Ktr H Garden Line. It's not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with skin directors. So
they just watching as so many goods chicken, but they're not well. Good
Sunday morning. I hope you're a bright eyed and bushy tailed, got a
cup of coffee, ready to talk gardening or certainly listen gardening. By the
way, those of you who listen and are afraid to talk on the air,
don't worry about it. It's easy, man. All you gotta do
is talk to me. It's just showing me. There's nobody else to listen
to. Maybe one or two people. That's it. And so let's just
talk about whatever you're interested in. If you've got questions, it's a good
time for us to go back and forth to do a little figuring out what's
wrong with something, figuring out what might fit in a good spot, what's
a good plant, how do you go about this? All that kind of
thing. That's why we're here on Guarden Line our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. We are we are entering the cooler time coming up here.
It's been kind of, you know, nice to know that we're not going
to have this brutal heat for a while. It seemed like that's all we're
gonna ever deal with is the incredible amount of heat that we've been We've been
having to deal with so unseasonal for this time of the year. But the
break is on the way, and from a gardening standpoint, we are so
so glad to be able to see that. I was just looking that.
I think, well, today's about ninety seven according to one service, and
then at ninety six, ninety six, ninety three, ninety four. There
we go. Now'sk getting a little bit better than ninety three and four.
We can handle that with quite a few rain clouds. And so it looks
like from Monday through Saturday we got a lot of a lot of clouds in
the sky. That's a good thing. Get out in the sun, or
get out in the garden without the sun. Get a lot done. I
have to, you know, at my house that you know, what do
they say, the cobbler's kids go barefoot. So I need to get out
in my garden. And I started a renovation project out there, pulling out
a bunch of old things and putting in some new stuff, kind of fixing
up the beds, getting the soil ready reworked. Every time I get a
chance, you know, I'm going I add some composts here and there,
some fertilizer here and there, getting ready for another planting. And this summer,
I've got several things that I have started planting, and I just need
to continue going out in the garden. If you've got a vegetable garden or
thinking about having a vegetable garden, I encourage you to give it a shot.
Some of our summer vegetables tend to be i'll say, more space heavy
in our space. What occupying like it takes something like sweet potatoes and it
sprawls around those vines. So you just don't put sweet potatoes in a little
tiny corner of the yard. I mean they need a little room to spread
out. It is time to plant your pumpkins. If you want pumpkins for
fall. Now, it's a good time to get those things in. That
gives them plenty of time to grow, to mature, to hit that stage
where we can pick them and expect them to come inside and store for us
really really well, and so we get the months of storage that we were
hoping to get out of them. What else in the summer, Okra,
Yeah, you can't just have one okra plant. I mean the reason for
that is, you know, with some things, you can harvest a few,
put them in the fridge, harvest a few more, put them in
the fridge, and just keep going like that until you have enough to cook.
Well, oaker does not like being in the refrigerator, and you can
keep it for maybe three days or so, and I know something you've stretched
that beyond that, but I'm just saying, reasonably speaking, you leave it
in there very long and you start to get the dark sunken spots on it.
And so it's one of those you gotta plan enough of so at any
point in time where you want okra, you can go out and pick a
batch. Maybe after over a day or two, maybe three, get a
good batch together. So that's what I mean by taking up space a little
bit more in the summer. And there are exceptions to anything you say,
but that that would be one of the reasons why it'd be good to have
a nice garden bed, something that you can spread out in and do a
little bit more. But anyway, I've got plenty of that stuff to do
back at the house. Let's think we're gonna go to the phones. We're
gonna go out and talk to DC in Titusville, Florida. Well, good
morning, DC, Welcome to garden Line. Hey your skip, How you
doing your day? Well I'm good, but you're cheating. See you didn't.
You didn't have to get up as early garden Line as everybody run here
does. Well, remember I'm one hour ahead of you. So when I
get up at five o'clock, it's it's four. Oh, I'm backward.
I should be saying that's somebody from California or something. I got it.
I got my my son coming up in the wrong side of the world here,
Well spit it the other way anyway. Yeah, I got the grass
clippings. I like to, like mow my lawn every other week, you
know, wall between front and back, and so it gets high and it's
really healthy. But I'd like to know, can I take those grass clippings
and throw them in like a flower bed and use it as mult you can
d C with two cap caveats number one, I want to make sure those
clippings have not had like a two four D or other hormone type herboside sprayed
on them because there are some sensitive plants ap petunias, green beans, to
mate as. All those we'll twist up if you if you get that around.
The other thing is don't put them too deep at one time. I
don't know if you've ever had a bag of grass kip clippings at the curb
or something, or seeing some that you open it up and it's like,
whoa, that is a ripe odor. And so we don't want to make
them so thick that they get anaerobically decomposing or that they get slimys. You
know, you want them to dry out and be a dry mulch like other
mulches would be. Okay, so don't so you don't water them at all
till after we've red your water and patterned. Right. Yeah, if you
just want to, you know, if you just want to spread some out,
I would just spread a thin layer. Maybe if you put an inch
or two down, it's going to shrink down to a little or nothing when
it dries, and then you can add a little bit more and let it
shrink down. But yeah, there's a lot of good nutrient on them.
A lot. Oh that's what I need to know. Yeah, well,
good. Hey, how are you listening to Gardenline? Are you? Are
you listen? I guess you're listening on your computer? No, I'm actually
walking you listening to you on my heart radio. App Ah, good,
that's good. Hey, I used to live in Texas out there in clear
Lake, like twenty three, twenty four years. I guess then my job
and I've been listening to garden Line since. Bows and Zach rawness Wow,
okay, well, hey, thank You've always enjoyed it. I'm always listening
to him. Well. I thank you for being a listener, and thank
you for giving us to Carl. I wish you well out there. Thank
you, Yes, thank you. Having a good day. Thank you too,
bye bye bye. Well. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two and two fifty eight seventy
four. Yeah. Clippings, Uh, clippings are valuable. I'm I'm actually
working on a new fertilizing schedule, on the new edition of the Fertilizing Schedule.
I've been doing a lot of re search on you know, what's the
latest from researchers on plants, grass plants and lawns and just all the issues
that go into putting together fertilizn schedule. Just to make sure we're as up
to date as we can be. And one of the things I noticed I
was reading a textbook by doctor Richard Double. He's a professor. He wrote
a textbook on southern turf grasses many years ago, and this was a long
time ago. I want to tell you a little bit about some of the
things that I noticed in there that I thought was quite interesting. Well,
let's first take a break our phone number seven one, three, two and
two fifty eight seventy four. We will be right back, said just Jame
style. It's not a hot dag NAXI Y be good Sunday morning. It's
still mostly dark out there, but I see a little bit of glow in
the eastern sky. By the way, DC, I do understand now the
sun comes up in the east. Hey, if your neighbor's lights are off,
go bang on the door. Tell them they're missing garden line. They
will so appreciate that if they keep listening to guard line for a while.
Maybe not this morning, but not anyway. You know, you gotta be
a good neighbor. Do what you can. Well, we were talking about
some different things going on, and I want to talk a little bit about
lawns. But something occurred to me the other day. A lot of you
would like to hire lawn services to take care of your lawn. A lot
of you would like to do it yourself. Well, I actually know a
company that you need to call for both of them, and that is is
formally green Pro. You've heard me talk about green Pro many times or it's
been on KTRH for a good while now. That would include things like deep
root, air raiding and you know the compost top dressing and whatnot. Well,
organ is same company as that, and Orglon offers things like lawn care
services. So if you would like to have a organic lawn care service or
maybe a hybrid lawn care service, they can do it both ways. They
are having a special this summer to garden Line special. So it's the first
application of whatever recommended liquid that they feel like you need most. For example,
maybe you haven't fertilizable, they would suggest you put on a fertilizer or
a micronutrient, or maybe it's an insect prevention product. That's most needed at
the time in your lawn. Either way you go twenty ninety nine plus tax.
That is a really really good deal. Now they are they're putting out
seaweed, they're putting out bug protection right now. There is a lot of
opportunities for you to have a better lawn with someone like orgallon. If you're
aduit yourself, or they also offer consultation services, you can actually hire them
to come out and look over your lawn, make the suggestions that you need
and so on, and you can be the lawn ranger every weekend and do
that yourself under they're expert guidance. So either way you go, you can't
lose. It's ORG Lawn, org lawn dot com or eight three two six
excuse me, three five one zero zero three two. Let's do that again.
Eight three two three five one zero zero three two the best looking lawn
on the block. We are going to head out now to Montgomery and talk
to Albert. Hello Albert, Hello, Skip, how you doing this morning?
I'm well, thank you. I've got like two questions. One,
I gotta not all oak tree, pretty young tree about six seven feet tall,
spinning the ground about a year a year and a half and I don't
know if I'm water in it too much or not enough water, but the
leaves are turning the brown on the tips. Okay, all right, yeah,
that's probably it's probably a lack of water. But there's different ways we
can create similar symptoms. One is, if you over fertilize with a salt
based fertilizer, you can burn roots. I'm assuming you haven't done that,
but that is a possibility. If you overwater and that absolutely cannot get oxygen
to the roots, roots can die. And then when roots die, it's
as if you have dry soil because there's no they can't take a water.
But I don't think that's the case. Nutall. One reason I love Nutall,
especially over Schumart in some locations, is that it does put up with
saggy soil conditions pretty well. So okay, I'm gonna go ahead and say
this is probably not enough water, but to be sure, you could dig
down maybe six inches, get a little trowel or shovel or something, just
feel the soil and see what you think, and that'll kind of give you
a guide, so you kind of know going for you don't have to dig
down every time you water. But you know what I'm saying, you kind
of get a feel literally a feel for the soil. Okay, all right,
I'll try that, and I'm falling. Randy's the lawn fertilization schedule.
Who's now the time? I think now is the time to put down the
night your flaffs nine four ten, nineteen four ten in the summer, and
I mean you could have put it down even back in April, you know,
or May or June, but yeah, we want you want to go
ahead and do that because it's going to carry you on into when it's time
to do your fall fertilization. Okay, all right, all right, thank
you sir, Well, thank you appreciate the call. Thanks for being a
listener or gardenline. You know, if you are if you're looking to put
in a tree, now is the time to do it. If you have
somebody who knows what they're doing. You know, we have our winter tree
planning and fall tree planning, spring tree planning, but when you plant in
the summer, you need somebody knows what they're doing. And the folks that
know what they're doing or Verdant Verdant tree Farm, you can go to Verdant
Treefarm dot com find out more about them. They've got the West Houston location
on Barker, Cyprus. They have one down in parallel on Broadway Street and
one up in the Heights area where I and Yale come together as well.
Verdant Tree Farm is having a Christmas in July cell all three locations. Ten
to fifty percent off the trees you purchase if you purchase the installation with them.
If you're gonna take them off the plant them yourself, that's not the
case, but I suggest you don't do that, especially with the summer planting.
You need folks that know what they're really doing. So ten to fifty
percent off of the tree when you hire them then to come out and do
the install Now, this is for the trees that they have on site,
and you know ninety special orders bringing in in things, but the trees they
have on site is not limiting at all. I mean they have a bazillion
things that you can choose from that all do well. They will guide you
if you want advice on what's a good tree for this situation, bram some
pictures, sit down a little bit, talk about it, pick the tree
you want out and then they'll tag it and they'll bring it to your house
and it'll be planted right with advice on then how to take care of it
going forward. Can't beat that. Go to head out now to Kingwood and
talk did Joe, Good morning, Skip, Good morning. I had a
question for you warned your device on how to store a lot of the products
that you recommend, whether like liquid herbicides and insecticides. Most of them say,
you know, keeping a cool, dry place out of extreme temperatures and
now the sunlight. And I've been just storing them in the garage, which
right now gets pretty hot in the summer and in winter can get pretty cold.
Or are there any products that you keep inside but not in the garage.
You know, my garage gets blistering hot by the end of the day,
and so I don't put any of my pesticides out there because that that
affects the effective life of them. I put mine in a washroom that's kind
of an off to the side, you know, not in the house kind
of thing. Why it's in the house, but you know what I'm saying,
it's it's the side, and put them up in there on a shelf,
and that's where I keep them, and it's because it's cooler in there,
and they're just gonna last longer. It's dark. They're in a cabinet,
you know, they're not out or the sun can shine on them.
The worst place to be a shed out in the backyard. But yeah,
I would move them out of the garage. So it's things like Medina soil
activator. Medina has to grow. Do you you keep those inside too?
Yeah? Absolutely. If anything's gonna have microbes in it and stuff, they're
going to be in a dormant state in that product. But they can't take
a blistering hot That's why we solarize the ground with clear plastic to heat it
up, because it kills all those things. And so you don't want to
you don't want to have those out there where it's hot. So any any
liquid type product, how about the granular like the nitrofoss rose and in high
discus food that are in the four pound jugs or Nelson's color Star things like
that. Yeah, I you know, on those, I do keep them
in the garage. I haven't thought about. I guess there's probably some you
know, there's got to be certain temperatures where certain forms of nitrogen might be
more subject to issues, but I'd have to think through that. I've never
really worried about it myself. Now, if I had something that I did
have microbes and things, and I think I would I would try to purchase
what I'm going to use and then use it. That would be the ideal,
you know, not just to have stuff sitting around for months and months.
But when I'm talking about fertilizers now, Joe, but I would think
anything microbial, I just don't know that i'd want to leave it out there.
I didn't just get in really hot conditions. Great, all right,
thank you again for your help. All right, well, Joe, thank
you for the call, and good luck with all that. Thanks bye bye.
Talking about fertilizers and things, he mentioned Medina products and you know hast
Grow six twelve six is one that it comes in a bottle or a quart
bottle that you can put a hose in spray or and spray with it.
I like to get the one that just has a little plastic cup. It's
like formed into the bottle, so it's real easy to measure out exactly what
you want. And I use it my favorite use of it, and it
can be used for anything. It's a fertilizer that has Medina's sole activator in
it for biological activity. It's got humates humic acid in it. It's got
seaweed extract in it, so it's got a you can use it for a
lot of things. I love it to put in new transplants because we're constantly
planning, whether it's vegetable transplants, flour transplants, or maybe something got planted
and you just kind of wanted to give it a boost for a few times.
I'll do it when I plant something, I'll do it again a week
later, and then a week later after that, and I keep doing it
if I need to. But generally three applications that a new transplant gets them
off to a really good start. Now, it doesn't build up salts or
anything like that, and or in chemicals on the soil. It does promote
biological activity. But Medina's hast Grow six twelve six is an outstand any product
for getting a good boost to new plants that you're putting out there in the
ground. I was talking about lawns. I meant to go in doctor Duble's
book, and I just kind of want to get back to that. In
fact, I may come back to that several times today if time allows.
But I was reading and back in the day, you know, a lot
of good research was done that now is like in the past, and so
people don't continue to look at it. But we I guess one way to
look at it, as we forget more than we know sometimes. But they
did studies back in the day where they took the clippings from a lawn and
they did a nutrient and a weight and a nutrient analysis of them. And
over the course of a mowing season with a well fed Saint Augustine lawn,
you will be in your clippings. If you never let a clipping return,
you will be taking over two pounds of nitrogen out of the soil. So
I guess the easy thing, easy question there. So why do we return
our clippings? Well, the easy answer because they return the nutrients We paid
part of the soil. If you bag your clippings, you're renting fertilizer.
Think of it that way. It's your money. What do you want to
do? Plus, when you return the clippings, you don't just get a
nitrogen, phosphorus potassium. You get every nutrient that the grass plant needs to
grow. That's what's in the clipping because that's what it took to grow the
grass blade. So think about it as the most complete, balanced fertilizer for
your lawn is put out by your lawn mower. Now that doesn't mean you
don't need to fertilize. It just means that if you don't, if you
bag your clippings, you are wasting money. We won't take a break seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and Josh will get you
on the board. You'll be first up and stood how oh all right,
Well, good Sunday morning. You're listening to garden Line. Oh Josh,
it's hilarious. You're listening to guard Line. And we are here to talk
about whatever you want to talk about regarding gardening. So give us call seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. If you live anywhere near let's say just say north
central kind of downtown Houston, does that make any sense at all? I
don't know inside the loop, but north wide town that area you need to
know about quality feed. That's your hometown feed store, and I've gone to
Quality Feed for years off and on through the years. I went when they're
in their own location. Now they're on Lozon Street, eighteen thirteen, Luzon.
It's near the intersection of Equipment and Illusion. But Quality Feed is open
a mon through Friday, six am to six pm. No, excuse me,
nine am to six pm. Excuse me? Sure about that, Chris
has got about to make You have to get up earlier nine am to six
pm. And Saturday's nine am to four pm. Sundays today eleven thirty am
to four pm. Now, anything you need regarding feed is at Quality Feed.
Of course it's a great old fashioned feed store. But they also have
ever product that we talk about when it comes to the soils, soil mixes,
when it comes to fertilizers. They've got an excellent selection of anything you
need. If you're into backyard chickens, you have to check out Quality Feed.
I mean they're getting shipments to chickens in regularly throughout the year. Just
call them find out when the next shipment is coming in. They will set
you up with all the supplies you need. They even have their own special
Grannies laying mix homemade in house, chicken feed, grannies, laying mix.
I think it's kind of cool. You can buy seeds there, local honey
there. I mean, it's just great, and you know Ken and Chris.
The service just you'll feel like you're just part of Quality Feed. It's
not like you're going to buy something from some company. It's like you just
feel like you're part of the thing when you go there. I always enjoy
stopping in visiting, finding out what's going on, super friendly, super helpful,
customer oriented, quality feed, Quality feed co dot com, Quality feed
coo dot com. Find out more information. We're listening, well, you're
listening to Gardenine. This morning, I was talking about fertilizers and I was
talking about grass clippings. And the point that I'm really wanting to make with
everyone is unless it is rain for two weeks straight and you can't cut the
grass and now there are lions, tigers and bears coming out of the out
of your lawn, I would always return my grass clippings. Even sometimes when
I get a little behind, I'll set the mower up as high as I
can mow over it. I'll drop it down to the level I want to
mow and mow again and mulch those clippings into the surface. But if you
got giant clip things, I understand you need to rake those up, but
don't throw them away. Remember they contain the nutrients that you just put out
to grow grass, and so use them as a mulch, you know,
mix them into the soil. DCN Titus. What's talking about mulching with clippings.
I'll let them drive a little bit, mix them into thought. You
can mix them into the soil green. That's fine too. Lots of nutrient
they're available. But when you return your clippings, you're recycling that fertilizer in
an organic form. So think about this grass clippings and tree leaves or nature's
own free organic fertilizer and free organic mulch. And when you look at what
it takes to grow a plant, it's a mix of nutrients. It's not
just three nutrients. And so when you consider the fact that in that clipping,
in that tree leaf, there are all the things in the perfect ratio
to grow a plant, then why throw that away? Compost it, use
it as mulch, mix it in the soil, however you want to do
it. Just keep it on your property. I mean, that's what makes
the meadows and the forests thrive is they return their own organic matter, They
build their own soil slowly over time. Now, fortunately we have great organic
fertilizers. We have all kinds of great fertilizers, and we can grow grass,
you know, without having to wait eighty years for nature to build the
soil in that spot and give us some good top soil and so on.
It just doesn't make sense though, to get rid of your clippings. That
is the foundation for your lawn fertilization. Now we have when the current fertilizing
schedule, the new one is going to come out, it is going to
include when you fertilize in with what like it always has. But those are
the additions that allow us to have increased density, to allow us to have
even better health and better green, better beauty to the lawn. But if
you take clippings and get rid of them, then you we're gonna start doubling
up on fertilizers the ones we put down because you're taking away the nutrients.
So now we got to add even more back instead of recycling those And that's
the foundation for your fertilization. Schedule, and then the fertilization is done on
top of that. It's a huge difference. It's a big difference. Thing
about two pounds of nitrogen for thousand square feet for clippings. I'll tell you
what. We are going to go to Brennam now and we're going to talk
to Mike. Hello Mike, Hello, sir, how are you? And
well? Thanks? What's up? I have a question, actually two questions.
So I have a burn pile. I live out in the country.
If I distribute those ashes, and those ashes are mostly from tree trimmings and
stuff like that, okay, would that be beneficial to distribute that through the
lawn. It depends. It depends on what. Like, if your lawn
was a little high pH, ashes would help excuse me, low pH Acidic
ashes would help bring the pH a little up a little bit. If your
lawn was needing certain nutrient ingredients potassium, phosphors and things, you're going to
have that uh in wood ashes that are present. If you do too much
of anything, it's not good. And so I would just say in moderation,
and you know, look, if you have a soil test, that's
a good guide. You can look at the nutrient value and ashes. You
can go online look it up and things like that. You know, most
of the fireplace ashes from most woods are going to be well, they can
be anywhere from about four percent to even eight or nine percent potassium. They're
going to have some soluble salts in them, and the pH is going to
be way up there. I mean we're talking about eleven or twelve pH.
So overdoing it is a big mistake. You may have noticed on farm sometime
a big burn pile where they just burned all the time. It's hard to
get anything to row. But when you have just like a little burn,
even like when a pasture burns, you get a real fresh new growth and
stuff that a little bit of ashes or a good thing. So I would
say, oh probably I probably wouldn't do more than ten gallons per thousand square
feet or so on the lawn. And that is me kind of grabbing shooting
it up from the hip. So all right, okay, yes, sir,
yes, sir, Now you will talking about grass clippings. Is there
any amendment or anything that I could add to that mix, if you will,
to increase the breakdown of that organic matter, if you if you can
put the clippings down in the lawn by chopping them up, so they'll get
down in the thatchy area where that's moist. They'll decompose fast, and there's
no need for addition. They will decompose fast enough. When I come back
from break, I may talk a little bit about different parts of the grass
plant and white clippings don't make thatch. But I'm gonna have to take a
break here. But I appreciate your call very much, and I'll just hang
on. I'm gonna be talking, or you can hang up, but I
keep listening. I'm gonna be talking about that a little bit more. Okay,
Yes, all right, thank you. Well, here we go to
break. Seven one three, two, one, two fifty eight seventy four
is the number to call, Joshua. Get you on the board and tell
you good Sunday morning. The light has broken out through the skies. By
looking outside, it's just that time of the morning where I don't know,
it's just I need a cup of coffee and lawn chair or something. It's
so beautiful out there. It's just quiet and peaceful. Gives your brain time
to kind of kick into gear. Love it, love it, love it,
love it. Well, you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions. If you'd like
to give us a call, it's seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I am working with the folks with Dellweb at a new community.
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If you're a listener to garden Line, you must be interested in gardening.
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You know I'm talking about rain this week. I keep looking at the different
apps to see how much is it going to rain and when it's going to
rain. But I do know one thing. When it rains, our soil
moves. If you're not if you haven't been here long in the Houston area.
The reasons that streets are like driving down the Rocky Mountains downtown some of
the areas is because the soil shifts. When it gets wet, it swells,
when it gets dry, it shrinks. So what happens, well,
it messes up our streets. It breaks our water lines, the city water
lines underground. But for your home, it affects the foundation. It affects
your driveways, It affects your sidewalks and so on. The brick of the
of your home as well as the foundation. Now a company called Fix My
Slab Foundation Repair, Fix my Slab Foundation Repair, Tie Stricklands the owner.
They're the ones you need to call because they know how to handle these things.
They've been working here for twenty three years. They know how to do
it. The phone number, by the way is two eight one two five
five forty ninety nine two eight one two five nine forty nine. If you
tell them you're a guardline listener. They'll give you a free estimate, and
they are committed to a fair price, and listen to this. They're committed
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that is fix my slab, foundation repair again. Two eight one,
two five, five, four nine, four nine. Don't just think foundation.
Think about that driveway that's cracked, Think about your sidewalks. They can
take all of that and put it back in really good shape for you.
That's kind of nice. Everything is always just shifting around. Sometimes the soil
drives out. The cracks are so big. I mean, you know,
if the little family dog ran out there, they might fall down in the
crack and you lose them in the backyard. I love clay soils because they
will hold water, they hold lots of nutrients. They have that benefit to
them. But the negative is that shrinks well. The negative is poor water
in infiltration, and so we just have to deal with that. If it
was a sandy soil, we would be going. It drains great, but
it won't hold water and it won't hold nutrients. And I'm fertilizing and watering
constantly, trying to keep the plants going well. We always have something we
can grap about, and we always have something we can be happy about.
And what I say is be happy. Clay soils have their pluses, as
do sandy soils and loam soils. We always wish we had something other than
we have, at least that's what it seems like to me. Hey,
it's fourth of July weekend. I hope you guys have great plans for really
this whole weekend through next Tuesday. If the fourth of July recon reminds me
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com and you can find out more information from them there. So back to
let's go back to the lawns a little bit and and talk about the lawns.
Our goal when we fertilize is to provide a supplement to encourage good growth
on our lawn. We don't overdo it. And some people think, well,
here's that teaspoon is good, tablespoons better? Mentality that is always almost
always wrong when it comes to horticulture, gardening lawns, things like that.
But you put the right amount down and you gradually feed that lawn over time.
Think about yourself. I keep using these human analogies, but they fit.
Are you gonna today eat all the food for all next week and then
not eat all week? Of course, not you eat each day what you
need to eat when you need to eat it. While our lawns are taking
up nutrients to support growth, to support the development of the compounds in the
plant that support growth and vigor and health. And they do it day by
day. Water flows into the roots with nutrients and it builds grass and so
on. Of fertilizers. We want our fertilizers to fertilize that way. If
we use something fast release, break it up into more than one application,
but better Yeah, use a slow release and one good product for taking care
of your lawn. Or is the whole Microlife line. I mean, they've
got the green bag, the sixty four, the Purple bag, the Humates
zero zero four. But Microlife also has a liquid line and their liquid line
again, wide variety of options there. I just want to tell you about
two. The Microlife Biomatrix. That's the orange label. I love it when
they color code these things. That makes it so easy. Orange label.
It's a seven one three fertilizers, got plenty of nitrogen in it. It
has beneficial microbes too, and I use it on my houseplants. They thrive
with that. In fact, I put a little bit in every time I'll
water, just a gradual feed over time. They also have the Microlife Ocean
Harvest blue label that's a four two three and I use that outside. It's
a fish emulsion based fertilizer, and I use it as a drench on the
plants, but you can also dilute it down, spray it upward from underneath
the plant. Spray it in the morning for best results because the stone mates
on the leaves are open, and you just get better fully your feeding effects
at that time. It's not the only time, but it's the best time.
It's not going to burn your plants. You want to learn more about
Biomatrix orange label or Ocean Harvest Blue label, go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com
Microlife Fertilizer dot com and find out about these and the many many other Microlife
products, as well as where you can buy Microlife near you. And trust
me, you probably can throw a rock to the nearest place with microlife in
your area. Traveling through Tomball away, I sometimes come down through that way
when I'm heading from College station down this way. But D and D Feed
is out on the west side of Tomball and I tell you the Dover family,
it just keeps getting better out there. In D and D Feed.
They just add a new expanded area this summer, and it's of course been
open for a while now. Lots more products. They've got fertilizers, they've
got vegetable seeds and vegetable plants and other kinds of plants. They've got everything.
A feed store would have high end lines like Origin, Diamond, victor
Starpro. For your pets, they've got livestock feed. Of course, you
need to control rodents. They can take care of that. Do you have
a pool you need cleaner for they can take care of that. D and
D Feed absolutely great place to visit. Three miles west of two forty nine
on twenty nine twenty out in tumble Well, here we go. It is
time to put an hour in the books. Wow, that went fast this
morning. We're gonna be back next hour. I hope you hang around.
Let me give you a phone number. Write this down seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. What's going on around your place that you've
been wondering about. Maybe it's a problem, but I enjoy not tuck about
problems too. Maybe it's just, Hey, I got a flower bed and
I really like some color. But I don't know. Can I plant now?
I mean, for crying out loud, it's already July. Well,
the answer she asked, let's talk about what maybe you put in that flower
bed, any kind of questions you have. Trees and turf, those are
the big two. That's what makes the tone ring most. But if you've
got a question about Cole Robbie for next fall, I'll answer that one too.
You know, I don't think I've ever gotten a Cole Robbie question the
whole time I've been doing gardening and being an extension agent. Hey, we'll
be right back. Stick around. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line
with Skin Director. So just what goub mourning? Wow, beautiful outside,
Take a look, it's gonna be a nice day. I'm looking forward to
getting out there myself a little bit after the show here today, okay,
a little bit still slight breeze going on. I'd be a good day right
now to be setting outside in the garden, getting a few things done before
the sun comes up and makes things a little bit interesting. You know,
one of my One of my favorite things to do is to go visit garden
centers and nurseries around the Greater Houston area. And you hear me brag all
the time on this region. This area has unbelievable garden centers, I mean
mom and pops where you get service, you get care, you get amazing
selection of plants that grow here. You get people that know what they're talking
about so they don't lead you wrong. Well. An example of just that
is Arburgate. If you're up anywhere near the Tomball area, you've got to
see Arburgate. If you have them already, I mean, have you been
living under a gardening rock? If you don't, haven't been to Arburgate yet.
Www dot Arbergate dot com. They're about a mile and a half west
of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty in Tumball and Arburgate is one of
those destination garden centers. It's just and it's always changing. If you went
last week, come back this week, there's gonna be something new, something
you haven't seen, something different while you're there. Look into their one,
two three, completely easy system. It's a system that's so easy you can't
mess it up. Number one, it's a food that feeds anything with plants.
We're talking about organic food complete. It's a four four three plus ten
percent calcium one organic food and of course it has the organic matter. You
get all the nutrients. They're going to give you a gradual release. It's
not going to burn your plants. Anything with roots, you're going to do
well with the arburgates organic food complete. Now, secondly, we've got the
organic soil complete, and that includes not just the soil blend itself, but
it also has large particles of sand and expanded shale. We have a problem
with clay soils not draining well. I talked about that earlier. This is
one of the steps that you take to start to loosen that soil. Every
time you amend it. And you had a little expanded shale, you had
a little compost, you had a little large particle sand. It just gets
better and better. And then finally there's their compost or get it, compost
complete. So this would include two different kinds of composts that are blended together,
packed with beneficial insects. It's got a nice balance of macro and micronutrients.
And then again the expanded shale that helps take it up to the next
level. All of that you're going to find it Arburgate along with by the
way, empty out your trunk, your pick up, whatever, because you
need a lot of room for plants when you're heading out there as well.
Arburgate and tumble. Let's go talk to John V in League City. Now,
Good morning, John V. Good morning Skip and garden Line. Yes,
my question this morning is on irises, okay, and I wanted to
see if you if you start the seedling and a pod and then transfer it
to the yard, because they can grow pretty tall, like three to four
feet to five feet. Yeah, if you want to do it from seed,
that's a challenge, but I bet you could do it. Yeah you
would. I would just start it in a container, really bright area,
but out of the direct sun. You don't want it to be one hundred
and twenty degrees where that seed is trying to sprout. In fact, I
might even get it started inside just to get it up and sprouted and then
move it into you know, an outdoor location that's maybe a little morning sun.
But as it gets older and older and stronger and stronger, it's gonna
be it's gonna be fine. But irises or they survived through the summer,
but they're not real happy about it, you know, So I would think
seed would be even less happy. Okay, because I was thinking about our
neighbors have a whole line of the bright orange yellow and then I've seen the
red. It's striking with the dark maroon leaves. Okay, but I'm partial
to purple. So I'm thinking, I'm just going to do a ceiling of
each one of those and three different containers, and what soil do I use.
Oh gosh, You've got lots of options for soil. Anything that is
you know, a good quality container mix. I would I should just thinking
about all the different options out there. The Airloom Soils has some really good
quality stuff that I know. The Nature's Way also has a really good you
know, the rose soils. You're not going to go wrong with those,
and that would be just fun. If you just wanted to use more of
a container potting type mix, that would be fine too. There is a
number of products. I know. Heirloom has a couple of soils potting mixes
that they put together that work really well. Okay, I'm going to just
stick with the rose soil because I need it for the chacinum containious. I
can't go wrong. You know. I understand roses in the name, but
it otto say rose pretty much everything else too. All right, well,
wonderful, Well y'all have a blench of wonderful and safe fourth of July weekend,
and I look forward to talking with yond next week. Thank you so
much, wonderful time. Thank you appreciate that call. You know, Dean
Nelson started Nelson Plant foodback in nineteen eighty three, and the goal was to
create a professional grade horticulture fertilizure for the green industry. And they've done just
that. They started selling color Star and Nutristar. They've now got the turf
Star and the Nature Stars, an organic line. So many options with Nelson
Plant Food. If you want synthetic, if you want organic, they're going
to have both of those. In the summertime, it's time to make sure
we give our lawns that gradual feed that I keep talking about like a broken
record, slow and easy as how you want them to feed. Guess what?
There is a product called Slow and Easy twenty two two ten from Nelson
Plant Food that will gradually feed. You're going to cut down on that.
You're going to cut down on mowing. You're going to have a deeper root
system instead of all top growth like an immediate release might give you. You're
not going to do better than Slow and Easy. It's a very high quality
product that will help your build your lawn into a beautiful lawn. And remember
as you do this, keep returning those clippings because that it not only does
it feed the soil. You know what else returning clippings does. By the
way, you're putting like a mulch on the soil just a little bit at
a time. But the more you block light from the soil surface, the
less weed seeds germinate and establish weeds, and so just another reason to do
that. But combined feeding with the clippings, feeding with a quality product like
Slow and Easy, you are going to have a dense, beautiful, healthy
lawn as we go into fall. And then we'll do a fall fertilization later
on, but for now you'll get there just with that Slow and Easy.
We have a a lot of activity right now going on in the flower beds
at my house. We've got things like there's angelonia that I've got. In
fact, I got to get some planted. I've got some other plants I
picked up yesterday, some some perennials that I want to put in the ground
to get those planted for summer. And you know it. I know it's
hot outside, but the early morning hours are a good time to get out
and do something. Maybe one morning you go out and you clear the area
out, and another morning you go out and you throw some composts over the
surface and begin to work that in to build that soil a little bit better.
Another day you go out and do the planting and the watering and so
on. You don't have to get it all done at once, but don't
let summer go by without adding color to your landscape. And don't let summer
go by without putting a quality, a quality type of landscape plants and fertilizers
into your soil to make it better and better. Well, we're gonna take
a quick break here our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Call Josh, get on the board and you'll be first up
when we come back. Well, good morning. You are listening to garden
Line on a beautiful Sunday morning. Good time to talk about gardening. Good
time to be gardening. You know, if you we love we love our
feed stores on garden Line. Just so many great mom and pop type feed
stores. And if you live down in the League City area, maybe Webster,
Nassau Bay Bay Cliff, Chema, League City, Dickinson, San Leone.
You get the idea. Anywhere down there, down to Lamark, even
League City feed is your mom and pop hometown feed store. Wes and Madison
Thunderberg operate one of the one of my favorite feed stores to go into.
It's got that old time feel, you know, people that bring your feed
out for you. If you need them to carry the feed out for you,
they're happy to do that. They've got everything a feed store would have.
And by the way, this was this vista was built the building over
forty years ago in an Okra patching. My personal opinion is anything that starts
in an Okra patch is a good deal. I'm just a biased Okra fan,
but anyway, seriously, they've got all the fertilizers we talk about.
You're going to find pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, quality pet food. If
you got backyard chickens or want to have backyard chickens, all your chicken need
products are there. You're gonna find everything you need, waters feed, betting,
and on and on and on, and they have local honey. You
get the idea. League City Feed Monday through Saturday, nine am to six
pm, closed on Sunday. Here's the number. Two eight one three three
two sixteen seventeen. Two eight one three three two sixteen seventeen. We're gonna
go out to Katie and we're going to visit now with David. Hello,
David, Hello, share power? Are you doing today? I'm well,
thanks, Yeah, I just got a question. In this really extreme heat
that we've had, I'm a little leery of fertilize. I think this time
was here at the lawn worried about burning. Is that? Is it a
problem with the heat cyspan? Is there something we should do differently? If
you now we fertilize a lot. Yeah, that's a good point. So
if you if you fertilize according to how I'm talking about, you will not
have a problem. Now if you took a bunch of salt based immediate release
fertilizer and over applied it, yes, you can burn prop plants. It's
hot and it's a salt based product. I'm talking about using an organic product
or using a synthetic slow release product and there it just it's not like you
put water on it and it all dissolves away. It stays like it is
and gradually breaks down over time. So you're not going to burn with those,
and they're just fine. Now you need to be returning your clippings for
sure, but if your lawn lacks density, you need to keep it going.
Especially if it lacks density because as we get into the September October season,
then all the cool season weeds are going to germinate if sunlight is hitting
the soil. So now time to get that density built so that next springs
weed problems are even affected by that. Okay, well that's good, then
I'm planning it. I was, I was. I was scared. I
was going to burn my lawa. But I use a slow release. I'll
just continue to follow the schedule like I have. Yeah, and let it
ride. Yeah, we're good and being out there, and Katie, You've
got some great hardware stores. Ace hardware stores out there in the Katie area.
They're going to have every kind of product that I just talked about right
there, So it real easy easy for you, easy for you to find.
Thank you for the call, David. Okay, thank you. Skip.
Have a good day. You have a good fourth of July, yes,
sir, and you as well. Yeah, speaking of fourth of July,
Ace Hardware ACE hardware dot Com is where you need to go. Just
type it in ACE Hardware dot Com find their store locator. There's only thirty
nine stores in the Greater Houston area. You think we could find three or
four near us? I bet you could. I bet you could. They
carry all the products we talk about. And you know, I love going
into a place that has that old fashioned service, the helpful, friendly associates.
That's what you get with ACE. Of course, here comes fourth of
July. My gosh, do you need a webber, a trigger, a
tregger, a big green egg barbecue? Do you just need some supplies for
your barbecuing? Do you need outdoor bling to help set up that beautiful outdoor
setting where you have friends and family and guests you know, coming and just
kicking back and enjoying it. ACE has all of that and much much more.
Ace Hardware dot Com. Find the one near you, and that will
not be hard to find because there are so many of those. I was
talking about my vegetable garden. I've got vegetable beds that I built a while
back, and I built my beds at that time out of a treated timber,
and you know, they're doing okay. I know. The long term
of that though, is they're not going to last forever, and warping and
twisting and things like that are a concern. A lot of people don't like
the treated timbers because they don't want any kind of a chemical in the garden
that they can avoid. Well, if you're like that, I tell you
you need to know about the Vego garden beds. That's a modular metal garden
bed. It's been super treated to prevent rust and corrosion. It's been painted
with a quality paint tested at Texas and m by the way, that is
safe to use. So you don't have a treated timber now. I even
though I have a treated timber in my garden, the next garden bed I
put in will be a Vego bed. I'm just trying to make the space
right now to add those beds in because that's the only thing holding me back.
I think it's the only way to go for a quality raised bed.
They're modular. So do you want to make a C shape? Do you
want to make a square or rectangle? You get the idea. A long,
skinny bed, a fat wide bed. You can do it all.
You just put it together. It's like you're playing with legos, right,
I mean, except a little bit different than legos. But you get the
idea, super easy, supermodular. If you are in any way thinking about
trying gardening, I would use the vegobed because it'll make it easier and you
will have success. And it looks good. And it's hard to find beds.
Railroad ties don't look good. Treated lumber I don't think looks good.
The what is a center blocks don't look good in my opinion, vegobeds are
beautiful. You get to pick your color. And they're a Houston company right
here. Now, there's a lot of impostors on the market selling metal modular
beds. Don't be fooled by those. Vego was the original here in the
United States, and it is the one you need. And besides, it's
a local Houston company, And I just don't think you're going to do better.
You'll find Vego all over the place. You can go on Vegogarden dot
com to find out more information, find out where to get them. Some
of our our retail garden centers even carry them. I was out at what
was I yesterday in Chened Forrest and I know both in Chened Forest and Chened
Garden have vegot at their garden center. So try out a vegobed you will
be very pleased with the results. And check them out on line too.
You know, we're in that season of the year where the weather can turn
on us here and we end up dealing with things like hurricanes and when the
wind blows through that can be a problem. That can be a for sure
problem. You need to consider having Affordable Tree. Come out and check out
your trees and see what's needed. Do you have a dead limb? Is
something rubbing your shingles? Do you have a tree hanging over your house or
over something else valuable? Let the folks from Affordable Tree and buy the folks
I mean Martin Spoon Moore. Martin and his wife Joe run Affordable Tree.
Give him a call. It's seven one three, six nine twenty six sixty
three, or you can go online aff Tree Service dot com. They put
garden line listeners at the front of the line, so let them know that.
But anything you need done, maybe it's not removing trees, but I
would have them take a look and get them ready for the hurricane season we
are now in. Maybe you need deep root feeding, maybe you just need
consultations. It is well worth having a consultation done by them, especially if
you're going to do any kind of tree work or trenching or building around a
tree. Don't make the mistake of waiting until it's too late and the damage
has been done. Get them out ahead of time. By the way,
I was talking about roofs and whatnot, I am interested in solar shingles and
I'm considering putting those on my house right now. And here's your reason.
I didn't even know they existed. I thought you had to put the big
solar panels on top of the roof. But Brinkman has these timberline solar shingles.
They are the roof. They're not on the roof, they are the
roof, fully guaranteed twenty five years of service. Now. Brinkman has been
providing roofing in Houston for what fifty years now. It's the largest, one
of the largest investments in your home that When you put on a roof,
you need quality workmanship, you need a quality product, and you need a
guarantee like that twenty five year guarantee, whether it's residential or commercial. If
you want the solar shingles like I'm interested in, or if you just want
to get a custom manufactured standing seam metal roof on site, they built it
right there to fit your home perfectly. Service dependability Brinkman Quality dot com.
Brinkman Quality dot com two eight one four eight zero seven six six zero.
Let's head out to Southwest Houston now and we're gonna talk to Anthony. Well,
Hello, Anthony, Good morning, sir. Um Medina has to grow?
Yes, Um, I've got my regular fertilizers organics for my tomato plants.
And in between, you know, I follow the schedule on the bag,
and in between I mixed out my water, just watering with a bit
of medina. Is that messing up the piece of pH? No? It
is not. No, No, you're not You're not mess up the pH
with product like medina has to grow? Not at all. Okay, how
about them our guardina, No, they'll be fine. You know that we
mess up the pH when we put things like calcium on that gets it too
high when we use fireplace ashes. We were talking about that before. Some
of the some of the organic products even can be a little higher in pH,
like a mushroom compost of very high in pH and can cause those kinds
of problems on your gardenias. But just just fertilize within acidic fertilizer and you're
a you're every time you fertilize, you're just helping keep it pushed down just
a little bit and they'll be fine. And if you're ever in doubt,
you can have a soul test and then you find out if you need to
make some bigger adjustment. Okay, yeah, because I was thinking how the
medina is real good for micro organisms yea, there, and then the fertilizer
is great for the pats. Yeah. Well, and then there's fertilizers that
have micro'sentum too. I mean, we have some good organic fertilizers that are
loaded with micro micro organisms and that would just be discontinuing to help support and
build out, keep the soul moist and your microbes can thrive. Okay,
Well, thank you for the call, Anthony. I appreciate that very much.
It is It's great to talk to you if you are interested maybe in
retiring. You're looking at where do I want to retire? Well, you
probably have heard of Dellweb. I mean they've been building communities for active adults
age fifty five and better what over seventy years. Now, Well, the
new community for Dellweb here is down in full Scher. It's less than two
miles from downtown Fulsher on FM three fifty nine. Now, this community is
special to me because they've contacted me. They're putting in a community garden,
and I'm helping them with that. Now, I can't imagine a better combination
than the quality of a home in a dell Weeb community, the quality of
the lifestyle programs in a Dellweb community, and then having a community garden to
boot on top. Go to dellweb dot com slash Houston if you'd like more
information, or you can call two eight one four five nine zero six zero
nine and find about that Dellweb difference and that Fullshire community for yourself. Well,
we're gonna take a break here get some news and other information that we
need to have a good day. But in the meantime, give Josh a
call it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd
like to talk and we will discuss whatever you're interested in when we come back
from the break, Well, here comes the news. I guess we're going
to find out everything exciting that's happening in Houston, and maybe some not so
exciting that's happening. Let's go to this successful good Sunday morning, on a
great day for gardening. You're listening to garden Line, and we are happy
to talk about whatever kinds of plant stuff you're interested in. I've got some
ideas about some things I want to cover here in this segment, but if
you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you are anywhere near the Heights, and even if you're
not, you need to know about Buchanans Native plants. Buchanans is in the
Heights on six or on eleventh Streets excuse me, six eleven East eleventh Street.
You can go online to Buchanans Plants dot com and find out more information.
By the way, when you're there, sign up for their newsletter.
Lots of great information if you can and specializes in natives. Of course,
they have every kind of plant you can imagine. They've got herbs right now,
a nice selection. I saw the other day some herbs in there.
They always have vegetables and flowers. And if you need plants for shady areas,
you know you live in a neighborhood. The trees have gotten big.
That's a nice thing, cooler on a summer day. But it's a little
challenging finding plants. Not at Buchanans. They've got all kinds of plants for
shade areas. But they specialize in natives, and they specialize in things that
don't always have to be watered all the time. So maybe African bull being
boy, there is a tough plant. I once had a bull being that
I planted on a little clay hill out at the street by the curb.
I mean, it was just I don't know how water even got in the
soil around that thing. Two years into the ground, two hundred blooms on
it. I counted, liberty. I did accounted the next couple of years
later. It just thrives in that kind of location. Mexican Buckeyes. It
drove by some of those the other day in a parking lot island where there
was no watering. I mean it was actually a street island, not a
parking lot. A Mexican buckeye can thrive a good understory tree with a beautiful
wet red blooms. You get the idea of what I'm talking about. Maybe
silver pony foot, that's a good one. You know. It cascades over
the sides of a container, forms a little bit of a groundcover. Beautiful
ice plant. There's another one night. If you get to water it,
it didn't care. It's just fine without you. All of that and more.
Buchanans Plants go to buchanans Plants dot com and they will give you some
inspiration for creating a landscape that isn't a prima donna that you've got to sit
there and you know, with a watering can in each hand twenty four seven,
trying to keep it alive. That's the kind of plants we need.
Hey, let's go out to Tumball and we're going to visit with John a
little bit this morning. Hello, John, good morning, how you doing.
I'm well, Thanks, thanks. I got a question about aeration.
Is this a good time a year to be aerating a yard. Yeah,
it's fine. Uh. Aeration, we like to get the lawn up and
growing in the spring, you know, get it going, get it moving,
because aeration is somewhat of a what's the word, trying to find the
right word, but I mean, you're you're poking holes in the soil,
You're you're messing with the grass, and so we would like to have it
up and actively growing. So as you aerate, it can just you know,
take off and feel right back in. Be just fine. But once
we get past that, you can pretty much aerate on through the season.
I would probably wait and not aerate in the fall. And the only other
time I would narrate is if you just put down a pre emergent weed control,
then I wouldn't aerate immediately after that because the reed control barrier or force
field or whatever that you've got on the surface, now you're poking holes in
it. And so so if you're going to do a fall pre emergent,
I would do the aerating, get all that done prior to then anyway,
okay, well, and then one quick they're talking about it hurting the grass
this time of year. I just put out some fifteen five ten and mine
in trouble. Now I watered it in. If you watered it in real
well you're probably okay. If you didn't just super overapply it, that'll be
just fine. Just know that you know it's going to be immediate release.
You're going to be a fast growth response. So going forward in time,
either take if you're going to continue to use a fast release, break that
application up into two or three light applications, or just go ahead and get
a slow release and go that route. It just overall for you and for
the grass health and everything, it's just a little bit better way to go,
especially in the warm summer when things can really be growing fast. Oh
perfect, Thank you, Skip you bet, Thank you for the calle John.
Good luck with that with that lawn out there in Tomball. Here comes
some rain this week. And what follows rain, well, flowers and growth
and all that. Yeah, but what else follows rain is a mosquitoes.
Do you have saggy gutters? Do you have an old hollow spot in a
tree where water gets in and stands. Maybe it's an old stump of the
ground where water stands. Do you maybe have a pond. You need to
protect yourself against the invasion of mosquitoes. It doesn't take them long. I
mean, they just need a little quarter inch of water and half inch of
water for a week or two, and next thing you know, here comes
a new crop of mosquitoes. Check those basins underneath your flower pots on the
patio, for example, catch basins, great mosquito breeding area. They love
still water, they love decomposing organic matter and water, and it doesn't take
them long to do that life cycle. Mosquito dunks is how you shut that
down, well number one. Underneath your containers, you just dump them out.
If it's a big container and it's too hard to pick it up and
dump and everything. Get some mosquito granules. The mosquito dunks. Folks have
also a granular product, and you can just throw a handful of little small
granules in there and do that too. But the dunks are like a doughnut
that floats and dissolves, and that donut gradually over about a month, will
protect against mosquito larva because it's a natural disease of mosquito larva. It won't
harm people. It won't harm your pets if they drink the water. You
can have fish in the water. It won't harm them, birds drink the
water. Otherwildlife don't worry about it. It is a completely specific to mosquito
larva product and it works super super well. If you're going to go on
a vacation, you definitely need to toss some dunks before you head out the
door. Hey, you can find them at all kinds of independent nurseries we
talk about here are mom and pops on garden Line, the feed stores we
talk about on garden Line, and of course ace hardware stores all over the
place all carry those mosquito dunks. Our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
I was checking my app. I've got an app on my phone.
A little camera thing tells me when birds have come to see it. And
I got to get back to the house. There is a squirrel that is
ravaging my bird feeder. I get a little pictures of a little marauding tree
rat. Hell my bird feeders. Anyway, I know some of you love
squirrels. Give me a break. Hey, So if you are interested at
all in birds, wah, Birds Unlimited is the coolest place ever. I
mean, the first time I walked into one. I was like, oh
my gosh, I now have a great new hobby. And it's a hobby
that goes good with gardening too. By the way, you know we're talking.
I was talking earlier about sitting out early in the morning, cup of
coffee and enjoying add bird music and that scene just gets a whole lot better.
Hey, wah Birds. There's seven of them here in the Houston area.
There's one in Katie, there's one in Kingwood up in Northeast, there's
one in Cyprus, Northwest pair Land down South Belair, West Houston and clear
Lake also has a brand new Wilbirds Unlimited. You can go to WBU dot
COMWBU dot com and you could find excuse me, WBU dot com forward slash
Houston that gets you the Houston group. You can find the wall birds near
you. It is hot and it and they need water and so make sure
your backyards have water. For wildlife, you need to be continuing to feed
the birds. There's a nesting super blend that Wilbirds makes that's perfect for summer
feeding because the bluebirds are still nesting through July. Cardinals, chickeneese wrens are
all still nesting as well. Molting is going to start later in the summer,
and birds, of course they lose their old feathers and get new ones
and to keep in top condition, nesting super blend all the way through August.
We'll even support the birds when they go through that molting period. Wild
Birds Unlimited. Checkout one by the way. It's a great place for gifts.
Uh yeah, one time I gave my mother in law a bird hummingbird
feeder. There's just a beautiful one bird gift. Birding gifts are a great
idea for the friends and family on your list. We're gonna take a break
seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. Let's talk to
you when we come back. Fly right, straighten up and fly right,
coop down, pope, But don't you blow you top. Ain't no using
diving. I what's the use of jiving? Straighten up and fly right,
coop down, pope, But don't you blow you tom. You're born in
beautiful day. Oh my gosh, look outside the clouds to float big.
Got a little bit of breaks here and there from the sun. Probably got
some rain coming in this week too. Looking forward to that one for sure.
Hey, if you live out in the Kingwood area. You are fortunate
to have two of the top garden centers here in the Greater Houston area,
and that is Warren's Southern Gardens, which is on North Park Driving Kingwood.
Kingwood Garden Centers just a little ways over on Stone Hollow Driving Kingwood. Both
of those are open seven days a week. So these are your hometown mom
and pop garden centers for New Caneyan Valley Ranch, porter A, Tascaseda Humble
Kingwood. Just cover a wide variety or ride range of the area out there.
They've got the Microlife, nitro FoST, turf Star, heirloom soils,
Nelson plant food, you know the different mosquito dunks we're just talking about.
For example, they've got a filling station for the jugs of Microlife and Nelson.
So if you buy Microlife or Nelson in the jug, just go in
there and you just reach up and pull down the handle and fill up your
jug. It's an economical way to do it, and you avoid extra plastic
in the environment, which is always, of course a good thing. Both
of those are open, I guess I said seven days a week, so
today would be a good day to visit with them. They're loaded with quality
products, and like all of our good mom and pops, the folks that
work there know what they're talking about. They can point you to a plant,
they can discuss with you problems you've been having and what you might need
to do to fix it. That alone is worth a visit to these quality
garden centers out there in Kingwood. I'm going to head out now to friends.
Would go the opposite direction, down south, and we're going to talk
to Wayne. Hello, Wayne, Hey, good morning. Yeah, I
have a question about these hot temperatures and asperacas grows fundy and how shall we
protect the plane. You know, when you say gross funny, is it
looking abnormal or what are you seeing? They are not growing normal like the
springtime of cool, weir that they grow real, these small leaves and things
like that. Okay, yeah, well, asparagus can take the heat.
We just have to give it adequate water, not drowned it, but keep
it adequately moist and get it through the summertime. I would hold off on
extra fertilizer. It does need nutrients, so if you haven't fertilized at all,
a light application would be a good thing. Or you could just I
just like to add composts to the surface. It becomes a mulch, but
it also breaks down and releases nutrients into the soil. And they just got
to get through this hot summer weather and then when we get toward fall,
we'll, of course in the cool season cut them back so we can get
our harvest again next spring. But I would I would just let them grow.
You know. If there's dead frounds, you can take those out,
but in general, it's a perennial and we just need to keep it adequately
hydrated and it'll be all right. Should I cut it down or just a
little bit grow like that? Oh no, I wouldn't cut it down now.
I wouldn't force it to use stored energy to regrow. I would leave
it. If you've got dead fronds, you know, they're not green,
they're tan like asparagus gets when it dies. You can take those out,
but I wouldn't take anything living out right now. Okay, I have a
second question about us directing fruit right now, it grows normally, But I
want to change the soil. Should I change in this summer time or not
this I'm using the flour part. Yeah, Should I change the soil or
don't change the soil, to leave it alone. If there's not a problem
with them the way they're looking. I would not change the soil right now.
I mean next I don't know, you know, you could you could
reapot them and stuff next spring, if you want to go through that and
do it. But if I wouldn't think there's a need to change the soil
if the plant's looking okay. Now, over time the soil and that container
sinks down because it oxidizes, it decomposes away and you have to add fresh
soil. So that would be a time to you know, you could live
them up, refill the soil level, and then put them back in there.
But I wouldn't do that right now. That's asking too much at this
time of the year. Okay. Now, was the fertilizer rating for the
directing food? You know, you know, I would anything that that's going
to do good for fruits and vegetables will be just fine. For the dragon
fruit, there's not like a specific dragon fruit fertilizer. Okay, all right,
I appreciate it, thanks a lot, yeah, Wayne. And if
you go with like an organic product, then you can just kind of sprinkle
it on the surface work it in a little bit and it's just going to
gradually feed over time. So that's another another good thing that you can do
out there. Hey, you're listening to garden Line. Our number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you live in Mountain
Bellevue or if you live over maybe in Baytown, I've got your hometown feed
store, and that is Texas Feedstop. It is on North Highway one forty
six. It's just a few minutes north of IT ten. So if you're
out on I ten and you go up one forty six, a few minutes
up there on the right, there's Texas Feed Stop. The Brian and Hope
Roads have created a really quality business that's part of the community. You know,
local, local teenagers from the Mount Bellevue community are going to be carrying
your bags at for you don't have to lug your own bags out of the
car. They'll take care of that. It's that old fashioned service, you
know, remember being able to walk into a place and being treated like family
and finding all the supplies you need, and you know, just that's the
kind of place. Texas Feedstop is all the fertilizers we talk about are there
things like the mosquito dunks. You're going to find a Texas Feed Stop as
well. I think they probably even have some of those tree hugger sprinklers there.
I'm pretty sure they do. If not, but they can get them
for you. It's a one stop shop, so anyone out in Bellevue,
they're your home town feed store and even down to Baytown. I can't think
of a better trip up than to take care of what you need, buy
the things you need for your lawn. They're going to have it all,
including the pesticides and sex sites, fungicides, things like that, herbicides,
They've got it all Texas Feedstop and you will be treated like family. Brian
and Hope Rhodes will make sure that that happens. Very delightful couple love going
by to visit the folks at Texas Feedstop. In we were talking about earlier
lawns and things. I want to talk just a little bit more about the
trees. If you've got a brand new tree, you need to make sure
it's adequately watered through this summer heat. If you need to water any aspect
of your landscape, I would watch the weather right now because maybe your lawn
is getting a little thirsty. That didn't mean needed water right now, because
if it's going to rain in the next day or two, why not use
the best water or on earth that falls from the sky and save yourself spend
them money on drinking water to water a long because then you just you know,
you got it wet at your own expense with a chlorinated type of water
and then now here comes the good stuff from the sky and it's already wood
water. So think about that a little bit. Just makes sense. I
know it saves a little bit of money, but it also it just makes
sense. And our trees that are new need to get a good watering.
The more recently they've been planted, the more often that they need to be
watered. What do I mean by that, Well, if you plant it
last fall, you're probably watering a new tree now maybe about three times a
week something like that that was planted last fall, because it still is putting
out really in the big middle of establishing a root system from that little cylinder
that came out of the pot. But if you planted it last week,
you better be watering them with a light watering every day or two. And
I don't mean drowning them. I just mean keeping that root cylinder moist,
because the soil may be boist around them, but that doesn't change the fact
that all the roots are in this little cylinder of soil, and they pump
the soil dry, so it get's kind of touching. Go to plant during
the summer, it can be done, but there's a little touch and go.
So take care of your plants, and even those that were planted in
winter or last fall, take care of them this first year is key because
think of it this way. You don't just want them to survive. Of
course, we don't want them to die. That's task number one, but
number two is you want them to thrive. The faster they get out of
root system, the more they don't have to stop because they're going through a
drought, stress or some other thing like that, and they just keep growing
and keep growing. The faster you get to hang a hammock in them.
If they're a fruit tree, the bigger of a tree, you're going to
hang fruit on in year three or four whenever you start harvesting that tree.
So it just makes sense to help those plants along. Now, a little
fertilizer is okay, but you don't need a lot, especially in this heat.
Just a little bit. We've got a lot of quality. We've got
fruit tree foods from our fertilizer friends here on garden Line. We have got
landscape food would eat, ornamental foods that are good for shrubs and trees and
things. Lots of good options out there. Moderate them out right now,
just gradually. The most important thing is water. That is most important.
Nutrients are second most important, very important, but water is the number one
thing. So don't just stop with fertilizing. Make sure you're taking care of
your trees and making sure they get watered, are really really well in order
for them to do their best. And by the way, the tree hugger
sprinkler is probably the best way to do that. Tree huggers wrap around the
tree. They have three sizes, seven inch or eleven inch, fifteen inch.
You put them around the tree, hook up the hose. They got
a valve, and go to tree Hugger sprinkler dot com. You're going to
find out more about them. They'll tell you the retailers that have them.
Pretty much. It's all the thing. The places we talk about the nurseries
that are independent the garden Center's hardware, so on TreeHugger, sprinkler dot com.
Well, here we go, another hour in the books. You're listening
to garden Line and we will be back to answer your gardening questions. When
we come back, we're going to have doctor Guy Phipps. Guy is a
expert when it comes to all things irrigation. Doctor Phipps is at Texas Aggerlife
Research and Extension up at Texas and m the Department of agg Engineering. I
believe he's still in the department. That's still the department they have may Man.
He is a creator or the Water My Yard program, and we're going
to talk about scientific yard watering based on data from local weather stations, so
you don't have to put a weather station in the backyard. You can sign
up online and have a local weather station guide you in how much water to
use. And I think it would be very eye opening. I hope you'll
stick around. That's in the eight o'clock hour. I'm really looking forward to
visiting within myself. We'll be right back. Kt r H Garden Line does
not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to kt r H garden Line with Scarp Ricter smells you trip. Just watch
him as woods. So many you did clubs back ticking, but not a
sign between you did starting out of tree you did well. Good morning.
It is a beautiful day outside. We're about to get some wet stuff from
the skies, which is a welcome break with the weather we've been having.
You're listening to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we
are fortunate today, as I was telling you previous hour, to have doctor
Guy Phipps as our guest guy. Welcome, it's it's here. Yeah,
good, it's been it's been a while since we talked, for since we
talked in person. Yes, it's been a good Yeah, that's true.
You know, over the years, I've kind of kept up with all the
different projects you're working on, at least from a distance, but the one
when it comes to irrigation and water conservation things like that, I just think
that's been the most fascinating thing in the world. You know, it used
to be, and I guess to some degree, we still do say things
like well, your lawn needs an inch of water a week to do well,
but we forget about that. We get water from the sky and we
don't have to apply all the water. Guy. I lived in Cyprus for
a number of years and I had a neighbor whose sprinklers came on every other
day and the heads were so messaligned that they sprayed my car and my driveway
and so I would park backwards on some days to wash the other side of
the car. But it was just here. It is the place where water.
It rains about as much as any place in Texas, just about,
and yet people over water. It's just a strange phenomenon. Yeah, but
you know, a lot of it is that people have automatic controllers that control
their irrigations and a lot of people just said it and forget it. There
you go, just just think this little machine is smart enough to know,
yeah, when it rains and when it doesn't rain. Yeah, that's true.
That is true. Well, I would like to start off and just
talk a little bit about the concept of a VAPO transpiration. That's one of
those big long words that people What does that mean? What is the whole
idea of an EVAPO transporations based system. What's going on there? Okay,
Well, I can make it easier et et Evapple transporation but it's easier just
to say ET. But what we're talking about here is the science of irrigation,
okay, and there's a long history. Relative long history was like in
the starting in the nineteen fifties when theories or theories began to be put forward
on how we could apply scientific principles to figuring out how much water plant plants
need. Yeah, and so that led to what scientists called ET right,
which is how much water plants need to grow as precisely what it means.
So the idea, and I think everybody intuitively would know that a given plant,
you know, if it's seventy degrees outside and cloudy, is not going
to need as much water as if it's one hundred degrees outside and sunny.
You know, that's that's kind of intuitive. But tell me what goes into
ET what? What? What is? How does how does science? What
data to science you use in order to put together the water requirement? Like
I could go, well, it's hot, you should water twice as much,
but that's not scientific. So well, it sort of is, as
engineers will say, it's not quantified. But the first scientists that came up
with the modern theory of irrigation. He observed the same thing that climate influences
how much water plants need. And there are some plant factors. There are
some differences among plants, so you have to know something about the plant.
But the driving factors is the climate, specifically temperature, when relative humidity,
how weather or dry the area is, right, All of that affects how
much plants will use on any given day. And then the big driver is
what we call solar radiation. Yeah, and solar radiation as a measurement of
how much energy from the sun we receive. Yeah here at ground level.
So your grass uses a lot less water under the shade of a tree than
it would out in the direct sun. I can tell that when I stretch
the watering a little bit and what wilts first. In fact, by the
way, it's fun. Fact, this past week I watered my lawn for
the first time this year. So I've got a good root system. I've
taken care of it and everything. And I wouldn't recommend somebody that's been watering
every day to suddenly go to once ever three weeks or whatever. It'd be
a disaster. But you can wean a lawn into a good deep root system
by watering properly. Yeah, by watering properly, not too often, and
not putting on too many light applications. Yeah. But if you follow ET
watering, then that gets you there. Yeah, a little bit easier.
So there's my lawn, your lawn, the listener's lawn right now. The
sunshine, solar radiation, the wind, the humidity, and of course the
temperature are all being crunched together into through a formula along with you mentioned I
don't know that you use the word but like a coefficient, meaning will grass
we need to apply this coefficient to the formula so that it's for your lawn.
I mean they could do that for a farmer with a cotton field or
something else. But what their little weather stations around that gather this data to
make it more local. Well, you need a local ET weather station.
The National Weather Service stations don't help us because they do not measure solar radiation,
okay, and it's one of the big drivers of ET. So yes,
you need a ET weather station and then you need the software to do
all the crunching. These aren't calculation as you'll be doing by hand, right
sort of thing. So your question was, are there stations around. There
are some stations around and way back nineteen ninety five, I started something it's
called the ET network Okay, Texas ET Network, and I started working with
local sponsors and setting up ET stations in different parts of the state, Okay,
so that we could have this information, uh, you know, for
their clientele. That's great. Well, we're gonna take a little break here
and when we come back, we're going to continue this discussion and drill down
on how can you for free can you believe that use ET to guide your
irrigation? Thank you, doctor Phipps. It's so great having you today.
Look forward to continue the conversation. Hey, our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy for if you'd like to give us a call
ask doctor Phipps a question. I'm sure he can answer anything you can throw
at him today, but we'll be glad to visit with you about anything related
to watering as well. Good Bye, you gotta go o min me gotta
good pull a p rude down by lane mile. And that's for all our
South Louisiana listeners today as well as any other hooks over here that just enjoy
some good old South Louisiana type music. We're today having the privilege of being
able to talk to doctor Guy Phipps. Doctor Phipps is with Texas Agrilife Extension
Service. In fact, I should have started off this way, doctor Phipps.
But tell us a little bit about your official title and basically your role
in duties and what you take care of with Agrilife. Well, I SAT
extension, it's also research. Well, I actually have one hundred percent extension
the point, oh you do, okay, I'm a professor and extension specialist.
My background is in agricultural engineering, and so I for extension. I
one role I do is I'm the State Extension agricultural Engineer, Okay. So
I kind of coordinate and interact with other state agencies, you know, and
that sort of thing on issues related to weather and irrigation and uh and then
uh and then like all extension specialists, my job is to take the latest
knowledge and information that's developed at the universities or at UH from USDA research labs,
yes, and take it to the people of Texas. And so I
work in both the urban sectors and the act sectors on trying to do that,
and so I have short courses and then I do applied research projects,
demonstration projects, and field demonstration projects, and I work with various clientele who
want to accomplish something but need help in doing it. And that's how the
Weather my Yard program came out the North Texas Municipal Weather District, which is
located up in the Dallas area. They cover about a dozen cities around Dallas
to sell Weather Provider and they hadn't been years trying to get homeowners to irrigate
using ET and it was hopeless because you tell someone that they need an inch
of water, but what does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah,
but they wanted a system that you, the user, wouldn't have to
know all this technical data. Okay, so that was the challenge and we
worked with them and out of that came the Water my Yard program. Okay,
Now you mentioned the texas et network before and that that's a website.
If anybody's it shouldn't going. It's texas et, dot TAMU, dot edu.
All the n M websites seem to end in dot TMU, dot edu,
the texas et, So it looks like you're writing Texas set t e
X a set and if you go there you can see the stations across the
state and all of the different data on it. I can tell you right
now what the maximum temperature and Corpus Christi and the minimum temperature and Corpus Christie.
You know, it's all there recorded in data. But I remember the
days where I'd try to go on there and remember to check it, so
I know how much the water. But the water my yard is a whole
new thing. Tell us about the water my yard, how it came about
initially, and then how people could use it today. So what North Texas
Municipal Wather District wanted was a ET based irrigation recommendation and notification program to where
users would receive weekly recommendations on how long to run they're sprinklers. They're sprinklers.
So it's taking it from ET telling you how much like an inch of
wather you need to apply to how long how many minutes you turn on each
of your sprinklers, okay, and without anyone having have technical knowledge and not
having to know a lot about your irrigation system okay. So it was quite
a challenge. So and then the other thing, they wanted automatic notifications.
So we started this program in two thousand and thirteen, and we hit,
well, it's not hidden, but the things that the pieces of information that
we could pull together, we would evaluate the area and we could decide on
certain information like soil type and other technical stuff. We kind of hide all
of that from the user and we set up a system where the user goes
to the website and they do need to either enter the ear rigation system precipitation
rate, but most people don't know what that is, right, And if
you don't know what it is, then we have a little wizard that will
take you through a few steps to where you identify the type of sprinkler you
have. We have photographs, yes, and then you and then you do
a few selection and that will set up your irrigation system. That's that's nice.
I'm sitting here looking at it as we speak right now, and I
just put in the address here for the station and it shows that in this
we need point three nine inches of water needed, which is one watering for
forty six minutes. It says if you click on personalize, you get these
little pictures like you're describing doctor Phipps. There's the multi stream rotor that has
all the little fingers that drifts across the lawn. There's the rotor that just
has a stream that drifts across the pop up Solid States prays, which by
the way, put out water way faster than our Houston black clays can absorb
a bit for sure, drip irrigation and even a hose end. So you
click on that's my type of sprinkler, and so that's what takes it from.
Hey, you need point three nine inches of water too, You need
to run your multi stream for this long, You need to run your pop
up spray for this long, and just makes it full proof. Yeah,
well as full proof as we can make it without sacrificing the science. Yeah,
but you know the precipitation rate of sprinklers, how fast irrigation systems put
out wather that varies tremendously hugely. Yeah, So I would encourage users to
be sure to go through the Little Wizard the personalize and personalize it to your
irrigation system. So that helps helps me too, you know, because when
I get you need half an inch of water, I don't want to do
calculations and figure out how many minutes it could be or how many times a
week. Yes, that is yes, and so initially we set this up
that was seems like ancient Worldwide Web days ago twenty thirteen. So we had
the website and we had choices of text messages or emails. Uh. And
then a few years ago we developed the app, the wather my Yard app.
And then with the app, you know, I guess all young people,
I'm told they don't do websites. It's all app. Everything has to
be app. But it's all in the app. And that way you can
get your notification directly, Okay, your mobile device if you prefer it that
way. Yeah, that is that is nice. And I do get those
emails and it's really helpful to be able to see that. Uh yeah that
you know, all these factors that are really complex that would prevent people from
ever getting it done, are now done for you. You've got a station
that's collecting all the data, that understands the coefficient that grass needs, so
they tell you exactly what you need. You've got the ability to say,
this is what my system looks like. I got to pop up or this
or that, and then you have the ability to get an email to just
I say, make it makes it full. But I mean if if you
can't get it done with all that you've created in the water my Yard system,
then you're not trying at all because it's a really simple, easy system.
Well, and a lot of people are really puzzled by figuring out how
long do your gate their sprinkler? A lot of people want to be responsible,
but you know, it's just so tough. Yeah, that's true.
So we whether my Yard isn't everywhere. The way it works is we have
local sponsors who purchase the weather stations and help cover the cost of the program.
That's good. I believe the Houston Galison Subsidence District is one of the
sponsors in this area. Yes, yes, so Houston Harris Galveston Subsidence District
and Court and Ben Subsidence District joined the program a long time ago, okay
seven eight years ago, and the newest member locally, they just joins the
City of Houston. Okay, Houston Weather and they will be installing a ET
weather state. We have a hole here in Harris County in the northeast where
we don't have good ET station coverage. Good, So their station is on
order, should be here soon and it's going to be installed there. Okay,
that is great. Well, it is simple, and we've got to
call Charyl. I see out there on the call. We're gonna we're having
to take break here, but if you'll hang on, we'll get a question
to doctor Phipps when we come back from that break. We're speaking of doctor
Guy Phipps, Texas and University with an agrilife extension about water conservation in the
home landscape and some waste to make it easier and more doable. And I
just want to remind you it's more than just well, we're wasting a precious
resource. It's more than just I'm spending money. It's when you miss water,
you affect the health of your lawn. If you water too little too
often, which is way too common, you can increase disease problems. So
we're talking about when when when when here with the water my yard system.
We're gonna take a break right now our phone number seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Sheryl, you'll be first when we come back
from break. Please starts and my shoes and always smile. Well, good
Sunday morning. You are listening to Garden Line and we are fortunate today to
have doctor Guy Phipps from Texas A and m Agrilife Extension. Doctor Phipps is
a specialist when it comes to irrigating all things water, water conservation, or
using water wisely and efficiently in our landscapes, and that is what our talk
is all about. Today. We've got a couple of calls on the line,
doctor Phipps, and I think we're going to start off by going out
to pair Land and talking to Cheryl. Good morning, Cheryl, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call this morning. You bet. I wanted
to first tell you I've really enjoyed your show and the information you gave me
about my shrubs a few months ago. Okay, to check the water table
and stuff like that, and it was giving way too much water. Yeah,
so I've killed two birds with one stone because I was having these little
weeds coming up along with water. Only waters like three or four my shrubs
too much, which brings me to my point of the e t watering because
I have about forty I have about fifty feet on one side of the yard
that I'm watering with top ups. I'm watering all my flower beds and then
it goes about twenty feet past the flower beds and waters the lawn, which
is great because my water my my lot slopes down. So even though it's
not reaching the whole yard because we have a pretty big backyard, um,
it's still getting out, you know, to the grass and keeping the grass
healthy. But I was watering it way too by stuff cutback since our conversation
when you told me to check to make sure it wasn't getting too much water.
Okay it was, So I turned my sprinklers totally off, and I've
done what you did. I think I'm using like three times since we had
our conversation, which is like two months ago, and my irrigation guys that
put it in to I'm me to use it every day. It's like crazy,
I know, right, And it's it's hard to shere to generalize because
you know, if it was in a live oak shade, the amount of
water it needs. When I lived in Cyprus, I typically we had some
live oaks and I would are the lawn under them about three times this summer.
And if even yeah, and I have one side that's like that,
yeah, information, but then sun is totally different. So what is your
question for doctor Phipps. Yeah, So with that in mind, I try.
I'm trying to grow tomatoes and vegetables and herbs and some containers pretty large,
and I'm noticing, you know, if I keep them out in the
full sun all day. I've been fertilizing with some organ I've been doing its
organically as I can. It's amazing. I haven't had to use any pesticides
because I have all these wasps that just take care of everything. It's just
amazing. So I have my own little ecosystem going. But it's the watering
that I'm having the biggest issue with wind and water. You know how much
is watering and giving them almost two gallons a day? Does that sound normal
in the heat PEPs, Well, if you're watering plants and containers them,
that's a whole different story, I know. But but what you need to
do is you need to poke your finger and the soil and see how wet
or dry the soil is. You know, you water up the pot and
they're going to be real wet, but you're gonna need to let that water
dry out some to where the soil is just a little bit moist. And
that's my only advice. That's what I do with my potted plants is Yeah,
that's a good point. So what I've been trying to pay attention to
that. But would it be wise me, like in the first thing in
the morning, to just water them all the way and then and then go
from there. Well, there's there's a lot of factors, you know,
we're talking about all the factors in your lawn water. When it comes to
containers, I just doctor Phipps's point about use use the water measuring devices on
the ends of your hands is the best way to do it. And here's
why. Some soils drain well. Some soils are mucky and soggy, have
a tendency toward that. Some containers, like plastic and glaze containers, they
don't allow moisture through the sides. Terra Cotta literally will wick and evaporate moisture
away from the container. If you've got a big plant and a small container,
or a small plant and a big container. Do you see what I'm
saying that there's no way to just say do this, but I would I
would make sure your container drains well. And I think your idea of giving
them a good soaking in the morning is not a bad idea because if you've
got a good quality soil, you're knocking to over water if the container drains
well. But what does happen in the summer is with any size of a
plant at all compared to the container size, it may pump it dry before
the end of the day. I have tomatoes in buckets that are seven gallon
or even up to tin that I may water more than once a day if
they're in the blazing hot sun, and so we're getting all the event containers
are hotter because the sun now is hitting all sides of the containers as opposed
to an inground plant. And there are just so many factors that I feel
the soil like that gives me a lot more confidence. That gives me so
much more confidence knowing that I'm not overwatering them because it seems like but does
the water evaporate from the top down or from the bottom up or both?
It evaporates from the top down. But I think the analogy I like to
use this is I don't know how effective this is for you, but when
you drink coke through a straw, when you take your mouth off the straw,
the coke falls down in the straw and air comes in behind it,
right I mean that's what fills up where there was coke. When our soils
start to dry out, there's gravity that's pulling down, but there's plant roots
taking it out and it's evaporating off of the surface, especially in a container.
And so if you were to do a cross section, yeah, you
would see a water level go down in there. But that's good because it
brings oxygen in behind it and then you water again. And doctor pheps,
we need to talk about the the good deep soaking followed by you know,
a good drying out period when it comes to lawns as well. Yeah,
that's all right, Cheryl. Well, I hope that helped. Hey,
and I'm going to use all that to measure my pop ups. I'm so
excited. Um, Doctor Phipps, your information has been great. Thank you
for taking the time to educate all of us this morning. You'll have a
great day. Hey, thanks, thank you. We're going to now go
out to John V and League City. John V. I got one minute?
Can we do it in a minute? Oh gosh, I hope.
So. Good morning a skip and doctor Phipps. My question is on the
rainwater. I'm collecting rainwater through the rainwater barrels provided by City of League City
and other containers on our home and our lawns here. Um with the with
the thunderstorms, lightning and ionization. Um, that water is much more pure
than our regular water. And I just wanted to make sure it's okay,
hey, for me to just continue to use that water for everything under the
sun to water. It's better than okay, it's mandatory. You must do
that. Your plants are screaming. They've called me earlier and said tell her,
do not use, do not use chlorinated drinking water on us anymore.
Still, we don't drink even that. We use the still to water and
then we use pH level water for alkaline. And we were all water fanatics
and we actually, yeah, we have a pure air from water systems that
we're marketing and that's part of my parents quickly, yeah, very good.
Well, hey, we're gonna take a break. I'll make a comment about
rainwater when we come back. Our phone number seven one three two one two
five eight seven four and Katie in the woodlands, you'll be first up to
the water. Good morning, beautiful Sunday morning. Look outside, folks.
We got sunshine, but we had enough clouds to kind of I don't know,
maybe a little easier on you getting outside and doing a little work.
Today. We just we're talking on the phone with a gen v about rainwater.
And for those of you who are interested in rainwater, we're not going
to have time to get deep into that today at all. But there is
a wonderful website that, like all wonderful websites at the Mecca and College station,
ends in Tamu dot Du Tammu dot Du, and it is easy to
remember rainwater harvesting. One word, rainwater harvesting dot Tammu dot edu. When
you go there, there's video clips, there's publications, there's tons of information.
I mean, if you want to put a rain barrel in the house,
if you want to do a whole house system, if you want to
go out on your farm or ranch and put in a little you know,
shed over the cattle area and capture rainwater for deer and wildlife and all,
you can do it all rainwater harvesting dot dot Du. Doctor Guy Phipps is
our guests today from Texas A and m Agrilife Extension, and we are talking
about water conservation in the landscape, efficient use of water in the landscape,
We're going to head now out to the Woodlands and talk to Katie. Well,
good morning, Katie, good morning, thank you for taking my call.
I'm so excited about your program this morning and the water my lawn out.
So I downloaded it, got ready, had my plan. I was
going to enter all my specific answers to those questions and guess what, it
doesn't cover the woodlands, So how do we get on board? And then
I read a little part of it it said to go ahead and call the
local water authorities. Is one phone call going to help me? Or what
do we need to do here in the Woodlands. Well that's a good question.
Well, yeah, we rely on local sponsors to help cover the cost
of the program, and that's the only way we can deliver it. I
don't receive any state funding or funding from A and M to do this.
So the types of sponsors that we have, we have water districts, and
we have two types of water districts that will sponsor areas. One our groundwater
conservation districts and the others are wholesale or municipal wholesale water districts. And and
we do have one river authority. But besides that, it's the local city
or the local water utility is the sponsor. So and it's not an expensive
program for an organization like that to sponsor. And then if you send us
an email, we can forward you a information sheet more than my yard information
sheet that covers everything about the program that you can share with your local utility,
city or district. That's awesome. Yeah, maybe the Sane Center were
authority or the Woodlands Township would be interested in sponsoring because I think this app
is going to be fantastic, especially we have a lot of water restrictions in
the Woodlands were only allowed to water twice a week for certain amounts of time.
So I think this program would be which get like a glove. Oh
great. And the other thing that we do in the emails is if there's
wathering restrictions in the local area and then we put that information on the weekly
notifications and so some of the sponsors really like that because it helps get out
the word when they go on drought restrictions. Yeah, yeah, that's good.
I was trying to think about where the nearest weather station to you from
our area, like the Houston the Harris County subsidence district. Maybe ye kind
of close to the woodland. Yeah, we we have one and uh kind
of northwest Harris County. Uh, and that's probably the closest station to the
woodlands. Uh. This new station that the City of Houston will be putting
in is going to be just south of the Intercontinental Airport. Okay, so
that one will be kind of loose, I mean kind of close. Uh
you know you can uh, you know, you just need a zip code
to create an account on whether my Yard. So, so some users will
find the closest station okay and use that zip code. Uh. Just be
aware that it chances are that your rainfall values will be different. You know
rainball that rainfall varies a lot over short areas, so you'll probably need to
enter your own rainfall date. This is really easy to do on the app
and adjust your watering recommendations. Uh. Yeah, you know, based on
that local rainfall. You know. Another that's a very good idea. So
I can trick the system a little bit close to me, you can get
yeah, okay, exactly, you can get buy on that. Another thing
you might want to think about doing, too, is if you don't already
have a rain switch on your system. A rain switch is when it rains
at your house, it swells up, and your clock still runs and thinks
that it's in charge of everything. But the rain switch won't let it talk
to the valves. That's a simple way I like to put it. And
so you know, let's say you went to a station that was a little
further away and it got rain there, but or maybe they didn't get rained
there, but you did. That would prevent you from watering when you don't
need to a little bit more. It bus to be one little other tweak
that might help a little bit. Well, my my switch is my finger,
just like you told that last caller about taking the meter. My meter
is my finger because we actually have a manual system, so we have to
actually turn them on. Then I put my timer on, and then I
walk and change his own. So there you got an old school that's it.
Yeah, figure it out. Well, I know we're meant to be
gardeners because we all come equipped with these falangis that are perfect. You know,
the first joint on your index swinger is how deep you plan an onion
transplant? Say what, that's my moisture meter, right, that's it.
You have moisture meters there, I mean you just got it all right there.
You just have to figure out how to put it to work. Okay,
thank you guys. You guys are awesome. Love it all right,
thank you. Yeah, you know. I got to thinking one day about
all the things we can do. We can use our hands for. Yeah,
the first joiner and your knick swinger is about how deep if you put
an onion transplant. If you grab a limb, the width across your hand
is how far part you thin plums. If you open up your hand,
the tip of your little finger to the tip of your thumb is how far
apart you thin peaches. And I mean, I could just go on and
on. It's really a wonderful little tools we come equipped with. There.
Well, you're listening to the garden Line Radio show, and we're glad you
are. We're visiting the doctor Guy Phipps from Texas A and m Agrilife Extension
today about all things water. Now, folks that are interested can go into
the water my Yard app. It's water my Yard. Excuse me, the
website water my Yard dot org. I want you to tell us about the
apps. You don't have to be sitting in a computer to do this.
Yeah, we Uh, the Galveston Bay Foundation received a grant from the US
Environmental Protection Agency to further the Water my Yard program in this area and that's
to help reduce runoff to protect the goal of Mexico. And so with that
funding, we were able to develop the Water in my Yard app, and
we have both versions, the iOS version in the Apple Store and the Android
version and Google Play, so you can just you don't have to go to
the website. You can just go to those online stores, I mean the
Apple Google stores, download the app and do everything there. And then the
other feature that the app has a couple of vantages over the website, and
one is that you can get push notifications directly to your mobile device if you
rather have that instead of email or text messages. And then when you get
your wathering recommendation if something, if you want to make a change, let's
say you got less rainfall at your house, man the et station did you
can quickly and easily make that change. That's good. That is good.
Yeah, man, Can you make it any simpler? You know? Could
we have doctor phips? Would you come to people's yard and turn the water
on for them? I mean that Hey, we got a call coming in
here for Thomas. I'm gonna have to put you off to after break.
We were running out of time, but I will come to you first when
we get back from break. Let's see, I say, what, Let's
see if we can do this fast Thomas. Thomas had a question Doctor Phipps
about sprinkler placement. So if we can do that in the next maybe a
minute, we'll try to pull that off. Cool sprinkler placement on a slope.
Where would you put your sprinklers on a slope or how would you place
them? As that what you're asking, Yes, sir, I have a
couple of slopes, once twelve degrees, once about eight reef, and originally
we know I've got spunk is set in the bottom and then a couple on
top. It's stupid. On the bottom, it's green as can be.
The top is dry. Okay. While the sprinkler placement you follow the same
procedure as you do. State regulations require that you follow manufacturers recommendations on spacing,
so that means you're going to have head to head coverage. But but
what you need to do is separate those into two different zones. There you
go, because the wathering schedule is different for slopes none it is for flat
ground. So if you're running them off the same valve that they're all part
of same zone, and then it's going to be very difficult to be able
to effectively irrigate your upslope areas. Thank you so much. I'll tell you
what. Doctor PEPs is going to hang round after break for a little bit
with us here. So if you have a call you'd like to make,
give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We will continue this discussion. I've got a couple more things I want to
ask about regarding water conservation in the landscape, and so just hang on.
We'll be right back. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of
the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with
Skip rictor so Smelly. Just watch him as so many toy a s Well,
good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. We are talking water today.
It's fixing to give us some water from the skies this week, which is
a nice break. But when it comes to our lawns and our landscapes,
miss watering is a huge mistake. And here's the reason why. Number one,
it costs money. Number one, it uses a precious resource. And
number that would be number two. Number three, it can cause disease problems
to be worse than they normally would be when we water that way. And
it just doesn't make sense. It's just we have so much technology now,
like now the water my Yard system, that just makes technology easy. And
doctor Guy Phipps is visiting with us today about about that. I wanted to
doctor Phipps, I'd like you to comment a little bit about Earlier I talked
about watering with a good soaking on an infrequent basis, and we elaborate a
little bit on why that's in order and how that helps with saving water.
Um, yes, and deepen and frequent. I don't tend to think of
it in those terms, you know. The way I think about it is
that you know, you have your root zone of your plants, and there's
a lot of advantages to having a deeper root zone than a shallower root zone.
Some of the advantages are it's a more healthy plant, you know all
of that. But another reason is if you have a deeper root zone and
then you have more storage for rainfall. Like think about it like the gas
tank in your car. How many gallons can you put in your or gas
tank? How many can it hold? And how far can you try?
If your gas tank was twice as big as it is now, you could
go twice as far before you would need to fill up. So when we
look at the at the root zone of soils, we want to be able
to store as much water as we can and so we can go longer between
irrigations. And like I said, it promotes plant health and all of that.
But in this area, you never know when you're going to get a
rain shower, and so it's nice to have the gas tank not all the
way full if you see what I mean. For when we get a rain
shower, you can capture and hold more of that rainfall. So there's a
lot of reasons that we go about it, but but plant health is really
one of the primary driving factors. And we have the scientific term. It's
a fun term, but it's called mad uh uh and it means man it's
allowable depletion. But it's just mad is is what it's called by scientists.
This okay, this idea of of uh in frequent irrigations. Okay, well,
good one. One additional question. If someone comes up to you and
says, hey, um, I want to make my system more efficient,
what are some of the simple first few things that would come like the low
hanging fruit if you will for answering a question like that. And I'm kind
of leading here, I guess in a sense, and that I'm thinking about
we haven't talked about like evaluating your system or auditing your things. But what
are the things you think, like two or three things that you need to
do? These two things first, this is the easy well, well,
the first first thing you do is go out and inspect the system, look
at the system when it's running, and make notes of what kind of problems
you see. The most common problems we see like we might have broken heads,
you know, kids or dogs or people will walk over pop ups and
break them and they don't pop up correctly, or when they do pop up
there look weird. And the other common problem we see as sprinklers, particularly
roads rotating too far. You know, they don't stop at the driveway,
but they continue and what the driveway. It's hard to make asphalt grow even
if you water it and it turns out that that fixing that problem is super
easy to do. Any just about anyone can adjust the rotation. How you
do that varies a little bit by type of sprinkler or manufacture, but you
can quickly find how to that. It's a real easy adjustment, usually moving
a little spring or panel or something. And if you make that adjustment,
that will make a big difference. You know, other types of problems you
have is like leaks or broken heads. If that's beyond your ability, which
it is of most homeowners. Keep in mind that Texas has a irrigation license
program. People are supposed to have licenses issued by the state to work on
landscape irrigation systems. So if you have problems when you look for someone to
fix it, be sure that they're a license irrigator because they've been through the
training and the license tests and stuff. Yeah, that's good. That's all
good advice for sure. Well, I hope you've enjoyed visiting. I have
doctor phips today learning about things and ways we can save water, ways we
can avoid overwatering. I tell you we really do over water here and the
kinds of things you've done. Thank you, by the way for the work
you've done. Over your career and especially now this Water my Yard program that
is really a gift. I mean to tell somebody, I can save you
money, I can make your yard healthier, and I can make it so
easy that all you have to do is look at your phone over now and
then, because it's telling you what to do. I mean, and it's
free. Oh I forgot and it's free. How much better can you do?
So if your water supplier doesn't do the water mayor program, tell them
about it and look into maybe getting them interested in it, because it's just
a win win for the whole community in many many ways. There's a reason,
for example, that subsidence districts would support a program like this. As
we pump a ton of water out of the ground, it affect a lot
of things that we don't even think about. And so this is a very
important program that has easy and immediate results. So thank you so much.
I appreciate you stopping in and taking care of that for a sure thing.
I enjoyed it. It's always good to talk to you. Thank you so
much. You know I've talking to about weather and roofs and things earlier.
If you are looking for a quality solar system, to go on top of
your house. You do not have to put the panels on top of the
roof. You can buy a shingle that actually is a solar shingle, and
Brinkman Roofing has their timberline solar shingles that do just that. They've been doing
this for twenty five years. No excuse me, they've been doing this for
fifty years. They warrant a roof job they do for twenty five years because
they use the top quality equipment, the top quality supplies. They know what
they're doing. They do top quality workmanship, and when you put all that
together, you got a roof that's gonna last and it's going to do what
it's supposed to do. Don't trust a company that bangs on the door to
tell you you got store of damage here. Let me help you out.
Go with someone who's been here for fifty years. Twenty twenty two Better Business
Bureau Pinnacle Award winner. Go to Brinkman Quality dot Com or just give him
a call to eight one four eight zero seven six six three. We're gonna
take a break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four and Sandy, I'll be going to you first when we come back from
break. Well, we are about to see some rain here for long,
I'm watching the clouds darker and darker, floating by good news, getting a
little bit of rain. Yeah, that was good talking to doctor Guy Phipps,
spending some time learning about how we can just how that win win win
on when it comes to watering our lawn in an efficient way that takes care
of our lawn very much to avoid some of the problems that we create a
lot of our plant problems are caused by us. I have to admit that
myself. You know, if you live out in the Fort Bend area,
you need to know about Enchanted Forest. You've probably already been there, you
probably know about it. But Enchanted Forest is a wonderful nursery. I was
not just yesterday visiting, you know, with Danny and Clay out there,
just seeing all the new things that they have in stock. And boy do
they ever have a lot of new things in stock. One of the things
that really sets them apart from many nurseries is the amount of beneficial attracting plants
that they sell, not just beneficial insects, but butterflies. Butterfly larva supporting
plants. Their selection of milkweed is incredible. It's unbelievable. And by the
way, you want to found out yesterday. If you have some milkweed but
you don't have any caterpillars on it, monarchs, for example, you can
go buy there and if they got some extra ones, they will give them
to you to take home, so you can put someone your own and hey,
you grew up here and I'll come back be a butterfly. Let's enjoy
things. Or if you buy a plant and it doesn't come with one,
you can have them. Hey, could you move that caterpillar over here?
I want to take that one home with me. They'll do that too.
It's pretty cool stuff. Yeah, the folks added Enchanted for us, Danny
and Clay and really all of them, they know what they're talking about.
They take time to help you. They literally do. I mean, if
you need a little extra help picking a plant, you need them to kind
of walk you around show they can do that kind of thing. It's that
kind of service that makes our mom and pop nursery so awesome, and Enchanted
Forest is just really the epitome of that kind of service. They do exactly
that they know what they're talking about. You're gonna buy all the fertilizers we
talk about out there. You're gonna buy lots of wonderful kinds of plants.
By the way, they're open Saturdays from eight to five thirty and Sundays from
ten am to four pm. That's Enchanted Forest. If you're in the Richmond
area and you head toward sugar Land, but a little south, that's where
Enchanted Forest is located. They're not difficult to find at all. You can
just go online. The great social media stuff too. If you don't go
on Facebook, for example, and learn more about it, super super way
to find out. Let's head out to Cyprus. Now we're going to talk
to Sandy A Good morning, Sandy, good morning, thanks for taking my
call. Sure I have a question number one I wanted to see. Um,
Yes you can. They're not going to produce a lot until we get
a little bit of a break from the weather, but now would be a
good time. And here's why. If you planted that little plant when it's
going to cool off a little bit and they can produce better, you would
have a little plant to hang eggplant on. If you plan it now and
water and fertilize it and get it growing. Then when the weather breaks a
bit and the fruit set is improved, you're going to have even more eggplant.
Okay, and what I'm kind of cool weather plant vegetables. Can I
start from seed by foot? Now? Nothing right now? For cool season?
Some people are starting some transplants for a faul tomato crop now, or
peppers or eggplant or things like that. Now those are all warm season.
It'll be about September before we start putting out the cool season things, the
transplants of broccoli and cabbage, cauliflower, and and then as we get into
October, we're seating lettuce and spinaches and things going on in from October to
November and so on. Okay, so those I can plant in a pot
or now you can grow anything in a container that you can grow in the
ground as long as the container's big enough. Sweetcorns a little bit of a
challenge, and some of the big vining vegetables you need a really large container
to get away with it. But container growing is yeah, pretty wide open.
Okay. Well, thank you very much. Well, thank you for
I appreciate that. Thank you, good to talk. You bet you bet
you know, I've talked about niro Foss products a lot because they've got a
wonderful line of super quality products. And one of the ones that I think
is something that you absolutely need to know about right now, and that is
the nitrofist Superturf. Superturf is a nineteen four ten nutrient fertilizer, so it's
got a good load of nitrogen, but it's set up in a way that
that nitrogen gets gradually released over time. If you put out superturf now,
you don't need to fertilize again until the fall season. Superturf is formulated for
the hot, humid southern climate we deal with here. It'll cut down on
the frequency of mowing, the creation of that on the encouraging things like chinch
bugs and brown pawn patch which we now call large patch in the fall season.
It's part of that nitro FoST summer essentialist program. And where do you
get nitro foss. Well, all of our ice hardware stores, our mom
and pop garden centers typically they're going to have an ice hardware as well.
I mean, it's not difficult to find them at all. Many of our
feed stores as well, such as DND feed up there in tom Ball,
for example, is going to have the nitro FoST products. It's easy to
find and it works super super Well, we're gonna head out now. Let
me see, I'm gonna go to Chapel Hill and we're gonna talk to Jean.
Oh. Hello, Jeane, good morning, Hi, good morning,
Thank you for taking my call. A question about crepe myrtles. We just
acquired some property and so I don't know a lot of history about these fifteen
foot fairly old crepe myrtles. They are not blooming, and they're not on
an irrigation system. Okay, but you know they're pretty old trees. So
I'm assuming the beginning for water. The other crepe myrtles that we actually tore
from around the house because they were too close, they were already blooming.
So is it a function of how they were or were not trimmed maybe in
the past or fertilizer can you I'd like to get them to bloom. That's
there the end of a long driveway, So yeah, it's probably it's probably
a cultural thing. So for example, crape myrtles need full sun, so
I'm assuming they're in good sun, but they need leaves to capture that sun.
So if you have powdery mildew, if you have aphids or crape myrtle
scale or other things that causes black sooty mold, that's like shading out the
leaves. So it's cutting down on the carbohydrate production that's needed for blooms.
If the plan is struggling with drought and it's just struggling and you're not getting
vigor you're not going to have the bloom production that you could have. Certainly
pruning is important, we don't want to miss prune them. But the main
thing I think is going to be something cultural going on out there, could
be the soil conditions in the soil. I would fertilize them if you have
any way getting water out to them for a good deep soaking during summer droughts.
Don't worry about that now it's about to rain. But you know,
just keep them as vigorous and healthy as you can and they'll they'll reward you
with that blooming. Okay, do you recommend a specific fertilizer or what an
all purpose fertilizer? Do you know? I would I would say anything you
put on them, it's going to be helpful. I often will use a
turf type fertilizer on my crapes just to get some bigger in them. But
there are some there are some crape myrtle type foods. There are food's built
for that, food's built for blooming plants. In general, they're they're all
going to work. Okay, so may be a little better than others,
but the bottom line is just get them something to get them a little vigor
and they will reward you with those blooms. Okay, well, thank you
so much. I appreciate the help. All right, have fun out there
at Chapel Hill. Boy, that's God's country, beautiful area out there.
Yes, it is all right, we love it. Thank you, you
bet, thank you for the call. Uh. You know, if you
are looking to do a beautiful landscape, I mean you want to have a
show place, you need to contact the folks at Peerscapes for that. And
here's why. Now, I'm a plant guy. I know plants. I
love plants that you know, if there's a plant I don't have, I
want it right. But when it comes to coming home and making that homescape
a showplace, that's a different skill. And Peerscapes has that. They've got
the designers that know how to create beautiful beds that are just gorgeous color.
They have the ability to do anything you need to do in your landscape.
Do you need a new garden, do you want a hardscape put in?
Do you need some walkways? Maybe you need the drainage fixed. We're about
to find out if you do or not with all this rain coming well,
Peerscapes can do that. You can call them to eight one three seven zero
five oh six zero two eight one three seven h five oh six or go
to pearscapes dot com and learn more about what Peerscapes can do. They can
turn a beautiful place into a gorgeous place. The beauty and the bounty the
they create is something to behold. Let's head out now to sugar Land and
we're going to visit with Don. Hello Don, Hi scoop, Good morning.
I got a question. I have a celesque fig and it's several years
in The figs are pretty big and they're developing. I've had it last year
or two. In the year before you get brown spots on the kind of
the tip and around the fruit as it ripens. And then also I have
some friends that have fig trees and either the figs are either too small or
it doesn't bear. Is that just the variety of the fig, or is
there something else they need to do well? The variety is a factor.
Not all figs produce the same size fruit. They're in general, figs are
if you give them moderate care, they do well, and they do you
know they're going to produce well for you. Figs are a little bit tolerant
of a little bit of shade. They don't want to be in a lot
of shade. But for all our fruit trees, they do better than some.
Most In fact, fruit trees do with a little bit of a partial
shade. They like good moisture, good sol moisture. They are prone to
nematodes. So if you have a sandy soil and a fig just lacks vigor
and production, that may be one of the reasons why nematodes that love to
attack the roots of a fig and make them very inefficient, So that could
be a factor for some. In general figs, we're just looking for a
fig that has a good closed eye. That's probably the most important thing,
because you don't want the bugs getting in there and souring the fruit. That
eye is open and you're going to have issues with that. So I don't
know if that fully answers your question. Or what about the brown spots that
is it on the leaves or on the fig fruit? No, no,
just on the ripening fruit. Yeah, that's interesting. May think spots on
them the develop It doesn't affect the taste of it, but it looks kind
of weird. Yeah, yeah, it sounds spats. It sounds superficial,
you know what. I can guess at some things. But don let's do
this. I'm gonna put you on hold and have Josh pick it up,
and will you send Will you email me some close up pictures, make sure
they're in sharp focus for you send them of the spots that you're seeing.
Give me two or three pictures so and kind of get a zoom in,
take a look at them, and I'll just reply to you there with a
better answer than me imagining what I think you're describing. Okay, okay,
all right, well this is it's kind of fun. You're listening to garden
Line. We're sitting here talking all kinds of things gardening. You know,
if you are interested in looking for a place to build, to have a
beautiful place for retirement. You need to consider the Dellweb community that's out there
in Fulsher. In fact, it's less than two miles from downtown Fulsher On
FM three fifty nine, Dellweb creates beautiful communities. We're not just at a
nice house. We're talking about the whole community is beautiful. We're talking about
lifestyle programs designed around you. Active adults age fifty five and better. Now
they have a community garden in this new place that I'm helping them with,
and yet another reason for Garden Line listeners to be interested in all web community.
You can go online to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or dial two
eight one four five nine six o nine find out about that Dellweb community in
Fulscher and the Dell Web difference for yourself. Well, we're hitting here on
another break time, and so Sarah out in Claire like you, will be
the first when we come up. If you would like to give us a
call our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Well, good morning, you are listening at the garden Line on a beautiful
Sunday morning. We look forward to visiting with you as enjoy that, and
we're going to head right out to the phones first and talk to Sarah out
in clear Lake. Sarah, how are you today and how can we help?
Very good, thanks for taking my call. Skip twenty one day years
ago. I had beautiful impatience and then all of a sudden it started getting
hot. You had to water them every day because they were just wilting.
And now they're all they don't have spider mites. They have all yellowed and
have just black spots on them, and they're dead. Do they die in
the heat like that? I've never had them do I've never had them do
that. No, they don't want to be in the brunt of the sun.
But if they've got a little bit of a break from the heat of
the sun, they won't die. Because it's hot. It sounds, you
know, it sounds like too much water may be part of the thing.
Could that? Do you think that's possible? Do they wilt in the middle
of the afternoon if it's hot, they will not. Yes, the soil
can be moist and they literally can't pump the water fast enough, and they
go through an afternoon wilt and then they bound back. That is possible,
Yes, and so that that causes us to kind of overwater sometimes. Well,
then maybe that's what I did, because well they're just they were beautiful
and they are dead. Well, they fighter mites nothing. Yeah, well,
there are some root rots that can affect them, but certainly saggy wet
root conditions can affect them. And here here's the thing that Sarah that makes
it makes it so tough. In the heat of summer, that is the
worst time for them to get too much water. And you think about it,
Well, the heat of summers when they need the most water, and
it is. But when those roots can't get oxygen and the demands are through
the roof on water pumping through the plant, and the roots start shutting down,
they go down hell faster than any other time of the year. If
you overwater them in the you know, in the late fall or early early
spring, you're not going to have the same problem as if you do if
you overwater in the summer. It's never good to overwater. But I'm just
saying the demands are so high that they crash fast when the roots start to
lack good oxygen. So maybe that's what's going on with her. I think
that's maybe what I did, because I water them every day because they were
just yeah, drooping, you know, so I guess they're dry. Okay,
well that solves that mystery. Thanks for the help. You appreciate it,
certainly, certainly I appreciate the call. Thank you very much. Yeah,
that is that is a common problem. I was driving through um Houston
the other day looking at some of the flower beds and the plants, and
you know, just how things were doing and stuff, and it just reminds
me that, you know that we think in our minds, Okay, it's
a hundred degrees all week over now for what three weeks? And so I
got a water water water. Well, the plants need water, but they
need oxygen in the root system, and once the soil is moist, any
other water is not helping that plant at all, and at some point it's
hurting the plant. So don't feel like that. If a plant is wilting
during the day, you need to water it. Understand why tomatoes do that.
If you have tomatoes and they're wilting and you're thinking, I need to
water, and then by the end of the day we get to about seven
o'clock or so and they're perking back up again. They just couldn't pump the
water fast enough. That was the problem. And it's not good that they're
wilting, but you can't control that. By adding more water, you can
just make it worse. And so with a lot of our plants, be
real careful for that. Hey, if you're looking for a place where you
can buy any kind of material that you need to keep your lawn, your
garden healthy and happy, that would be Southwest Fertilizer. Do you need an
insecticide, a fungicide. Do you need an herbicide to kill some weeds?
Do you need a fertilizer that will help plants grow? You will not find
a wider selection of all of those anywhere than Southwest Fertilizer. Do you need
a tool, Well, wander down an eighty foot long wall of tools and
you're going to find some quality tools that fit the need that you have.
Do you need your law more blade sharp under, a little bit of small
engine work done. There's a shop in the back they can do that.
Do you have a problem and you don't know what it is, take a
sample, take a picture in to Southwest Fertilizer. By the way, go
to Southwest fertilizer dot com to learn more. They're in what used to be
Southwest Houston. Now it's just kind of inside Houston as we've grown wider and
wider over the decades. But corner of Bissonette and Runwick to the southwest,
corner of Bissinette and run Wick. Go by there and check it out.
You will be very impressed. If you're an organic gardener, you're not going
to find a better selection of organic gardening supplies than with Southwest Fertilizer. If
I talk about it on garden Line and say it's a good product, they're
going to carry it at Southwest Fortilizer. That's just who they are, that's
what they do. That's why they've been in business since nineteen fifty five.
Wow, what a great place to have. We're fortunate to have that.
Their line of materials is just it's just like none other. I was in
there the other day and visiting with Bob and I go around. I actually
go there periodically just to walk the whole store and see what the products are
because if there's something new on the market, then maybe I haven't heard of
yet. It is probably in there in Southwest Fertilizer I was walking through looking
at some of the Microlife products they had, and they've got wide variety of
microlife, but they also have those liquid products that I've been talking about more
lately. That would be Microlife's Biomatrix Orange label. That's a seven one three
fertilizer. It is my go to fertilizer for my houseplants. It's got the
microbes in it, yes, beneficial microbes in the fertilizer, as well as
the seven one three ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and all the other
micronutrients that come along with a Microlife organic fertilizer. It works really well.
They've also got the Ocean Harvest Blue label Microlife's Ocean Harvest Blue label. So
think of a little round quart bottle. You've got an orange one for my
house plants, you've got a blue one for the outdoor plants. It's a
fish based fertilizer. You can delete it down and spray as a folier,
or you can drench it through a watering can. Either way works. Go
to Microlife Fertilizer dot com, Microlife Ferlisure dot com learn more about this Biomatrix
Orange label and Ocean Harvest Blue label and find out where you can get the
Microlife has sold many many different places around the Greater Houston area. That is
fortunate that we're able to purchase quality products like that. We've talked about a
lot of things today. Spent a lot of time on water with doctor Guy
Phipps. Thanks again to doctor Phipps for coming by and for creating the water
my Yard app Boywater my Yard dot org or go to the app supply.
You know you're an Apple io stored you need an Android for your whatever Android
typhone. There's an app free for all of that. Everything is free on
this You sign up, you get free emails. I mean, you just
can't do much better than that. Hey, I hope you guys have a
wonderful rest of your Fourth of July weekend too. By the way, you
know what we got two more days on Tuesday is the big day, fourth
of July. We celebrate our country's independence. And if you need any kind
of supplies for that, you need to find your local ace because they're going
to have them. So maybe you're gonna get the lawn fertilized and do some
outdoor care. Maybe you need to spray some things and take care of it.
All of that is an ace. If I talk about a fertilizer on
garden Line, they're gonna have it there. And they also have a wonderful
barbecue section. I mean when I say wonderful, I mean from the Cadillacs
on down it. They've got it all. They've got the big green egg,
the trigger, the webber. They've got all the supplies and bling and
accessories that you need for a really nice outdoor cookout. They've got it all.
If you need outdoor furniture maybe, if you need some decor whatever you
need, they've got it. A great season n Mexus too, By the
way, if you're a barbecue master, you should see the incredible seasoning mixes
they carry there. They carry things for indoors. Of course, they're a
hardware store. They've got everything hardware stores would have. Yeah, that's easy,
but they have the service like hardware stores used to have and often now
don't have anymore. Just because you go someplace to buy plumbing and wiring and
light bulbs and all that kind of thing doesn't mean you're going to have someone
greet you when you walk in the door, a friendly face that knows what
they're talking about. They turn around and they take you to what you need
and they can assist you and the how to to go along with the things
that you're purchasing. There another cool thing about ACE Hardware. Go to ace
hardware dot com find one of the thirty nine stores here in the house scen
area. Well, let's take a break. We'll be back our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Sometimes I just love
to listen to the bump of news that but that is a great song,
excellent song for summertime for sure. Well you're listening to garden Line. Hey,
we're about to wrap this up for the weekend. Just got a little
bit of time left. If you would like to give me a call,
now would be the time to jump on and do it. It's seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. I actually got open phone lines
here if you would like to call in, we will be able to get
right to you. Is if you're the first one or two in at least
that way. We talked about a lot of things today, certainly watering.
I talked about lawns and whatnot, taking care of new trees, the importance
of that. I just want to remind you that just because it's summer is
no reason to not have vegetables, no reason to not have beautiful color.
There's no reason for your landscape to become a sea of green. Lots of
wonderful plants out there. One of my favorite for the heat is the red
bird of Paradise also called Pride of Barbados. Side looking. It's some just
this past week around the Greater Houston area, and boy, they are on
fire. I mean it's a it's a bright orange with kind of a kind
of fades to a pinkish coral red and it's the yellow in the bloom at
the same time. It is a show stopper. It absolutely beautiful. It's
a wonderful plant for the heat. We have so many plants that could take
the heat. Are hibiscus plants, the tropical types and the perennial hibiscus.
We've got good beds of annuals. Our garden centers are stocked with this stuff
now, I mean, you can find everything that you need to keep the
color coming in the shade area. What about impatience, what about colladiums.
Colladiums are awesome for the shade One of my favorite right shade plants is Persian
shield because it has purple and silver leaves. Now they get green in them
too, but purple and silver foliage. That is a rare thing to find
in plants, and yet here it is. You give them a bright shade,
get them some good sunlight to develop the full purple color that they can
develop, and they it's an excellent little plant. You can pinch it back,
make a little kind of a shrub like perennial out of it. And
by the way, Perny's, it could be an annual or perennial depending on
the kind of winter we have. Generally we think of it more of as
an annual, but gosh, what a beautiful plant. Remember, foliage is
your friend when it comes to summertime. We're going to jump out here and
go to Hockley Hockley and talk to Ruthie. Hey, Ruthy, how are
you this morning? Hey? Skip, I'm fine. I've got a question
about chinch bags. Okay, I had done last year. I don't remember
what I should bray, but I want to get on it as soon as
I see him this year. So I was trying to find out what to
spree them to kill them. There are a number of different insecticides that will
work on that, but nitro Fuss makes one called bugout Max and thats like
over one hundred different kinds of insects, So that's gonna be one that'll also
be helpful if you should have the sideweb worm show up. If you got
some bug out Max out there that's working on them, it's it's going to
take care of that. But probably that's the one I would use. It's
just simple and easy to get. You can find it everywhere, like Nitrofuss
is, and I would try that, but just kind of watch for them.
Typically they're going to start next to a sidewalk, a driveway, some
of your masonry structure in the sun. And when you start, yeah,
they do. When you see that area and you know you water it,
it doesn't bounce back. Well, that's pretty what you got. Time to
go ahead, Okay, perfect, all right, perfect, Thank you so
much, you bet, thank you. I appreciate the call. We're gonna
run now out to Montgomery and talk to Scott. Looks like we're moving fast
here, Scott. What's uppen? Okay? I am my problem? While
I say I have am our limentry and the container. Adam about June at
three years got fruit off of the good last year and I had eight limbs
come out and start the bloom with the green everything and end of the third
yellow. Well. I went out to water my plants on my porch yesterday
with waters and I'm down to one now. Yeah, and I can see
on the vine or the plant itself, did it look like something? Show
them all and I was expecting deer, well the vegetarians. Yeah, it
could be, you know, it also could just be a stress. When
citrus has a little baby fruit during a stress, they'll often cast that.
And so with the kind of weather we're having, it's not hard for amar
lemon to dry out, you know, get a little too dry briefly,
or something along those lines. I don't know any any insect, pest or
four legged critter that's going to do that what you're describing. Yeah, well
that's okay, But I can't understand, like I say, I do see
on the end of the vines or into the little limb where the it looked
like something gnauted off off. We've got something chewed into it to get it
all. And when I went out watered. There was no land sitting on
the ground or on the floor in the pod or anything like. So you're
not talking about just the fruit falls off. You're talking about a section of
branch gone. Yeah by me, Yeah, branch called they not so they
gnawed them off with part of the branch and like I say, they just
disappear. I'm down the one now and said they well other than dear,
I don't know what would take a branch off and not leave it land there.
You know, squirl sometimes get weird. They'll you know, they'll nip
our trees and drop the limbs, just keeping their weird. I can't find
yeah, I can't find the limits fell off or gotten off. So I'm
thinking it might be squirreled. But I don't never see I've had a problem,
but this year I had problems. Well that is very Yeah, I'll
keep an eye on it, and you know, people get more to the
lot weekend s. Thank you listen you show every weekend. Well I appreciate
that, and maybe need to get you one of them wild game cameras out
there. I got a dog inside of the house and he barks, you
know, when you know, he walked up towards the front door and ring
the door rail. But uh, that's all I am wo'll do, sir.
I cannot think. Yeah you two, thank you. I appreciate that.
Lest we we can all right, you take care. We're gonna head
yeah, sir, We're gonna head now out to Katie and we're gonna talk
to Jill. Hello, Jill. Thanks Scott. I have a question about
crepe myrtles. Okay, and I had about four crepe myrtles that are in
the strip between your sidewalk and the street. And I've noticed on the base
for the crepe myrtles they've been whacked up pretty good by a lead eader and
like almost halfway through. And they're smaller trees. They're not a large crepe
myrtles O state there. I think they're about maybe like eight feet okay,
so and um, but I know there's also and I was going to fill
them in, but I thought i'd better ask you because you would know what
I should do. Um, Underneath the areas where they were wept, it's
it's always almost as though they're not actually attached to the soil underneath. It's
very hollow and um, so there isn't really a soil base. Now they
don't look like the suffering because they're blooming like crazy, but I know that's
an issue well compost maybe I don't know. So what percentage of the way
around the stem do you think the weed eater took the bark off? Oh?
Like a like a almost like again to half about half of it?
Okay, Well, well the first thing I would do, and all of
them, Yeah, the first thing I do is get out there and give
them a mulch bed, just so that don't ever happen again. And they'll
just do better if they have a mulch better around them than if the grass
gets up close or weeds get up close. The mulch help helps prevent that.
So I would definitely do that. As far as fixing it, it's
just going to be time and vigor that it's going to take to close over
that loss of bark, you know, for the sides the callous to form
and close over, and it takes time for that to happen. But the
sooner you get it going, the better. So I would give them good
deep soakings in a wide area as wide as a branch spread and a little
wider apply an inch or two of water, and we're about to get rain
to help us out on that here. But I'd give them a good soaking
and that will get the vigor up better than anything. Also some fertilizer,
and I would you know, we'd got a lot of different kinds of fertilizer
right here. We're not worried about the things not blooming. We're worried about
them needing vigor. So I might even use one of the fertilizers I've been
talking about this morning. For lawns. It's a slow release, like the
slow and easy from Nelson's, the super turf from nitrophosph for example, or
even a microlife six six two six two four for example, and just start
pushing the nitrogen to them to get some vigor going. But nitrogen without water
won't do it. You just they need to never lack for water, because
your goal is going to be to get those things to get vigor and then
to heal over as quickly as they can. Yes and again, and will
embarrassed to say I'm much or how long all this has taken place. It
happened, but since then I have created a barrier, you know, around
them. When I goiced it a few weeks ago, but that the underneath
it is okay to pack those those spaces in between underneath them what you would
use, um, composts? Yeah, well, I mean you could.
I can't quite picture that that you're describing. You know, they're being a
gap underneath below where the wet eaterhead. I'm and stuff that's kind of a
usual also like a like a animal, a dog got down there. But
it's not okay, what could be that? I mean, it could it
could be water washing it. I don't know. I mean, my mind's
eye is picturing, but I can't quite get a clear picture. So I
would say, you know, put a little soil in around them and water
it in real good. That'd be fine. If you only use composts,
that's fine, but it's just going to decompose. So where there was a
hole, you fill it with compost, and you end up eventually with another
hole because it goes away. It doesn't it's not like soil that that kind
of stays there. But it sounds like you're on the right track. I
just let's get them a little bit of vigor and hopefully they'll they'll heal that
over real quick. Hey, thank you so much Hey, thanks for the
call. Have fun out there, and Katie, hope you have a good
Fourth of July weekend too. By the way, well let's see you're listening
to garden Line and we're done. We'll be back again next Friday. In
the meantime, we are available by podcasts, so check us out there,
see what you might have missed, and tell your friends