nest so that they have to crawl through it.
There's different ways to go about it. One simple thing would be to
dust a little seven dust in into the hole and around the hole, because
they've got to crawl in and out of there several times a day. Yes,
and that would be one way to individually hit them. So, yes,
I'm glad we got that clarified, because yes, cicada killers are very
different again those two though, although they'll buzz you, they generally aren't as
aggressive as other wasps are. Alrighty, well, thank you very much.
I appreciate it, you bet, Dan, thanks a lot. I appreciate
that a lot. You know, the Buchanans in the Heights, they are
an outstanding garden center for finding any kind of thing you're looking for. Really,
they specialize in natives. It's Buchanans Native Plants, that's the official name.
They're on Eleventh Street in the Heights and you're just driving down Eleventh Street
through the Heights and all of a sudden you look over the side and there's
this really cool garden center right there, and you need to go by there
and wander through. I mean, I can sit here and try to describe
it to you. But their native plant selection is second to none. It
is divide it up even to like if, okay, there's native Texas plants,
but then there's native Southeast Texas plants. There's native plants to Harris County
to the Houston area, and they have those even a table that's like if
you want something that truly is from right here where we live, they've got
those kind of natives as well, and it just makes it really easy to
do. When it comes to pollinator gardens, when it comes to shade trees,
when it comes to any plant that you want to enhance your landscape with,
Buchanans Plants has got it. They keep an excellent selection. The gift
shops wonderful the products that they carry, wide variety of products. You know,
if you're looking for a fertilizer I talk about here on Guardline, they're
going to have it at Buchanan's Plants And the website is buchanans Plants dot com.
Buchanans Plants dot com makes it real easy. Buchanans Plants dot com.
Please when you go to their website, sign up for the newsletter, get
the notifications they send out. It's excellent, and poke around the website at
the educational material that have on there. It's outstanding. It really is outstanding.
I would encourage you to do that, and then while you're there,
check out the soils I talk about. The fertilizers I talk about, for
example, Microlife. They have an excellent selection of Microlife products. If you
need the green bag, the sixty four for fertilizing your lawn or anything in
your yard, they've got it. If you need humates plus the Purple bag
that is concentrated compost in a bag. Do you need a liquid Microlife product.
There are a number of those too, you know. Microlife MICROLFE has
a wide range of things. Things that are based on fish emulsion, things
that are based on seaweed, things that are fertilizers, like the orange label
liquid that I like to use on indoor plants. It's a seven percent nitrogen
one percent posters. I think it's three or four three percent four percent potassium.
Excellent product, works really well. You can mix it up and use
it on your plants. Go to Buchanus Plants and find them. Microlife is
available all over. You don't have to drive from Galveston to get to Microlife
products, but just widely available. You can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com
check out all the different products that they have online. I think you'll be
very impressed. And I've tried a number of their products. I'm still working
my way through because I have so many of them. But every time I've
used a micro Life product, I've had good results, good success. Let's
go. Now we're gonna head to else here in Houston. Talk to Kevin.
Hello, Kevin, Hey, good morning. How are you doing.
I'm good sir. How can we help today? So my Saint Augustine grass
is started to turn like a light green color and like the root runners,
the runners, you know, they weren't really rooting into the grass anymore.
And I did a little research and here's what I think they call it,
like take out root rot or take all root rot. Okay, all right,
So any Kevin, what part of Houston are you in? Garden Oaks
kind of more inside town downtown clothes? Is that right? Correct? Okay,
yeah, it's like, oh, okay, well, it'd be easy
for you to get to me today. I'm going to be at Langham Creek
Ace Hardware, which is out in the Copperfield area just south. It's south
of Cypress on Barker, Cypress and H. Spencer five twenty nine, northwest
Houston. If you will take a plug of your grass about four inches wide,
maybe four by six inches. Let's say, go down. I use
a butcher knife, just cut out a little square and uh I use I
use my wife's butcher knife, but I clean it and get it back quickly
so she doesn't know. Just a little tip from one guy to another.
Slip it right into a ziplock bag and zip it up. And if you'll
bring it to me. I'll do a free diagnosis on it and make sure
we are dealing with take a root rot. You know, I'd hate to
say, well go spray this on it when I'm not sure what the disease
is. There are things that work on take All, but you gotta,
you know, you to know you have it. So do you do you
think you might be able to get out eleven thirty to one thirty today to
do that. If not, we I've actually headed down the yeah right now,
all right, well that sounds fun. All right, Well, if
you can find a if you think that's what you have, go to my
schedule online at Skiperchter dot com get the lawn pest Disease and weed management schedule
and thunder diseases at take All, and there's a list of all your herbicide
or funge a side options for controlling that disease. I would recommend that you
look at those and follow that schedule. It's not take All spray time,
but if you've got a significant amount of it, I would go ahead and
spray them anyway now and then fall is going to be the most important application
time for you. In October? Okay, all right, and what's the
website again? Gardening with Skip dot com? Right, okay, thank you,
all right, Ben, you take care. Hey, it's time take
a Break's time for the news. We'll be right back, Mike and Andy.
We'll get to you when we come back, but today, thank you
for listening. We're always happy to have you here as a listener. I
am going to head straight out to friends Wood and talk to Andy. Hello,
Andy, Hey, Skip, how are you this morning? Well,
sir, how can we help? Thank you? Well, I'm a longtime
serial listener and a schedule follower. I got a problem with some Saint Augustine
in the front yard. Okay, I've got a patch Skip that late in
the winter got overtaken. Basically, this broad area got overtaken by dollar weed
and I didn't get around to treating it. I figured, well, we're
going to mow and Saint Augustine will take over. It's about a ten foot
diameter patch that the Saint Augustine is not thriving. There's runners going across it.
Obviously, I still got dollar weed in it, which signals a problem.
I'm self medicated with leaf compost, mulch, microlife humates. I've treated
for grubs, it's been fertilized and the water's addicted. I'm out options here
needs your advice. Okay. So bottom line is your your lunch thin and
you need to get it to grow back in. Yeah, in a particular
area. I'm certain it's soil related. Okay. Well, the first thing
I would do is do a soil test. Just take a sample from about
five or six or more different spots throughout that area. Just that way.
You know, like if it was a spot where let's say the dog stopped
and pooped last year, you'd have a very inaccurate soil test reading if you
just took one little sample from one spot. So that's why we take a
whole bunch of them and mix them together, and then it takes about a
pint of soil that you send to the lab. The website is easy.
It's soil Test one word sol testing dot t A, m U, dot
E d U. So that's soil testing dot texas A and M University dot
Educate education ed U. Uh. And if you go there, there's a
farm uh to do you want to use the urban soil test form and let's
look and see what your nutrient levels are. Maybe something's really out of whack.
Maybe the pH is really out of I don't know, but that the
only thing I thought about. The only thing I thought about is about ten
years ago we had a tree removed m hm uh, and we round the
stump and and after you know, after the it settled in. We didn't
have any problems. But that's the only thing I can It's the exact same
area. Okay, So I think something's going on with that, you know,
years later. But that's a good idea. Tell me, tell me
again what happened years ago. I missed that we lost a tree, okay,
and we took it out, and we had the stump ground you know
basically blow dirt level okay uh, and new grass grew over the top of
We did have any problems, But this area is the exact area where that
tree was. Okay, Well you know it could be that that was years
ago. Though there shouldn't be a problem with the wood chips and the soil
now from years ago. But let me let me just here. Here's what
I would recommend is doing this old test just to check that, but getting
getting some aeration done. If it's not a big enough area to hire somebody
to come out or rent an equipment to do it yourself. If you're a
do it yourself, or then at least take you know, like a spading
fork and go straight down in the soil and then wiggle it a little bit
to kind of wiggle out a hole and then come up and go do it
again, and do that as close together and as much as you can through
that area, and then top dress it with some leaf more composts, which
you can buy by the bag. You're out there, you know, in
the Friends with area, So you're going to have a hardware stores that you
may find that carry it out in your area. There's a lot of places
you can get those kind of products. But I would do that, and
then always if you haven't fertilized, then a little fertilization in that area just
to stimulate the growth with a good terf fertilizer. That would kind of be
the full package, along with watering enough to get it to stay moist so
it can fill in a little faster. All right, it's time for my
midsummer fertilization anyway. So okay, all right, that's I'm gonna try the
aeration and I'll do the soil test. That's interesting. Yeah, so maybe
it's a little compaction, maybe not. But anytime you open up oxygen into
the soil and provide some organic matter, decomposed organic matter like the fungal leaf
mold compost on top, it stimulates the grass, it helps, and it
makes the root system more extensive and more effective. And that is what's going
to be, along with sunlight, the key to getting that grass to grow
back in. All right, Thank you, sir, Good luck with that.
Thank you, Indy. I appreciate, appreciate your call very much.
You know, he's talking about taking out a tree, affordable tree service,
Martin Spoon Moore. You hear me talk about Martin all the time. Martin's
been doing lon trees around this area for a very long time. I mean,
his experience is extensive. He knows what he's doing. He does a
good job, and he'll come out. It costs about one hundred and fifty
bucks have him come out and look at the situation. He'll assess it and
then any work that needs to be done that one fifty You've already paid one
hundred and fifty dollars towards the work that you will actually have done. Do
you need pruning done, Do you need trees to be trained young trees,
planting pruning? Do you have issues with the roots on the surface. Do
you need deep root feeding or for a water There's just whatever you need,
Martin can do it. But the big thing right now is we're in storm
season. We're in a hurricane season, and it doesn't take a hurricane,
by the way, as we learned a few weeks ago, to cause major
tree problems. Let Martin look at those trees, make sure that they're prune
in a way that's going to give them the best chance possible to survive through
the storms. Afftree Service dot com. AFF stands for Affordable aff Tree Service
dot com. Or call him seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty
three. That's seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three Affordable Tree
Service. We're going to head out now to Montgomery and talk to Clay.
Hello, Clay, Hey, how's it going. I'm well, thanks?
How can I help? Yeah, I've got a weed. It's in my
yard for oh gosh, I don't know how long I've been trying to get
it out. Uh, and I can't seem to get it out and I
sent you some pictures of it yesterday. Yes, sir, I've looked at
those, and I just want to congratulate you that you did pick one of
the most difficult weeds to manage, so a lot of people have to do.
That's called Virginia button weed. Virginia button weed is a perennial weed and
it crawls through the grass. And you know how I always talk about create
a dense, healthy lawn to choke out most weed problems. The reason I
happen to say most and not all is because of weeds like Virginia buttonweed and
dollar weed that are going to survive in a well dense, well mode,
well fertilized lawn. Virginia button weed loves wet areas, so it proliferates faster
when you have a lot of soil moisture. So if you're over irrigating,
back off that you can't control rainfall. But sometimes areas are poorly drained,
and even improving the drainage in that area will help keep kind of suppressed the
Virginia button weed. But you're gonna have to spray. And the best product
for Virginia button weed by far is one called Celsius like the temperature Celsius.
You can buy Celsius a lot of different places. You know you were in
the Montgomery area, so I would. I can give them a call out
there at A and A Plants and Produce. They may carry it. I
haven't looked for it in there before, but they may carry it. If
not, I bet they can get it for you. But anyway, Celsius
is also one that we don't worry as much about when it's hot. Still
spray it in the morning, but a lot of these other products will hurt
your lawn when it's hot. That's why I like Celsius, plus the fact
that it's the best one you can use. Follow the label, be ready
to do it again six to eight weeks later. This is a tough weed,
but Celsius is excellent. Okay, okay, thank you all. I
appreciate it. You bet we're going to take a little break for again here,
Hurta. When we come back, you will be our first up.
Oh my gosh, I hate to cut in on journey here. We should
just let me shut up and listen to music, but we got a show
to do here, garden Line. Listen to those of you up in the
Tomboldt area. You got a hometown feed store out on the west side of
Tomball called D and D Feed. And I don't know if you've been there
lately, you need to go. If you haven't. D and D has
an excellent supply of everything I talk about. Of course, they're a feed
store. You're gonna get feed. You're going to get super quality pet feed
as well in there. But when it comes to fertilizers, if I talk
about it on guarden Line, they've got it at D and DE Feed.
Same thing with soils. You hear me talk about soils like maybe an heirloom
blend or something. They've got those at D and DE Feed, for example.
On the fertilizers and nutrients, excellent selection of all the Medina products.
You know, the soil activator, the Medina plus the Medina has to grow
for lawn. There has to grow for lawn. Is the eight excuse me,
twelve four eight. It's a three one two ratio a fertilizer, excellent
product, hooks up to garden hose, easy to use. Go buy D
and D and get it. I mean, whatever kind of fertilizer you're going
to buy that I've talked about here need some plants that they've got those as
well. D and D Feed is stocked up and ready easy to get to.
Twenty nine to twenty west of Tumbull. You gonna give them a call.
Two eight one three five one seventy one forty four two eight one three
five one seventy one forty four. D and D Feed your hometown feed store
out there on the west side of tumble. We're going to head up to
Spring Branch now and talk to Herta. Well, Herta, good morning.
How are you doing. I'm doing well, man, Thank you good My
questions about my cheffalera. It was kind of injured in the big storm when
they came with their big tractors and took my cut my trees that needed cutting.
Okay, but anyway, I put it in this structure so I could
stand the branches up again. But uh, warm little twig of it.
It has about five leaves they turned yellow. Okay. Now, I put
asimi on there, just a handful sprinkled and I watered in with rainwater.
Okay, what else can I do to help it? Oh? It has
poison ivy growing at the bottom. Also, Oh my gosh, yeah,
around it big chefflearra that you've got, uh it is it's almost four feet
tall. Okay, Well, the poison ivy around it. The way to
deal with that is not easy. But you got to get some type of
a sponge type applicator that you can put a product on and squeeze the poison
ivy leaves to put that product on the leaves, because if you get any
let's say, I would use something containing trichlope here and I'll spell that in
just a moment, but if you get that on your chefflara, it'll kill
it. And so rather than spray it, I use you know what I've
used before too, and this may be doable for you is those big old
sheep like barbecue tongs but not the nice ones. Just something that's just that,
you know, metal tongues that are very inexpensive, and you attach a
sponge to each on the inside of each side of that and you can wet
that sponge and then you reach under there and with that tongue just squeeze those
leaves and do it several of the leaves, and that way it doesn't hurt
your plants, but it moves down in poison iety. Well, suppose I
put rubber gloves on and pull it out. Well, you can try.
You may not get it all, but be extra careful because you don't want
to grab it and have it get on your forearms or something. You gotta
be careful. I put it in a bag. Even dry poison ivy has
got that oil on it. So if you want to go that route,
that's fine. I have done something like that before. Just know that that
oil is now in the rubb gloves, so be careful when you take them
off that you don't you know, grab a glove, yes, yeah,
okay, I might even just throw them. Boy. The other thing I
thought maybe I can take a long pair of channel lock friars to pull it
with. With you gloves on, you wouldn't need channel lot but yeah,
I don't know. There's different ways to get under there and do it.
Whatever works for you. Just be safe because okay, all right, Well,
thank you very much, Thank you her, thank you for being there.
I appreciate you. Hey, you're over in the Neck of the Woods.
I'm going to be in today at the Langham Creek Ace Hardware. If
you aren't doing anything between eleven thirty and one thirty. Come out and see
me. Okay, Langham Creek Hardware, Langham Creek Ace Hardware. It's in
northwest Houston where Barker Cypress and FM five twenty nine come together. They call
the neighborhood copperfield around there. Oh oh, I'm familiar with it. Just
think a copper field. But it's if you're on Barker Cyprus, you'll you'll
go pretty close to five twenty nine. You'll find them. But anyway,
if you make it, come on out, we'll look. Look, we'll
be giving away some stuff to happen. Thank you, thank you you did
you know when it comes to success in your plants, I always say brown
stuff before green stuff. What does that mean? That means the foundation of
success in gardening comes by building the soil. You wouldn't put a house on
the ground without a foundation under it. Not if you want to last well,
if you want success with plants. Cienamultch down south Houston, those of
you down in that area near Row Sharon, just north of Roach Sharon,
really a highway six and two eighty eight. They're actually on FM five twenty
one. But Ciena Maultch has got the Mulchus. It's got the soil blends.
You know, we talk about the heirloom soils, veggie and urb mix.
They've got that. At Ciena Maltch. Everything they carry super high quality
and when you get there you'll see it. When you take it out of
the bag, you'll see what we're talking about here. If you have a
bulk delivery, they'll do a delivery within twenty miles of Ciena Maltch down there.
Just give them a call, stop by. Here's the website. This
is how you find out everything you need to know from the phone number to
the location Sienna Multch dot com. And while you're there taking care of your
brown stuff. They have every fertilizer I talk about on garden Line everyone.
So it's the way to get everything ready so you can have success with your
plans. And the folks at Ciana Maltz will treat you right to very friendly,
very helpful, just a pleasure to be around. Speaking of pleasure,
I like going out to Nelson Watergarden and Nursery. Nelson Watergarden is out there,
and let's think of it this way, it's your West Houston Garden Center.
They're in Katie, so if you go out ten to Katie, get
to Katie Fort Ben Road, turn north, they're just a hop skipping or
jump up there on the right hand side. They have got unbelievable nursery.
Really, I'm always amazed at the plants that they carry because they have a
lot, a lot of stuff. And when it comes to water gardens.
Oh, I just posted something to our Gardenline Facebook page the other day,
which, by the way, you ought to follow that we have a lot
of good stuff we put up there, but just the sound of water.
Take some friends go out to Nelson Nursery and water Gardens. Check out the
nursery, but just allow yourself some time to sit out there and enjoy the
sound of the water. That is so therapeutic. And they do that better
than just to put anybody I know when it in fact, Nelson Water Garden
and Nursery is better than anybody I know here in the Texas area. They're
even nationally known. They've been a leader for a long time. Well,
the music means I quit talking. It's time for the top of the arrow
break. We will be back though you're listening to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richtor. Thanks for listening. Just another reminder. I'll be
at Ace Hardware, the Langham Creek Ace Hardware, Northwest Houston. I hope
you'll come out. It's over kind of where the neighborhood called Copperfield is Barker
Cypress Road, south of the Berry Center. Am I making it easier to
get to Highway five twenty nine, which is FM Spencer Road out there,
easy to find Langham Creek. We're going to be given away. We got
reps from Microlife and from Nitrofoss giving away fertilizers out there every thirty minutes.
Bring me samples in bags. Let's identify things. You got a turf sample.
Here's what you do. You need to take a four by four or
four by six plug of turf, slip it in a zip lock bag from
the area between healthy and dead. I can diagnose, but I can't do
autopsies. It's on this program. Welcome to kt r H garden Line with
Skip Rictor it's Trim. Just watch him as welcome back, Welcome back to
guarden Line. Good to have you with us. You are listening to garden
Line. I'm your host's Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions.
That's what we do. We turn brown thumbs green at least that's our
goal. So uh, give us a call seven one three two one two
K t R H. And that will do the trick. We'll have you
on here. We'll answer your questions. What are you wondering about? Launch,
trees, vegetables, flowers, house all all is fair game long as
it's plants. We don't do marriage advice, but we do we do help
you with plants. Oh, I guess we could say plant advice is free.
Marriage advice is three hundred dollars an hour, and you probably wouldn't want
take it anyway. But joking aside, we love to talk to you here
on garden Line and find out what your questions are. I guarantee you this.
I've learned this over thirty five years of doing this. If you have
a question, there are a lot of other people that have the same question.
It's just how things go through the seasons. Someone was asking me the
other day about various kinds of products, and it just kind of got me
thinking. There are always new products coming on the scene. Sometimes they're good,
sometimes they're not good. Sometimes they're just a gimmick. But sometimes they're
very effective. Medina. They're one of their most recent editions, if not
the most is super grow Plus. It's one of the hash to grow line
of products from Medina. Super Grow Plus. It's a sixteen ze z to
fertilizer, but it's more than the fertilizer. It hooks up to a garden
hose, covers about four thousand square feet, so ten minutes you can do
your whole lawn. It has, of course that sixteen percent nitrogen, about
a fifth of the sixteen percent is slow release in it. It also has
a kelated iron form in it, so that yellowing of your grass that typically
is an iron efficiency symptom, and Medina has to Grow has got you covered
on that. With the super grow Plus. You're also going to find molasses
in it which stimulates microbial activity in the soil, Humic acid in it,
which is another beneficial thing for the roots and the soil zone of the plant.
So it just makes it really easy to use. Oh, seaweed extractor,
forgot to tell you about that one. And this is quite the concoction.
Supergrow Plus from a Dina widely available here in the Greater Houston area,
and I would encourage you to give it a try. Hook cap that quirt
bottle and try it out on your lawn. By the way, it's not
just lawns. I've seen people use it on their vegetable garden and it does
pretty good for that as well. It's some awesome tomatoes as a result.
Let's go out to Jersey Village. We're going to talk to George now.
Hello, George, Hey, Skip, how're they're going with you? I'm
well, sir, how can we help today? My blueberry plant said the
leaves are turning brown on them, and I read work said that that.
He said more of an acidic soil. So I tried pouring some some the
rose fertilizer or some zatia fertilizer. Didn't seem to make any difference, and
so I thought I would test it with this handheld meter that's supposed to check
the pH factor, and it doesn't. It always says seven no matter what
I do. So meters are not always that accurate, but go ahead.
So there's eight hardware cellos where you're going to be today? Do you know
the meters? Yeah? You know, I haven't. I was at Lingham
Creek a while back, but I didn't happen to look for that, so
I can't tell you for sure. I can tell you this though. If
your blueberries are turning brown, that's almost certainly not a pH problem. If
the new growth on your blueberries is turning yellow or is coming out yellow and
not developing a good green color on the new shoots at the ends, that's
an iron problem that could be related to phs as well. If they're turning
brown, something is killing roots, and it could come from temporary drought,
It could come from physical damage to the roots. It could come from soggy
oversaturated soil. Roots can't get oxygen and they die. But the browning.
The only other thing that would cause browning is if you put a whole lot
of as salt based fertilizer on and you burned roots with it. But it
would take up a big over application to cause that. Okay, so what
should I do? Well, how's your watering been? Are you giving it
a how often do you water? You know, tell me a little bit,
very often, once a week something like that. Okay. Well,
and how long have these been in the ground, Oh, three months something
like that. Okay, they still have somewhat of a limited root system.
I would water this twice a week, and I would apply it to the
entire area around the plant. If you've got an autoratic sprinkler that comes on
sometimes something amat. Oh it's you hand water? Yes, okay, good,
that's that's actually better, so give it a good soaking. What you'll
find, you know, when I hand water, I've sat there and watered
until there was puddles and it was running off. And then I come back
a little bit later and I dig down and I only wet the soil about
an inch deep because it takes time for it to soak in. So when
you're water, depending on the soil type you have, you may need to
water for a little bit, go to another area and water something else,
come back again. I've got some areas in my garden that I water three
times like that, just to get a good soaking down in the soil.
My guest, George is the soil is not wet enough for them. Having
said that, we don't want it soggy wet. But when you get through
watering, you ought to be able to dig down about three or four inches
and feel good moisture in the soil at that depth. All right, Let
me try that. I think that's my best guess on it. You're gonna
be up there in Jersey Village. I'll be at the Langham Creek Ace Hardware
over in the Copperfield area, which isn't far from you, right around the
corner. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. If you want
to stop by, bring me some pictures of the blueberries or anything. I'll
be happy to look at it. And also we're going to be giving away
some fertilizers and maybe I can direct you to a couple of products. You're
going to want to go acidic on everything you do on those blueberries, and
so there are some quality products by our fertilizer folks that can help with that
as well. All Right, i'll see you ladies, got a chance,
all right, look forward to it. Thanks, Thanks, good luck with
that. Yeah, I think that watering is probably gonna be the best thing
I can suggest. You know, we talk about fertilizing your lawn, and
you hear me also talk about azamite, and some people get confused. It's
like, well I fertilized, do I need to use azimite? And the
enters yes. Generally speaking, Azimite is a trace mineral supplement that we put
in the soil to build the bank account of all those obscure little trace minerals
that although they're only needed in tiny amounts, they are essential for plant growth
and you can put them on your Put azamite on your lawn. I would
say about once a year is usually adequate. You can do a soul test
to see if you need to do it more often or if you're good to
go with as it is, but ASMI quality product. You can go to
Azmite Texas dot com. You're gonna find azamite most of the garden centers I
talk about, if not all the feed stores, the Southwest fertilizer ace hardware
stores. Azmite is widely available and that is what we use it for to
get the bank account of micronutrient. It's trace minerals to a level where they're
always available in good quantity for the plants that are off from It's time for
me to take a little break. Our phone number is seven to one three
two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k
t r H. I'll be right back. Welcome back to guard Line.
Good to have you with us today. We do feel life today and look
outside it is beautiful, little breeze, clear skies. Oh my goodness,
now's the time to be listening to guard Line with that phone in your pocket
while you're out in the garden. This is a good time to get that
done. By the way. Uh. We we talk about birds a lot,
and I have continued to build stuff into my landscape for birds. I'm
planting plants for birds, things that attract hummingbirds for example. Uh, the
feeders that I have out there. My stuff comes from all Birds Unlimited.
I love wild Birds Unlimited. They're six stores in the Houston area. Yeah.
Just if you hear nothing else, write this down WBU dot com Forward
slash Houston, WBUS and Wilbirds Unlimited dot Com Forward slash Houston. No matter
what you need, they've got it. You're gonna go on vacation this summer.
Get one of their seed cylinders. It's like one of those big candles
that you see. They're shape like that. They're round and flat topped.
It's squeezed together seeds and products that birds love. But they're so tightly packed
the birds have to stay a little longer to get a bite, So you
get to enjoy watching them from the feeder. They don't just grab a seed
and run away or fly away. These seed cylinders are excellent and if you're
gonna go on vacation, it's a great way. They'll be seed there all
the time you're gone. The birds are being taken care of. I just
put up a bird bath a little actually it's a little fountain, but it's
the birds enjoy it. They get in there and do that. They love
that sound. And let me tell you, you cannot believe the change in
I put up some new feeders and this bird bath that has a splash of
water sound, and the number of birds we have in our landscape is like
fourfold what it was before. At grab some wildbirds. Nesting super Blend that
is an excellent product. We are still in nesting season and birds are going
to be molting here where they shed their feathers and get new feathers. And
when they're in that situation, they don't fly all over the place so much.
They kind of tend to hang out a little bit. Nesting super Blend
excellent for that as well. Wabirds Unlimited quality feeds. Quality products turn your
backyard into just a pleasureful sanctuary, the sound of water, the sound of
birds, the ant watching birds and their antics. And you know birds are
eating bugs for you too. Most birds are feeding on insects as well.
Wabirds Unlimited, WBU dot Com, Forward Slash Houston. You got to check
those out. We're going to go now to Dickinson and talk to Karen.
Hello, Karen, Oh hey, Karen, can you hear me? All
right? I can. I've got a question with my fruit trees. They're
about three feet maybe four feet high, and we get ant cinema, and
so we've been putting ant killer around and trying to get to get rid of
the ants and stuff. But doesn't I get into the fruit the poisonous stuff.
I mean, how do you deal with fire ants and around your fruit
trees and stuff? Okay, well, if it's fire ants, you do
need to use a bait, and you scatter it according to the label.
And the reason I like baits. You don't take a spoonful and dump it
on a mound. You put it everywhere because antswer foraging everywhere. For example,
Andro is just one example of a number of good fire baits. But
Andro can be applied at a rate of one pound per acre. That's a
granule here, a granule there. It's very scattered out. And when you
do that, no matter where the ant colonies are, they're going to have
foragers and you're gonna suppress greatly the ends on your property. If any escape
that bait treatment, you can do individual mound treatments, But to just do
the mound treatments is to play whackam mole. A mountain pops up, you
treat it, you kill it. Another mount pops up, you treat it,
and you kill it. It's playing wack a mole with fire ants.
So use the baits around your fruit trees for fireant. I got you,
I got you. I have one other question. If you don't line,
you probably talked about it earlier, but uh, you know it's high as
to getting this stuff in your grass and stuff. You know, I've got
a real large lawn and stuff, and I worry it's going to dry on
stuff. And I don't know if it's a time of fertilize right now or
put some on it. Now's a good time to fertilize if you've not fertilized
since, let's say earlier in the spring. Now's the time to put your
summer fertilizations down. Karen, you want to make sure and follow the label
as to how much you apply. But if you put down a slow release,
choose a product that is slow release and that will feed your lawn all
the way up until it's the fall time. But you need to write down
my website because all of the instructions, the charts that take you from January
through December in your lawn are on the website. They're free. It's gardening
with Skip dot com. Yeah, all right, I appreciate it. Yeah,
go to Gardening with Skip and I'll tell you the price. If you
want to do it synthetic, if you can do it organic, it's all
at Gardening Withiskip dot com. Both options. Okay, all right, thank
you so much. Thank you appreciate your call. We're going to go now
to Mike. Hello. Mike Hello, A question for you, actually two
questions. Is it possible to over apply barricade and the amami? I'm not
saying it right, but I know I put it down following your schedules,
So is it possible to over apply those? You have a weed question.
It is possible to over apply almost anything that we use insecticide, fungicide,
herbicide, weed control, all of that. The thing with you ask about
azamite specifically, So those are micronutrients, you know, and if you over
applied to a point where let's say your iron was through the roof way too
much iron, it affects the uptake of other positively charged nutrients. Iron is
a positively charged nutrient, and so too much phosphorus, which is not in
azamite. Too much phosphorus causes iron that's in the soil to become unavailable,
and so it yes, that'll you know, you always have to follow the
label. I recommend a soil test as the best way to know exactly what
your lawn needs. I give you, I give out you know, the
general recommendations here all the time. In specifics. It is possible that an
individual's yard would have too much of something that we didn't expect. That's not
normal in a lawn, and that's why a soil test helps you make sure
you're fertilizing what's best for your lawn. But in the meantime, following the
schedule is the best way to go. Okay, all right, so it's
yeah, that's good. I'm eighty percent ahead on the weed game. But
I've got this one particular weed, for lack of a better term, it's
it's a it's a knot smaller than your fist when you dig one up.
When you dig it up, but the blades come out like they look like
big blades of grass, but they're skinny, and sometimes they grow a foot
two foot tall. And there's just these little clumps coming up out of my
uh, out of my lawn. And I've put a couple of different weed
killers out there, and nothing really seems to work on it. I don't
even know what you can. Yeah, that's not ringing a bell, mike.
What part of Houston are you in or the area? Uh? Si
fair? Oh my gosh, could you dig one up and bring it today?
I'm going to be I'm going to be in the Copperfield neighborhood today,
Yeah, Copperfield. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty at Langham
Creek Ace Hardware, which is by Copperfield. You know that's close to you,
where it is to you. If you'll if you can't dig it up,
then bring me the cutover. You can dig them up. I did
a bunch yesterday. Well bring it already, dug up? All right,
good, bring me let me look at those because right now my brain is
not picturing what you're talking about. But if I look at it, I
can tell you what it is and tell you what to do. And they're
going to have the product, whatever, the whatever is needed to kill it,
They're gonna have it there at the ACE Hardware stores. Okay, and
what time? What time will you be there starting eleven thirty to one thirty
today eleven thirty, ok. Yeah, I'll get out there. And for
anybody listening, eleven thirty one thirty today, you can bring me samples of
whatever you got to identify or to diagnose or whatever we need. Hey,
Mike, thank you for the call. I appreciate good questions. Sure bye
bye bye bye. Yeah for sure. Listen, folks, there is an
adage out there in people's minds that if a teaspoon's good, a tablespoon's better.
And that's true when it comes to a fungicide you bought, an insecticide,
you bought, a weed killer, you bought, a fertilizer you bought,
and it is untrue that if a teaspoon's good at tablespoons better. These
products have labels to tell you how much to put out there, and when
you don't follow that, you will cause problems. Weed control products that are
fairly safe to use in your lawn will hurt your lawn if you don't apply
them at the right rate. Think about this. If you're a company selling
a weed control product, or selling a fertilizer, or selling an insect side,
wouldn't you want people to use as much of your product as possible because
that's going to make you more money. Right, So, if it says
on the label, use a teaspoon, don't put down a tablespoon, because
a teaspoon is enough to do whatever it is you're wanting to do with that
product. If it wasn't, they would tell you a tablespoon because they're going
to sell more product. Follow the label. The label not only is the
label of the law, but the label is common sense. And you know
it just the call. You know we were just talking about with Mike.
You know, the asmid is an example, and I use nutrients as an
example of that. Iron is a good thing. Too much iron is not
a good thing, zinc is a good thing. Too much sink is not
a good nitrogen is a good thing. You overdo the nitrogen in your lawn,
you're going to get faster growth, have to mow, mow more,
water more, and you're going to end up with a smaller root system,
believe it or not, an over fertilized with nitrogen lawn. That's why say
slow release in the summer, because you can put out enough that will release
all the way out until the fall and you get the right amount a little
bit at a time. It's the way to go about it. It's the
way. If a teaspoon is good, apply a teaspoon. A tablespoon is
not better. And you can get into problems on all these products, and
it just kind of got me thinking about that. There. That's I guess
your tip of the day. We're going to take a little break here.
It is time for the news. I see a lot of folks out there
that are hanging on. Hang on. I'll get to you. Raphael,
you will be the first up when we come back, as well as Steve
in East Houston. All right, welcome back to Guardline. Good to have
you with us. Nike Foss has a product called Sweet Green. I don't
know if you've encountered it before, but it is well named. Sweet Green
is a molasses base product that's actually eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer for your lawn.
It dissolves away, of course, the sugary substance of molasses. That reason.
Organic gardeners use molasses because stimulates biological activity in the soil. Bacteria.
Beneficial bacteria really love it. Sweet Green is easy to apply, smells wonderful
you carried around. I jokingly say when you put sweet Green in the back
of the car, you want to make an extra loop around town before you
go home. Just enjoy it the smell. But it is a very effective
product. It'll give you a quick release, and so if you're going to
use it in summer, don't overdo it. Just apply some now and then
about six weeks later, apply again, or eight weeks later, apply it
again and get another little dose of it out there and you can kind of
gradually feed your lawn over time. It works really well. You're gonna find
sweet Green an enchanted forest and in the Richmond Rosenberg area if you're up in
Willis, grows out like carries it. RCW Nursery which is Tomboldt Parkway Highway
two forty nine where it comes into beout Way eight. RCW carries Sweet Green,
as well as do many other places easy to find here in the Greater
Houston area. We're going to go now to Raphael out of Montgomery. Hey.
Raphael, Hey, how are you doing this morning? I'm well,
sir, thank you. Okay. My question is I've got a small fig
tree that I had bought here probably about six months ago, and we put
it in the pot, and of course it was small. It's one of
these seedlings, I guess, and it was doing great. We transplanted it
about I don't know, maybe three months ago. It was doing great.
I had it out in the sun and the leaves were nice and green,
and even got some figs on it that are now, you know, getting
a little bigger. But what started happening was that the leaves started turning yellow,
then they would turn brown, and then they would fall off. Okay,
And I'm just wondering if there's something maybe I don't know, if it's
rude bound, if it needs to be put in the ground, or can
I put some type of maybe fertilizer that will help it, you know,
maintain I guess the healthy fig tree. So it's still in the container,
right, yes, Okay, So there are two things that can do that.
There is a disease called rust that affects figs normally. It becomes more
of a problem as we get later into the season, but that will cause
some spots on the leaves, some yellowing and browning of the leaves, and
loss of foliage. It doesn't kill the tree, but it certainly takes its
food production factories the leaves off of it, which doesn't do it any good.
I think, though, Raphael, my best guess is you're probably looking
at a water problem in the soil. Figs need to have moist soil to
do their best, and in a container, the whole root system is confined,
and a container can dry out in a day depending on the size of
the tree and the size of the container, and so you may need to
water a little more often. Also check the drainage make sure if you do
a water too much that it's running out the drainage holes, that they're not
plugged up or something. That would be the other thing to watch. But
I'm thinking maybe we had a little bit of droughty conditions due to the fact
that it's confined roots and a container. Okay, do you suggest maybe putting
it into the ground keep it in moist or yeah, figs will be much
happier in the ground. Yes, sir, you're correct about that, because
they can spread that root system out, they can get established, and then
they are very resilient once they have had, you know, a year or
so to spread that root system out and really get established. Well, okay,
good, I'll definitely do that. I've got another question. I want
to hit and I had two apple trees that I bought here probably about four
months ago, and I planted them and I want to hit it in water
and they're doing great, They've got new leaves that are coming up. But
I want to hit and put this sparked molt around it. How much mulch
do I need to keep, I guess on top of those trees to keep
everything moist. Yeah, So the answer is enough to effectively block out the
sunlight. So if your mulch was real, big, chunky woody things,
then you know you have to put a little thicker because there's a lot of
space in there for sun to shine through. If it's a finer textured mult
not as much. In general, about three inches should be good. And
the wider you mulch around them, the better those trees are going to do.
So if you can at least get it out as far as the branch
spread, but it is even better if you can go a little further inches
to always keep a mulch down to keep the weeds away, keep the sill
temperature cooner, holding extra moisture, you know, and so on. All
right, okay, well, thank you very much for the info. Good
luck with that. You take care. I appreciate the call. We're gonna
go out to East Houston and talk to Steve. Hello, Steve, Hi,
good morning. Any suggestion on leaf mold, compost, additions, additives
and such. Yeah, leaf will compost for a lawn we're talking about,
or a garden or what. Uh? Yeah, I just I just have
exclusively leaves and then I just layer on dirt and then a layer of leaves
and so forth. Okay, okay, so you're making it yourself, is
what you're telling me, right? Yes? Okay, yes, So whenever
you decompose leaves, as they decompose, they turn chocolatey brown and they become
very crumbly. You can tell their leaves. But they're decomposing to a point
where they just fall apart, and that we often refer to that as like
leaf mold. It's a compost, but it's not all the way composted,
but it's it's it's well composted, but still there's you can kind of tell
it it was made from leaves. And if you can get your compost to
that level and then spread it out, that would be the true leaf mold
compost area. Now you can put whole leaves on the ground uncompost it as
a mulch. But if you want to get the benefits of the nutrient release,
the biological activity, increase and stuff, that would be leaf mold compost.
And you can make it yourself. Yeah, hard to make enough of
it, but you can make it yourself, okay. And would I add
anything to it other than just the dirt and then the water too for the
Yeah. So when you're putting out compost, if you put about an inch
down and mix it into the soil as deep as is practical to do,
you know, which is probably gonna be about four to six inches. If
you mix it in about an inch deep, that's probably about enough. And
most soils if it's a really heavy clay. You might need a little more
than that. You don't need to add other things to it as far as
what it needs. But the leaf mold compost will vibe nutrients but also be
ready to still fertilize depending on the plant you're growing and what its fertilizer needs.
Are okay, all right, thank you, Yeah, you bet,
Thanks for the call. Appreciate appreciate you calling very much. We're going to
go now to the galleria and talk to Forest. Hello, Forest, Hey,
good morning to get I've got a pretty serious investation of mealy bugs on
my lacey verbina okay, and I'm wondering if you could tell me the most
effective chemical to hit them with. Anything that is going to be systemic within
the plant will be helpful. There's different products that will move into the plant.
Because the meai bugs are sucking the juices out of the plant, it's
hard to get pesticides on them. They got that melely protective coating, and
it's hard to get a pesticide on the bug itself. But if you get
it in the and on the plant and it soaks in or in the soil
and it's taken up so something like acephate would be a systemic that will move
into the plant, something like oh gosh, I just emit. A cloprid
is an ingredient that is used as a systemic to be taken up by the
plant. Either way, you can get in there and as the media bugs
drink the sap, they're going to get the poison. Well, it's that
simple. The only reminder is verbena flowers and anything that likes to come to
those flowers. When you have a systemic, there's potential for that product to
be in the in the nectar as well. So you know, getting ahead
of the meada bugs is job one. You might cut some flowers off in
the meantime just to get the plants through that and then then let them flower
themselves. But media bugs are hard to control, as you probably know.
That is the approach I would take to them. Okay, the second,
the second chemical you mentioned, amid a cloak bred. Yeah, amid a
cloaprid is in a lot of products for grub control and lawns, for scale
control in trees and other things. It's I am I it's spilled just like
it sounds. Emid dough clo prid C l O p R. I D
A meadow CLO Prid. And if you go to you know, go to
an ACE hardware store in your area. You're out there and here in the
gallery area, and there's going a lot of people will carry these kinds of
products. But I would try and I always thought that Southwest Fertilizer I'm assuming
they would have these products. Absolutely, they're gonna have tons of products like
that. And you can tell them you got meelely bugs and they'll point you
to what they have. Okay, all right for us, thanks a lot,
Hey, folks, I got to take a quick break here. Norm
Montgomery, I see you're holding. Thanks for holding this long. You will
be the first up when we come back. All right, Welcome back to
guard Line on a beautiful, beautiful Saturday morning. Great time to be out
there getting stuff done in the landscape, picking up some plants. How about
going out to Arburgate today. Have you been out to Arburgate in a while.
They're on twenty nine to twenty just west of Tumbull and oh but if
you haven't been there in no good while, you got to check out this
new parking lot in the back. There's no worry about parking out on the
road or anything like that. They got the front parking lot still, but
in back off Trashel Road, which starts before Arburgate, goes around behind Arburgate
and comes back into twenty nine twenty after Arburgate, So either way you're coming
at it Trasher Road around the back parking lot. Arburgate has got that one
two three completely easy system. What is that. That's a fertilizer for anything
with roots, an organic fertilizer or anything with the roots. It is a
compost product that contains decomposed or excuse me expanded, which helps keep a clay
open long after the compost decomposes away. And it's got also from Arburgate the
soil complete, so the compost complete, soil complete, and then the fertilizer
complete, and again in the soil is also decomposed grantite for the same reasons.
Arborgate selection of plants. I was out there the other day visiting with
Beverly about plants and what's new and what's going on and stuff, and oh
my gosh, they are loaded up and don't forget just because it's getting hot
in the summer. We got all the way until October November, when we're
thinking about fall gardening and fall flowers and things. Get something planted now.
They have a lot of plants at Arburgate that will laugh at summer weather.
That'll keep you inside in the air conditioning. Get it planted now, get
it watered in, just take good care of it, getting it established,
and you got color. And there's no reason for summer to be a sea
of green in your landscape. When you go to Arburgate and pick up dependable
full legion flowers for summer color. It's as simple as that. Today would
be an excellent day to get by there and do that. We're going to
go now to Montgomery and talk to Norm. Hello. Norm, good Laura,
and Skip. Thanks for taking my call. You easy question, easy
question. It's according to the schedule. It's time to put that fertilizer down.
I got the silver nitro fauce, but it says not to put it
down if it's ninety degrees or greater. That's kind of tough. So is
there a plan that I can use? Put it down in the morning,
and then immediately after you put it down, water and in you'll be okay,
okay, And you mentioned sweet green earlier. Should I alternate or rotate
that in to try and get a little bit more of that nutrient. Because
I've only been using the nitro foss according to that schedule, I haven't really
been doing anything else to build up the soil. Sweet Green is a nitrofoss
like the silver bag the super turf does, right. I would prefer the
silver bag super Turf because it's going to give you three plus months of feeding
gradually through the summer. Now, if you want to do something that's more
organic type product, the Sweet Green from Nitrofoss would be their product that can
do that, and it's going to be more immediately available. So just don't
overdo it. Maybe go a little lighter on the application, and then come
back in a couple of months and do it again. And that's going to
give you that It's like you're turning it into a slow release by you're the
one releasing it slowly out into your lawn. Do you see what I'm saying.
Yeah, that would just get up in the morning, get up in
the morning, and do it when it's cooler, so it has nothing to
do with the soil temperature during the middle of the day. So no,
no, it's you know, you get you get any kind of a salt
bay and this is going back to the super different. Any kind of a
salt based fertilizer product out there on a leaf, and you know, it
dissolves and it's a concentration and it can burn a leaf. But I would
not worry about doing this anytime during the summer. I need to go look
at what you're talking about on the bag and see if there's some other explanation.
But I can tell you this. You can apply it, and you
can water it in right away and you'll be fine. Don't worry about that.
Thank you, SKIP appreciate your time. Have a great day, all
right, Nor thank you. I appreciate your call very much. Let's see
here. We are going to go now to Johnny and Sugarland. Hey Johnny,
Yes, sir, how you doing it? I'm good, sir.
How are you? Thanks for taking my call. And have a couple of
questions. I'm putting a new slide down today over dirt. I know water
is the best, but is there anything else that I could do to help
it green up? And you know, take root Johnny waters number one.
I would, I would if the soil is moist to begin with. That's
hopeful. They don't have to be wet but moist. But if you're going
to apply it today, before you finish applying the side, start putting water
on what you've already applied, because crying out is the number one enemy.
That side you've got has barely got a half inch of roots on it,
and you need to keep it moist. And so I would water it in
the next week. I'd water it twice a day. That doesn't mean you
need to put no food or no feed or anything like that. Number one,
it's got the nutrients already in the side when it comes to you,
and it doesn't have the root system really, So a month from now we'll
talk about fertilizing that new lawn you got, but for the first week,
twice a day watering, for the second week, once a day watering,
and by then you ought to be able to back off to twice a week
as it gets fager and better established. But water is ninety eight percent of
what it takes to have a good lawn establishment. Okay, and I had
one other question. Okay, last week you mentioned about great myrtles that that
you like the concept of white purple red or pink cluster where they grow together.
You can do that. You can. Can you plant the root ball,
the the part that's in the container, all plos together or should you
separate them out? Well, I mean you could put them together, but
I would probably separate them apart so you have a little bit bigger area so
each can make a nice little plant on its own. Otherwise it's going to
be all a mix. But there's nothing wrong with that. This is up
to you. It's your yard. You're the king. You go with it.
However you want. What brand would you recommend that would only grow like
twelve foot tall? Because I know you said there were some that go thirty
feet, but I'm looking at something that will not go above the roof.
I'm gonna give you a quick I got to give you a quick answer because
I have to stop here. Go to gardening, Go to Google and type
in skip Richter and crate myrtle and the chart will be available that gives you
all the sizes, all the colors, everything you need to know. Okay,
sorry to have to run jot it, but yeah, crpe myrtle,
Skip Richter. That'll do it. Hey, folks, I'm going to be
at ACE Hardware. You know, ACE Hardware is all over Houston, forty
stores Ace hardware dot Com. Go to the store locator find the one near
you. When you're at ACE, you're going to find everything for summer,
from barbecue pits to those outdoor strings of lights, to fire ink control,
to mosquito repellence, to fogging machines, to just everything to make your landscape
a place you want to enjoy and hang out. Is ACE Hardware. I'll
be at the one at Langham Creek. Langham Creek. ACE Hardware's up on
Barker Cypress really close to where five point twenty nine across this Barker Cypress there
in the Copperfield area in northwest Houston. I'll either from eleven thirty to one
thirty. Bring me some samples, Let's identify things, let's diagnose things.
What kind of questions? You want to take some pictures of things in your
lawn and landscape to have them identified or diagnosed. Bring me your pictures.
Just make sure they're in sharp focus, because I need to be. You
give me a fuzzy picture, I'll give you a fuzzy answer. Neither of
us want that, so get a good picture. Come by, Just come
by and say hi, this is my last appearance of the spring. Uh
and I'll be glad to diagnose your lawn. Take a four inch by six
inch plug of soil, put it in a ziplock bag from the affected area.
I need to see sick turf not dead. Welcome to kzy r H
Garden Line with Skip Ricard. It's crazy trip. Just watch him as many
things to supposing not a sid gas sud Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back
to garden Line. We're about to enter our last hour of the day,
so we'll be back tomorrow morning six am to ten am. Every Saturday and
Sunday. By the way, if you have friends and neighbors that own a
lawn or a house plant, tell them about Garden Line. Get them in
as listeners as well. We continue to spread the word about the fact that
we've got advice here to turn your brown thumb green. And that is what
we're all about. And who knows. Every now and then we have some
fun, try to be a little bit entertaining, maybe with some strange music
that we put on or or me just I don't know, using a somewhat
weird sense of humor, at least that's what I've been told. But we
have a good time, and I hope you do too. By the way,
you know, one of my mantras on garden line, the things you
probably hear me say over and over and over again, is brown stuff before
green stuff. And the reason is, I cannot over state the importance of
having the place prepared before you plant the plant, whether you're putting out seeds
or transplants or whatever. Quality soil organic matter additions into the soil. Purchasing
a soil blend, like a blend that's designed for, for example, vegetables
and herbs if that's what you're growing, or a veget or one that's good
for flour bed, or a roast soil, a rose blend, which,
by the way, it's got rose in the name, but any kind of
a blooming shrub or a shrub in general would do well in a rose soil.
It just does. And Nature's Way resources, by the way, that's
where roast oil was invented. That's where the leaf mold composts that we talk
about a lot was invented, and many other products as well. Nature's Way
has been leading the way in soil products for a very long time. And
right now they have got two sales. Two things you need to know about.
One thirty percent off most plants. Thirty percent of most plants, but
it ends July first, So this now's the time to go ahead and make
those purchases Nature's Way. Did you know they have a lot of native plants
their Nature's Way Now, I say most because the native sun perennials are excluded
from that, but all the other kinds of plants they have, that's part
of it, including a lot of Texas natives, a lot of plants for
pollinators. They have a huge selection. Also, that's thirty percent off.
Also again it ends July first, unless they tell me otherwise. Twenty percent
off all compost, multch and soil blends. And they have anything you could
possibly need there at Nature's Way, no matter what you're growing, they've got
a blend for it. Now, you got to tell them that you heard
about it on Guardenline. So when you go or call Nature's Way Resources,
go ahead. You can go get bags of it. You can have you
can go pick up bulk, you can have them deliver bulk product. Bulk's
more economical you're purchasing a larger amount of it, but either way, twenty
percent off if you tell them you heard about it on Garden Line. Nature's
Ways summer hours Monday through Friday nine to five, Monday through on Saturday eight
am. Wait a minute, let me say that again. Monday through Friday
eight to five, Saturday eight to two. That would be to day.
You got until two o'clock to day to get by there or give them a
call, and then they're closed on Sunday. Now, Nature's Way Resources is
on the way to Conroe off forty five to the right, right where fourteen
eighty eight comes in from the left. You turn right and go into Nature's
Way. It's called Shrbooks Sure Brooks Circle. That's the street one on one
shore Brook Circle. Go to the website Nature'sway Resources dot com. You can
find out more about it there. But here's the thing. Don't delay,
because you're gonna need to prefict. You're gonna need to prepare your soul,
to fix things up to get ready for plants, even for fall planting.
Get those products now way you can get that kind of a deal. Thirty
percent off most of the plants, twenty percent off all compos molt and soil
blends up until July first, So this weekend I've sat today. Actually,
you need to make that call. You need to get that done. You're
listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richtor. Our phone number if
you would like to give us a call is seven one three two one two
KT right seven to one three two one two kt rh Now Dan Nelson folks
out at Nelson plant Food. They've been producing quality plant food for a long
time. UH, quality products. They've got several different lines. You probably
have heard of. The color Star lines, very famous for the ability to
just take a bed full of flowers and make them fluoriferous. That's the magical
word of the day, floor rifferous. They excellent for color plants, but
they have many other kinds of fertilizers. There's products for Plumeria and other tropical
plants. There's products for bougainvillia and other vining types of plants. For your
lawn. I would recommend you go ahead and get the slow and Easy now
if you haven't fertilized this summer. Slow and Easy will last four months or
more. Really out there in the landscape, it's got the exact right blend
for what turf takes up. So you're you're putting a balance of nutrients out
there in the soil. Being slow release means you're going to gradually release those
nutrients to avoid you know, burning from an over application of a salt type
fertilizer. It's going to gradually I'm talking about four months now. It's going
to feed the microbes in the soil. It's going to help push the soil
toward acidification. It's got it is an acidifying type of fertilizer. So each
time you're using it, you are bringing pH down just a little bit and
you're helping your plants out to do better and better and better. By gradually
releasing, you're cutting down on watering needs, you're cutting down on mowing needs.
Slow and Easy part of the Turf Star line by Nelson Plant Food.
You need to check it out. If you've not tried it before, summer
would be a good time to do that. We're going to head out now
to Brenham and talk to April. How about April? Bye hie? Oh
no, hi, good morning. I have a question. I have about
three acres that we mow. I'm live on some property, and I have
these in the yard. They're stickers. I don't know what they are.
They're kind of on a like a stock amostin the top of them has a
bunch of Okay, you're really bad. You walk through the grass if it
hasn't even after mowing. They stick to your shoes, bomb of your your
socks, your bomby your pantles. Whatever they are, they're terrible. Yeah,
how do I do? You know what those are and how to get
rid of them? I do, And April, I'm right on a break.
You hang on. When I come back, I'm gonna talk about how
to prevent them and uh, you know what to do when you're dealing with
them and why they become a problem. But just hang on a little bit.
I'll be right back. You are listening to garden Line seven one three
two one two k t R eight. All right, here we are back
with garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to
answer your gardening questions. Help you have a more bountiful gardener, more beautiful
landscape. We're gonna go right back to Let's see, I was talking to
April in Brenham and we were April I think the plant you were describing.
The weed you're describing called grass burr. Uh. Some type of people call
them sticker birrs, but grass birds the name uh, sandburr is another name
that they're called by. Uh. The best way to deal with that is
first step one, is this in a lawn or I think you said a
pasture, right, yeah, well yeah, but it's the lawn. Okay.
We know about three acres of okay, and it's in the park where
we live and walk in. So got you gotcha? All right? So
the best step one is to create a good dense lawn with proper mowing,
watering, and fertilizing, especially as you fertilize and as you you know,
provide water is needed. Grass burds they thrive in very poor soils where other
things are struggling, droughty soils, things like that. So getting the things
you would do to make your lawn better helps with suppressing somewhat the grassburg growth.
An important first step is to put down a pre emergent product to prevent
the grasspur seeds from coming up and growing, and that would be something called
barricade by nitrofoss. Barricade. If you're wanting barricade. If you go out
to the Ace Hardware Brenham on North Austin Parkway and Brenham, they're going to
have barricade there and so but now you've got graspers. You can't put barricade
down and kill what you have. You want to follow my schedule and if
you go to Gardening with Skip that's my website, Gardeningwithskip dot com. I
have two schedules that are free to look at online to download print up and
they tell you the products you need and you're going to see barricade on there,
but it'll tell you when to apply those because you have to put it
down before they germinate. So you're going to be putting it down in your
area in probably early to mid February. Mid February will be adequate. Actually
for grasper, mid February what it needs to get watered in by irrigation or
rainfall. And the graspers aren't able to terminate and make a plant because once
they're in, anything that would kill the grassber plant would kill the lawn grass
as well. Okay, so what do you do at this stage? There's
not a lot people do some you know, kind of strange things trying to
pick up the burs to get the birds the seeds themselves out of there.
But I've talked to people that have put burr lap down and drug it across
the lawn because the birds get caught up in it, and you can get
a bunch of the grass bur out that way. I don't know. That's
not necessarily a practical approach, but it helps a little bit. But other
than that, just mow water, fertilize and improve that grass, improve the
soil, and then be ready to do the grassburer preventative with the barricade by
nitrofoss in again about mid February, and I would repeat that again about sixty
days later, so mid February and then again, let's say in May,
mid to late May would be probably a target time to go for that second
application. Okay, all right, perfect, Thank you very much. You
bet, good luck, Thank you, appreciate the call. We're going to
go now to Willison. Talk to Jimmy. Hey, Jimmy, how you
doing Skip, I'm doing well? How are you? Okay, I'm good.
I'm wanting to know the pros and cons the grass clippings in your flower
beds. The only con would be if you treated the lawn with broad leaf
weed control products, it would be present potentially on that grass clipping, and
you'd be bringing that into the flower bed that's full of broad broad leaf desirable
plants flowers. So if you haven't done that, there are only other possible
would be stacking them too deep. I put grass clippings whenever I need to
collect them. I put them in a flower bed all the time. Normally
I return the clippings to the turf because they help the turf. But if
I put them more than about let's say I put them two inches deep or
so, and you come back a week later and it's all dry on top,
and you pull them back and you've got still plump, decomposing clippings underneath
the surface. So you don't want to get them too deep in there.
But if you put them out in small amounts over time, that's just fine.
Oh that's gonna be perfect. Then, all right, I've been I've
been hauling Bartmoll. It's all of my big old giant flower beds. I
said, I'm gonna use grass clippings. Now. Yeah, Well, the
clippings don't last as long they do. Matt down a little more, and
so you know you want good oxygen down to the soul surface. Just don't
overdo it. But I use I use it in my beds all the time.
Listen, if it's organic, it's going to decompose and build the soil.
So don't ever let grass clipping leave your property. That'd be a law.
Oh boy, here I go. There ought to be a law against
putting back grass clippings at the curb because there's too many good uses for them.
You paid money to go to those clippings buying fertilizer, So why I
send that fertilizer out to the street. That's it, brother, I appreciate,
I love you all right, thank you for letting me round just a
tiny little bit right there. We're gonna go now to Wellis again and talk
to Walter. Hello Walter, Hi, hi, as I was tuning in
in the last hour, I think you had a guy call in about ants
and his fruit trees. Yes, there used to be a product called tanglefoot.
Yes, you would paint it in a band about one to two inches
around the trunk, about a foot up from the ground, and the ants
can't get past it. Yes, there still is that product. You know,
and that way you don't have to try the impossible task killing all the
ants in your yard. Yeah. Well, and his works. His question
was, you know about fire ants, and I probably should have took a
little more time to go into it. But ants themselves, other than carpenter
ants, which will eat the wood of a tree trunk if they can get
to it, ants are not a pest of your trees, your fruit trees
or others now fire ants, you know, anything that has you know,
sugar and proteins and water. They might be interested in getting in the fruit
a little bit like they do that to Okrah, I know. But in
general, the only thing ants do is they carry aphits up on your plants,
and they answer the dairy farmers and the aphids of the dairy cows.
And that's how that works. And so the tanglefoot that you described, you're
correct about that, Walter that it's a sticky substance you painted around the tree
and the ants can't climb it. You just have to occasionally redo it because
it gets dust on it and stuff like that. Yeah. Well, we
lived in California. We had an apricot tree, and if we didn't put
tanglefoot around the trunk there would be ants and all the apricots as they got
right, Okay, well really what kind of I wonder what kind of ants
that was? Well, there was It was San Francisco Bay area, so
fire ants had not made it up there yet. It was just I don't
know, routine. Interesting Okay, interesting things, but it's annoying to be
picking fruit and they're full of ants. Yeah, I'd be curious what kind
of ant that that would be out there? Well, anyway, the tagle
foot really worked. Yeah, it does on a lot of things that would
climb up the tree. That is true. Hey, thanks for that reminder.
I appreciate the call. Appreciate that very much. We're going to go
now to sugar Land and talk to Susan. Susan pay skip quick question.
I work at a church and our preschool has a beautiful oak tree on the
on the their playground area and we put apparently pulled all we took all the
mulch out, put we block down, put rubber mulch on. We have
all these suckers coming up all over the place. And I read where you
know sometimes that happens with some types of live oak trees. But what is
a solution. They said, took groundcover underneath it to kind of and we
you know, we whack it back because there's really nothing you can do but
go to You got to dig down to the root and clip those Yeah,
and they're going to come right back. There's a product called sucker stopper that
if you spray it it kind of it's a hormone type thing that naturally suppresses
sucker regrowth. But oftentimes the live oaks are coming up, they're not coming
out of the base of the trunk like with a crpe myrtle. They're more
coming out in the soil around the tree. And so I don't know if
that would work acceptably well for you or not, but that is an Martan
sucker stopper. Yeah, putting an Asian jasmine groundcover around it. You know
when this, when the shoots come up in it, you don't really notice
them because they Asian jasmine looks a lot like the live oak suckers that are
coming up and then you see a weed eater to keep them under control.
There's just not a really good way. And you're correct that it is a
certain type of life oak that tends to do that more than others. It's
real. It's a beautiful oak tree. It's kind of short and squatty and
wide, and I mean it's a beautiful tree. But this has just happened,
like in the last maybe spider six years. We've never had this problem,
and then all of a sudden, all these things are coming up.
Yeah. Well, the more the more you disturb the soil around, like
people that go in and do to rototeller, which is nicking the roots,
causing wound on the roots, and then adding all the water that a flower
bed would get. That makes oak trees that are prone to this problem even
worse. So disturb in the soil that sucker stopper won't damage the tree.
Not at all, correct, not at all? Okay, Okay, well
I will try a little bit of that. We'll just I think Asian jasmine
is the answer. Yeah. My hesitation on the sucker stopper is, you
know, again using mertle as an example, you see where the sucker is
attaching down there, you can cut it off and then squirt that wounded spot
with sucker stopper to prevent the root growth that comes from printing any woody ornamental
bag. I don't know. Yeah, it happened when I put a root
barrier in around my crape myrtle. All of these crape myrtles started coming up
like crazy, and I assuming that's what it's trying to do, is stay
alive. Ah yeah, it could be good, well be, but good
luck with that. Thank you so much, enjoin your show. Thank you.
I appreciate that as well. Uh. You know I mentioned uh Ace
Hardware uh, and ACE Hardware's are gonna probably have that sucker stopper. I
would call them an ass. They probably have it because I care just about
everything out there. When you go to ACE, you know you're going to
get anything you need for your lawn, your landscape, in your garden.
Do you do you have vegetables? Do you have container plants? Do you
have a flower bed? Do you have a turf? Do you have trees
or shrubs? Ace Hardware has got the supplies for all of that, all
of that. They've got the fertilizers that I talk about, every fertilizer I
talk about on Guardline, a lot of the soil product you hear me talk
about fire and control, mosquito repellents, mosquito fogging machines, and its mosquito
season. Is it not out there? Ace Hardware forty stores around the Greater
Houston area. Go to Acehardware dot com and find the store locator, find
the one near you. You get a beautiful map with all these red dots
and you'll go, oh wow, there's more than one near me. That's
Ace Hardware. Ace is the piece, as we like to say, you
fill in the blank and boy right now, oh my gosh. Check out
the barbecue equipment and supplies that they've got. Well, it's time for a
break for the news. I'll be right back our number seven one three two
one two, katrh Sandy your first. Alrighty, welcome back to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening
questions to hope you have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape.
I was just talking about different products that they carry at all these hardware stores.
Mosquito Dunks is another example of that. You know, Mosquito dunks.
I don't know if you heard the other day, but I had Bill on
from Summit Solutions, some at Responsible Solutions, which is a company that creates
our mosquito dunks. Now Mosquito dunks are little small donuts or about the size
of those little debbies white dusted sugary doughnuts, you know what I'm talking about.
They're small, they're not like a big donut. We throw one out
there, covers about one hundred square feet of wet area like a pond or
whatever you have, and it lasts about a month as it dissolves away slowly,
releasing a disease of mosquitos into the water. They also have a granular
product, mosquito bits that you put out there, and you could put it's
smaller, so you can put it in the like the catch basins under a
flower pot, if you're not going to empty those out, which you ought
to empty them out. But if it's not a bird bath, you know,
any like a gutter that or maybe you got a tree with a hole
in it and water collects. Oh, that is mosquito heaven, all that
decomposing organic matter in there. You throw a few mosquito bits up in there,
and it's diseased water for mosquitoes only for mosquitos. Your pets can drink
the water, birds can drink the water. I mean, it is not
a problem for anything other than mosquitoes, or as we talked about earlier today,
fungus, nuts and houseplants. That's a whole different thing. But basically
it is a really really safe, organic product, natural product that does a
good job. Mosquito Dunk's widely available. I mentioned these hardware stores. You're
going to find them at feed stores. Independent nurseries. Is a very widely
available product that works very well. You should always have it on hand here
in the greater Houston area because listen, I have talked to mosquitos before,
and they are willing to take their vacations from all over the world to come
to Houston because this is mosquito Heaven. I'm just saying, for example,
talk to a mosquito. We're leaving Calcutta, India and coming to Houston because
it's hotter and humid are there and we live better there. Oh gosh,
all right, enough of that nonsense. We're going to go to the woodlands
and talk to Sandy. Hey, Sandy high Skip. Yesterday. I've got
this big oak tree out in front of my house, and yesterday I noticed
that some of the bark was like coming loose. Well, I just started
peeling it off, and it's like five feet that it just crumbled right off.
And I see little holes in the trunk? Do I have bores?
So you see holes in the wood that's beneath it, right the bark.
Is that what you're saying, Yes, after I've taken the bark off,
Yeah, but the borers may not have done that. If you have bores
that attack living tissues, go that drilled through the outer bark and in they
feed, and that what we call the cambium where all the flowing is going
on the xylo right under, just underneath the dead bark. But outside the
living wood, those bores are a problem. But there are bors that move
into move into the interior wood of the tree, and that's not killing the
tree. They're just finding a place to set up shop in there. Do
what they do certainly doesn't do the tree any good. Something kill the outer
bark. If you think about north south east west, can you tell me
what side of the tree you're seeing this on? Yeah, it is,
that's a that's a tough question to spring on youtheast northeast. Okay, it
could be from an old freeze crack from when we had some really cool weather
a few years ago. And is that as that tissue dies and then it
starts to get loose, and then eventually it comes off. This has been
there for a while. This didn't just happen in the last few months.
So if you can, if you can just do what you need to do
to invigorate the tree, meaning proper watering during extended heat and drought and then
fertilizing periodically to provide the nutrients that tree will get the vigor it needs to
form callous from the sides of that wound and cover back over to protect and
cover over that interior wood. So no sarcticide treatment is necessary at this point
or would be effective at this point. It's just about getting the tree as
strong as it can be, taking all that old dead bark out so stuff
can't hide underneath the dead bark. And you'll see it. By now.
You already ought to be seeing callous forming on the edges of what was an
old wound as it begins. It's like a lava flow, real gradually coming
back over. Just time and good tree health. That's that's okay, because
the rest of the tree looks great. I mean, the leaves look good,
the branches look good. It's just at one spot. Okay, well
that that helps a lot. Thanks for your assistance. Yeah. My guess
is an old freeze crack did that. But well, okay, I think
it'll it'll do just fine. Thanks for the call, Sandy, appreciate it
great you bet Okay, bye bye, take care. Have you ever been
to Chenned Forest down in the Richmond Rosenberg area. In Chanted Forest is the
garden center that if you're let's say you're in Richmond and you're heading up towards
sugar Land direction on fifty nine off to the right fmnine, that is the
road where you head down and that's where Intended Forest is. It is one
of those stellar garden centers, those kinds of places that people will drive a
distance to get to. Number one, it's fun to shop, big old
giant shade trees. Makes it nice and comfortable even in the summer to goe
out there and do shopping. And remember that just because it's heated up doesn't
mean we can't be planning. Now. We can and you got several months
until fall planning. Most landscapes become a sea of green in the summer,
which is boring, not very attractive. Green grass, green ground covered green,
shrubs, green trees, right, how do we break that up with
summer color. There's a lot of plants and in Channed Forest has got foliage
plants that have gorgeous color that take the heat. And Chanted Forest has got
the flowering plants that would take the heat and do well. Things like angelonia
as a plant, an annual plant that you put out excellent color, different
kinds of any it. There's just a lot of options. When you go
to in chenned Forest, you're going to have those options, and you're going
to find everything that you're looking for, including fertilizers like hear me talk about
here on guard Line. Certainly they have houseplants as well. They're vegetable and
herb section is outstanding, and boyd, now is a great time to get
some herbs. If you want a pollinator guard and you're not going to find
a better place and enchanted forest to find both the things for the larva such
as milkweed for monarchs, or pipe vine for pipe vine swallowtail larva, or
passion vine for golf riddillary larva. They've got all that and then the things
that have blooms that the mama's the butterflies. I guess Mom's and dad are
coming to so Enchanted Forest on FM twenty seven fifty nine outside of Richmond,
Richmond Rosenberg area. Easy to get. Here's the website. Write this down
and go go check out the Enchanted. Oh my gosh, I just set
it aside and I lost it. I think it's I'm going to give it
to you in just a minute. I'm sorry. I had had a piece
of paper with the written down. I didn't memorize it. I think I
know what it is, but I'm not going to guess. Let's go ahead
and head out and let's see. Well, we're going to take a little
break here for the news and when we come back, i'll give you the
enchenda forst website. And also we're going to go to Katie and talk to
Forrest. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have
you with us today. We're going to head straight out to Katie and talk
to Forest. Hello, Forest, Hey, Skip. What I got is
uh? I got a broad leaf sec one. I think it's called the
night Bloomer, and I got something eating on it, leaving little piece ass
holes make it look like Swiss cheese. I sprayed meme oil on it.
That didn't seem to do anything. Okay, it seems to only happen at
night and it's outside. I brought it in last night. It didn't seem
to It didn't seem to happen again. So the holes are like the size
of an English pea, right yeah, yeah, that is very interesting that
right. Well, it could be a caterpillar, it could be a beetle.
Both of those can be nocturnal also. Uh, but if you spray
it with a good persistent insecticide to be present on the plant, whatever eats
it should die. So unless a new one that hasn't eaten it yet then
comes on and the next day makes a hole. I mean, you know,
it doesn't kill them in the minute their mouth touches the plant, but
as they eat it, it's going to start its process. I don't know
which insect would do that. I think you may be talking about night blooming
cirrus. But whatever, it's a succulent. It has a hole in the
leaf. So I don't know what insect would be. Dood yeah, find
I would get well number one. I would play Charlock Holmes and I'd go
out there at night. A couple times during the night with the flashlight.
If this is an ongoing process, you ought to be able to catch something
in the act. One other thing you might try during the day is taking
your finger and digging around the surface of the soil in the pot. It's
in a pot, right, yes, Okay, to digger on the surface
of the soil. See if you on earth a caterpillar that has crawled just
a little bit underneath the surface during the daytime to hide and then come back
out at night. There are some caterpillars that are nocturnal like that, and
we'll do that, and that way you would know what it is. If
it's a caterpillar, probably I would use spinosid on it because it's a little
more persistent as a spray. If it were a beetle, you would have
to go a different route. So either way, if you went with a
synthetic parithroid that was a little persistent, then you're going to find that you
kill kill either type caterpillar or beetle. Okay, okay, all right,
just a little bit more investigation. We'll figure it out. Yeah, I
think so. If you need to follow up with a call on another show
future, we can take it from there, depending on what you find.
But let's let's start with all right, all right, well I appreciate you,
all right, Forrest, appreciate your call. Thank you very much.
All righty folks, Well we got a little room here, I got a
few minutes before we go, and an open board. So now have ten
of you call it once or five you call it once. I'm not gonna
be able to get to everybody, but be more than happy to answer your
question before we go here. Don't forget today after the show, I'm going
to head out of here straight for northwest Houston Langham Creek Ace Hardware. Langham
Creek Ace Hardware is on Barker Cypress, south of the Berry Center. For
those of you who are up in the Copperfield and Cypress and you know that
whole area up there, you know about the Berry Center. If he heads
out to fifty nine excuse me, five twenty nine, which is also called
Spencer Road, that's the east west road that comes real close to where the
Langham Creek Ace Hardware is right there, so easy to find me either way.
You can bring me samples. You got a ziplock bag with some turf
in it. Here's the key. I do diagnosis. I don't do autopsies.
So if you bring me dead turf, I'm going to be able to
accurately tell you the turf is dead and nothing else. So bring me turf
that's sick. That zone between healthy and dead. I mean, if it
were a chinchbug in there, when you take out that four x six inch
plug of soil with some roots and plant, slip it into a ziplock,
They're not going to be able to escape, and I'll find them. If
it's a root rot, like take all root rot, because I can see
the roots and stuff, I'm going to find it. If it's from the
zone between healthy and dead, you can bring samples of plants, we can
identify and we can diagnose. Do whatever you want, or just visit and
I'm going to be given away. The reps from microlife and from nitrofoss are
going to be there giving away every thirty minutes some really nice quality products that
you need. So come on out, let's visit and Langham Creek Ace hardware.
It's going to be a fun day out there, a good chance to
visit. I'll have a lot of information on hand. In fact, I'm
going to be giving away Texas Gardener magazines to the first oh about forty folks
that come out. We will have some of those on hand. You can
take a look at it, and I think when you see it, you're
gonna want to subscribe because it's an awesome magazine, one that I write for
every issue. By the way, But come on out. We'll get your
free Texas Gardener in your hand as well. Well. Let's head out to
the phones now. We're going to talk to Jeff in the Rio Grande Valley.
Hey, Jeff, Hey there, how you doing good sir? What's
up? Well? Two oak tree questions. We've got numerous oak trees in
our yard. They're probably ten to twelve years old. I mean they're two
stories tall. Okay, on one of them, all of a sudden around
the tree, especially under the tree, it's like I've got dozens of little
oak trees coming up, okay, And it's not from acorns. It looks
like it's coming from the roots. Is that possible? Is there any way
to stop them? Yeah, there's depending on where they collected the seed to
grow the live oaks that you purchased. There's a certain type of oak live
oak that makes suckers really bad. The more you mess with the soil under
the oak, like putting in a flower bed and watering it or rototilling and
nicking the roots and stuff, the worse the suckers get. There's not anything
to make it completely stop. But you can cut them off. You can
plant something that sort of hides them, like Asian jasmine and as you you
know, weed eat the jasmine and stuff. You don't re see the oak
seedlings trying to come up in there because you're knocking the tops off of them.
That those are options, but there's you can't spram with something to kill
them because that'll get into the mother tree and you don't want that. Gotcha.
Okay, okay? One other quick question, when do what causes some
years to have thousands of acorns and other years to have absolutely none. It
is a natural fluctuation that occurs with oak trees in general, red oaks,
live oaks, all kinds of oaks. Different ones have different cycles somewhere on
a two year cycle. But also the nature, you know, droughts and
good wonderful rainy years and other things can affect that crop of acorns. We
call that the mast that they produce, ast that they produce. There's just
a natural fluctuation, but combined with the effects of weather and conditions. Gotcha.
I mean this year it was just like bonds away. I understand.
Hey, Jeff, I got one more caller in about twenty seconds to help
us. You bet. Hey, Now we're going to go to Nick in
Cyprus. Nick, let's see if we can get this done in about a
minute. It should be easy. The more I have some tomato plants and
the flowers bloom, they seem to be healthy throughout the next day, and
they seem to be missing. Okay, yep. The large slice of tomatoes
are terrible about not setting fruit when the days are in the rainies and the
nights are in the upper seventies, even which is where we are, and
so what we Basically you just either keep the plants and wait for fall when
they'll start setting again, or pull them out and replant. The cherry tomatoes
and the grape tomatoes set better in the heat. They still don't like it
and their skin is tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I appreciate self
serve. That's the main thing. Just adding one thing. Thank you,
Nick, I appreciate you. Go adding one thing to Nick's question. If
you're growing tomato plants in an enclosed area like a greenhouse or where the wind
doesn't blow, the plants don't move, they will often not set fruit because
they're not pollinated by bees carrying pollen from one flower to another like other flowers
may be. They're pollinated by the flowers. Shaking one can do that,
A bumblebee buzzing the bloom can do that, but a very still air could
be another reason. Huh, gotta go, We're done for today. I'll
see you and I don't know. Eleven thirty to one thirty out at Langham
Creek. Ace Hardware