Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with skimp Rictor.
Speaker 2: It's shoes crazy gas can trim. Just watch him as
Speaker 2: wool gases gas us so many good thanks to sup
Speaker 2: bout basic grasses and gas can you dass backing not
Speaker 2: a sound gases gas sound beaming down between gas starting
Speaker 2: in a tie.
Speaker 3: Well, Well, good morning, good Sunday morning, and welcome to
Speaker 3: garden Line. We are glad you are listening. Congratulations you
Speaker 3: are an early bird, and well, I hope you got
Speaker 3: a cup of coffee and at least one eye open.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about gardening today and there's a
Speaker 3: lot to talk about. If you've got questions, you'd like
Speaker 3: to give us a call, it's pretty easy. Number seven
Speaker 3: one three two one two k t r H. Seven
Speaker 3: to one three two one two k t r H.
Speaker 3: Look for visiting with you about the things that are
Speaker 3: of interest to you. Well, I wanted to mention this summer.
Speaker 3: You know it's it's it's heating up. We're about to
Speaker 3: have a warmer week. And when that happens, Uh, some
Speaker 3: plants struggle along a little bit that are not really
Speaker 3: set up for summer. We got petunias and things that
Speaker 3: you try to coax through summer, but it's a little
Speaker 3: hard on them. They're just not as productive at that time.
Speaker 3: But we have other plants. It just thrive, plants that
Speaker 3: laugh and just laugh at the summer weather. I was
Speaker 3: looking at my turk's cap that I've got back in
Speaker 3: the yard. That's a wonderful Texas native plant. It has
Speaker 3: big red tubular flowers that are beautiful, and oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: it is just thriving, just through, absolutely thriving. Angelonia is
Speaker 3: another example of a flower you see all around now.
Speaker 3: There's so many different colors and it is going strong.
Speaker 3: And there are many many examples. And our turf, for example,
Speaker 3: can take whatever heat our local area throws at it,
Speaker 3: which is a lot, by the way, but it does
Speaker 3: need adequate moisture that doesn't need overwatering. And in the summertime,
Speaker 3: people tend to overwater their lawns. I would say overwater
Speaker 3: and miss water their lawns. And here's what I mean.
Speaker 3: The best way to take care of a lawn is
Speaker 3: to give it a good deep soaking, filled that root
Speaker 3: zone with water, and then turn off the water and
Speaker 3: let the turf use it. Some's going to evaporate the
Speaker 3: turf's going to use some and transpired out of its leaves.
Speaker 3: Some it may even soak down a little bit deeper,
Speaker 3: and as it does, that air comes down in the soil.
Speaker 3: You know those spaces where water once filled the poor
Speaker 3: space between soil particles, Well, now air is in there,
Speaker 3: and oxygen in the soil stimulates microbial growth, stimulates root performance.
Speaker 3: Roots need oxygen, even though they're underground. They need oxygen
Speaker 3: to thrive and do what they do. And by allowing
Speaker 3: it to dry a little bit, it just rejuvenates your grass.
Speaker 3: The opposite end of the spectrum is to squirt it
Speaker 3: every day with just a little bit of water, and
Speaker 3: what that does is barely what the surface. It promotes
Speaker 3: shallow rooting rather than a good deep root system or
Speaker 3: resilient root system that can take some grubs and can
Speaker 3: take droughts and things like that. But it also increases diseases,
Speaker 3: and we're seeing some of the summer diseases right now.
Speaker 3: There's types of rhizoctonia that have hit some lawns. There
Speaker 3: certainly is great leaf spot that we were dealing with,
Speaker 3: especially when we're having all that rain. Well, it's still
Speaker 3: time to provide nutrients for your lawn, and Sweet Grein
Speaker 3: by Nitroposs is an example of a product like that.
Speaker 3: When you put sweet Green out, it is going to
Speaker 3: dissolve a pretty rapidly and release those nutrients which are
Speaker 3: based on molasses that microbes have done their work on
Speaker 3: into the soil to stimulate microbial growth and also those
Speaker 3: nutrients to stimulate turf growth. Sweet Green is eleven percent
Speaker 3: nitrogen fertilizer and it's widely available. You're going to find
Speaker 3: it in places like Ace Hardware City on Memorial Drive
Speaker 3: at Katie Hardware, Ace on Pennoak Driving Katie, It's not
Speaker 3: hard to find. Stanton Shopping serves another one down in Alvin, Texas. Now,
Speaker 3: I would suggest that you apply, rather than the full
Speaker 3: pound of nitrogen at one time, which would be ten
Speaker 3: pounds of Sweet Green, that you apply five pounds now
Speaker 3: and six to eight weeks later apply the other five
Speaker 3: pounds and that'll give you a much smoother feed through
Speaker 3: the summer season and just really benefit your turf in
Speaker 3: many ways. Well, I am your host, skipt Richter, and
Speaker 3: we're here to help you with whatever kinds of gardening
Speaker 3: questions you might have. I tell you I was out
Speaker 3: in my backyard this week, and oh, the mosquitos. They
Speaker 3: would not leave me alone. And I hate that. I
Speaker 3: hate to be working. And you know, you're just being
Speaker 3: bugged by mosquitos the whole time. And it's all that
Speaker 3: rain we had. And who knows where these particular mosquitos
Speaker 3: are reproducing. They love to find little bits of standing
Speaker 3: water that they can reproduce in. Some can reproduce in
Speaker 3: as little as like a thimbleful of water. And they
Speaker 3: like water that's got decaying organic matter in it. At
Speaker 3: least some types of mosquito dunks are made for that.
Speaker 3: Mosquito dunks are a disease of mosquitos. I can't think
Speaker 3: of a better thing to happen to a mosquito than
Speaker 3: to die of a disease based on a microbe b tee.
Speaker 3: It's not the b tea for worms. It's a bettee
Speaker 3: for mosquitos and fungus, notts. There's a strain that does that.
Speaker 3: Mosquito dunks are widely available by pretty much anywhere. If
Speaker 3: I talk about any garden center or hardware store or
Speaker 3: bead stores here on garden Line, all of those places,
Speaker 3: all of those places carry mosquito dunks and You just
Speaker 3: throw a dunk in about ten ten by ten area
Speaker 3: of water hundred square feet and it'll soak there for
Speaker 3: about about a month releasing. It's a disease of mosquitoes. Now,
Speaker 3: don't worry about hurting anything else. It does not affect
Speaker 3: your dog, your cat, your songbirds coming in to get
Speaker 3: a drink out of the water. It does not affect
Speaker 3: anything but the mosquito larvae. It's very specific.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Mosquito dunks are also available in a granular farm, or
Speaker 3: you can just crack a dunk apart to maybe put
Speaker 3: it up in a sagging gutter where they're standing water,
Speaker 3: or toss them into a hole in a tree. That's
Speaker 3: another use for the mosquito dunks. But always have them
Speaker 3: on hand because well, where do we live. We live
Speaker 3: in the mosquito capital of the world, just about down here.
Speaker 3: Because we get a lot of rain. Thank goodness for that,
Speaker 3: but not thank goodness for the mosquitoes that come as
Speaker 3: a result.
Speaker 5: Of that rain.
Speaker 3: I always check out our garden centers and their websites
Speaker 3: and you know, the online activities and things going on.
Speaker 3: I was just looking at nature, the plants for all
Speaker 3: seasons rather and plants for all seasons is the Garden Center.
Speaker 3: It's on two forty nine Tomball Parkway, So as you're
Speaker 3: going north up toward Tomball, you just exit Luetta and
Speaker 3: cross over Luetta and then it's going to be right
Speaker 3: there pretty quick on the on the right hand side.
Speaker 3: This garden center has been around since nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3: The Flowery family has They have incredible amount of experience,
Speaker 3: firsthand experience their gardeners themselves out there in the landscapes
Speaker 3: and gardens in our area, where they've learned how to
Speaker 3: garden properly. They've learned what plants work and don't work,
Speaker 3: and they've the customer go there because they know when
Speaker 3: they get there they're going to get excellent advice, dependable advice,
Speaker 3: and they're also going to get products that are exactly
Speaker 3: what they need for this area of the country, that
Speaker 3: are designed for the issues that we have, that are
Speaker 3: fertilizers and designed for the soils that we have. Uh,
Speaker 3: you name it. If it's a pest control product, they've
Speaker 3: got it, and they've experienced the pest they know what
Speaker 3: they're talking about. They can point you to the right product.
Speaker 3: And then there's the plants. Plants that we know will
Speaker 3: do very well.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 3: You're going to find at Plants for all seasons. Just
Speaker 3: go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com
Speaker 3: learn more about them. They do many things I don't
Speaker 3: even have time to talk about here on the air,
Speaker 3: or you can give them a call. Two eight one
Speaker 3: three seven six one six four six. I'm going to
Speaker 3: take a little break right now. It is time, and
Speaker 3: I will be right back if you would like to
Speaker 3: give me a call and ask a question seven one
Speaker 3: three two one two k t RH you with us today,
Speaker 3: Really good to talk to you. In fact, we're going
Speaker 3: to go right out now to the phones and talk
Speaker 3: to mel In Tomball with Mel. If I can find
Speaker 3: the right button, we're going to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 3: How's it going this morning?
Speaker 6: Mel?
Speaker 3: Hello? Mil All right, I'm gonna put him. I have
Speaker 3: to put him on hold, and I'll come back in
Speaker 3: just a bit and we'll check in on it. Maybe
Speaker 3: Chris you could check that for me. Well, I tell
Speaker 3: you that I was talking earlier about our lawns are
Speaker 3: able to take the heat as long as there provided
Speaker 3: plenty of soul moisture. And I'm gonna talk a little
Speaker 3: bit later about you know, some other aspects of good
Speaker 3: lawn care, and including I mentioned a little bit how
Speaker 3: to water properly, and you know someone would think, well,
Speaker 3: why do you have that? Tell me how to water?
Speaker 3: You turn on the hose, that's how you water well.
Speaker 3: I think, as you heard me say earlier, there's a
Speaker 3: little more to it, and we want you to have success.
Speaker 3: And mowing, watering, and fertilizing really the three most important
Speaker 3: things you do for your lawn. And so although those
Speaker 3: may seem simple, there are some aspects of them that
Speaker 3: are very important. Let's go back now, and we're gonna
Speaker 3: give Mel a try. Hey Mel, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 7: Hey, good morning. You've got the ride button this time.
Speaker 4: There you go?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 3: Can you hear me?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 7: Okay. I sent you an email, sir, pictures of a
Speaker 7: weed that I think rivals button weed, and I don't
Speaker 7: know what it is and how to treat it. I
Speaker 7: sent you an email with three pictures of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, I see it. It looks like crabgrass is the
Speaker 3: predominant one. And you got a little bit of a
Speaker 3: horse herb in there, as well as well as some
Speaker 3: burd Is it a bermuda lawn?
Speaker 7: No, well, it's got bermuda grass mix it. I used
Speaker 7: to have solid Saint Augustine, but different types of weeds
Speaker 7: have taken over. I talked to you once before about
Speaker 7: stage some stids in there, and I got some stage
Speaker 7: hammer for that. But this stuff, I mean that when
Speaker 7: you pull it, you pull it up about like a
Speaker 7: bunch of them, because they're weeds are all very fine
Speaker 7: and you know locking, and so I don't know, I
Speaker 7: guess just a what common ordinary weed killer would you
Speaker 7: prescribe for something like that? Or yeah?
Speaker 3: So the problem, yeah, I got you. The problem is
Speaker 3: how do you kill a grass and the grass and
Speaker 3: that that is something that kills grass, kills grass, And
Speaker 3: so you got a couple of options. You could kill
Speaker 3: entire areas of it, uh and then put side back
Speaker 3: in there, you know, in those areas if it's just
Speaker 3: kind of mixed in with your Saint Augustine everywhere, well,
Speaker 3: that would mean killing the whole lawn. And so that
Speaker 3: may not be an acceptable option for you, but it is.
Speaker 3: It is one of the options. The other would be
Speaker 3: to use some sort of a wiper type applicator Uh,
Speaker 3: and you rub it over the tops of the grass
Speaker 3: where you get it on these weeds, but not on
Speaker 3: your Saint Augustine leaves. And then the pictures you showed me,
Speaker 3: I don't see any Saint Augustine. So if you found
Speaker 3: a way that you could apply carefully just to these weeds,
Speaker 3: Oh what about.
Speaker 7: A spray on them? I got, I got a sprayer.
Speaker 3: If you spray something to kill these, it also kills
Speaker 3: your Saint Augustine. But it sometimes it's the you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's your last option. And you know that's.
Speaker 7: When you say wiper applicator would be just take a
Speaker 7: rag or something and then soak it with the with
Speaker 7: the stuff.
Speaker 3: They Yeah, they make wiper type applicators. People invent their
Speaker 3: own wiper type applicators.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: It basically is just some sort of either a cloth
Speaker 3: or a rope attached. Sometimes there's one version that's a
Speaker 3: rope that's attached to PBC and the rope gets the
Speaker 3: products soaked in it that you wipe it over. It's
Speaker 3: not it's not easy to do them that way, but
Speaker 3: it is an option. But I'll tell you, in the
Speaker 3: photos I'm seeing, I just don't see Saint Augustine anywhere.
Speaker 7: No, I mean that's the thing. It completely, it takes over.
Speaker 7: I mean, I've got Saint Augustine in spots is less,
Speaker 7: you know, And I'm pulling like crazy, you know, pulling
Speaker 7: weeds like all older head. But that's why. So it's
Speaker 7: odd because when I pull and it doesn't happen with
Speaker 7: these weeks because they're they clump together, their roots clump together.
Speaker 7: But in a lot of them, even like in uh,
Speaker 7: when I'm when I'm pulling a button weed, that's what's
Speaker 7: so frustrating, because once in a while I'll pull up
Speaker 7: a strand of Saint Augustine trying to make its way
Speaker 7: through all that mess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pulling button weed is don't even do that. It's
Speaker 3: not it is not going to accomplish anything.
Speaker 8: You know what.
Speaker 3: I'll give you my opinion. You can do as your wish.
Speaker 3: If if I'm seeing what you're sending me in pictures here,
Speaker 3: I would get something out there to get rid of
Speaker 3: all of it. And then if you need to plug
Speaker 3: some Saint Augustine and fine, you may want to do
Speaker 3: part of your yard. I don't know if you want
Speaker 3: to take on replanting the whole yard, but you could
Speaker 3: do part of it and then later on come back
Speaker 3: and do part of it if you want to spread
Speaker 3: that work and expense out over time. But the bottom
Speaker 3: line is you got to get there's some there are
Speaker 3: some weeds in here that are going to coexist in
Speaker 3: your Saint Augustine, and I just would start with a
Speaker 3: clean slate personally.
Speaker 7: All right, I appreciate it, sir.
Speaker 3: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Speaker 7: Oh that's all right, thank you, all right, bye bye.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are situations that there there's just not a
Speaker 3: great solution to you know, sometimes hand weeding is infected.
Speaker 3: That's a great idea for a lot of things. I
Speaker 3: minimize the times I have to spray. I don't like
Speaker 3: to spray. I don't like to put out week killers
Speaker 3: and things like that, and so I minimize the times
Speaker 3: I have to do that. There are certain weeds that
Speaker 3: I fight by hand, pulling the fall aster that appears
Speaker 3: in our lone. You'll see it in October that one.
Speaker 3: I know what it looks like, and I know there's
Speaker 3: a certain area of the lawn where I have a
Speaker 3: neighbor that has it, and the little seeds blow over
Speaker 3: in my yard. So I'm constantly to fight it in
Speaker 3: my yard. But I just get out there and it
Speaker 3: comes out of one spot in the ground when the
Speaker 3: soil is moist, whittle it. Get my little kneeling bench
Speaker 3: to kneel down on, makes work so easy, and get
Speaker 3: those pulled up and deal with it that way. Some
Speaker 3: people would spray it, but I prefer not. At the
Speaker 3: bottom line, though, is there's times when it's just a
Speaker 3: mess and you either live with all of the above
Speaker 3: or you bite the bullet. I have a friend who
Speaker 3: is and he used to be extension horticulturists. Now he's
Speaker 3: us just private, but he is very tolerant of weeds,
Speaker 3: and he says the way he gets rid of all
Speaker 3: his weed problems is to take off his glasses. You know,
Speaker 3: if you mow weeds. I've seen some LUNs around my
Speaker 3: neighborhood that they look decent, and if you walk up
Speaker 3: to them, you see it's about eighty percent weeds. They
Speaker 3: just these grassy weeds. They're just mowing those. For a
Speaker 3: lot of people, that's not acceptable, but that's your call,
Speaker 3: your business. Where you're listening to guarden Line our phone
Speaker 3: number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
Speaker 3: four seven one three, two, one two, five eight seven four.
Speaker 3: You hear me talk about fertilizers all the time, and basically,
Speaker 3: when I'm talking about a fertilizer for the lawn, I'm
Speaker 3: talking about something that has the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium
Speaker 3: levels that are that are what we are wanting to apply.
Speaker 3: In other words, those are the big three big meaning
Speaker 3: you need a lot more of those nutrients. There are
Speaker 3: other nutrients that are just minuscule amounts are needed. They're
Speaker 3: called micro nutrients, are trace minerals. Well, azamite is a
Speaker 3: product that is full of those, and when you put
Speaker 3: out asamite, you don't need to do it every time
Speaker 3: you fertilize. Don't overdo it. You know, all fertilization really
Speaker 3: should be driven by a soil test because a sol
Speaker 3: test tells you what you have and therefore what you need,
Speaker 3: and so fertilizing blind in any way, shape or form
Speaker 3: is not something we should do for too many years
Speaker 3: in a row. Occasionally have that sole test, have it
Speaker 3: checked well. Asmite is taking care of those trace minerals,
Speaker 3: the little beaty ones, if you will, are needed in
Speaker 3: little bitty amounts. I should say and you can go
Speaker 3: to asimite Texas dot com and find out more about it.
Speaker 3: Asmite is widely available. You know, our garden centers, feed stores,
Speaker 3: hardware stores, they're all going to carry azimite here pretty
Speaker 3: much in the greater Houston area. And it provides those
Speaker 3: trace minerals that are needed. I would say about once
Speaker 3: a year, again based on a sol tests ideally, but
Speaker 3: in absence of a test, about once a year is
Speaker 3: adequate to get out there and put some asmite out
Speaker 3: in most lawns. Full tests may tell you you need more,
Speaker 3: but that's a that's a good general that's a good general.
Speaker 7: Guess.
Speaker 4: I have been.
Speaker 3: I mentioned that I was out and the mosquitoes were
Speaker 3: getting after me. I was out recently, I was taking
Speaker 3: care of my lawn. In fact, my lawn needs mowing.
Speaker 3: Don't tell anybody, but it's been a little too long
Speaker 3: since I got back to it. But one principle of
Speaker 3: mowing is to mow at a proper height as often
Speaker 3: as you can. And so the lower you mow your lawn,
Speaker 3: the more often you need to mow. Because we don't
Speaker 3: want to cut off half of the grass heights when
Speaker 3: we mow. We want to cut off about a third
Speaker 3: of it. And now I know when it rains and
Speaker 3: it gets away from us can't get out there because
Speaker 3: it's wet. Then we have to bite the bullet because
Speaker 3: we've got talk grass and it's just what is. But
Speaker 3: in general, where it is in your control, you should
Speaker 3: mow often. If you can mow every seven days, seven
Speaker 3: days is a cycle we live on. So if you
Speaker 3: like to mow on Saturdays, that's ever seven days. If
Speaker 3: you can mow more often, the grass looks even better.
Speaker 3: The more often you hedge trim your grass with a lawnmower,
Speaker 3: that's the principle we're talking about. The more often you
Speaker 3: do that, the better your lawn is going to look.
Speaker 3: So it's time for me to get out there and
Speaker 3: get back on that schedule. These storms we just went
Speaker 3: through really reminded us of the importance of proper tree printing.
Speaker 3: You know, when trees grow and we don't train them right,
Speaker 3: we get narrow angles and crowded branches and all kinds
Speaker 3: of other issues that happen. We're run into problems down
Speaker 3: the line and as a result of that, you can
Speaker 3: cause significant damage. Not only do you lose sections, if
Speaker 3: not the whole tree, but it can fall on something
Speaker 3: a house, a car, God forbid, a human being. And
Speaker 3: we need to build trees that are stronger. We need
Speaker 3: right and then we need im prune properly. And one
Speaker 3: of the aspects of life down here on the Gulf
Speaker 3: Coast area, this whole region, is that we have hurricanes
Speaker 3: that come through, but we also have other storms that
Speaker 3: come through. We've had two what was a hurricane and
Speaker 3: one was just not a hurricane, just a really bad
Speaker 3: strong storm that put out power because power lines are
Speaker 3: damaged by trees and other things. Well, Martin Spoon Wort
Speaker 3: Affordable Tree knows how to prepare trees for that kind
Speaker 3: of weather. There is a proper way to prune, and
Speaker 3: there's there are many wrong ways to prune, and you
Speaker 3: need to hire somebody that knows how to do it correctly,
Speaker 3: and that's Martin Spoon. More, it just makes your trees
Speaker 3: safer and heavy winds. It sets them up as best
Speaker 3: you can for storm readiness. You know, there's some storms
Speaker 3: no matter what you do, what's going to happen is
Speaker 3: going to happen. But there are things that are in
Speaker 3: your power, and that's having your trees cared for properly,
Speaker 3: and that care goes beyond just pruning trees. It goes
Speaker 3: into a proper feeding of trees. It goes into proper
Speaker 3: water of trees. It goes into not adding insult to
Speaker 3: injury by putting a trench right across the tree's root
Speaker 3: system and severing the very things that that tree needs
Speaker 3: to stay well anchored and to take up the water
Speaker 3: and nutrients it needs to survive. Give Martin spoon More
Speaker 3: a call. You can go to the website first of all,
Speaker 3: it's a fftree service dot com. Or give them a
Speaker 3: call at seven one three six nine nine two six
Speaker 3: sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six
Speaker 3: sixty three. It drives me nuts. And this happens all
Speaker 3: the time, drive around town looking at trees and going,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, they had somebody to know what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Come in here, and they've runed that tree. And when
Speaker 3: you when you miss prune a tree severely, you can
Speaker 3: run it for life. You everything you do to try
Speaker 3: to bring it back to some semblance of structural integrity,
Speaker 3: UH is just your best best effort. But bad pruning
Speaker 3: is for a lifetime. And so don't let people that
Speaker 3: don't know what they're doing loose with your trees. Just don't.
Speaker 3: Because you have a business card, own a pickup and
Speaker 3: a chain saw does not make you a tree service,
Speaker 3: that is for sure. And I could take you for
Speaker 3: a ride around town, any neighborhood, drive around, and I
Speaker 3: can just show you where they are not doing things properly,
Speaker 3: and eventually that catches up to you. We're going to
Speaker 3: go now to the phones and talk to Scott. Hello Scott,
Speaker 3: and welcome to guarden Line.
Speaker 4: Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm well, thank you.
Speaker 9: I'm building a house out in Belleville, Texas. And because
Speaker 9: of how much I had to get done, I said,
Speaker 9: no way I can afford to put sod down on
Speaker 9: three quarters of an acre. So I had a hydroceiter
Speaker 9: come out and spray through the grounds. And about four
Speaker 9: days later, five days later coming up, okay, and we
Speaker 9: had this little hurricane come through in a whole bunch
Speaker 9: of rain kind of did some damage or did some
Speaker 9: hurt to the seed, you know.
Speaker 4: What I mean.
Speaker 7: So it's not as thick and and it just it
Speaker 7: is what it is.
Speaker 9: And I got a comment about mowing the weeds down
Speaker 9: like you use it in the other parts of it's
Speaker 9: two point one acres and probably about nine tenths of
Speaker 9: an acre. I got hydro seated. What can I what's
Speaker 9: the process?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 9: I know the hydro seed has a lot of wood
Speaker 9: moults and there's a lot of fertilizer and whatnot, but
Speaker 9: it's it's fairly sparse right now in this hot sun
Speaker 9: is just killing it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well what do I need?
Speaker 4: What's the process?
Speaker 9: What do I need to do to kind of make
Speaker 9: it fill in or help it fill in or whatever?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I understand. And when you got that much land,
Speaker 3: you have two options. Actually, you've got hydro seating and
Speaker 3: then they're sprugging where imagine just taking a bunch of
Speaker 3: bermuda grass and digging it up and chopping it up
Speaker 3: and put in big old bags, keep it moist, and
Speaker 3: then spread it out in an area and lightly disk
Speaker 3: it in.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: That is another way to do a big area. And
Speaker 3: there you're starting with a stronger plant because you've got
Speaker 3: the actual rhizomes and things of the you know, already
Speaker 3: ready to root and go. When you do, see, you're right.
Speaker 3: A good gully washer rain and it washes all the
Speaker 3: seeds into clumps. In some areas, have too much and
Speaker 3: some don't have enough. And then those tender seedlings in
Speaker 3: hot weather, trying to keep them alive, going, it's going
Speaker 3: to require water. And how do you can you water
Speaker 3: that area? Is there a way to move poses around
Speaker 3: and to give it? Probably every day every other day,
Speaker 3: depending on how much water you put on a little
Speaker 3: bit of water on all the seeds. And as they
Speaker 3: get going, you need less less and less supplemental or
Speaker 3: less frequent too supplemental. But that's kind of the bull
Speaker 3: and it's God is is you know? Can you keep
Speaker 3: can you take care of those tender seedlings that have
Speaker 3: almost no root system at all as they're trying to
Speaker 3: get started?
Speaker 9: Well, I've actually it's not too bad, but it's just
Speaker 9: it's sparse and I imagine FLF hide receding starts out anyway,
Speaker 9: you know, it's not like a bed.
Speaker 7: Like saw it.
Speaker 9: I don't know how they get the saw it so thick,
Speaker 9: but yeah, I did, and I've already had. I've already
Speaker 9: cut it once. Like you said, I kind of cropped
Speaker 9: off the top third of it and with a zero tourney.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're cutting out of me, Scott. I didn't
Speaker 3: really hear the last thing you said.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm out in the middle of nowhere right now.
Speaker 9: My my daughter in law is having a baby and
Speaker 9: I am out in the middle of nowhere heading towards off.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: So all right, listen, I'm having to go to a break.
Speaker 3: If you want to hang on, let's continue this. Maybe
Speaker 3: you'll get into a better sell and I'll be right back.
Speaker 3: But sorry, I got a hard break. I can do
Speaker 3: that I need to, right.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Here all right, folks, if you want to give us
Speaker 3: a call seven one three two fifty eight seventy four
Speaker 3: for listening with us today. Remember that the most important
Speaker 3: thing you do if you want to have success with
Speaker 3: plants is prepare the soil properly. Plants live in their roots.
Speaker 3: That is the source of everything they need but sunlight.
Speaker 3: And so when you reach into the soil with organic matter,
Speaker 3: with nutrients, with all the things that make that structure better,
Speaker 3: that make it better air rated, you create a big
Speaker 3: root zone and plants can thrive. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 3: It holds water well, it drains better. It's all part
Speaker 3: of the brown stuff that you start with. And Cienamlts
Speaker 3: is a company that specializes in the brown stuff. When
Speaker 3: you drive into Ciena Malts, you're going to find your compost.
Speaker 3: You're going to find, for example, the Heirlooms soils Veggimx,
Speaker 3: They've got that there. They have a lot of quality
Speaker 3: versions of things that you would want to put into
Speaker 3: a bed to improve the soil. They also have the
Speaker 3: fertilizers that I talk about on Guardenline. All of them
Speaker 3: you're going to find them there at Ciena Malts. So
Speaker 3: when you go home, you are ready to set a
Speaker 3: foundation for success. So you can get to Cienamultch's website
Speaker 3: by going to cienamultch dot com. I'd recommend you go there.
Speaker 3: They're down south of Houston, just north of Road Sharon
Speaker 3: on FM five twenty one. They deliver within about a
Speaker 3: twenty mile area, by the way. They're hours are Monday
Speaker 3: through Friday seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty
Speaker 3: to two. They're closed today, but they'll open up seven
Speaker 3: thirty tomorrow morning. Don't put a plant in the ground
Speaker 3: until you've prepared the soul properly, or you're wasting time
Speaker 3: and money and you will end up disappointed. Ciena Maltz
Speaker 3: can make sure that does not happen for you. I
Speaker 3: want to head back to the phones we were talking
Speaker 3: with Scott. Scott, are you still there? I am, I
Speaker 3: am okay. So the bottom line on it is that
Speaker 3: a little seedling and you know, when it starts to sprout,
Speaker 3: if it dries out, it dies, and so every day
Speaker 3: that goes by it has more of a root and
Speaker 3: therefore more resilience. And so aside from having they're not
Speaker 3: going to be able to come in and do that
Speaker 3: hydro seating again because you you know, it'd be very patchy.
Speaker 3: If you can find out from them what specific type
Speaker 3: of bermuda did they use, you could get that with
Speaker 3: one of those little hand crank walkarounds and you could
Speaker 3: fill in some areas, maybe rake rake a little bit
Speaker 3: and start to create more. Once a bermuda gets established,
Speaker 3: it's going to fill in, but you probably don't want
Speaker 3: to look at it for as long as it's going
Speaker 3: to take to fill in on its own.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and again I've called the guy because of after
Speaker 9: you know, the hurricane came through and really kind of
Speaker 9: put a hurt on some of the areas. There's some
Speaker 9: bare areas and whatnot, and I did have to go
Speaker 9: in and get some sawd to take care of a
Speaker 9: section that was kind of eroding because of the way
Speaker 9: of a driveway funneling water in the area. And he
Speaker 9: said that the closest thing that a solid farm would
Speaker 9: have would be celebration. And I was able to get
Speaker 9: some top soil and put it down where the erosion
Speaker 9: was happening, and then we had the big rain about
Speaker 9: a week of pretty good solid rain after that, which
Speaker 9: did me good. I mean, the stuff came up good,
Speaker 9: the sod is firmly established, the erosion has stopped, so
Speaker 9: I'm feeling good about that. But I was just wondering,
Speaker 9: you know, maybe I could go back to him and say, Okay,
Speaker 9: what's the type of seed. I'll figure out where to
Speaker 9: buy some bags of seed. One other questions that I
Speaker 9: had was there was one or two areas because this
Speaker 9: is new construction where you have a lot of that
Speaker 9: red soil that they build the pads out of, and
Speaker 9: there was not a lot of top soil on there
Speaker 9: is there an amendment that I can put on top
Speaker 9: of that that would kind of break up that clay
Speaker 9: in that area a little bit. I know up in
Speaker 9: the Northwest, we used to put lime down for certain areas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lines don't do the line here. If if you
Speaker 3: have high sodium water, then gypsum may help that. You
Speaker 3: need to kind of scratch it into the soil in
Speaker 3: those areas. Otherwise it would just be organic matter composted
Speaker 3: type materials.
Speaker 9: Just compost the material and top dress it.
Speaker 3: Huh. Yeah, that's that's what's in your control.
Speaker 9: Okay, Well, I've got a horse fire another next to me,
Speaker 9: so I'm going to go get some truckloads a horse
Speaker 9: maneuver and compost it.
Speaker 3: All right, I need to run another call, but thank
Speaker 3: you and good luck with that, and have a safe trip.
Speaker 3: By the way, in that right time, we're going to
Speaker 3: run now to the woodlands and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike,
Speaker 3: welcome to Guardenline.
Speaker 5: Tell you good morning, Skip. I just moved into a
Speaker 5: new home that's it hasn't been lived in for a
Speaker 5: long time. And the flower bed I've got a weed
Speaker 5: that's just taken over the flower beds. I sent a picture.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you you can see it yet
Speaker 5: or not. Yes, I did get Okay, I'm just wondering
Speaker 5: what would be the best way to kill that weed
Speaker 5: amongst all the other plants.
Speaker 6: That are in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, first of all, if you if you are able,
Speaker 3: doing hand hoing promptly is important because that little booger
Speaker 3: starts to set seed really fast. And yes, as a result,
Speaker 3: you just you're ending up kind of going backwards, and
Speaker 3: so that that's why getting it out of there with
Speaker 3: a hoe right now is the most important. Spraying it
Speaker 3: with a post emergent weed killer would kill the weed,
Speaker 3: but all that seed that's on it, and the picture
Speaker 3: you showed me, it's got plenty of seeds on it.
Speaker 3: They would just be you know, in your in your lawn,
Speaker 3: and I mean in your flower bed. So I would
Speaker 3: spurge comes out of one spot and then it comes
Speaker 3: up and spreads out sideways in all directions. If you
Speaker 3: can just grab a hold of it comes out real easy,
Speaker 3: or you hoe it out real easy. I'd do that,
Speaker 3: and then I would follow it up with what are
Speaker 3: you growing in the flower bed?
Speaker 5: Well, there's some foxtail ferns, and don't I don't even
Speaker 5: know the name of some of the some of the
Speaker 5: plants you.
Speaker 3: Are there, are you seeding? Are you seeding flowers or
Speaker 3: anything or just transplants and existing plants.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would put probably some transplants in there. Okay,
Speaker 5: after I get get rid of the weed, get.
Speaker 3: Some barricade and put it down. Follow the label. It
Speaker 3: goes on at a certain rate, don't overdo it. Follow
Speaker 3: the label, and then you're going to need to water
Speaker 3: it in after you apply it, and it moves into
Speaker 3: the surface of the soil, and when seeds try to germinate,
Speaker 3: it shuts them down. And so that's that works. Now,
Speaker 3: if you go in and you spade or you hoe
Speaker 3: or you pull up a plant, you're bringing your exposing
Speaker 3: soil that hasn't been treated to the surface, and so
Speaker 3: you're going to get re sprouting as seeds. But if
Speaker 3: you can do whatever soil disturbance you need, you're gonna do,
Speaker 3: and then put on the barricade and then water it in.
Speaker 3: It'll give you some time. The next thing is mult
Speaker 3: just don't ever leave bear soil for the sun to
Speaker 3: shine on it, because wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature
Speaker 3: plants a weed. And so that would be probably the
Speaker 3: simplest way is to just constantly maintain a good thick mulch.
Speaker 7: Okay, so.
Speaker 5: Try to pick it up with a hoe and then
Speaker 5: put down the barricade and then.
Speaker 6: Mulch over it.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean if you do, if you do
Speaker 3: the malt, you might not need the barricade. But I'm
Speaker 3: just saying barricade prevents the seeds that are going to
Speaker 3: sprout from establishing. They just die before they get started. Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, well good luck with.
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: We say spurge is this urge because it is a
Speaker 3: very pernicious weed. It just it's it's unbelievable its ability
Speaker 3: to reproduce and to show up and how did they
Speaker 3: ever get there? Well, who knows? Esk spurge. It's a scourge.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Mike, appreciate the call. If you've been
Speaker 3: out too. Ingenet Gardens it's out enrichment. It's on the
Speaker 3: Katie fullsher side of Richmond. Let me first of all,
Speaker 3: let me just give you the website, because this website
Speaker 3: is awesome. It's a wealth of information. Enchanted Gardens Richmond
Speaker 3: dot com. They have everything. It is a beautiful spread
Speaker 3: out place with so much to see and do you
Speaker 3: ought to see the fairy gardens, the container gardens, the
Speaker 3: amount of every kind of plant you could want, Do
Speaker 3: you like succulents. Oh my gosh, they're loaded with suckings.
Speaker 3: Do you like salvia's They're loaded roses, fruit, trees, shrubs,
Speaker 3: just on and on and on and good advice in
Speaker 3: the process. Enchanted Gardens. It's on FM three point fifty nine.
Speaker 3: Just if you're in Richmond, just head north third Katie.
Speaker 3: It's on FM three fifty nine. And you got to
Speaker 3: see the place. Don't let my description fill your brain
Speaker 3: you it won't be an adequate picture. Go see it
Speaker 3: all right? Well, I hear music. That must be time
Speaker 3: for me to turn the mic over to the news.
Speaker 3: I'll be back if you'd like to give us a
Speaker 3: call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Speaker 1: He c RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
Speaker 1: of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
Speaker 1: to kt r H Garden Line with Skip rictor so.
Speaker 2: Trim just watch him as.
Speaker 5: So many.
Speaker 3: Well, Welcome to garden Line. It is good to be
Speaker 3: here today. I tell you, I love every I love
Speaker 3: the beginning of the day. You know we've it's dark outside,
Speaker 3: but you just know that as it starts to get
Speaker 3: some light, it's the coolest part of the day. It's
Speaker 3: the best time to be out. The birds are just
Speaker 3: going nuts. I mean they are. They start the day
Speaker 3: with song, for sure, and it's just a good day.
Speaker 3: It's a good day. It's always a good day for gardening.
Speaker 3: Even again, as I say, some people will go, what
Speaker 3: if it's freezing and raining and hailing outside. Well, you
Speaker 3: I got house plants. You can do cuttings indoors, get
Speaker 3: them started. You can make your plans for the next
Speaker 3: garden planting or some renovation. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's always a good day to get out and enjoy gardening,
Speaker 3: that is for sure. If you've not fertilized your lawn
Speaker 3: in the last few months, this is the time to
Speaker 3: get it done because our next fertilization is going to
Speaker 3: come in the fall. Now. If you go if you
Speaker 3: go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com and
Speaker 3: you look at the lawn care schedule, there's two schedules
Speaker 3: on there. One is how to care for your lawn, mow, water, fertilized,
Speaker 3: how to care for your lawn. The other one is
Speaker 3: the lawn pest, Disease and weed management schedule. That's kind
Speaker 3: of like the Lions Tigers and bears oh my version.
Speaker 3: In other words, what goes wrong? What is out there
Speaker 3: to eat your lawn, attack your lawn, or infest your lawn? Well,
Speaker 3: the lawn care schedule talks about you knowing, applying, fertilizing
Speaker 3: and slow. You'll see if you go all the way
Speaker 3: over to fall late September October, those are big times
Speaker 3: to do your fall fertilization. So if you want to
Speaker 3: do one now to carry until then. Nitropos super turf
Speaker 3: is an excellent products. A silver bag from Nitrovos. It
Speaker 3: gradually releases neutris over time, and that's the nice thing
Speaker 3: about it. You're not going to mow as much because
Speaker 3: you are not providing this flush of extra nitrogen that
Speaker 3: just causes the grass to grow real fast. You got
Speaker 3: to mow more. The root system actually is reduced. When
Speaker 3: you overfertilize with nitrogen, you get a lot of green
Speaker 3: top growth, but the root systems reduced. Nitroposed superturf won't
Speaker 3: do that. It gradually feeds it over time. And you
Speaker 3: can find nitrophs superturf in a lot of different places.
Speaker 3: You know, we know our ace hardware stores are always
Speaker 3: good places to find a quality product.
Speaker 4: Like that.
Speaker 3: The Plantation Ace Hardware be a good example of one
Speaker 3: of those kinds of stores. You find it at Southwest
Speaker 3: Fertilizer too, by the way, Bob carries it there. Well,
Speaker 3: anytime you fertilize too, just I want to mention this.
Speaker 3: You want to make sure and water it in really well.
Speaker 3: You want to get the nutrients from the granules down
Speaker 3: into this soe if it's an organic fertilizer, then what's
Speaker 3: going to have to happen is microbes are going to
Speaker 3: go to work on that, and keeping it moist helps that.
Speaker 3: I mean, microbes can't live in a desert it's too dry.
Speaker 3: I mean they've got to have soul moisture and they
Speaker 3: got to have moisture in those particles of the organic
Speaker 3: product you put out. So water and keeping some moisture
Speaker 3: there is very important to getting the nutrients from any
Speaker 3: kind of product you put down into the root system
Speaker 3: where the plants are able to use it. Well, this
Speaker 3: is a call in show, and the goal of our
Speaker 3: show is to help you have a more beautiful garden,
Speaker 3: a more bountiful garden, and certainly a more beautiful landscape
Speaker 3: as well. So in order to do that, give us
Speaker 3: a call. It's seven one three two one two kt
Speaker 3: rh seven to one three two one two kt rh.
Speaker 3: Speaking of beautiful and bountiful. Pierce Scapes is the premiere
Speaker 3: company when it comes to being able to turn any
Speaker 3: landscape into something really really spat and whatever level your
Speaker 3: landscape is at, from a low end to a very
Speaker 3: high end, pier Scapes can come in and they can
Speaker 3: work wonders. They can fix irrigation systems. Most irrigation systems
Speaker 3: are not properly designed or aligned or have repairs that
Speaker 3: are needed. They can do that. They can put in
Speaker 3: landscape lighting, they can put in hardscape. They can do
Speaker 3: all kinds of things to enhance your landscape. Do you
Speaker 3: want a little patio with barbecue and all that? Pier
Speaker 3: Scapes can do that. Excuse me? Do you want them
Speaker 3: to have them come out for quarterly maintenance, to trim,
Speaker 3: to weed, to feed, to check the irrigation, to change
Speaker 3: out the color when it needs to be changed out seasonally,
Speaker 3: to add some mulch to the surfaces. They can do
Speaker 3: all of that. Just go to the website pierce Scapes
Speaker 3: dot com Piercescapes dot com, or if you'd like to
Speaker 3: give them a call. Here's the number. You might want
Speaker 3: to write this down seven or excuse me two eight
Speaker 3: one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three
Speaker 3: seven o five zero six zero. But go to pierscapes
Speaker 3: dot com. I want you to see the kind of
Speaker 3: work they do. You will see why we think so
Speaker 3: much of them here on Guardline. Well, it's time to
Speaker 3: go out to the phones now. I think i'll hit
Speaker 3: out to Kingwood and we're going to talk to Joe. Hello, Joe,
Speaker 3: welcome to Guardline.
Speaker 10: Good morning Skip. I was wanting to know what fertilizer
Speaker 10: you'd recommend for Mexican firebush to promote more blooms on them.
Speaker 3: Well, the fertilizer is, you know, to provide support growth
Speaker 3: of the planet itself if your phosphorus were low. Phosphorus
Speaker 3: is an important nutrient in helping plants promote. Among many
Speaker 3: other functions of phosphorus, it also helps promote bloom. Potassium
Speaker 3: is also, of course important. I would just say a
Speaker 3: good balanced fertilizer for firebush. Don't overdo the nitrogen, just
Speaker 3: give it a moderate amount of growth rate. So something
Speaker 3: that's on a lower end of the nitrogen with a
Speaker 3: lawn type fertilizer or a bloom producing fertilizer Nelson couldn't
Speaker 3: think of the name. Nelson Plant Food has a color
Speaker 3: Star line that would be excellent for that. We also
Speaker 3: have a blooming food for tropicals, and although fire bush
Speaker 3: isn't a tropical, it would do well with their blooming
Speaker 3: their product for tropical plants as well. But sunlight is
Speaker 3: the number one key and fire bush. You know, you've
Speaker 3: got to have good sun to get good blooms or
Speaker 3: foliage color on fire bush.
Speaker 6: That's great.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I've got Nelson's Color Star and also have Medina
Speaker 10: growing green organic as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, that'd be fine. Yeah, either of those would work
Speaker 3: fine for it. Firebush is one of the plants that
Speaker 3: I don't worry a lot about doing extra fertilizer. You know,
Speaker 3: some things are very heavy feeders and some things not
Speaker 3: so much. And if you look at your fire bush,
Speaker 3: if the soil moisture is right and the sun is
Speaker 3: right and it's not growing, then give it a boost,
Speaker 3: even some extra nitrogen if needed. But otherwise it's a
Speaker 3: pretty tough plant. Number one thing it needs is consistent
Speaker 3: soil moisture.
Speaker 10: So if fertilized two three times a year.
Speaker 3: That good, that should be plenty. It's only going to
Speaker 3: be interested in growing when it's hot, so that might
Speaker 3: be in your you know, maybe you're putting something out
Speaker 3: in May or even probably do a little late April, probably,
Speaker 3: and then I would probably come back in June or July,
Speaker 3: and then probably toward the end of August, do the
Speaker 3: last fertilization if you do it September. But it's primarily
Speaker 3: going to be interested in growing when it's hot.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Skip, I appreciate.
Speaker 3: It all right, thanks a lot, Thanks for the call.
Speaker 3: Appreciate that very much. Out now, talk to Sean and Cyprus.
Speaker 3: No false alarm this time. Sean, how can we help?
Speaker 9: No problem?
Speaker 11: Hey, after about thirty five years living in the place
Speaker 11: I'm at now, I've got to move. And probably about
Speaker 11: thirty years ago, we planted a magnolia tree as a
Speaker 11: sentimental for a past mother, and I'd like to take
Speaker 11: a part of it with us. And the seed pods
Speaker 11: are dropping, and I want to know what it takes
Speaker 11: to try and grow a magnolia tree from a seed
Speaker 11: pod or even a cutting off of the tree.
Speaker 7: Any advice.
Speaker 3: Are you there?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: Can you hear me?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You cut out at the end, go ahead and say
Speaker 3: the last part again, I was.
Speaker 11: Just wondering what it would take to grow a magnolia
Speaker 11: tree from a seed pod or a cutting.
Speaker 3: Well, the cuttings are going to be extremely difficult. In fact,
Speaker 3: I would suggest you not even try that. You can
Speaker 3: go online, but it's gonna take certain certain types of
Speaker 3: magnolia branch tissue, wood tissues, and a very high level
Speaker 3: of rooting hormones and other conditions that are going to
Speaker 3: be just have to be just about right so you
Speaker 3: can harvest your own. You want to wait and let
Speaker 3: them turn really bright red and be fully right. You
Speaker 3: want to take all that flesh around the outside of
Speaker 3: the magnolia seed pod it is a little tiny like
Speaker 3: a fruit. It's a berry actually, and just soak those
Speaker 3: seeds in nice warm water and remove that outer coating
Speaker 3: of the seed. You can use like a wires piece
Speaker 3: of metal screening, not the nylon or whatever that plasticky
Speaker 3: screening is, but something kind of firm to rub that
Speaker 3: outer seed coat on it, and that's gonna be helpful
Speaker 3: in helping it to germinate. They go through a normal
Speaker 3: stratification period because in nature, the seeds are cast and
Speaker 3: those seeds go through winter and then sprout the next year.
Speaker 3: They require that cold temperature. So you can put those
Speaker 3: seeds that you have in moist sand, or you could
Speaker 3: use spagnum, peat moss, you know, some of the mosst lines,
Speaker 3: hanging baskets, whatever, something to keep them moist. Put them
Speaker 3: in a zipplock, close it up, and then put it
Speaker 3: in the refrigerator, and I would say probably leave it
Speaker 3: for at least two months, maybe three in the refrigerator.
Speaker 3: Check it periodically, make sure it's still moist, make sure
Speaker 3: it's not already sprouting in there, and then take them
Speaker 3: out and plant them in a container and get them going.
Speaker 3: Or you can plant them directly where they're going to
Speaker 3: grow in the ground, if you want to go about
Speaker 3: it that way.
Speaker 4: Wonderful.
Speaker 11: I appreciate it, all.
Speaker 3: Right, Good luck with that. Appreciate that. Yes, sir, you
Speaker 3: take care for those of you up in the Montgomery area.
Speaker 3: You have got a hometown garden center called Ana Plants
Speaker 3: and Produce. And I say Montgomery area, I mean all
Speaker 3: of Lake Conro all through that region anywhere out there
Speaker 3: nearby Montgomery. Ana Plants and Produce are on one oh
Speaker 3: five on the east side of town. They carry a
Speaker 3: wide variety of things. Of course, their plants are awesome.
Speaker 3: They're always getting in new plants. They've got some really
Speaker 3: cool things for the landscape. I call it bling. You know,
Speaker 3: things like maybe a metal artwork or a metal arch way,
Speaker 3: or maybe you want a chiminea to put out on
Speaker 3: the patio and just enjoy when we get into these fall,
Speaker 3: cool crispy nights. Enjoy a little fire there on the patio.
Speaker 3: They can do all of that. They also specialize in
Speaker 3: carrying every fertilizer I talk about on guarden line, and
Speaker 3: I'm talking about nitrophos I'm talking about Nelson microlife and
Speaker 3: then soil, airloom, soils, Nature's way resources. Both of them
Speaker 3: are available there at A ANDA Plants and Produce. They
Speaker 3: usually keep my schedules there at the counter, so you
Speaker 3: can just grab one when you go in, or better
Speaker 3: just print it before you head that way. But you're
Speaker 3: going to find everything you need to have success with
Speaker 3: your landscape at A and A Plants and Produce. I'm
Speaker 3: going to head now to Baytown and talk to Alan.
Speaker 6: Hello Allen, good morning, and my question is about the
Speaker 6: fertilization schedule. I just bought a new home, but the
Speaker 6: grass has been established for almost a year, just houses
Speaker 6: setting on body till I did. Can I go ahead
Speaker 6: and do I need to wait for the winter rising?
Speaker 6: Or can I go ahead and backtrack a little bit
Speaker 6: and start with the three one two and just delay
Speaker 6: the winter rising later on?
Speaker 3: We're going to do the fall application in October, and
Speaker 3: so if I were I would do I would do something.
Speaker 3: Now you might want to use do you typically or
Speaker 3: fertilizing organically or synthetics or what what do you prefer
Speaker 3: to use?
Speaker 6: I don't know, to use the nitro falls whatever that is.
Speaker 3: Well, I would get you could do the silver bag,
Speaker 3: but that's going to carry a pretty far distance into
Speaker 3: the fall too, so you could do that. That is
Speaker 3: a What does a long look like right now? Is
Speaker 3: it looking healthier?
Speaker 6: Because yeah, I know it's pretty green. Santa Augustine is
Speaker 6: pretty green because I guess they're trying to sell the
Speaker 6: house that kept it watered so it speaks better than
Speaker 6: most people's. But yeah, I just know it hasn't been
Speaker 6: fertilized at all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I certainly get that. Well, you could, you know,
Speaker 3: if it's looking great, I mean you could, you could
Speaker 3: wait and do it in the fall, but you could
Speaker 3: also put the nitrophoss imperial. That's the red bag. It's
Speaker 3: a fifteen to five time down, and I would put
Speaker 3: I'd go a little lighter on it right now. I
Speaker 3: would probably put about five pounds per thousand square feet
Speaker 3: of that. That's a little on the light side. But
Speaker 3: your lawn already looks pretty good, and it's an immediate release,
Speaker 3: and we don't want to push a lot of you know, growth,
Speaker 3: too much of it, So go a little on the
Speaker 3: light side with them.
Speaker 6: All right, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: All right, all right, watered in rod, thank you, bet
Speaker 3: you take care. I you know, fertilizing, we give you
Speaker 3: these rules of thumbs. You know, I tell you on
Speaker 3: your gardening vegetables, you put two cups of this thing
Speaker 3: down per ten feet a row or some. We throw
Speaker 3: these numbers out there, like with with lawns, a pound
Speaker 3: of nitrogen per thousand square feet. That is basically the
Speaker 3: lawn fertilization rate that researchers have come up with as
Speaker 3: being the best a pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet. Well,
Speaker 3: some fertilizers have a lot of nitrogen. Some don't have
Speaker 3: a lot of nitrogen, so that varies. But what about
Speaker 3: your lawn? How much phosphorus do you have in your lawn?
Speaker 3: How much potassium, how much magnesium? And a soil test
Speaker 3: gives you an idea where you are. And it may
Speaker 3: be that my standard rule of thumb fertilizing is not
Speaker 3: the best, exactly the best for your particular lawn. Maybe
Speaker 3: you need to tweak things a little bit. Maybe all
Speaker 3: you need is a little nitrogen. Maybe you need to
Speaker 3: really move the magnesium and the potassium up. You see
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. The rules of thumbs are good and
Speaker 3: they will carry you a long way, and you could
Speaker 3: do that for years and not have a problem. But
Speaker 3: it's good every few years to do another soil test
Speaker 3: to find out where you are with things, and that
Speaker 3: way you're able to fertilize, you say, more accurately, more intelligently,
Speaker 3: more accurately, to fit the needs of your lawn when
Speaker 3: it comes to soil, the brown stuff that I'm always
Speaker 3: talking about, fertilizer and soil, so brown stuff. Landscaper's Pride
Speaker 3: is an excellent company with excellent resources, excellent products. It's
Speaker 3: still time to be mulching In fact, we're talking someone
Speaker 3: earlier about a weed. You know, where sunlight hits a
Speaker 3: soil nature points of weed. Landscaper's Pride has a number
Speaker 3: of different mulch products that'll do just fine. But the
Speaker 3: soil now is the time to prep soil for the
Speaker 3: fall garden. You know, even though temps are high, when
Speaker 3: you add organic matter, you're improving the soil for root growth.
Speaker 3: And so why not get those beds ready now, whether
Speaker 3: it's herb planting or vegetable planting or flowers. How about
Speaker 3: Gardener's Magic. It's an organic pine based blend that contains humus,
Speaker 3: green pine screen, pine, the composted riceholes, and a chicken
Speaker 3: pellet fertilizer that last up to three months. So there
Speaker 3: you're kind of providing a little bit of food along
Speaker 3: with everything else. Mushroom compost Gardeners have long known that
Speaker 3: mushroom compost is a wonderful potent product that really helps
Speaker 3: to green things up. And then there's healthy soil compost
Speaker 3: one hundred percent recycle composted plant material. It's got a
Speaker 3: neutral pH. And then there are black humous, a dark,
Speaker 3: rich organic mix of composted bark with loamy topsoil really
Speaker 3: helps that soil the whole water while at the same
Speaker 3: time draining well. It's good for a brand new bed
Speaker 3: you're putting in, or really for just a mending in
Speaker 3: beds that are already existing. Go to Landscaperspride dot com.
Speaker 3: That's where you can find out about all their products
Speaker 3: and where they're available, and they are widely available here
Speaker 3: in the Greater Houston area. I wish that, Let's see,
Speaker 3: I probably wish more than two things, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to say I wish for two things. One is for
Speaker 3: spring fever for us to bottle it up and pour
Speaker 3: it into the drinking water supply in fall, so people
Speaker 3: would get as excited or more excited in fall as
Speaker 3: they do about spring. Listen, Fall is the best planting
Speaker 3: season of the year. There are very few things that
Speaker 3: falls not the best time to plant. And basil doesn't
Speaker 3: like cool weather, so basil would be an example. But
Speaker 3: you talk about woody ornamental shrubs, trees and woody vines,
Speaker 3: you talk about perennials, you talk about herb perennial herbs.
Speaker 3: Fall is great. There's lots of fall flowers, lots of
Speaker 3: faull vegetables. Fall is a great time. Get the soil
Speaker 3: ready now so that in fall you're ready to go.
Speaker 3: You're ready to plant, because here's what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: About the time you decide this weekend I'm putting in
Speaker 3: that garden. Here comes some storm through or whatever, and
Speaker 3: it rains and it rains, and now you're having to
Speaker 3: wait because you can't work soil when it's sloppy, wet,
Speaker 3: un till later. And you didn't plant when you wanted
Speaker 3: a plant. See what I'm saying. Do your soil prep now,
Speaker 3: get up early in the morning, get it done when
Speaker 3: it's cooler, and you will find you have great success. Well,
Speaker 3: it's time for me to take a break. Our number
Speaker 3: seven one three two one two KTR eight Welcome back
Speaker 3: to the guard Line. Good to have you with us today.
Speaker 3: We are talking about all kinds of things gardening. If
Speaker 3: you've got a question you'd like to ask or get
Speaker 3: some help or advice, give us a call seven to one,
Speaker 3: three two to one two kt RH seven one three
Speaker 3: two one two k t r H. You've heard me
Speaker 3: talk about Southwest fertilizer. You hear me talk about them
Speaker 3: a lot, and the reason is a Southwest Fertilizer is
Speaker 3: a place that has such a wide variety of all
Speaker 3: the different products and tools that you need to have
Speaker 3: success that it's just a one stop shop. There is
Speaker 3: no fertilizer on my schedule that's not a Southwest fertilizer.
Speaker 3: And then there's more than that. Uh, there is more
Speaker 3: selection of things to control insects, to manage diseases, to
Speaker 3: prevent weeds than any place I've seen. It is an
Speaker 3: outstanding selection of quality products. You walk in there, you
Speaker 3: talk to Bob, or you talk to Aaron, or you
Speaker 3: talk to any of the team there, and you're going
Speaker 3: to get knowledgeable advice.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 3: They don't say stuff you don't need. So you walk
Speaker 3: in maybe you got a bug, maybe you got a picture,
Speaker 3: maybe you have a sample of a plant, and you
Speaker 3: talking to him about it, and they'll say, well, here's
Speaker 3: what it's gonna take. Here's the product probably work best
Speaker 3: for you. You got two op you actually got ten
Speaker 3: options there. But they really do direct you. Well. You know,
Speaker 3: they have that folding kneeling bench that I keep bragging
Speaker 3: on Top five tool and my tool shed is the
Speaker 3: folding kneeling bitch. Absolutely up at the top. Did easy
Speaker 3: to store. Because it folds up, you unfold it, you
Speaker 3: can use it as a seat, you can flip it
Speaker 3: over and kneel on it, and it the legs become handles.
Speaker 3: So as I like to say, if you're anywhere north
Speaker 3: of forty years old, you know what it's like to
Speaker 3: wake up in the morning sore and you can't remember why.
Speaker 3: Remember that. You don't have to admit it. We're on
Speaker 3: the radio. I'm admitting it. But that folding kneeling bitch
Speaker 3: is great because you know, I've had many times where
Speaker 3: I work all Saturday and here I go, you know,
Speaker 3: wake up Sunday morning and I feel like I'm in
Speaker 3: the pre natal position because I can't stretch out because
Speaker 3: I got up and down, up and down a thousand times.
Speaker 3: Bob's got an eighty foot wall of tools. So do
Speaker 3: you need pruning, do you need rakes or any kind
Speaker 3: of tool you can imagine from small hand tools up
Speaker 3: to large tools. He's also got a little grabber tool.
Speaker 3: And I'm about to put something online that is instructions
Speaker 3: for building your own weed wiper, and it needs a
Speaker 3: certain kind of grabber tool. Bob's got those there at
Speaker 3: ACE Hardware Stores. It'll be we're putting that publication up
Speaker 3: early this coming week, may even get it up tomorrow,
Speaker 3: but early this week. We're going to get that up
Speaker 3: on the line. And when you go look at it,
Speaker 3: you're going to go, oh, I want to build one
Speaker 3: of those. We'll go over to Southwest Fertilizer and get
Speaker 3: one of his suction cup type grabber tools. He's got
Speaker 3: him there. They're on the corner of Businet and Runwick
Speaker 3: in Southwest Houston. You can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot
Speaker 3: com find out more information there or just call him
Speaker 3: seven to one three six six six one seven four four.
Speaker 3: Southwest Fertilizer was like going in there, and you know,
Speaker 3: I tell you that they always have such new stuff
Speaker 3: that it's like I go and just walk the aisles
Speaker 3: and go when did that come on the market, And
Speaker 3: you start learning about it and go, oh, we got
Speaker 3: another option for things, because when it comes on the market,
Speaker 3: he'll have it. The way I like to put it is,
Speaker 3: if Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have something, you don't need it.
Speaker 3: I think that's a good way to put it, because
Speaker 3: it's true, absolutely true. Well, I was earlier talking about
Speaker 3: different things, including success with the lawns, and things you
Speaker 3: need to have success with the lawns. And I was
Speaker 3: talking about for watering, how to water properly. If you
Speaker 3: were to create the ideal soul moisture conditions for lawns,
Speaker 3: a really pretty much ever plant, you would want to
Speaker 3: give a good soaking to the soil, like a good
Speaker 3: slow rain that thoroughly wets the soil deeply, and then
Speaker 3: you turn the water off and allow it to dry out,
Speaker 3: not powder dry, but allow all that space between the
Speaker 3: saw particles for where there's now water to go away
Speaker 3: and fill with air. As air is pulled back down
Speaker 3: in the soil to stimulate root growth. That schedules the
Speaker 3: watering schedule mowing I talked about earlier. The more often
Speaker 3: you mowed, the better your lawn looks. Think of a
Speaker 3: hedge around your house. If you had a boxwood hedge,
Speaker 3: and if you went in once a year and you
Speaker 3: cut it way back and it was all sticks, and
Speaker 3: then it sprouts back out again, and eventually it comes
Speaker 3: back out, and the next year you do that again,
Speaker 3: it's gonna look horrible all the time. A lawn is
Speaker 3: the same way. Frequent shearing with a lawnmower. I use
Speaker 3: the word shearing, you know, I mean mowing, but it's
Speaker 3: the hedge analogy. Frequent shearing with a lawnmower creates density
Speaker 3: density density. First specialist told me one time that the
Speaker 3: single most important thing you do to have a beautiful
Speaker 3: lawn is to mow regularly. And I thought, okay, come on, man,
Speaker 3: that that can't be true. Well, he knew what he
Speaker 3: was talking about. It is very very important to do that. Also,
Speaker 3: when you are dealing with your lawn mowing, you want
Speaker 3: to mow it the right height it. Think of the
Speaker 3: any plant, the above ground and the below ground parts
Speaker 3: are in some degree of balance. So if you cut
Speaker 3: a lawn very very low, the depth of the root
Speaker 3: system is often less than if you had it a
Speaker 3: little higher, a more top growth to support that root
Speaker 3: growth and whatnot. It's going to improve on the root
Speaker 3: system as well. But the more the lower you mow,
Speaker 3: the more often you have to move because remember we
Speaker 3: want to mow regularly. We don't want to cut off
Speaker 3: more than a third of the leaf blade. That's ideal.
Speaker 3: And I know when it rains, we get away, it
Speaker 3: gets away from us, can't get back out there and
Speaker 3: mow and then we have to come in and catch up.
Speaker 3: But by the way, if you're catching up a lawn,
Speaker 3: and it's what I do in mind, I'll go is
Speaker 3: that the more really high, and I'll mover at once
Speaker 3: and chop that up down in the and then I'll
Speaker 3: drop it back down to the level I want to
Speaker 3: mow and mow it again. And I know most people
Speaker 3: aren't going to want to mow twice, but I do.
Speaker 3: My mower is not the best at mulching, and so
Speaker 3: a good multing more probably would work better for me.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so mow at the proper height for something
Speaker 3: down really low, like a dwarf type of Bermuda or
Speaker 3: even yeah, you may be mowing down, you know, at
Speaker 3: an inch down low for your lawn when it gets
Speaker 3: to something like Saint Augustine two and a half three inches.
Speaker 3: I know people that moight even higher than that, but
Speaker 3: that gives you the best height. And the taller it is,
Speaker 3: the longer it takes for it to grow, so that
Speaker 3: you're cutting off a third. So a golf course green
Speaker 3: gets cut every day because it's so low. They're mowing
Speaker 3: so little off of it that it gets cut every day. Well,
Speaker 3: you can't do that on your lawn, he used to.
Speaker 3: I hope you don't have time for that. That's that
Speaker 3: would be not my idea of fun. But just remember
Speaker 3: to do it regularly. All right, We're gonna take a
Speaker 3: little break here for the news. My phone number seven
Speaker 3: one three two one two kt r H. Give Crystal call.
Speaker 3: Let's get you on the boards and we'll visit with
Speaker 3: you when we come back. Hey, I'm glad you're listening today.
Speaker 3: You know, I enjoy talking with gardeners, and I just
Speaker 3: think gardeners are the greatest people we can. First of all,
Speaker 3: we understand what it means to get out there, get
Speaker 3: our hands dirty, and joy nature, and that is so important.
Speaker 3: There are unlimited benefits to getting outside in nature, whether
Speaker 3: it's taking a walk or getting down on your hands
Speaker 3: and knees and planting something in the dirt. There are
Speaker 3: benefits from microbes. They're release substances that are helpful for
Speaker 3: us in so many ways. For example, there are microbes
Speaker 3: that release substances that actually cause you to feel better,
Speaker 3: cause you to be happier.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Serotonin is a't important something in our in our world,
Speaker 3: and it just I don't know whether it's microbes in
Speaker 3: our in our intestinal track or our gut systems as
Speaker 3: they call it, or microbes in the soil. There's a
Speaker 3: good connection right there. There's also the idea of exercise
Speaker 3: and sunshine and fresh air that does a world for people,
Speaker 3: even people that are maybe having trouble getting around. You
Speaker 3: get the right tools, the things you need to be
Speaker 3: able to do things like you want, and you can
Speaker 3: continue gardening for a long time. There's ergonomic tools, there's
Speaker 3: raised beds. That's a folding bench that I was talking
Speaker 3: about it. There's all kinds of things. Gardening is a
Speaker 3: wonderful hobby. Don't wait until you are an older person
Speaker 3: to start gardening. Start gardening now and teach your kids
Speaker 3: to garden. Kids that grow things and eat things out
Speaker 3: of their garden that they grew are more likely to
Speaker 3: be willing to eat healthy as they grow up. That
Speaker 3: is our number one problem I think with our health
Speaker 3: in this country is our lack of exercise and our
Speaker 3: poor eating habits. We all know the stories of fast
Speaker 3: food and all of that kind of thing. Gardening is
Speaker 3: the opposite of all of it, and I hope you
Speaker 3: take advantage of that. You're listening to Guardline. I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Skip Richter. Our phone number is seven one three two
Speaker 3: one two fifty eight seventy four. While I'm talking about nature,
Speaker 3: I'll just tell you about Microlife fertilizer again. I talk
Speaker 3: about it all the time because Microlife is designed to
Speaker 3: work with the soil. The what okay, quick quiz for
Speaker 3: garden Line listeners. What's the most important thing to have
Speaker 3: success with plants? That's right, the brown stuff, the soil,
Speaker 3: the foundation for everything. When you create soil where roots
Speaker 3: can thrive, microbes can thrive, You're going to have success
Speaker 3: with your plants. And Microlife's designed that way. By the way,
Speaker 3: you know, when you buy a Microlife product, you are
Speaker 3: also buying a lot of microbes. And when I say
Speaker 3: a lot, I mean lots of different kinds and bazillions
Speaker 3: of them at that. So, whether it's the green bag,
Speaker 3: the sixty four, whether it's Microlife Humates plus that's the
Speaker 3: purple bag that's concentrated compost in a bag, whether it's
Speaker 3: one of their liquid products like the Biomatrix, the orange
Speaker 3: label that is, they're all excellent products that do two things.
Speaker 3: Number One, they have nutrients to feed the plants, but
Speaker 3: they have microbes as well, and they stimulate microbial growth,
Speaker 3: and that is how nature was designed to work so
Speaker 3: that plants could thrive. You can go into space. You
Speaker 3: can create nutrient water and spray it on tomatoes hanging
Speaker 3: in the air and space with artificial light shining on,
Speaker 3: or grow a tomato. That's not how nature grows things.
Speaker 3: Nature has a way of building soil better and better
Speaker 3: as time goes on, and we can too right now
Speaker 3: by using a product like the many products available for microlife.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 3: When you want to have successful gardening, soil is important.
Speaker 3: Another important thing is to give plants the basics of
Speaker 3: what they need. Plants need sunlight. Some don't want direct
Speaker 3: sun they'll burn up. Others need full sun to do
Speaker 3: what they're going to do. In general, as a very
Speaker 3: general guide, if you're going to grow let's say a
Speaker 3: vegetable for root or fruit, so that would be a
Speaker 3: carrot or a tomato. It could be a turnip or
Speaker 3: a squash. You see what I'm saying. You need the
Speaker 3: most sunlight you can give it. If you're going to
Speaker 3: grow stuff to eat the leaves like kale or lettuce
Speaker 3: or whatever, it can do Okay, on less sunlight doesn't
Speaker 3: want to be in the shade, but it can take
Speaker 3: less sunlight and still perform. So when you're locating your
Speaker 3: garden and maybe you got a pretty good sun over
Speaker 3: here and not as great over there, put the leaves
Speaker 3: in the nut as great over there. Put the roots
Speaker 3: and fruit and the good stuff over the side. That's
Speaker 3: true many other plants, you know roses, they want sunlight.
Speaker 3: Most blooming plants want good, good sunlight. We have a
Speaker 3: few like impatience and wishbone flour that grow in quite
Speaker 3: a bit of shade. They can do with lower levels.
Speaker 3: But giving plants what they want, giving them good drainage.
Speaker 3: Do I need to tell you When it rains, it
Speaker 3: pours around here. So when soil gets water logged for
Speaker 3: extended periods of time, plants suffer. It can cause root rots,
Speaker 3: it can cause a lot of other problems. And so
Speaker 3: a good raised bed a well drained internally well drained
Speaker 3: soiled That is what we do when we add like
Speaker 3: expanded shale into a clay, when we've put compost into
Speaker 3: the soil, we improve the internal structure and drainage. That
Speaker 3: is very important. And so I keep saying that gardening
Speaker 3: is not that difficult. There's no such thing as a
Speaker 3: brown thumb. There's only an uninformed thumb. And we're we
Speaker 3: here on garden Line, are here to inform your thumbs.
Speaker 3: The smarter your thumb gets, the better you grow stuff.
Speaker 3: Here's what I'm saying by that I just went through.
Speaker 3: You know, plants need light, plants need drainage, plentsy good nutrients,
Speaker 3: plants need you know, my craigire like to be well
Speaker 3: drained soil and on those. That's the basics. And there
Speaker 3: are few other things we could add, but that is
Speaker 3: the basics. And when you give a plant what it wants,
Speaker 3: suddenly everybody thinks you got a green thumb. Well, your
Speaker 3: thumb just got smarter along with the rest of you,
Speaker 3: and we spend a lifetime learning about grow. You know,
Speaker 3: I've been gardening for over sixty years, while I've been
Speaker 3: around for over six years. I mean, I've been probably
Speaker 3: actively gardening since oh, I don't know, I was a
Speaker 3: maybe grade school for sure. Grade school we had a
Speaker 3: garden in our backyard. And I still learn stuff every day,
Speaker 3: every day. There's no end to it. That's another reason
Speaker 3: why gardening keeps you young. In addition to the physical
Speaker 3: and the mental. It's just the fact that you're stimulating
Speaker 3: your brain, you're learning, you're enjoying things. You know, my
Speaker 3: best garden you know when it when the best gardening
Speaker 3: year of my life. Next year, there's hope in gardening.
Speaker 3: It's always something else cool that's coming along. So I
Speaker 3: think you, I think you get the idea. Well, what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, basically, to just cut it to the bottom
Speaker 3: line is learn and learn and learn. Don't be afraid
Speaker 3: to fail. The more you learn, the better you get.
Speaker 3: And it's just a great hobby, and it's an unending
Speaker 3: supply of opportunities to get better and better, to have
Speaker 3: more success. Don't be afraid to kill a plant. You
Speaker 3: got to kill a lot of plants to be a
Speaker 3: great gardener.
Speaker 13: You do.
Speaker 3: It's just part of the deal. Well, there was a spiel,
Speaker 3: so I just sort of went off on a tangent
Speaker 3: right there. I do want to I do want to
Speaker 3: remind you that our phone number is seven one three
Speaker 3: two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
Speaker 3: two one two five eight seven four. That is important. Well,
Speaker 3: time flies when you're having fun. I hope you're having fun.
Speaker 3: I share am today I hear the music. That means
Speaker 3: it's a top of the hour. We're about to take
Speaker 3: a little break here at the top of the hour.
Speaker 3: When we come back, I'm gonna spend a little bit
Speaker 3: of time, uh, talking with Mike Orant about Oba Oba
Speaker 3: as organic cordic culture benefits alliance and you're going to
Speaker 3: hear a lot about this organization, what it does and how.
Speaker 3: You remember how I said you need an informed thumb.
Speaker 3: Oba answer a great way to inform your thumb top nod.
Speaker 3: Do you hear more about that in a minute. But
Speaker 3: we're gonna pick his brain and talk about some of
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff. We may talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about organic gardening in the process as well.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: I hope you stick around for it. We'll get back
Speaker 3: to your calls right after that, So hang around in
Speaker 3: the meantime seven one three two one two k t
Speaker 3: r H and don't forget my website, Gardening with Skip
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor It's.
Speaker 2: Crazys. Just watch him as well. Maybe gives to set Brasy.
Speaker 14: Again.
Speaker 3: Not sorry, Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back on a
Speaker 3: wonderful Sunday, and you know every day is a good
Speaker 3: day for gardening. I don't care if it's going to
Speaker 3: rain outside. I don't care if it is zero degrees outside.
Speaker 3: You can always come inside, take care of your house plants,
Speaker 3: plant seeds for starting transplants, start cuttings. Gross. How about this?
Speaker 5: Have you ever?
Speaker 3: I don't even talk about this much, but growing microgreens.
Speaker 3: That is another very healthy thing we can eat and
Speaker 3: something you can do completely enough and do completely indoors
Speaker 3: as well. It's always a good day for gardening. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening. We're glad you're here. I'm gonna not be
Speaker 3: taking calls for the next couple of segments here because
Speaker 3: I have a very special guest. When we get about
Speaker 3: the half hour, we'll start taking calls again. So hold
Speaker 3: on to those questions. We'll get back to them. But
Speaker 3: I have a very special guest, mister Mike's Errant. Mike's
Speaker 3: Rant is the owner creator of Microlife Fertilizer and very
Speaker 3: active with an organization called Oba and Mike.
Speaker 14: Do we have you on the line there, Yes, sir,
Speaker 14: Good morning, Hello, good morning.
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 4: I feel terrific? How about yourself, mister Skipp.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you taking time to come on. I wanted
Speaker 3: to tell people that listen to Guardline about OBA and
Speaker 3: what OBA is. It's HbA organic hordiculture benefits alliance, but
Speaker 3: what does that even mean? Tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about OBA and what OBA does.
Speaker 4: Well, Skip, thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity.
Speaker 4: OBA is a five oh one C three organic education nonprofit.
Speaker 4: We prevent science. We provide science in really good information
Speaker 4: in non commercial way. Now, I think really our principle
Speaker 4: is is so we can all grow the environment in
Speaker 4: humans together healthily. We are part of the environment. You
Speaker 4: can't separate humans from the environment, and we can't have
Speaker 4: a meaningful civilization unless we have a healthy environment. So
Speaker 4: we're doing that interface teaching people how to take great
Speaker 4: care of themselves nutritionally and also how to manage ecosystems,
Speaker 4: be it college campuses or backyard gardens with nature and
Speaker 4: organics in mind.
Speaker 3: Okay, now, who who is OBA? I mean who you know?
Speaker 3: Who can anybody join?
Speaker 2: Or you know what?
Speaker 3: What kind of folks make up OBA?
Speaker 4: Well, it was a five to one C three, So
Speaker 4: we're open to everybody and we welcome all people to
Speaker 4: come as members or to come as visitors, volunteer opportunities.
Speaker 4: It's made up of professionals in the landscape industry, of
Speaker 4: the medical industry, of the soil microbiology industry, of homeowners.
Speaker 4: Really a great group of volunteers. We're very low in staff.
Speaker 4: All of our money basically goes to supporting education. We
Speaker 4: have a tremendous event coming up this next weekend, as
Speaker 4: you're aware of, called Oba Palooza, and happy to talk
Speaker 4: about that if you'd like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we definitely are going to get to OBA Palooza
Speaker 3: for sure. So anybody can come to an OBA event
Speaker 3: or can join OBA and be a supporter. And you
Speaker 3: do have a lot of very interested gardeners in there, Mike.
Speaker 3: And I'm not just saying this because you're on the
Speaker 3: phone with me today, but I see a lot of
Speaker 3: programs done by a lot of organizations and a lot
Speaker 3: of places, and I don't know anyone that consistently brings
Speaker 3: in the high quality educational speakers as does OBA always.
Speaker 3: I'm always very impressed with OBA events. And you mentioned
Speaker 3: Oba Palooza. I'm sure it's going to be the same.
Speaker 3: I looked at the lineup and things about it. But
Speaker 3: first of all, I think the name is great Oba Palooza.
Speaker 3: How could you not have fun name? How could you
Speaker 3: not have fun at something with Polusa in the name?
Speaker 4: Right, So totally agree.
Speaker 3: So anyway, tell us about tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about Oba Palooza.
Speaker 4: Well, yes, and thank you very much. As I mentioned,
Speaker 4: this is their twentieth year. We are completely unique to
Speaker 4: the Houston metro area organization OBA is there's nothing like
Speaker 4: it in all of America. And we bring in the
Speaker 4: finest scientists, medical doctors, human medical doctors, soul scientists, economics, farmers,
Speaker 4: very successful grounds maintenance, landscape contractors, gardeners, horticulturalists that we've
Speaker 4: even had this really famous guy by name of mister
Speaker 4: Skip Richard come a couple of times which we were
Speaker 4: just amazed by his presentation. So even go ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know how that got through
Speaker 3: the quality control, but thanks a.
Speaker 12: Lot, Thank you too.
Speaker 4: You've done a lot for all of us for over
Speaker 4: twenty years. So we do these great education events and
Speaker 4: they're open to the public, and of course we also
Speaker 4: have a lot of professional horticulturalism gardeners come in and
Speaker 4: we do about five major educational events We also do
Speaker 4: lunch and learns for colleges and for high schools so
Speaker 4: kids can realize that there's some great opportunity in the
Speaker 4: horticultural world. We interlign with Texas agur Life. In fact,
Speaker 4: they're one of the sponsors at Oberpalooza and one of
Speaker 4: the exhibitors, and we interlign with the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Speaker 4: They're one of the exhibitors as well. But Obaluza is
Speaker 4: a Saturday event, and I have a feeling it's going
Speaker 4: to be kind of hot this coming Saturday, I think
Speaker 4: like around ninety six ninety eight. So I would invite
Speaker 4: your listeners to come to the very cool environment, enjoy
Speaker 4: the cool vibe over Balooza is joyful, it's happy. We
Speaker 4: teach fantastic education. There's about twenty five exhibitors. You will
Speaker 4: meet all sorts of really great people. We do a
Speaker 4: terrific lunch that's provided lots of social networking. Let's make friends,
Speaker 4: let's make connections, and then we have just an incredible
Speaker 4: education of selection that people have multiple classes to choose from,
Speaker 4: from how to raise chickens to why eating organic foods
Speaker 4: is important, to understanding soil, how to build healthy ecosystems,
Speaker 4: lawns and gardens. Another class is the Feminazi sequence, which
Speaker 4: is a fascinating mathematical look how nature has this incredible
Speaker 4: synernistic movement about it, does dance about it. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 4: thank you. So we got We're going to learn about
Speaker 4: how to have beneficial insects in your gardens, going to
Speaker 4: learn about herbs how easy you can grow them. I know,
Speaker 4: as you mentioned about micro greens, and I recently read
Speaker 4: that watercress, according to one source, is the most important,
Speaker 4: most valuable food source in the world. Now, maybe it's
Speaker 4: not a herb, but we're gonna learn about how herbs
Speaker 4: can be grown easily and used for pictures or flavoring foods,
Speaker 4: or taken as minasial medicine. So it's a great event,
Speaker 4: and I would encourage people to come if I could
Speaker 4: mention that it's best to buy the tickets online. It's
Speaker 4: kind of a limited attendance because of space, but if
Speaker 4: they go and it's kind of long, but if they
Speaker 4: go to OVA online dot org, the homepage will take
Speaker 4: the interested person to registration. The cost is very very low.
Speaker 4: Over members are fifty dollars and non over members are
Speaker 4: seventy and non over members are completely welcome. All net
Speaker 4: profits go to benefit the community into further education.
Speaker 3: Well and for that, for that registration, I mean, you're
Speaker 3: you're getting some really nice breaks, you guys. Put on
Speaker 3: a good break and then a very healthy lunch as well.
Speaker 3: And Mike, I've got to I'm up against a break here.
Speaker 3: Can you hear on for a little bit and we
Speaker 3: come back and do this. Yeah, and that by the way,
Speaker 3: for those of you listening, that's at the United Way
Speaker 3: of Greater Houston at fifty wad Drive and we'll be
Speaker 3: right back.
Speaker 12: With us.
Speaker 3: Today we are visiting with Mike Sarant about an organization
Speaker 3: called OBA HbA Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance and an event
Speaker 3: coming up called OBA Palooza. This event again is Saturday,
Speaker 3: August tenth, that's this coming Saturday. Goes from eight in
Speaker 3: the morning until three point thirty in the afternoon, and
Speaker 3: it is a constant lineup of some of the best speakers,
Speaker 3: the best, most interesting topics you're going to run into.
Speaker 3: And in fact, there's three different concurrence sessions. Mike, are
Speaker 3: you with us, they're still hey, yes, sir, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Three concurrent sessions, so you get to pick between the
Speaker 3: topics that are most of interest to you.
Speaker 4: Well, that's correct. I'm sorry, I thought there was a pause.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say. The most challenging part
Speaker 4: about Opalooza is which class you're going to take. We
Speaker 4: have two open main hall classes where everybody's listening and
Speaker 4: learning together, and then, as you mentioned, there's concurrence sessions
Speaker 4: in the in the subjects are just like you want
Speaker 4: it and tend them all just incredible.
Speaker 3: So anyway, well, I see you have a doctor, doctor
Speaker 3: John Novac, and you know, Joe was my vegetable professor
Speaker 3: when I was getting my masters at A and M
Speaker 3: and keeping up with that. I had to work out
Speaker 3: and wear tennis shoes to keep up with that guy.
Speaker 3: I still consider him a friend, and he is a
Speaker 3: wealthy good information. I can't imagine anything he would talk
Speaker 3: about that's not going to be eye opening and really
Speaker 3: enjoyable for folks that attend. That's just one example.
Speaker 4: Well, there's doctor Joe, and you're right, he's incredible. He
Speaker 4: heads up the community garden at Rice University.
Speaker 10: We have another Rice.
Speaker 4: Professor of Glenn Olsen, who's going to talk about the
Speaker 4: College of plants, pollinarian birds, how they all relate together.
Speaker 4: So and they're going on at the same time.
Speaker 7: So who do you choose?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well you got John Ferguson, who pretty much
Speaker 3: knows more about soil than anybody when it comes to
Speaker 3: how to build and create good soils. You've got, oh,
Speaker 3: doctor Mark Vordenbrugen. Now that guy is quite the character.
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you, if you ever walk up to
Speaker 3: a plant and wonder if you can need it, he'll
Speaker 3: not only tell you that, but he'll tell you what
Speaker 3: Native Americans did with it, how to make a new
Speaker 3: hat out of it, and everything else. He's awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just picked I mean yeah, yes, And we've
Speaker 4: been blessed with a wonderful summer. I think the best
Speaker 4: summer I've ever seen in Texas. When I'm looking at
Speaker 4: a countryside right now and everything is green and lush
Speaker 4: and Mother Nature is not angry, looks very very happy.
Speaker 4: But going back to John Ferguson, we ultimately we want
Speaker 4: to work with the soil. Can have a healthy soil,
Speaker 4: healthy plants, healthy people, right, and so water is an
Speaker 4: issue always, drainage is always an issue. How about if
Speaker 4: we work within the principles and guidelines of nature to
Speaker 4: improve aeration, to improve drainage, to improve water holding capability capacity,
Speaker 4: and reduce the need on bought irrigation water. So John's
Speaker 4: subject matter is going to talk about that soil as
Speaker 4: your reservoir. John and I calculated many years ago after
Speaker 4: the twenty eleven drought that we could actually work the
Speaker 4: soil so for each rain irrigation event, we can hold
Speaker 4: up to one hundred and eighty thousand gallons of water
Speaker 4: beneath our feet. And think about that. That's just an
Speaker 4: amazing amount of water that we can use and not
Speaker 4: have to pay for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is cool. Well, you're gonna you're gonna word
Speaker 3: to learn about native plants. There could be medicinal herbs.
Speaker 3: There was one teaser I saw out there, even the
Speaker 3: secret Language of trees. That's one I gotta hear.
Speaker 6: I got.
Speaker 3: I knew they were talking about me. I just have
Speaker 3: no idea what they're saying. So now I'm gonna find
Speaker 3: it out.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure to say very kind things about you
Speaker 4: because you've been a friend of the environment for your
Speaker 4: entire career. So they're probably saying, hey, skip, what a guy,
Speaker 4: What a guy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna go on believe in that rather than
Speaker 3: that decoding what they're saying.
Speaker 5: Did you believe in that?
Speaker 4: Okay, gotcha believing that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's for sure. Okay. This is Oba Palooza
Speaker 3: and this is the third annual Organic Fair and Workshop.
Speaker 3: Now OB does a lot of other things, though, Mike,
Speaker 3: I've you guys, you know how to have fun too.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that it's a good reason that
Speaker 3: well we do itself is worth joining OB.
Speaker 4: Right, thank you. You'll find that other people, people that
Speaker 4: believe in the organic philosophy are very hopeful, they're very joyful.
Speaker 4: They go through the same events of life everybody does,
Speaker 4: but they just have a certain type of spirit and
Speaker 4: optimism about him. You will find, like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 4: very cool, happy vibes. We would love to for everybody
Speaker 4: to come and attend, but register if you could early,
Speaker 4: because it is a limited attendance and we'd just love
Speaker 4: to have your audience there. There'll be more than welcome.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's only six days away or five days.
Speaker 3: I have to recount the six days, I guess, but
Speaker 3: so yeah, early is like today. You better get that done,
Speaker 3: don't delay, and if you want to register, folks, it's
Speaker 3: OBA online dot org. So here it is OHBA online
Speaker 3: all one word dot org, Oba online dot org to
Speaker 3: be part of to attend Obapalooza, Mike. Then, by the way,
Speaker 3: I'll just remind you again, it's going to be at
Speaker 3: the or excuse me, United Way of Greater Houston, which
Speaker 3: is on at fifty wad Drive here in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 3: The United Way have Greater It's a wonderful facility and
Speaker 3: you guys have a lot of your programs there. It'll
Speaker 3: start at eight in the morning, go to three point thirty.
Speaker 3: You're going to get a really nice healthy lunch as
Speaker 3: part of the registration, including some good breaks. And you know,
Speaker 3: anytime I go to one of these events, Mike, I
Speaker 3: probably learn as much just visiting with people on the
Speaker 3: side as I do from some of these incredible speakers,
Speaker 3: because there are so many enthusiastic people with a wide
Speaker 3: range of expertise that are attending the thing as well
Speaker 3: as those that are speaking at it.
Speaker 4: I agree, great people and of course we always love
Speaker 4: to see you there. I know your time is limited,
Speaker 4: but it always great to see you. You always add
Speaker 4: a lot of zip to any grouping, So thank you
Speaker 4: very much.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. So I want to visit a little
Speaker 3: bit with you. You, of course, your day job is
Speaker 3: a micro Life fertilizer, and we talk about that a
Speaker 3: lot here on Garden Line, and I realized we're here
Speaker 3: talking about OBA. But I just think that we would
Speaker 3: do well. I would like to hear a little bit
Speaker 3: about how did Microlife get going and how long have
Speaker 3: you guys been around. I know right now I would
Speaker 3: say it is the premiere organic product that we find
Speaker 3: throughout this greater Houston area. You have really saturated and
Speaker 3: gotten the message out.
Speaker 4: Well, well, it's a good story. I think I'll try
Speaker 4: to keep it short. Please help me on that one.
Speaker 4: But my mom and I started to come me back
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty four, and she was my business party
Speaker 4: for twenty nine years, pass away when she was eighty nine.
Speaker 4: Came to office every day. And Microlife is basically owned
Speaker 4: by the parent company which I now own, Sandysono Environmental Supplies,
Speaker 4: And we started selling back in eighty four chemical fertilizers
Speaker 4: and pesticized because that's just what you did in the
Speaker 4: mid eighties. And I realized my mom did to that.
Speaker 4: The more chemical fertilizers we sold to our clients, which
Speaker 4: the grounds maintenance companies, that the more pest problems they had,
Speaker 4: and we thought that was strange because in our way
Speaker 4: of being taught that all plant foods were the same.
Speaker 4: And then we come to realize that chemical fertilizers are
Speaker 4: basically jump food, and so we're causing malnourishment when we're
Speaker 4: feeding the plants chemical fertilizers, and the malnourishment leads to
Speaker 4: pest insects, disease, and weeds coming in. So we looked
Speaker 4: for a better way, and we found the organic path
Speaker 4: and we started manufacturing Microlife in nineteen eighty eight. Thirty
Speaker 4: six years later, we're the second oldest continued organic fertilizer
Speaker 4: in America and we sell throughout Texas fortunately, and we've
Speaker 4: been very, very successful and very grateful to the people
Speaker 4: that support us, that sell it and buy it. And
Speaker 4: there was a Japanese word I learned last week. It's
Speaker 4: called aikeja, and what that means is uh so akija,
Speaker 4: what is your purpose in life? And my company and
Speaker 4: I we found a really a tremendous purpose and we
Speaker 4: put mission over profits. I know that may sound kind
Speaker 4: of contrived, but that's really true. We believe in helping people,
Speaker 4: and our way of helping people is to help them
Speaker 4: to get healthy. And the way for people to get
Speaker 4: healthy is to have a healthy environment. So by going organic,
Speaker 4: you're gonna your food, you're gonna be more nutritious. Uh,
Speaker 4: there're gonna be a lot safe to eat. You want
Speaker 4: your ecosystem be at your front yard, your backyard, sports
Speaker 4: fields to be free. At past society, we don't have
Speaker 4: any exposures. And the beautiful thing is is that when
Speaker 4: you work with nature, guess what, it works, So cheaper
Speaker 4: to go help here, to go more rewarding.
Speaker 3: Well, it's been working without us for a long time.
Speaker 3: Right before we decided we wanted a garden in a plot,
Speaker 3: somebody was taking care of it. Speaking of health, one
Speaker 3: of your speakers is doctor Mila McManus, and I think
Speaker 3: she's quite the interesting lady. Will you tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about her at coming up on this Oba Palooza?
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you very much. She discovered organics kind of
Speaker 4: like the way that we did with the landscape, and
Speaker 4: she was a brilliant, very dedicated young lady. She got
Speaker 4: her medical degree from the University of Texas, and she
Speaker 4: became a doctor because she had a lot of health
Speaker 4: problems growing up and she wanted to solve those health problems.
Speaker 4: So going through the typical medical program eight years et cetera,
Speaker 4: she learned the latest and greatest of farm and so
Speaker 4: she was diagnosing herself and you know, putting, taking these
Speaker 4: different pharmaceuticals, and nothing was getting better. The problems were compounding. Gee,
Speaker 4: that sounds like chemical pesticides. So she started diving into
Speaker 4: an area called fundamental medicine, which is holistic homeopathic. It's
Speaker 4: about raising the level of all parts of an ecosystem
Speaker 4: and the human body, and its most defined definition is
Speaker 4: an ecosystem into itself. So you raise the water in
Speaker 4: the harbor, you raise all the ships at the same time.
Speaker 4: So she's fascinating. We've got a tremendous practice up in
Speaker 4: the woodlands. She helps people get healthy and stay healthy,
Speaker 4: not through prescriptions, although she can't do that, but through
Speaker 4: lifestyle changes, diets, supplements, et cetera, et cetera. Wonderful woman
Speaker 4: and she'll absolutely let us know why it's so important
Speaker 4: eat organic foods, which will be the basis of our
Speaker 4: healthy ecosystem.
Speaker 3: Good well, that is and of itself going to be
Speaker 3: a really really good talk or showing up at the event. Well,
Speaker 3: we're kind of running short here on our time, but
Speaker 3: I did want to just remind her by some people
Speaker 3: I find have joined in and at different points in
Speaker 3: the show, so I always have to or not everybody
Speaker 3: heard everything. This is the third annual organic fair and
Speaker 3: workshop called Oba Palooza, put on by the Organic Corticulture
Speaker 3: Benefits Alliance. It's this coming Saturday, August tenth, from eight
Speaker 3: am in the morning till three thirty pm. You get
Speaker 3: some good breaks in there, you get a good lunch
Speaker 3: in there, and you have the opportunity not just to
Speaker 3: hear a lot of really good speakers, but also to
Speaker 3: visit with the other folks that are there and to
Speaker 3: see the trade show. You know, you've got a lot
Speaker 3: of really good sponsors and I always enjoy spending time
Speaker 3: walking up and down learning about their products, visiting with them.
Speaker 3: So there's just a lot of opportunities. Is that the
Speaker 3: United Way of Greater Houston, which is fifty law drive,
Speaker 3: So there'll be some opportunities from CEUs, I'm told as
Speaker 3: well in this for people that are in, you know,
Speaker 3: on the professional end, of Horticulture. But if you are
Speaker 3: interested in going, don't delay because our time is running short.
Speaker 3: It's OBA online dot org, HbA online dot org. There
Speaker 3: you can sign up. It's worth kind of getting on
Speaker 3: the mailing list finding out what's going on. There will
Speaker 3: be other events coming up. These guys do this all
Speaker 3: the time, and like I said, I've I'm always impressed
Speaker 3: with the lineup of the kind of quality of speakers.
Speaker 3: You know, to be a good presenter at a conference
Speaker 3: like this or a program like this, you got to
Speaker 3: know what you're talking about, but you also got to
Speaker 3: be able to talk to people. You know, there's two
Speaker 3: different things. You probably have run across people that knew
Speaker 3: a lot but couldn't communicate it. Well, well you get
Speaker 3: the whole package here, Mike. I so appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 3: I hope people will take advantage of this opportunity.
Speaker 14: I just want to thank you again, well my gratitude
Speaker 14: G two Skiff for always helping everybody all the time,
Speaker 14: and for this opportunity to visit with you and explain
Speaker 14: OBA and to have the garden Line folks listen in
Speaker 14: and thank you guard Line folks for caring about the world.
Speaker 4: In the environment.
Speaker 3: All right, well you take care. I hope you have
Speaker 3: a wonderful weekend. UH and thanks thanks again much much
Speaker 3: appropiate two one two Kate k t r H. How
Speaker 3: many times have I said that? Seven one three two
Speaker 3: one two k t r H. To give me a
Speaker 3: call on garden line. Let's talk about the things that
Speaker 3: are of most interest to you, and I'll tell you
Speaker 3: something that's of interest to me, and that is a
Speaker 3: quality garden center. Garden centers that are mom and pop
Speaker 3: that are independently owned, that are local, that are staffed
Speaker 3: by people that know what they're talking about, that bring
Speaker 3: in the plants that want to grow here. Well, Buchanan's
Speaker 3: Native Plants in the Heights is a prime example of that,
Speaker 3: speaking of plants that want to grow here. Native is
Speaker 3: in their name, Buchanan's Native Plants. They have native plants
Speaker 3: from the region that you can even they even have
Speaker 3: a table like where there's native plants from just natives
Speaker 3: from here in Harris County. Local that's about as local
Speaker 3: as you can get. And they specialize in that and
Speaker 3: they're beautiful and they're knowledgeable about it. And that's one
Speaker 3: reason why I say go check out their website. Buchanansplants
Speaker 3: dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. There is checklists for what
Speaker 3: to do during the month. There's articles that are educational,
Speaker 3: videos that are educational announcements of their upcoming programs. By
Speaker 3: the way, the next three Saturdays in August, they've got
Speaker 3: educational programs going on there. At Buchanan's Plants. It's at
Speaker 3: Eleventh Street in the Heights. Eleventh Street in the Heights.
Speaker 3: You will find every kind of plant you're looking for.
Speaker 3: And so when I stress the natives, it's because they
Speaker 3: do a better job of that than anybody I know.
Speaker 3: But it also they've got a greenhouse of house plants
Speaker 3: for example. That is a huge, huge selection of house plants.
Speaker 3: So any kind of thing you want to grow, the
Speaker 3: advice you need to grow it right, and the products
Speaker 3: you need to have success with that. Buchanan's Native Plants.
Speaker 3: By the way, it's time to get those tomatoes in.
Speaker 3: If you want to fall crop, you can and just
Speaker 3: stocked up on tomato plants. You want to get a
Speaker 3: little basil to go along with it. You know, we're
Speaker 3: going to do some cooking here. They've got that. They've
Speaker 3: got that as well. I'm going to head out now
Speaker 3: to Jersey Village and we're going to talk to George. Hello, George, Hey, Skip,
Speaker 3: good morning to you.
Speaker 8: That was an interesting presentation to have a little bit
Speaker 8: of ready yourself anyhow.
Speaker 7: Yeah, was interesting, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: I was about the plant from California poppies, and my
Speaker 8: wife yells at me all the time.
Speaker 7: So is it's too late to plant anything? You should
Speaker 7: plant only.
Speaker 8: In the spring?
Speaker 3: John, That was my first question, And the second question.
Speaker 8: Was my blueberry plants have half of the stamas turned
Speaker 8: brown and dying on the end, and the rest of
Speaker 8: them looks like it's okay, should I cut that off
Speaker 8: or break it off?
Speaker 3: Just snip it off. It's not going to come back
Speaker 3: to life, so you can just snip it off. Now.
Speaker 3: That may be a sign of a little bit of
Speaker 3: a root issue. Maybe they got a little dry. Blueberries
Speaker 3: root systems are not really efficient at taking up water
Speaker 3: compared to some other plants, and so we have to
Speaker 3: keep them adequately moist. They don't do well with drought happening.
Speaker 3: Fall is the best season of the plant. Perennials, woody shrubs,
Speaker 3: woody trees, woody vines, all those kinds of perennial plants
Speaker 3: and seeds of wildflowers is a good time. And also
Speaker 3: things are going to come up in the spring. Now
Speaker 3: if California, if you had California poppies in your yard
Speaker 3: last year, let's just say, for example, they bloomed and
Speaker 3: they cast their seed way back then, and the seeds
Speaker 3: been sitting there all summer waiting for fall to sprout. Well,
Speaker 3: the percentage of success goes down when it's that long
Speaker 3: before it's time for a lot of things can happen
Speaker 3: in the meantime. So to sprinkle your poppy seeds out
Speaker 3: in September October, that is great. I probably would plant
Speaker 3: mine in late September or early October, but as being
Speaker 3: ideal because they're going to come up, they're going to
Speaker 3: sit there as little tiny plants through the winter and
Speaker 3: then go crazy in California Popuca gorgeous.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I saw. All right, Thanks very much.
Speaker 3: All right, man, thanks a lot, appreciate the call, George.
Speaker 3: You take care of it. Poppies, poppies. I wrote an
Speaker 3: article on plants that you plant in fall that bloom
Speaker 3: in the spring, and poppies is a big part of
Speaker 3: that article. It's going to be in Texas Gardener magazine.
Speaker 3: If you do not subscribe to Texas Gardener, you ought to.
Speaker 3: It is an outstanding magazine and I'm really excited. I
Speaker 3: think it's the September October issue that's coming up. It's
Speaker 3: going to be in there, and you ought to take
Speaker 3: a look. Because poppies aren't the only thing I talk about,
Speaker 3: but I really talk a lot about the many kinds
Speaker 3: of poppies and how to have success with them. I
Speaker 3: think you would enjoy it myself.
Speaker 12: Well.
Speaker 3: I talk about soil all the time, the importance of soil,
Speaker 3: the fact that the brown stuff is the key to success.
Speaker 3: Brown stuff before green stuff. And you're not going to
Speaker 3: find a purveyor of quality brown stuff products, then Nature's
Speaker 3: Way resources. Nature's Way has been around for over thirty years.
Speaker 3: They've been a pioneer in the organic movement. You can
Speaker 3: go back to products that we now they just slip
Speaker 3: off our tongues like they've always been around. Well, leaf
Speaker 3: mold compost a. Nature's Way is the one that came
Speaker 3: up and made that famous fungal composts, the rose mix
Speaker 3: that people talk about that working with the rose side
Speaker 3: Nature's Way, that's it, and by the way. You need
Speaker 3: to be aware of this this summer. So I wouldn't
Speaker 3: delay on this, but twenty percent off all of the
Speaker 3: brown stuff. That would mean compost, that would mean mulchz
Speaker 3: that would be soil blends. At Nature's Way. That twenty
Speaker 3: percent off is good for the bagged products, and it's
Speaker 3: good for the bulk products. And they do deliver or
Speaker 3: you go get it, or they'll deliver while you're out there.
Speaker 3: If you go get it. Check out their native plant collection.
Speaker 3: They've got a wonderful little garden center nursery right there
Speaker 3: on the property as well. But in order to get
Speaker 3: that twenty percent discount, to listen to this part, it's
Speaker 3: important you need to tell them mentioned garden Line to
Speaker 3: the Nature's Way staff when you go. So I heard
Speaker 3: about it on a twenty percent discount on garden Line,
Speaker 3: and that will open the door and listen. It's always
Speaker 3: a good time to build the soil, always a good
Speaker 3: time to improve the soil. Fall planting season, the best
Speaker 3: planting season of the year is coming. How's the time
Speaker 3: to get the soil ready. We got a dry wheat
Speaker 3: coming up here. This is a great time to get
Speaker 3: that material brought in. Whether you're creating a bed or
Speaker 3: just amending and improving soil. You have get that done
Speaker 3: now so when fall comes, even if it's too rainy,
Speaker 3: you're already ready to go and you can move right
Speaker 3: in and plant. That is that's the tip of the week.
Speaker 3: Get your soiling. We'll be right talking to you with
Speaker 3: your gardening questions. Seven one three two one two kt
Speaker 3: r H. I want to tell you a little bit
Speaker 3: about Nelson Plant Food. I was just thinking about this yesterday.
Speaker 3: They you know, when I talk about these products, I
Speaker 3: mentioned one or two, But with Nelson's there's so many
Speaker 3: many products out there, and Bruce is Brew is one
Speaker 3: of their turf Star products. It's for lawns, and Bruce
Speaker 3: s Brew will release nutrients right away, but it continues
Speaker 3: to release some on and on as months go by,
Speaker 3: and it just continues to provide that it's got a
Speaker 3: eighteen four to nine ratio of nutrients, which is a
Speaker 3: really good ratio. Basically, it's strong in the nitrogen, which
Speaker 3: for your lawn that is what you want to do.
Speaker 3: You can use it any month of the year. We
Speaker 3: talk about their product which is slow and easy that
Speaker 3: even releases for longer. We talk about that all the time,
Speaker 3: but Bruce's Brew would be an excellent one to apply
Speaker 3: now to your lawn to carry on into that fall fertilization.
Speaker 3: They also have a tree and shrub that's part of
Speaker 3: their nutris Star line. So you got the Turf Star,
Speaker 3: you got the Nutris Star, you got the Collar Star
Speaker 3: for all the flowers. This nutri Star tree and shrub,
Speaker 3: it's about a twenty one six eight fertilizer that is
Speaker 3: very slow release. It's five different sources of slow release
Speaker 3: nitrogen in that product, two different sources of iron in
Speaker 3: that product, and it's going to feed for three to
Speaker 3: four months.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Listen, trees and shrubs grow all through the growing season.
Speaker 3: A lot of growth in the spring, does grow through
Speaker 3: the summer, and there's also growth that occurs in the fall.
Speaker 3: So by getting that down now, you're providing nutrients for
Speaker 3: that young tree that you have. This is a canister.
Speaker 3: You can buy it in a two pound jar or
Speaker 3: a four pound jar that you sprinkle it around, Just
Speaker 3: follow a label, sprinkle it around and water it in.
Speaker 3: Because the goal on trees is to get them to
Speaker 3: grow fast when they're young. You don't want to sit
Speaker 3: there and look at a broomstick in your yard for
Speaker 3: four years. You want something to hang a hammock in
Speaker 3: when you urge them along, provide that feeding with nutris, tar,
Speaker 3: tree and shrub.
Speaker 6: You do just that.
Speaker 3: That's from Nelson Plant Foods widely available. Also. I want
Speaker 3: to head out to Kingwood now and we're going to
Speaker 3: talk to Pamela. Hello, Palm.
Speaker 2: Hi there.
Speaker 13: I enjoy your show so much.
Speaker 8: I have a question.
Speaker 13: I have a water oak tree, huge tree, right behind
Speaker 13: my bedroom and with all the trees that came down
Speaker 13: and split houses in half in my neighborhoods from the storm,
Speaker 13: I'm going to have this thing cut down or it
Speaker 13: comes down. Can I leave some of it standing and
Speaker 13: have some ivy grow on it?
Speaker 3: Well, you could just remember that as it's dead, it's
Speaker 3: starting to decompose inside over time, and a big tree
Speaker 3: has got in the past times when limbs have been
Speaker 3: cut or broken and it's got some decay inside. They
Speaker 3: usually do when they get older, So you just want
Speaker 3: to be careful with that. I wouldn't have a trunk
Speaker 3: so tall that if it fell it would hit something
Speaker 3: you care about, But yeah, you could. You could leave
Speaker 3: it like that as a trump but just remember it
Speaker 3: is going to fall and break off later and then
Speaker 3: you're going to have to hire somebody to come back
Speaker 3: in again. So that's just the only drawback I would
Speaker 3: particularly see.
Speaker 13: Okay, because it's there's a lot of led lighting and
Speaker 13: a zind garden and ferns and stuff underneath it. It's
Speaker 13: really quite gorgeous.
Speaker 14: And so on.
Speaker 13: I was thinking, well, just you know, leave it four five,
Speaker 13: six seven eight feet tall. It wouldn't hit the house.
Speaker 13: But how long before it starts decomposing?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I like I say, there's probably some
Speaker 3: areas inside that already have some decomposition going on. But
Speaker 3: you're going to get you're going to get a number
Speaker 3: of years before you have to worry about that, especially
Speaker 3: as low as you're cutting it off eight feet even
Speaker 3: that you're okay there and if you want that effect.
Speaker 4: Then go for it.
Speaker 13: Okay, great, Yeah, electrician may even put some lighting on
Speaker 13: it for me, so you know it could be really
Speaker 13: pretty Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks, it's not dead currently, right, No, No, it's not.
Speaker 13: There's been some dead limbs. In fact, affordable came about
Speaker 13: fifteen years ago because I had a dead limb and stuff.
Speaker 13: But you know, it's beautiful.
Speaker 12: I love.
Speaker 13: The squirrels run up and down it and everything.
Speaker 3: So the reason I ask that, the reason I asked
Speaker 3: that penla is because it's going to probably try to
Speaker 3: re sprout if it's a living trunk, and you probably
Speaker 3: don't want that to happen. So you may have when
Speaker 3: they cut the trunk off, you may have them treat
Speaker 3: the cut surface right away. I mean cut it off
Speaker 3: and within the hour, treat that cut surface with a
Speaker 3: product that kills brush or poison ivy. It contains trickle,
Speaker 3: and that way that'll help go ahead and make sure
Speaker 3: it doesn't resprout, because then you got branches trying to
Speaker 3: grow and they're not going to be firmly attached. And
Speaker 3: so that would be my.
Speaker 8: Okay to the tree.
Speaker 13: About twenty two years ago, I took a maple tree
Speaker 13: down on the other side of the property and I
Speaker 13: have lots of maple trees now and I love it
Speaker 13: my backyard. Everyone goes, it's it's cooler back here. Well, yeah,
Speaker 13: it's fifteen grease cooler. I googled it, yeah, and it's
Speaker 13: really nice. And I realized they can't fall and hurt
Speaker 13: my house. All these other trees. It's it's like having
Speaker 13: the green belt in my backyard.
Speaker 3: All right, I got I got to run to another
Speaker 3: couple of good luck with that. Sounds like you got
Speaker 3: a plane go in there. Let's uh, let's head out
Speaker 3: to Butcher, Texas and talk to Peter.
Speaker 1: Peter.
Speaker 3: Where is butcher Texas?
Speaker 4: It's Brookshire, b r Okay, Brookshire?
Speaker 7: All right?
Speaker 2: Call?
Speaker 5: I have two questions.
Speaker 4: Is it okay to take fresh grass clippings and put
Speaker 4: them around the base of my fruit trees.
Speaker 9: It's kind of compost while it's still green.
Speaker 3: And then I'll ask my second question.
Speaker 6: If you answer that, yes, uh.
Speaker 3: Number one, if you treat your lawn with broad leaf
Speaker 3: weed killers, I wouldn't use those clippings for mulching, for
Speaker 3: composting whatever. You're just transferring things over probably wouldn't be
Speaker 3: a problem, but I wouldn't do that. If you're not
Speaker 3: treating your lawn with broad leaf or products, then yes.
Speaker 3: If you put them thicker than about an inch at
Speaker 3: a time, they kind of get gooey nasty under there.
Speaker 3: You know, they're all nitrogen and they decomposing and it
Speaker 3: just kind of makes a i don't know, not a
Speaker 3: very nice thing. So don't put them too deep. Put
Speaker 3: them a little bit, let them drive for a day,
Speaker 3: put some more, let it drive for a day. And
Speaker 3: that's how I would go about it. I wouldn't put
Speaker 3: like five inches of grass clipping through it.
Speaker 4: Oh great.
Speaker 7: And another quick question is I've got a couple of fruit.
Speaker 9: Trees that planted in the spring and getting kind of gayly.
Speaker 4: Dedicate to they need to cut a foot off of them.
Speaker 3: You know I wouldn't do it now. Well, it would
Speaker 3: be okay to cut a foot off now, but we're
Speaker 3: getting late and this is a time when they're setting
Speaker 3: buds on the new growth, and so cutting now the
Speaker 3: regrowth you're going to get is not going to have
Speaker 3: time to set fruit buds for next year. So you know,
Speaker 3: you kind of caught me on the line here. If
Speaker 3: we were back in June, yes, if we're in September,
Speaker 3: definitely know and so you can go either way. But
Speaker 3: just realize that they are from now in the next
Speaker 3: couple of months setting buds, and they wouldn't have time
Speaker 3: to grow wood shoots that could set buds for next
Speaker 3: year if you cut them now.
Speaker 7: Okay, I appreciate that.
Speaker 9: Guys, Thank you, sir, you bet you bet, Thanks a lot.
Speaker 3: Good luck with that all we ask is that you
Speaker 3: bring us half the fruit that you get off those trees.
Speaker 3: As Penman for free advice. Peter, take care. Hi folks,
Speaker 3: you're listening to the Garden Line. We're about to take
Speaker 3: a break for the top of the a one more
Speaker 3: hour this weekend. So if you'd like to call in
Speaker 3: seven one three two one two k t R, here's
Speaker 3: your warning. Get call Chris, get on the board. You
Speaker 3: can be some of the first ones up when you
Speaker 3: come back. Appreciate you guys listening. Just remember that I've
Speaker 3: got the website where I continue to put things that
Speaker 3: I think you would be interested in, and that coming
Speaker 3: up is going to be a publication on controlling nuts
Speaker 3: edge and a publication on building your own weed wiper.
Speaker 3: It's a really cool deal. You're going to see on
Speaker 3: Monday or Tuesday. We should have them up by then.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Gardening with Skip necessarily endorse any of the products or
Speaker 1: services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H
Speaker 1: Garden Line with Skip Richard.
Speaker 2: Just watch him as man, they've got things to see.
Speaker 3: Things well, Hello and welcome to Garden Line. We're good.
Speaker 3: We're glad to have you back. We always enjoy getting
Speaker 3: to visit with you about the things that are of
Speaker 3: interest to you, about the questions that you might have,
Speaker 3: and you can give me a call at seven one
Speaker 3: three two one two five eight seven four. This is
Speaker 3: our last hour. So if you're interested in asking a
Speaker 3: question or talking about something, now would be the time.
Speaker 7: To do it.
Speaker 3: You hear me talk about ACE Hardware, and I tell
Speaker 3: you all the time, there's forty Ace Hardware's in the
Speaker 3: Greater Houston area. Let's just say that's a lot. There's
Speaker 3: plenty of them around. There's gonna be one near you.
Speaker 3: And all you have to do is go to Acehardware
Speaker 3: dot com and find the store locator and it'll give
Speaker 3: you this nice little map with the red dots all
Speaker 3: over the place. You can find the ones that are
Speaker 3: closest to you, because you know, when you go to ACE,
Speaker 3: you're gonna find everything you need for your lawn and
Speaker 3: for your garden. Now that we've had rain, firing are
Speaker 3: starting to show up. I found two mounds in my yard.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know there were fireans living in the yard.
Speaker 3: And with the rain now I got this soil coming
Speaker 3: up to the surface as they build their nest up
Speaker 3: higher to get out of the wet, and so it's
Speaker 3: time to get fire baited out. What else comes with
Speaker 3: the rain Mosquitoes? They have mosquito bait skip mosquita dunks
Speaker 3: to control the larvae. They've got mosquito rapunts, They've got
Speaker 3: fogging machines. Whatever approach you want to take, Ace Hardware's
Speaker 3: got it. All the fertilizers you hear me talk about
Speaker 3: on guarden Line, they're all there at ACE, as well
Speaker 3: as many many more things. By the way, it's summertime,
Speaker 3: it's barbecue season. You got to check out their selection
Speaker 3: of the big Green Egg and Treger and Weber quality
Speaker 3: pits with all kinds of accessories that are cool. Anything
Speaker 3: you want to make that patio a more inviting, enjoyable place,
Speaker 3: You're going to find all that and more at ACE
Speaker 3: Hardware stores. I always enjoy going in because you know,
Speaker 3: ACE Hardware stores are there independently owned, so that means
Speaker 3: that each store, the owner can do things a little
Speaker 3: bit different. They have all the standard stuff, they got
Speaker 3: all the basic ACE stuff that we talk about, but
Speaker 3: they may decide to do something a little unusual, maybe
Speaker 3: that another store doesn't have, and it's always cool. Stuff.
Speaker 3: Was amazed at the way that they put things together
Speaker 3: with the ACE hardware. By the way I talk about
Speaker 3: the birds in the backyard. You know, I used to
Speaker 3: not be a birder. I had nothing against birds. I
Speaker 3: just was an endo that. And then I went into
Speaker 3: a wild Bird's Unlimited store and it was like a
Speaker 3: kid in a candy store. I looking around the feeders,
Speaker 3: the bird houses, information like books on birds, all of
Speaker 3: the equipment you need for hanging of feeders, and they
Speaker 3: just have some technologies that are amazing for like a
Speaker 3: Purple Martin house. You know, the telescoping poles and the
Speaker 3: removable sections make it easy to clean and stuff you
Speaker 3: go into you didn't even know that was a question
Speaker 3: you had. And then you go into ACE and you
Speaker 3: learn about it.
Speaker 5: ACE.
Speaker 3: I still talk about ACE wah Birds Unlimited and you
Speaker 3: learn about it. But a huge reason to go in
Speaker 3: there is the feeds. Quality feed. You can buy cheap
Speaker 3: bird feed and it'll have typically over fifty percent of
Speaker 3: those little red bebies that birds don't eat. That little
Speaker 3: Milo in there, the Milo that is not getting a
Speaker 3: good deal on feed. If you go and buy a
Speaker 3: quality feed for MACE, you get stuff that birds eat,
Speaker 3: and they have blends for different kinds of birds. They
Speaker 3: have blends for different seasons of the year. Now's the
Speaker 3: time for nesting. Super blend. It's got protein and calcium.
Speaker 3: It's made out of this sounds good to me. Most
Speaker 3: of it sunflower chips, peanuts, dried mealworms. I'm going to
Speaker 3: be out on that one. Bark butter bits, half flower
Speaker 3: tree nuts. It is good, high protein stuff. You know,
Speaker 3: when birds are having young and when birds are molting
Speaker 3: and other things, they need a good quality feed at
Speaker 3: all stages of their life. Wabirds unlimited carries just that
Speaker 3: right now. I would suggest you consider seed cylinders. That
Speaker 3: is a packed cylinder of seed. It's like one of
Speaker 3: those little candles you put on, you know, a little
Speaker 3: five inch six inch high candles. They come in different sizes,
Speaker 3: the bird cylinders, but they're packed in so you stick
Speaker 3: it up there you go on vacation. When you come back,
Speaker 3: the birds are still getting fed. It's not like, hey,
Speaker 3: where are you? Why didn't you fill the feeders? And
Speaker 3: it's also good because it takes somewhere a little bit
Speaker 3: to kind of peck it loose from that cylinder, so
Speaker 3: they hang around a little bit longer you get to
Speaker 3: enjoy them and watch them a little bit more. All
Speaker 3: wabirds Unlimited stuff. Hey, while Birds Unlimited. Here's the website
Speaker 3: WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot Com forward
Speaker 3: Slash Houston that will show you the six while Birds
Speaker 3: Unlimited stores that are near you. When we've got a
Speaker 3: little break here in the cause that it gives me
Speaker 3: the opportunity to talk about some things that I think
Speaker 3: are timely and interesting and hopefully that you would be
Speaker 3: interested in. I was talking earlier about the importance of
Speaker 3: building soil. Now it's always a good there's never a
Speaker 3: month of the year that's not a good time to
Speaker 3: build and improve and prepare soil. You can go about
Speaker 3: that different ways, but now is an important time because
Speaker 3: fall is coming, and there is not a better time
Speaker 3: of the year to plant trees, woody shrubs, woody vines
Speaker 3: than the fall. There's not a better time to plant
Speaker 3: perennial whether it's perennial herbs, perennial flowers, than the fall.
Speaker 3: The fall gives plants all the winter season until spring
Speaker 3: growth starts up again. To get a root system established,
Speaker 3: that is a big head start and it makes a
Speaker 3: difference on how much little daily tilc you're having to
Speaker 3: give a plant. If you put it in now, it's fine,
Speaker 3: you can keep it going, but you got to take
Speaker 3: care of it because it's using a lot of water
Speaker 3: every day the day after it's planted, and in the
Speaker 3: fall planting you get even more time though, and so
Speaker 3: it's also an economical time to plant. And let me
Speaker 3: explain it this way. If you were to buy, let's
Speaker 3: say there's a plant, like a particular salvia that you wanted,
Speaker 3: and if you were to see it in a four
Speaker 3: inch pot and maybe in a one gallon pot, well,
Speaker 3: the price difference is huge between those two. If you
Speaker 3: were to put the four inch pot of that salvia
Speaker 3: in this fall, and you were to wait and then
Speaker 3: in late spring put the gallon pot in number one,
Speaker 3: it would costs more money at that time. But then
Speaker 3: you go to mid or late summer and you look
Speaker 3: at those two plants and you almost can't tell them apart.
Speaker 3: So it's in a sense, if you want to save
Speaker 3: your gardening dollar, falls a good planting time for that
Speaker 3: reason as well. And I could go on and on.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of reasons why you want a plant
Speaker 3: in the fall, but just get it done. And if
Speaker 3: you're going to be able to plant in the fall,
Speaker 3: you've got to have the soil ready because when fall
Speaker 3: comes typically we got rainy weather coming in, maybe the
Speaker 3: end of the hurricane season in September, and there's always
Speaker 3: coal fronts coming in bringing rain with them. Why not
Speaker 3: make hay well the sunshines, why not prepare your soil
Speaker 3: while you can right now? You can go buy it
Speaker 3: by the bag, you can have it delivered. We got
Speaker 3: some great suppliers that a our sponsorshare on garden Line
Speaker 3: that I believe in the product they make. They make
Speaker 3: good products and because of that, you get that in.
Speaker 3: You do it right now, and when it comes time
Speaker 3: to plant, you're ready to go. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: the weather is, You're ready to go because you did
Speaker 3: it ahead of time. So I can't stress enough the
Speaker 3: importance of soil prep now and fall planting really really important.
Speaker 3: Our phone number if you would like to give a
Speaker 3: skull seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take a break when we come back. Go
Speaker 3: ahead and call now, give Chris a call, get on
Speaker 3: the boards and you'll beat the first few up. When
Speaker 3: we come back. Three two one two KTRH is a
Speaker 3: phone number. We are entering our last couple of segments
Speaker 3: here on garden Line. And so if you have a
Speaker 3: question for this weekend, you want to don't want to
Speaker 3: wait till next weekend on now would be a good
Speaker 3: time to give us a call and we can take
Speaker 3: care of that. Uh, when was the last time that
Speaker 3: you were out in Channe Forest out in the Richmond
Speaker 3: Rosenberg area. That's a garden center. That is if you're
Speaker 3: heading from Richmond towards sugar Land heading up fifty nine,
Speaker 3: it's off to the right on FM twenty seven fifty
Speaker 3: nine FM twenty seven to fifty nine now and Chenna
Speaker 3: Forest is always a good place to go visit because
Speaker 3: every month of the year there's something going on there.
Speaker 3: Right now, there's selection of fall vegetables outstanding. They got
Speaker 3: to mate it transplants. They got cucumbers of writing called
Speaker 3: homemade pickles. Was like pickles yourself. It's not hard to do.
Speaker 3: You gotta try that that patty pin squash, yellow straight
Speaker 3: and egg. They even have pumpkins small sugar pumpkin transplants,
Speaker 3: so you can get those things in and grow you
Speaker 3: some pumpkins as well. One thing that is really impressive
Speaker 3: to me is the hanging baskets that they have right now.
Speaker 3: Beautiful hanging baskets, the begonias, the angel wing begonias. Uh,
Speaker 3: just so many night blooming serrus fern hanging baskets. Boy,
Speaker 3: all of those plants love the weather we're having and
Speaker 3: they will thrive right then. They've got an excellent collection
Speaker 3: of blooming cacti as well. One of my favorite native
Speaker 3: plants is Lendheimer gara. Sometimes it's called butterfly. There's a
Speaker 3: variety of it called whirling butterflies because these little wary
Speaker 3: stems with white to pink flowers on top. They kind
Speaker 3: of move in the wind, so it almost looks like
Speaker 3: a bunch of butterflies or fluttering above the above the plant.
Speaker 3: It is an ex one to have around. They have
Speaker 3: good cool things for bling in your garden at enchanted
Speaker 3: forest as well, wind chimes, really nice wind chimes, and
Speaker 3: some very unusual things. Gives a neighbor something to talk
Speaker 3: about as well as you as a cool rain gage
Speaker 3: is just you have to go see these things that
Speaker 3: I'm talking about, because when you see them, you'll realize
Speaker 3: why I think This is really cool stuff. Shrubs and trees. Remember,
Speaker 3: fall is the time to plant. They have an outstanding selection.
Speaker 3: Maybe you lost a southern magnolia during the incredibly hot
Speaker 3: dry weather we had last summer. A number of people
Speaker 3: lost their magnolias. They got to restock. You can get
Speaker 3: in there. You can get you some good ones and
Speaker 3: keep going, as well as many many other types of
Speaker 3: falls and trees. Earlier, I was bragging about my turk's
Speaker 3: cap that is a bulletproof plant in the backyard. Attracts hummingbirds.
Speaker 3: Just just cool native. By the way, they've got those
Speaker 3: at enchants, so, in other words, they got everything there
Speaker 3: FM twenty seven to fifty nine, Richmond, Texas. It's easy
Speaker 3: to get to go and check out the website. I
Speaker 3: really enjoy visiting with the folks that are there. You're
Speaker 3: going to find when you go, the Danny and Clay
Speaker 3: and the whole team. They know what they're talking about.
Speaker 3: It is a very very helpful group of people. The
Speaker 3: web is enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond,
Speaker 3: TX dot com. All right, we are, let's see, I
Speaker 3: want to talk about a couple of other things. By
Speaker 3: the way, I want to give you the phone number
Speaker 3: again seven one three two one two k t r
Speaker 3: H seven one three two one two kt r H.
Speaker 3: I have not talked about much about vegetable gardening, and
Speaker 3: I want to do that. We're in the season now.
Speaker 3: And by the way, you may have a vegetable garden,
Speaker 3: or you may be a person who goes, I don't
Speaker 3: have room for a vegetable garden. Well, I would say
Speaker 3: almost everybody has room to grow vegetables. You can. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you want to go down to the bottom line,
Speaker 3: a five gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom,
Speaker 3: filled with a quality mix will grow you pepper plants
Speaker 3: for fall, and egg plants and squashes and other things.
Speaker 3: You can get some beautiful containers that you would love
Speaker 3: to have on your patio to grow vegetables in. You
Speaker 3: can get a bed, a raised bed that you sat
Speaker 3: on the ground, on top of the ground, filled up
Speaker 3: with good mix and grow vegetables. So it's always a
Speaker 3: good time to prepare to purchase the containers, that purchase
Speaker 3: the planting beds, to purchase a swell and get ready
Speaker 3: for it, because now's the time. Listen, tomatoes take a
Speaker 3: while to go from planting to harvest, and fall is coming.
Speaker 3: I know it's hard to imagine cool weather right now
Speaker 3: this week, but it's coming, and you need your plants
Speaker 3: to grow bloom set fruit in the milder days of
Speaker 3: fall so that you can enjoy that in the fall.
Speaker 3: Now's a good time for cucumbers to go. When we
Speaker 3: get a little further along into especially into September or
Speaker 3: even early October, then all the cool season crops that
Speaker 3: we begin to plant, like the blue leaf vegetables, the
Speaker 3: coal crops, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, colabie, collareds, and kale. Brussels
Speaker 3: sprout to be another one to go in. Then cools
Speaker 3: off a little bit more. We're talking about lettuce, and
Speaker 3: we're talking about carrots, and we're talking about spinach and
Speaker 3: other cool season greens like rocket roquette or rocket arugulus
Speaker 3: another name for it. Those can all go in and
Speaker 3: you can enjoy all of that and that creates really
Speaker 3: healthy food for salads, for cooking, for all kinds of things.
Speaker 3: So now's the time to be busy with those kind
Speaker 3: of things. Herb planting. Herbs can be planted now. If
Speaker 3: you're perennial herbs and you want to wait and do
Speaker 3: them in the fall. You can, but there's no reason
Speaker 3: why you can't put them out right now if you
Speaker 3: give them a little bit of water to help them
Speaker 3: have success. Most herbs need lots of sunlight, lots of
Speaker 3: sunlight to do their best. That's one reason why I
Speaker 3: like to put them in containers. In fact, I don't
Speaker 3: have an herb garden. I will plant herbs in my
Speaker 3: gardens at the end of a vegetable rope. I like
Speaker 3: to put a regano or a rosemary bush, or chives
Speaker 3: or something like that. Basil is a good one to
Speaker 3: plant at the end of a vegetable row, or I'll
Speaker 3: put them in containers. Containers are versatile. I've got a
Speaker 3: big container out front that is waiting for me to
Speaker 3: put a rosemary in it. Right now. There's a beautiful
Speaker 3: glazed pottery container just just attractive in front. And I
Speaker 3: just say this, that rosemary bush in there is going
Speaker 3: to do well because it drains well and yet it
Speaker 3: has enough soil to support it. So don't let not
Speaker 3: having a garden stop you from gardening. No reason for
Speaker 3: that at all. We can have very good success and
Speaker 3: growing all kinds of things. You may be dealing, or
Speaker 3: you may have dealt with bugs in your lawn that
Speaker 3: were doing damage to your lawn in the past. Last
Speaker 3: year I had the worst case of chinchbugs I've ever had.
Speaker 3: In fact, I've never had to treat for chinchbugs in
Speaker 3: my lawn. I just never have. I don't know. I
Speaker 3: guess I got lucky, but not last year. Boy, they
Speaker 3: came and I mean it was like a Sherman marching
Speaker 3: through Georgia.
Speaker 12: It was.
Speaker 3: They left the path of destruction all the way across
Speaker 3: the yard. I was gone, didn't see it happening. And
Speaker 3: then when I came back, at first I didn't know
Speaker 3: what it was because I went I just needed to
Speaker 3: be watered because our water system had gone off, and
Speaker 3: that was a big part of it.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 3: Nitro Fuss bug out Max is an insecticide you put
Speaker 3: out by a granule in your lawn. Follow the label
Speaker 3: as always carefully, and if you've got ants crawling around
Speaker 3: in the thatch area, it will kill them. It dissolves
Speaker 3: off the granules when it gets either rain or irrigation
Speaker 3: to water it in fleas hiding in the thatch. Yes,
Speaker 3: fleas grow up that thatch also outside. That's part of
Speaker 3: the cycle. Breaking the cycle on your dogs and cats
Speaker 3: is you do things to your dog to control fleas,
Speaker 3: but you also do things to your yards so the
Speaker 3: flea the fleas never have a chance to get going. Chinchbugs,
Speaker 3: we are in big time chinchbug season. If they're going
Speaker 3: to have a big year this year, now and the
Speaker 3: next month is when we will see a lot of
Speaker 3: This is a coming month, all the month of August,
Speaker 3: even early September. We should be seeing those putting out
Speaker 3: bug out max now rather than waiting until they're all
Speaker 3: your grass is all dead from chinchbugs. It's not a
Speaker 3: bad idea, right. So if you've got side web worms,
Speaker 3: they're going to show up this year. Late summer falls
Speaker 3: early fall is the time that we see them. Nitro
Speaker 3: Fuss bug out Max is widely available, Like nitrofuss products
Speaker 3: all are. You're going to find it at places like
Speaker 3: for example, Kingwood Ace Hardware store or the hardware up
Speaker 3: in Tascasda, the hardware there, the Arbrigade up in Tomball
Speaker 3: and Shades of Texas on Genoa, Redbuff down at Southeaston
Speaker 3: are all places you can find nitrophos products like their
Speaker 3: bugout Max. Let me give you a number again. We're
Speaker 3: going to head to a call here in just a second,
Speaker 3: but if you'd like to give us a call before
Speaker 3: we wind up the show today, it's seven one three
Speaker 3: two one two kt RHS. I think now I'm going
Speaker 3: to head out to sugar Land and talk to Fred. Hey, Fred,
Speaker 3: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 12: Good morning, Skip. I'm gonna bother you again this weekend. Well,
Speaker 12: I think your picture of some by Burnham plants. They're
Speaker 12: on the north side of the house. Although they do
Speaker 12: get afternoon sun. With the sun the where it is
Speaker 12: through the summer months, and we have severe rusting or
Speaker 12: browning of leaves are all curling up and dying.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 12: The plant did have white flies, and it does on
Speaker 12: these leaves. We do see some white flies now. But
Speaker 12: are you noticing fungus occurring now this time? After all
Speaker 12: the rain well on.
Speaker 3: Some plants, but you're by Burnham. That is not a fungus.
Speaker 3: I need to take a break and I have to
Speaker 3: hit a a quiential break. Let me come back to you, Fred,
Speaker 3: and we will finish this discussion. Thanks a lot, We'll
Speaker 3: be right back. We are happy to visit about all
Speaker 3: kinds of things related to gardening. The number is seven
Speaker 3: one three two one two K.
Speaker 10: T R H.
Speaker 3: If you'd like to give us a call. We're going
Speaker 3: to head back out here now and talk to Fred
Speaker 3: again in Sugarland. Fred, I've looked at those pictures, and
Speaker 3: that is not a disease.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: It looks to me like sunshine is making exacerbating or
Speaker 3: making that symptom worse.
Speaker 12: If you look at that little we thought maybe because
Speaker 12: the sun really hits on their hoard like in July
Speaker 12: and August, and maybe it's sunburn or something. Yeah, it's
Speaker 12: not on the side next to the house where the
Speaker 12: sun doesn't get so much. It doesn't seem to be
Speaker 12: as pulmon dis is on the outside there where the
Speaker 12: sun where I took that picture it is.
Speaker 3: And I see, I see a leaf in the picture,
Speaker 3: and I look for this a lot when it comes
Speaker 3: to wondering if it's sun The leaf may start off flat,
Speaker 3: like the sun just shines directly at a right angle
Speaker 3: right on the leaf, and then the leaf crawls down
Speaker 3: and the curl down part doesn't have the burn on it,
Speaker 3: just the part that is, you know, most being directly
Speaker 3: hit by the sun. So I think that's it now
Speaker 3: by burnum should be able to grow without getting sun
Speaker 3: scaled everywhere. So it could also be that the soil
Speaker 3: moisture is a little in the short side there. It
Speaker 3: could also be that maybe mites or you mentioned white flies.
Speaker 3: I don't think this is white flies causing this, but
Speaker 3: something else may be making it a little more prone
Speaker 3: to the burn than it normally would be. But I
Speaker 3: think it is a sun related thing, which is actually
Speaker 3: good news because you can print that out and get
Speaker 3: fresh new growth.
Speaker 12: So just print it out and then let it go.
Speaker 12: The white flies. We did have white flies on it.
Speaker 12: I spray twice with a spectrocide and secticide. Seemed like
Speaker 12: I got them under control, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 12: this has just happened in the last week. So should
Speaker 12: I continue to spray for the white flies.
Speaker 3: I would hold off and wait and see what it's
Speaker 3: gonna what it's going to do. I'm not a big
Speaker 3: proponent of spraying for white flies. I know that there's
Speaker 3: times that we have to, but white flies have natural enemies,
Speaker 3: and what I've found is that when you spray, you
Speaker 3: kill some white flies, you definitely kill the natural enemies,
Speaker 3: and then you're left with a worse. White fight problem
Speaker 3: sometimes interesting. Just uh, just be a little careful with that.
Speaker 3: If you start experiencing that, well that is what's going on.
Speaker 3: But I think this is sun I'd leave it for now,
Speaker 3: and then as we get into maybe a few weeks
Speaker 3: from now, just if it hasn't gotten much worse, just
Speaker 3: go and print that stuff out.
Speaker 12: Okay, thank you, sir.
Speaker 7: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks for appreciate your appreciate your call a lot. Bye
Speaker 3: bye our phone number seven to one three two one
Speaker 3: two k t r H seven one three two one
Speaker 3: two kt r H. I have been working on a
Speaker 3: couple of publications three actually, but I'm going to put online.
Speaker 3: Two of them are on nutsedge, and one of them
Speaker 3: is on a tool that you can make yourself to
Speaker 3: wipe products on leaves of plants that you need to kill,
Speaker 3: but you don't want to get the product on nearby
Speaker 3: plants that you don't want to kill, you know. So
Speaker 3: for example, uh, you got nutsedge coming up under your roses,
Speaker 3: you know, do you how do you get something on
Speaker 3: there without getting it on the rose. Also, you've got
Speaker 3: a particular weed, maybe it's a you got a nice
Speaker 3: mode lawn, but here comes up above the lawn nut
Speaker 3: sedge or some other weed. There's a wiper that you
Speaker 3: can build, and I've got the plans of it almost
Speaker 3: finished that are about to go up this week early
Speaker 3: this week that you'll find on my website Gardening with
Speaker 3: Skip dot com. Now, the nut sedge publication, that one
Speaker 3: has been a long time coming. I know that we
Speaker 3: you know, we think in terms of I have nutsedge,
Speaker 3: I spray it, that it goes away, that's it. Well,
Speaker 3: those of you who have fought nutsedge know that it
Speaker 3: is not that simple. You're pulling it, you're chopping it,
Speaker 3: you're spraying it, and then you look and it's like
Speaker 3: I just made it worse. Well, there are principles to
Speaker 3: what's going on with nutsedge that you can deal with.
Speaker 3: First of all, you got to know which kind you have,
Speaker 3: purple or yellow. It matters because there are products that
Speaker 3: will do a good job on purple nutsedge, but not
Speaker 3: on yellow nut seedge. They when it comes to yellow,
Speaker 3: for example, you know, don't worry about remembering all this,
Speaker 3: it's all in the publication. When it comes to yellow,
Speaker 3: wet spots are especially prone to proliferation of yellow nutsedge,
Speaker 3: and the reason is on a nuts edge nut or
Speaker 3: it's actually a tuber. They're in the skin. There are
Speaker 3: inhibiting chemicals that prevent the buds from growing. Because there
Speaker 3: are like seven eight, there can be as many as
Speaker 3: ten or more buds on that one nutsedge stubord. That's
Speaker 3: why when it grows the shoot and you chop it
Speaker 3: off with the hoe, it laughs and grows another shoot
Speaker 3: and you chop that off with a hoe. It's got
Speaker 3: seven or eight or more of them on there. It
Speaker 3: can do that. And so what we have to do
Speaker 3: is that when we get things wet, that inhibitor is
Speaker 3: washed off the surface and buds are set free to
Speaker 3: just grow, send out shoots, and you get a much
Speaker 3: faster proliferation of yellow nutsedge and wet areas. So what's
Speaker 3: the first step in yellow nutsedge control? Dry out the soil,
Speaker 3: don't keep it soggy wet all the time. That doesn't
Speaker 3: kill it, but it keeps one nuts edge plant for
Speaker 3: becoming hundreds of nutsedge plants. And yes, that is possible.
Speaker 3: Just to let you know what you're up against when
Speaker 3: it comes to nutsedge. I've been doing research on this
Speaker 3: for a good while, looking at a lot of different
Speaker 3: research that are out there. Its reproductive ability is incredible.
Speaker 3: I mean it is just its ability to take one
Speaker 3: tuber and make more. For example, there was a study
Speaker 3: up in Minnesota. I know this is nerdy stuff, but
Speaker 3: hang with me. I think you'll find it interesting. There
Speaker 3: was a study up in Minnesota, and can I just
Speaker 3: tell you that Minnesota is a cooler place in Texas
Speaker 3: and has a shorter warm season than Texas. A single
Speaker 3: nutsedge tuber was put out in Minnesota. This was a
Speaker 3: trial where they're looking at its reproductive ability by fall
Speaker 3: from one tuber. There were six thousand, nine hundred tubers
Speaker 3: and in the spring they nineteen hundred, one thousand, nine
Speaker 3: hundred daughter plants came because one tuber was allowed to
Speaker 3: grow until the following year. That's why it's such a
Speaker 3: problem of control, and that's why controlling it needs to
Speaker 3: be timely and the principles are all in this publication.
Speaker 3: It's more than you want. It's three pages, but I
Speaker 3: think if you really want to understand what's going on,
Speaker 3: remember how we said there's no brown thumbs, there's uninformed thumbs.
Speaker 3: When it comes to the nuts said, you need to
Speaker 3: inform that thumb about this one it's going to have
Speaker 3: a one page version for those of you who are
Speaker 3: just like I don't care about all that. I don't
Speaker 3: care that the Egyptian mummies took it in their tombs
Speaker 3: in the pyramids so they could eat it in the afterlife.
Speaker 3: Yes that happened. Give me a break anyway, you don't
Speaker 3: care about that. You just want to know what Osbury?
Speaker 3: How do I kill it? Now? Okay, there's a one
Speaker 3: pager for those of you who are in that case.
Speaker 3: So those are going to be up as well as
Speaker 3: the weed Wiper publication. Just watch for them. I'll let
Speaker 3: you know next weekend again. But in the meantime, if
Speaker 3: you're curious you want to get the head start early
Speaker 3: this week, those will be up online where you can
Speaker 3: do something with them. Well, you are listening to Guardline.
Speaker 3: Normally we get toward the end of a show and
Speaker 3: now everybody starts calling in. Today is about the only
Speaker 3: time I ever remember it being the very opposite where
Speaker 3: it actually gets quiet towards the end. Our phone number
Speaker 3: is seven one three two one two k t r H.
Speaker 3: I want to take a break. I'll be back for
Speaker 3: our last few minutes, our last segment. We've got a
Speaker 3: few minutes here left seven one three two one two
Speaker 3: k t R h seven to one three two to
Speaker 3: one two kt r h.
Speaker 13: Uh.
Speaker 3: The fall season is up, is coming soon, and now's
Speaker 3: the time that we got to get some things done
Speaker 3: in order to enjoy that fall season. And I've talked
Speaker 3: about soul prep today. I've talked about a number of
Speaker 3: different things. I just want to remind you that when
Speaker 3: when it comes to success in the fall, it's about
Speaker 3: starting things earlier or ahead of time and being ready
Speaker 3: to go when fall arrives. I used to know a
Speaker 3: gardener up in Conrod, Texas. His name was mister Alden Colston.
Speaker 3: He was ninety two years old and he was a character,
Speaker 3: which I think you're allowed to be at ninety two
Speaker 3: years old. He you know those baskets that sometimes you
Speaker 3: buy like a houseplant, maybe you're having it given to
Speaker 3: somebody in the hospital, and it's like a houseplant, but
Speaker 3: it comes in this like a basket, a woven basket
Speaker 3: that comes up around the pot and then kind of
Speaker 3: flares out, you know what I'm talking about. He wore
Speaker 3: those as hats. He had one of those. It was
Speaker 3: ridiculous looking, but that was Alden and he was a
Speaker 3: hoot too. He told me something that is stuck with
Speaker 3: me now for decades since then, and that is you
Speaker 3: can always add water, but you can't take it away.
Speaker 3: And what does that mean. Well, what he was saying was,
Speaker 3: you know, when if something is if the souls dry,
Speaker 3: you can add water to it. But when the soul's wet,
Speaker 3: you got wet soil, and you gotta wait. You gotta
Speaker 3: wait for it to dry out and drain away. And
Speaker 3: that was good advice. And he did all his garden
Speaker 3: preps in the season before you know, whether if it
Speaker 3: was spring gardening, he was going to be doing anytime
Speaker 3: he could get a little bit of a dry period
Speaker 3: in the fall or winter, which is harder to find
Speaker 3: in the winter sometimes, but he would get the soaprep
Speaker 3: done and as a result, let's just say, that's the
Speaker 3: wisdom that comes with age, and he certainly had that
Speaker 3: kind of wisdom as well. But that was a community
Speaker 3: garden that was really interesting. They had a shed in
Speaker 3: the middle that kind of was a little pavilion area
Speaker 3: with tables and stuff, and we called it the loafers
Speaker 3: lounge because people would just go sit there all day
Speaker 3: and visit and you know the important things about gardening,
Speaker 3: relaxing and lying about what you grew last year. And
Speaker 3: your tomato gets bigger every time you tell the story.
Speaker 3: You know, that kind of thing. That's what went on
Speaker 3: in the loafers lounge at the Community Garden up at Conrod, Texas,
Speaker 3: outside Montgomery County. I want to talk about a couple
Speaker 3: of things before we go away today about fruit trees.
Speaker 3: Fruit trees are wonderful to have in the garden and landscape.
Speaker 3: You know, if you have property and you can put
Speaker 3: a little orchard in, that's great. If you don't, you
Speaker 3: can include fruit trees in your landscape. I had a
Speaker 3: landscape when I lived in Conro, Texas that was had
Speaker 3: beautiful beds in the back, and I had a peach tree,
Speaker 3: one peach tree that was just part of the landscape.
Speaker 3: And just because it's edible doesn't mean it's not ornamental. Peaches,
Speaker 3: beautiful flowers in the spring, and there's even a variety.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit on the higher chill side for
Speaker 3: those of you way down south easton, but it's called
Speaker 3: red barren, and red Barren has beautiful red blooms and
Speaker 3: a quality edible fruit. Some of the ornamental peaches like peppermint.
Speaker 3: The fruit isn't It's not worth planting that for the fruit,
Speaker 3: so I would just plant a regular peach tree. You
Speaker 3: do need excellent drainage when you do fruit trees. So
Speaker 3: if you want to plant fruit this fall or this
Speaker 3: winter or next spring, you got to get those beds
Speaker 3: raised up. If it's just something in the yard, you
Speaker 3: can create a raised mound like a pitcher's mound, but
Speaker 3: you get it up high enough to get those roots
Speaker 3: up out of the water. If you want to box
Speaker 3: it in, you can box it in with whatever kind
Speaker 3: of things. I'm planning some fruit trees this fall in
Speaker 3: a little low, not very high sided bigo bed that
Speaker 3: big sections. The soil in that area is not well drained,
Speaker 3: and so I'm raising them up in those sections and
Speaker 3: getting a bed to kind of help them out and
Speaker 3: get them going. That's important. Sunlight is critical. Sunlight makes carbohydrates.
Speaker 3: Carbohydrates make sweet fruit, and so if you're going to
Speaker 3: grow fruit, you need sunshine. Strawberries, blackberries, peaches, apples, pears,
Speaker 3: per simmons, the Rodney danger Field of the fruit world.
Speaker 3: Per simmons are wonderful. They ought to get more respect.
Speaker 3: It's a really cool fruit. It's ornamental. It grows in
Speaker 3: a season when most other things are not fruit than
Speaker 3: ceterrius and maybe pecon nuts. But percentage are great. Good
Speaker 3: sunlight is critical for success. There are a couple of
Speaker 3: fruit that put up with a little bit of shade.
Speaker 3: They don't like it, but they do okay with a
Speaker 3: little bit of shade. Citrus is that way. A lot
Speaker 3: of as citruses can take a light shade and do okay.
Speaker 3: I found that figs do okay when they're not in
Speaker 3: the full brunt of the sun. But sun is better
Speaker 3: than not, so that is important. You want to pick
Speaker 3: varieties that want to grow here. And our good garden
Speaker 3: centers are mom and pops, the independent garden centers. They
Speaker 3: are not going to sell you something that doesn't grow here.
Speaker 3: They're going to say the things that are successful. So
Speaker 3: first of all, go there. I was in a big
Speaker 3: box store and looking at fruit last late winter, and
Speaker 3: there were four or five things that absolutely will not
Speaker 3: survive here. It's a complete waste of money. Thompson seedless grapes,
Speaker 3: concord grapes and be grown here. Black raspberries were for sale.
Speaker 3: High bush blueberries not southern high bush, but high bush blueberries.
Speaker 3: They don't, they're not for here. There was something else,
Speaker 3: yellow raspberries was another one. I don't know. I couldn't
Speaker 3: remember it all. I just took pictures of it all
Speaker 3: so when I give a talk, I can put it
Speaker 3: up there and go see. This is why I tell
Speaker 3: you go buy stuff from a place that you know
Speaker 3: you can trust. But picking varieties that want to grow here.
Speaker 3: Some fruit like per simmons and peaches being examples, and
Speaker 3: figs don't need two varieties to cross pollinate. Some fruit do,
Speaker 3: apples and pear. Most pears do better, and most plums
Speaker 3: will do better with pollination. There's a couple of self
Speaker 3: fruitful plums and some that aren't. You can find out.
Speaker 3: You can go to the Aggi Horticulture website. It's Aggie
Speaker 3: hyphen Horticulture dot t A m U dot edu, Aggi
Speaker 3: hortic Just remember Aggi Horticulture and go search it front page.
Speaker 3: There's a fruit and not button. Click on it. There's
Speaker 3: a publication on every fruit you want to grow here,
Speaker 3: including avocados. Publicational avocados on there. Read about them and
Speaker 3: learn so that if you're gonna plant fruit you know,
Speaker 3: to plan a Let's say you plant an apple and
Speaker 3: three years down the line starts to bloom really good
Speaker 3: and no fruit. Four years no fruit, and then you
Speaker 3: find out, oh I needed two varieties. Well that's a
Speaker 3: sad situation. Find out ahead of time what varieties need
Speaker 3: pollinators and which ones don't. And find out ahead of
Speaker 3: time what varieties are there that will thrive well here.
Speaker 3: And when you're out and about this weekend, pick up
Speaker 3: some medina. Has to Grow, by the way, has to
Speaker 3: Grow is an outstanding product. Cooks up to a garden hose.
Speaker 3: You spray your laun with it. You can spray your
Speaker 3: vegetable gardens too, by the way. It's a sixteen zero two.
Speaker 3: It's got humus and a humic acid, and it's got molasses.
Speaker 3: It's got a keylated form of iron and citrus extract,
Speaker 3: and that's sixteen percent nitrogen, two percent potassium. Part of
Speaker 3: that nitrogen is even slow release. It works well, it's easy,
Speaker 3: covers what four thousand square feet and do it in
Speaker 3: ten minutes. You can't beat that. You know, has to
Speaker 3: go super grow spot particularly well, maybe we'll talk more
Speaker 3: about fruit trees when we get to the next oh
Speaker 3: one thing. I forgot to mention. A lot of fruit
Speaker 3: trees need the right chilling hours. When they go into
Speaker 3: winter and are dormant, the buds can't grow because they're
Speaker 3: chemically inhibited. When you have hours in the forty forty
Speaker 3: five maybe throw down to thirty five range, those are
Speaker 3: chilling hours, not cold or not hotter, and they break
Speaker 3: down the inhibitor so when warm weather comes they can
Speaker 3: come out in spring. So if you get a fruit
Speaker 3: that is too low in chilling hours, it starts booming
Speaker 3: in February or January because it thinks it's spring Time's done.
Speaker 3: I've had my hours. If you get one that's too high,
Speaker 3: we're in May waiting for the thing to wake up
Speaker 3: and start pushing out blakes. Not a good situation.