Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
Speaker 2: It's the crazy trim. Just watch him as well.
Speaker 3: That so many people things to see bat crazy you.
Speaker 4: Not a salon, incredit gas.
Speaker 5: Salamon sweet.
Speaker 6: All right, Good Saturday morning, folks, welcome to garden Lines.
Speaker 6: Good have you with us this morning. We've got a
Speaker 6: lot to talk about, as we always do in horticulture.
Speaker 6: You know, when it comes to gardening, we never run
Speaker 6: out of things to talk about. Twelve months out of
Speaker 6: the year at three sixty five, it is there's always something,
Speaker 6: you know. It's the plants for the seasons, the problems
Speaker 6: for the seasons, identifying bugs and insects or insects and
Speaker 6: diseases and all kinds of things. There's always something going
Speaker 6: on out in the garden. That's a fun part about it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: One of the things I enjoy most about horticulture is
Speaker 6: the fact that it's always changing and there's always something new.
Speaker 6: You don't get bored. It's not like silk flowers.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: If you and I saw a landscape the other day,
Speaker 6: it was loaded with silk flowers and just all along
Speaker 6: the road and up the sidewalk and everything. And that's
Speaker 6: going to look the same three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 6: days a year until the sun fades them. But that's boring.
Speaker 6: That's boring stuff. We love the changes. We love to
Speaker 6: see the perennials go through their seasons and then go
Speaker 6: out and putting new annuals in and doing just different things.
Speaker 6: Spring brings, bring spring blooms, Summer bring summer blooms, fall
Speaker 6: brings fall blooms, and a landscape like that is always evolving,
Speaker 6: and it's just an ongoing work of art. In my opinion,
Speaker 6: I like that about it. I think that is really
Speaker 6: cool that it is an ongoing work of art. And
Speaker 6: as I've said before, don't worry about failing when it
Speaker 6: comes to gardening. Just don't give up. Because you may
Speaker 6: plant something and it doesn't do well, well, pull it up,
Speaker 6: put something else in there and it probably will. Hopefully
Speaker 6: you picked a plant that was adapted to the area.
Speaker 6: But listen, this is our fund. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 6: finger painting in the first grade. Get you get to
Speaker 6: just take your fingers, dip them in paint and smear
Speaker 6: them all over the place. And hey, mom and dad
Speaker 6: thought it was gorgeous, right what you came up with
Speaker 6: This is for your own esthetic pleasure, So just have
Speaker 6: a good time. If you're someone that want to get
Speaker 6: out and mess with the garden, you just want done, well,
Speaker 6: you can have it done for you. But I think
Speaker 6: part of the real healing and just mental health benefit
Speaker 6: of gardening as well as physical is just getting out
Speaker 6: there and having fun doing it all. Right, Well, you've called,
Speaker 6: you're listening to the right place.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: If you'd like to call the right place, we're gonna
Speaker 6: say seven to one three two one two ktr H
Speaker 6: seven one three two one two k t RH give
Speaker 6: me a call. Let's uh, let's talk about the things
Speaker 6: that are of interest to you. One of the most
Speaker 6: important things that we do in the garden is to
Speaker 6: get out and make sure our soil is good, that
Speaker 6: our soil was basically built up for good drainage and
Speaker 6: enriched for good nutrient content and good oxygen depth into
Speaker 6: the soil. A heavy clay air just can't move down
Speaker 6: into that, nor can water very fast. Right, But as
Speaker 6: you break it up at organic matter at expanded hill,
Speaker 6: those kinds of thing, you increase the amount of air
Speaker 6: that can move down deeper and deeper into the soil
Speaker 6: and therefore the root system thrives. So that's how we
Speaker 6: do it. That is what I would say would be
Speaker 6: an organic approach to soil care, because when it comes
Speaker 6: to organics, it's all about the soil. People think, well,
Speaker 6: something's organic, so I'm going to use an organic fungicide
Speaker 6: or an organic pesticide or an organic herbicide. No, that's
Speaker 6: not where organics begin. Organics begin and still is in
Speaker 6: the soil. You get the soil, right, that's number one. Now, yes,
Speaker 6: there are organic controls for diseases and pests and weeds
Speaker 6: and things. We have those options, but it's not just
Speaker 6: changing the bullets in the gun. Organics is not just
Speaker 6: changing the bullets in the gun. It is a whole
Speaker 6: system approach. It begins in the soil. That's why Microlife
Speaker 6: when they design their products, they included a lot of
Speaker 6: soil microbiology. The product itself is former plant material. I
Speaker 6: mean it is materials that were taken from nature to
Speaker 6: create the fertilizer in the first place. But whether it's
Speaker 6: the green bag, the six two four, the one that
Speaker 6: most people put on their lawns, I use it all
Speaker 6: over the place. It's not just launs or the purple bag,
Speaker 6: which is hum makes plus the final decomposition stage of
Speaker 6: compost is humous, so it's concentrated compost in a bag.
Speaker 6: All of those are done not just to put the
Speaker 6: nutrients out there, but to help continue to build the
Speaker 6: soil better and better. And when you do that, plants thrived.
Speaker 6: That's what it's based on, as simple as that. By
Speaker 6: the way, if you're interested in Microlife fertilizers, you can
Speaker 6: find them. If you go to Microlife fertilizer dot com,
Speaker 6: you can find out all the places where you can
Speaker 6: get it in and it is so widely available. Off
Speaker 6: the top of my head, I can't think of a
Speaker 6: place that I talk about a source, A feed store,
Speaker 6: a garden center, and Southwest fertilizer, ace hardware stores all right,
Speaker 6: everybody carries micro Life, easy, easy to find. So anyway,
Speaker 6: I was talking about the importance of, you know, starting
Speaker 6: with the soil, getting that right. That is a mantra
Speaker 6: that we do talk about here a lot on the
Speaker 6: garden line because it is the foundation for success. It's
Speaker 6: where we want to begin. It just makes things easy.
Speaker 6: And so if you look at a landscape and you
Speaker 6: see beautiful flowers and you go, oh, my gosh, I
Speaker 6: wish my house looked like that. I can promise you
Speaker 6: one thing. Go to the go to the below the flowers.
Speaker 6: Go to the ground level, dig down in that soil
Speaker 6: and look at it and feel it. And I'll tell
Speaker 6: you this. That is the reason those flowers look good.
Speaker 1: That is it.
Speaker 6: Somebody has put the nutrients in and everything else to
Speaker 6: have success. Now, of course it's important. It's very important
Speaker 6: which which flowers you plant, and when you plant them
Speaker 6: and so on. We this is a big country, and
Speaker 6: there are all kinds of blooms all over the place,
Speaker 6: or rhododendrons growing wild up in Oregon and Washington. Stage.
Speaker 6: You've got a lot of things like lilac in the
Speaker 6: Midwest and other places you know that just do so well.
Speaker 6: Blue spruce and Colorado looks so beautiful. And those are
Speaker 6: plants for another place, not for here. But I can
Speaker 6: tell you this. We have our plants for here, plenty
Speaker 6: of them. You just want plants that want to be
Speaker 6: happy here, all right, If you would like to give
Speaker 6: us a call this morning, it's always good.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: One of the things that happens every show is early on.
Speaker 6: It's real slow, and that's fine. It gives me a
Speaker 6: chance to just jabber. But late in the show, then
Speaker 6: everybody tries to call, and we're trying to get through
Speaker 6: all the calls. So just a word to the wise
Speaker 6: for those of you that are early birds, this is
Speaker 6: usually the beginning of the show. Early on in the show,
Speaker 6: the first hour is a time when it's real easy
Speaker 6: to get in or you just don't have to wait
Speaker 6: very long at all if you do so. There it
Speaker 6: is seven one three two on two. I was out
Speaker 6: enjoying the birds that are at my feeders, and I
Speaker 6: every time a new bird comes to the feeder, I
Speaker 6: have to go look it up because I'm not a
Speaker 6: bird specialist, but I go look it up. And when
Speaker 6: I come back, I'm gonna take a little break here.
Speaker 6: I want to come back. I want to talk a
Speaker 6: little bit about some of the some of the things
Speaker 6: I've been noticing that I've learned from uh regarding backyard birds.
Speaker 6: We'll be right back seven three two two five eight
Speaker 6: seven four. We're going to go now out to Richard
Speaker 6: and Katie. A good morning, Richard, welcome to guard Line.
Speaker 5: Hey, I appreciate you taking my calls. It's kind of
Speaker 5: a silly little question but I raise a few cows
Speaker 5: down Lavaca County, and I noticed the farmers in their
Speaker 5: corn fields always morning glories coming up in their corn fields.
Speaker 5: Is the seed just mixed in with the corn or what?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: Probably not. Its morning glory is a perennial weed, so
Speaker 6: once it gets established, it's got a little underground tuber.
Speaker 6: So it's it's it's hard to get rid of. I mean,
Speaker 6: they have access to chemicals that'll do it, but uh,
Speaker 6: it just it's a very common noxious weed. It's it's
Speaker 6: one that deal with, Yeah, in at home garden, you know,
Speaker 6: you kind of focused on it when you got several
Speaker 6: hundred acres to deal with. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 6: hard to worry about pinpointing each weed. And once one
Speaker 6: gets away, now you just sentenced yourself to another decade
Speaker 6: of dealing with those seeds.
Speaker 5: Is that playing noxious to cattle?
Speaker 6: No, No, it's just a it's not toxic. It's just
Speaker 6: a well, I don't know, let me take that back.
Speaker 6: I don't know if it's I've never heard it being toxic.
Speaker 6: But it's just a weed that infests in it climbs
Speaker 6: up on stuff, and so yeah, it's a it's a problem.
Speaker 6: For farmers.
Speaker 5: Well, yours pretty though, Well, I appreciate that. I didn't
Speaker 5: want I didn't want to have as my farmer friends.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to know how to tell them I was,
Speaker 5: so I appreciate your answer.
Speaker 6: No it Yeah, it's pretty. And boy there's some especially
Speaker 6: bumblebees and things that really love those flowers. But I'm
Speaker 6: not trying to talk anyone into leaving it around the
Speaker 6: landscape or farm that's for sure.
Speaker 5: Well, no, they are beautiful.
Speaker 8: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thank you godle yes.
Speaker 6: You bet as well. All right here, let's see we're
Speaker 6: going to go now to sugar Land and talk to Gary.
Speaker 6: Good morning, Gary, Good morning.
Speaker 9: How are y'all doing?
Speaker 6: We're great, We're great. How can I help to day?
Speaker 6: What do you think about Flora tam grass? Florida tam
Speaker 6: is an older variety. It's been around a long time. Uh,
Speaker 6: and when it came, you know, we've got a lot
Speaker 6: of new varieties on the market, and each time they
Speaker 6: breed new varieties, they improve on what used to be.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 6: Florida TAM's biggest strength is it's tough.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: It is has a good deep root system, it's got
Speaker 6: it's very resilient. The original Flora Town was very resistant
Speaker 6: to chinchbugs, and I think maybe over the years, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, insects tend to change when they have to,
Speaker 6: and and probably some now the resistance of chinchbugs is
Speaker 6: not what it once was. It is it is somewhat,
Speaker 6: uh somewhat but not fully. The negatives of Florida Town
Speaker 6: is it's a kind of a big rangy grass. People
Speaker 6: like a really tight, nice dense lawn, and Saint Augustine
Speaker 6: already is, you know, big old fat leaf blades and
Speaker 6: runners and everything. Florida Town was even more that way.
Speaker 6: So if you wanted, you know, if you wanted the
Speaker 6: maybe you came from the north and you know a
Speaker 6: nice little bluegrass lawn or something. You want something nice
Speaker 6: and tight and everything floor toown was a little bit
Speaker 6: rainier in its growth habit, but it was. It was
Speaker 6: a good grass and and developed by Florida and Texas
Speaker 6: and m together many years ago.
Speaker 11: But it has lost its resistance to change budge for
Speaker 11: the most part, somewhat. Yeah, I would no longer say
Speaker 11: plant Flora tam and you won't have chinchbug problems at all,
Speaker 11: But there there is some there. And again it's not
Speaker 11: that the plant lost its resistance. It's that the chinchbugs
Speaker 11: have changed, have evolved and changed. That happens all the
Speaker 11: time with insects and diseases.
Speaker 1: You know, they.
Speaker 6: You know the question.
Speaker 1: I go for it.
Speaker 9: Probably seven eight ten years ago A and M came
Speaker 9: out with a new line of citrus trees that were
Speaker 9: supposed to be more cold hardy.
Speaker 6: And I don't hear them mentioned too much anymore, Okay,
Speaker 6: So yes, sir, yes, sir. What they did is they
Speaker 6: they due to some good cold freezing temperatures unusually cold,
Speaker 6: that cleaned out a lot of varieties of satsuma that
Speaker 6: weren't quite as hardy. There were a couple that they
Speaker 6: found out. Most of the results were out in the Uvaldi,
Speaker 6: but other places it was we saw this, but Miho
Speaker 6: m I h O and Cito s E t O.
Speaker 6: Miho and CTO were two of the hardier ones that
Speaker 6: they had. After that really cold weather came through. Then
Speaker 6: a fellow named doctor Moy and San Antonio developed arctic frost,
Speaker 6: and oh gosh, the other name is it's another frost.
Speaker 6: It's escaping me at the very moment. And those we
Speaker 6: were more cold hardy as well, and so we really
Speaker 6: have several varieties. There are a lot of other citrus
Speaker 6: varieties that are good, and I'll make it through the
Speaker 6: vast majority of your winners down in this area. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I think that's what you're referring to.
Speaker 9: Yes, sir, I just don't hear the poor already frost
Speaker 9: or anything mentioned anymore. And I didn't know if they
Speaker 9: did not worked out as well as they thought or
Speaker 9: what situation was.
Speaker 6: No, they worked well. One of the two frosts is
Speaker 6: a little more cold tolerant than the other. The other
Speaker 6: one's a little bit better fruit quality than the other one.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a trade off between those two. I
Speaker 6: still see them around. They are on the market. It
Speaker 6: just you know, I don't you would have to ask
Speaker 6: for them, and if you did, I'm sure the garden
Speaker 6: centers would be able to get them in for you
Speaker 6: if they don't already carry them. Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 6: I really enjoy your show. Thank you, Gary, appreciate your call.
Speaker 6: I appreciate that a lot. You know, I'll tell you
Speaker 6: one place that you're going to be able to get
Speaker 6: things like the hardy types of citrus, and a wide
Speaker 6: variety is up at the arbor Gate in a tumble.
Speaker 6: Beverly prides herself on carrying plants that are adapted to here,
Speaker 6: getting plants that maybe are not as that people would want.
Speaker 6: And so I guarantee you they can get those kind
Speaker 6: of plants for you if they don't already have them.
Speaker 6: She carries fruit trees year round up at the arbor Gate,
Speaker 6: and I'm talking about peaches and other things. I mean,
Speaker 6: they always have something there at the arbor Gate, and
Speaker 6: so you just go if you haven't been there. It's
Speaker 6: on twenty nine to twenty west of Tumbull, just a
Speaker 6: little bit outside of town, and there's a road called
Speaker 6: Trishel t R I c ch e L Trishel Road.
Speaker 6: It goes behind Arburgate. Think of it as a loop.
Speaker 6: So as you're heading west on twenty nine to twenty,
Speaker 6: you'll you'll pass Trishel Road, then you'll see Arburgate, then
Speaker 6: you'll see Trishele Road again. So before or after, if
Speaker 6: you miss it, you're going to be able to just
Speaker 6: turn back and get to the back parking lot. And
Speaker 6: I'd recommend you do that. While you're out there, just
Speaker 6: first of all, take friends with you and you go
Speaker 6: This is a fun place. This isn't like you know,
Speaker 6: the grocery store. You walk in, I load your basket
Speaker 6: and run out because it's all just meat and potatoes.
Speaker 6: That's a good knowledgy. But this is a place where
Speaker 6: you're gonna want to hang out and shop and look
Speaker 6: at the displays and look at the yard arts, the
Speaker 6: beautiful things they have there and the gift shops and everything.
Speaker 6: So grant a friend, run out there to the Arborgate
Speaker 6: and you're going to see what I'm talking about. I
Speaker 6: always love to go. I always see plants I haven't
Speaker 6: seen before because there's always something new coming in to Arburgate.
Speaker 6: And the folks there know what they're talking about. They'll
Speaker 6: point you in the right direction. They absolutely you go
Speaker 6: in and you need help, and they can help you
Speaker 6: because they know what they're talking about. And that is
Speaker 6: so important when you go to a garden center. That's
Speaker 6: for sure. See I'm going to head out now to
Speaker 6: North Houston and we're going to talk to Paul. Hello, Paul,
Speaker 6: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 12: Well, good morning, thanks for taking the call. Hey, here's
Speaker 12: my question, pleasure. I've had for years of Virginia button
Speaker 12: wood on my front lawn. I face the west, and
Speaker 12: it comes kind of in the I'll say the late spring.
Speaker 12: It's not in the very beginning, but then it appears
Speaker 12: on the lawn and then it kind of proliferates over
Speaker 12: the year and then come into the fall, it just
Speaker 12: goes goes away, or at least you can't see it.
Speaker 12: I know it's probably still down into the on the
Speaker 12: base of the dirt. But this year is the worst
Speaker 12: I have ever had. And picking it as an orkan, no, no,
Speaker 12: you can't.
Speaker 6: You can't pick Virginia button weed. That that is true.
Speaker 6: Virginia button weed is a difficult one to control. So
Speaker 6: bottom bottom line on it is you got to get
Speaker 6: a product that's going to work on it, which they
Speaker 6: don't all work equally well. You know, things like trimech
Speaker 6: for example, control a lot of different broad leaved weeds.
Speaker 6: Aren't as effective against it as we need them to be.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: There is a product called Celsius, like the temperature celsius.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 6: Cel s i us celsius. If you apply it to
Speaker 6: Virginia button weed, as it gets growing and stay on it,
Speaker 6: you're going to have to make a second application to it.
Speaker 6: So what you'd like to do is when it begins
Speaker 6: to green up the grass, the virginia button weed is
Speaker 6: starting to green up, you're going to want to treat
Speaker 6: it with celsius, and then about four to six weeks later,
Speaker 6: you're going to want to treat it again once temperatures
Speaker 6: get up above eighty five degrees. A lot of our
Speaker 6: broad leaf weed control products are stressful to the Saint Augustine.
Speaker 6: They weaken it, they injure it. They don't kill it
Speaker 6: out right, but they weaken it. And so what you're
Speaker 6: going to want to be able to do is apply
Speaker 6: it early on. You can apply these earlier during the
Speaker 6: lawn spring green up period, uh than a lot of
Speaker 6: other products without damaging the lawn. But it's going to
Speaker 6: take more than one control. You don't have to treat
Speaker 6: the whole long. Just where you see the virginia button,
Speaker 6: we'd treat that. And again, these aren't cheap. It comes
Speaker 6: in a little packet of like a dust and an
Speaker 6: envelope that you dump in I think it probably usually
Speaker 6: they make about a gallon of spray, which is your
Speaker 6: spot reading. So that's more than enough. But that is
Speaker 6: the one that is going to work. But again, don't
Speaker 6: expect one application and don't wait until the end of
Speaker 6: the year to try to treat it. Catch it early
Speaker 6: and then about four to six weeks later.
Speaker 10: Okay, I will try it. I guess next next spring.
Speaker 12: Thank you very much, yes.
Speaker 6: Time, all right, you bet, Paul, thank you. We're going
Speaker 6: to run to break. I'll be right back. Folks question today,
Speaker 6: we are happy to help at seven to one three
Speaker 6: two one two kt r. H seven to one three
Speaker 6: two one two kt R.
Speaker 13: H Uh.
Speaker 6: You know, I I wanted to mention Buchanans Plants, which
Speaker 6: is in the Heights on eleven Street. Buchanans has just
Speaker 6: so many native plants. In fact, that's in the name
Speaker 6: Buchanans native plants that you're going to find all kinds
Speaker 6: of things that you can grow. For example, someone who's
Speaker 6: asking me the other day about what are some good
Speaker 6: plants flowers for hummingbirds, Well, I don't know. I think
Speaker 6: Buchanans probably has about two or three dosten different plants
Speaker 6: that will attract hummingbirds, because a lot of native plants
Speaker 6: are very good at that, things with long tubular flowers.
Speaker 6: Some of the ones that aren't native but do very well,
Speaker 6: very well adapted here. They'll attract them. By the way
Speaker 6: hummingbirds are here, they're coming back. Buchanan's got you covered
Speaker 6: on those kinds of things. They always have a good
Speaker 6: stock of everything. They've got knowledgeable folks and points in
Speaker 6: the right direction. And if you're going to do any
Speaker 6: kind of native plant gardening, you need to talk to
Speaker 6: them because it's more than just buying a plant. It's
Speaker 6: how do I use this plant, how do I include
Speaker 6: this plant? It's what plants would be good for hummingbirds
Speaker 6: and whatnot. There is also today at Buchanans Plants, August
Speaker 6: twenty fourth, from twelve to one pm over the noon
Speaker 6: hour is a Midsummer Flower Grown workshop. I would call
Speaker 6: them first make sure it's not full. But a Midsummer
Speaker 6: flower grown workshops. It's a cost because you're going to
Speaker 6: get a lot of you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 6: materials that go into this that you get and get
Speaker 6: to do. It's eighty five bucks a person. But that's
Speaker 6: today from twelve to one. I would give them a
Speaker 6: call to find out more about it and find out
Speaker 6: what you're interested in. While you're out there, you know,
Speaker 6: all the other plants you want, from vegetables to herbs
Speaker 6: to house plants, do you name it. You're going to
Speaker 6: find there at buchanans Plants again there on Eleventh Street
Speaker 6: in the Heights. But you really ought to go check
Speaker 6: them out. Also check out the website Buchanansplants dot com.
Speaker 6: And the reason is there is a ton of educational
Speaker 6: material on the website and that's where you can sign
Speaker 6: up for the newsletter that is so informative. Really that
Speaker 6: alone is worth the price permission. As they say so earlier,
Speaker 6: I was talking about birds. I just mentioned hummingbirds, about
Speaker 6: the birds at my feet aer and I noticed this
Speaker 6: spring that my birds are looking scruffy. I mean when
Speaker 6: I say scruffy, it's like they had a fight with
Speaker 6: a weed eater and lost. I mean, they're just like
Speaker 6: a red bird is only about fifty percent red because
Speaker 6: all the a lot of feathers have fallen out, the
Speaker 6: outer pretty feathers and stuff. They just look horrible. And
Speaker 6: so I sent a picture to Rich who is a
Speaker 6: Waldbird's Unlimited store owner, and I know, when I go
Speaker 6: to one of the Wallbirds store owners, I'm going to
Speaker 6: get really accurate answers. And he goes, yeah, they're still
Speaker 6: molting and This was very late in the season. I thought, gosh,
Speaker 6: I think they'd be through by now. But they are,
Speaker 6: and they're about to get their new feathers in and
Speaker 6: look beautiful. If you are interested in birds, you need
Speaker 6: to go to Warbirds Unlimited and learn and ask questions
Speaker 6: because they can absolutely you get right on the right track.
Speaker 6: And you don't have to, you know, go get the
Speaker 6: whole nine yards of all the supplies and everything at once.
Speaker 6: Just go out there and get your feeder, or get
Speaker 6: you a bird house, or get mainly get some of
Speaker 6: the quality feed that they have. Their feed is not
Speaker 6: filled with stuff the birds won't eat, like cheap bird
Speaker 6: seed is cheap bird seeds full of red bebies. Red
Speaker 6: bebies get kicked off on the ground. It's milow and
Speaker 6: they get kicked off on the ground, or sort them.
Speaker 6: The birds don't care about them. So you buy this
Speaker 6: bag of feed, you get about what half of it
Speaker 6: that's actually stuffed birds eat other than maybe some doves
Speaker 6: that pack around on the ground. You need to go
Speaker 6: to Wildbirds and get quality products and quality advice. And
Speaker 6: I'm going to tell you, I'm warning you it is
Speaker 6: at an addictive hobby. I was never a bird person
Speaker 6: until I got my supplies at Wildbirds. And now suddenly
Speaker 6: I'm hearing a song and I'm I got a little
Speaker 6: app that it listens to the bird and it tells
Speaker 6: you what the bird is and is this cool stuff?
Speaker 6: Wb dot com Forward slash Houston. That's all you need
Speaker 6: to know. W b U dot Com Forward Slash Houston
Speaker 6: helps you find the six war Birds unlimited stores so
Speaker 6: you can find the one that is nearest to you.
Speaker 6: And birds are a lot, a lot of fun. I
Speaker 6: I have a number of them that I use an
Speaker 6: app called Merlin m R L I N. It's a
Speaker 6: free app from Cornell University. They've got an outstanding ornithology
Speaker 6: department up there, by the way. That's the fancy word
Speaker 6: for I'm learning about birds or anthology. Okay, let's head
Speaker 6: out to Manville, Texas and we're gonna talk to Kurt
Speaker 6: he Good morning morning. What's up Menville?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 13: Nothing much, man. I just bought a property and it's
Speaker 13: got fig trees on it, a couple of Magnoli trees.
Speaker 14: Uh.
Speaker 13: And I'll told a wild back man. I think I
Speaker 13: might have been at the casino in Louisiana and this
Speaker 13: guy that works at a nerdy tree with overheard him
Speaker 13: telling this lady that she poured some dust and salt
Speaker 13: around the trees. I guess the magnesium in it what
Speaker 13: have you would make them grow more fruit and have
Speaker 13: hepta trees grow.
Speaker 6: Yes and no is the answer to that. Magnesium is
Speaker 6: one is one of the secondary nutrients. Plants don't need
Speaker 6: as much of it as they need nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium,
Speaker 6: the three numbers on a fertilizer bag, but it's the
Speaker 6: next level of nutrients, so they do need magnesum. Typically,
Speaker 6: if the plant is lacking magnesium, if you look at
Speaker 6: the older leaves, the older last, you'll start to see
Speaker 6: a green Christmas tree in the middle of the leaf.
Speaker 6: In other words, as in the center, it stays green
Speaker 6: the main the veins in the center, and then as
Speaker 6: it gets out towards the edge of the leaf, it
Speaker 6: kind of loses color, and so it looks like you're
Speaker 6: looking at a green Christmas tree and a leaf. That's
Speaker 6: the best way I can describe it, because it's that
Speaker 6: same shape. If that's the case, then any magnesium fertilizer
Speaker 6: epsom salts does have a lot of magnesium in it
Speaker 6: would help. But if a plant already has all the
Speaker 6: magnesium it needs. Giving it more isn't going to help.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, all right, So is there any fertilize out
Speaker 4: there that you, you know, much to think of that's beneficial.
Speaker 6: In general for fig trees. For fig trees, I'd just
Speaker 6: use my lawn fertilizer on them. It just a good
Speaker 6: lawn fertilizer because you're already buying it, you know, for
Speaker 6: a long and you just use it on those big
Speaker 6: trees and they'll be fine. You know, if you had
Speaker 6: a soil test and it said, hey, you're low and
Speaker 6: I don't know potassium or some other thing, it may
Speaker 6: be that you would shift a little bit. But in general,
Speaker 6: figs are pretty good. If you just use a standard
Speaker 6: kind of fertilizer on them, they'll do just fine.
Speaker 15: Well alrighty, I appreciate you guys man, and have a
Speaker 15: blessed stake.
Speaker 6: Alright, good, thanks for the call. Appreciate appreciate that if
Speaker 6: you're looking, you know, for fertilizing. I do use lawn
Speaker 6: fertilizer on a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: For example, Nitrofoss has their super turf. I've been talking
Speaker 6: about it all summer because it's a slow release fertilizer.
Speaker 6: You put super turf out and you're going to get
Speaker 6: months out of that application of fertilizer because it it's
Speaker 6: designed for the nitrogen to release slowly, which is what
Speaker 6: you want. You don't want it all at once. I mean, imagine,
Speaker 6: think about yourself when you eat. Can you imagine the
Speaker 6: first thing Monday morning eating all the food you need
Speaker 6: for the week. That would be ridiculous, right, And well,
Speaker 6: sometimes we think about we're gonna put some nutrient on
Speaker 6: the ground and expect, especially something volatile like nitrogen to
Speaker 6: last for months at a time, and it doesn't. But
Speaker 6: in a slower lease form it can. And that's what
Speaker 6: that's what super turf does. But there's nothing wrong. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's made for lawns, that's the main reason we use it.
Speaker 6: But you know, if you want to use that on
Speaker 6: your fig tree, that would be just fine. It would
Speaker 6: give you a gradual feed all through the summer. There's
Speaker 6: no problem with that. Again, I'm not saying it's made
Speaker 6: for fruit, but still it works. It does, and you
Speaker 6: can find you're going to find it where you find
Speaker 6: other nitrofoss products. Hide and feed hiding and feed up
Speaker 6: on Studient Airline. They carry it up there. I think
Speaker 6: you can also find it at Bearings Hardware, both the
Speaker 6: one on Bissinet and the one out on West Timer.
Speaker 6: It's easy to find Plantation Ace Hardware. Another place. Adam
Speaker 6: Richmond Rosenberg carries nitrofoss products like Superturf. By the way,
Speaker 6: that's a silver silver bag if you're going by bag color,
Speaker 6: which makes it really easy easy to identify. I've mentioned
Speaker 6: before that you know gardening in fact, first thing this morning,
Speaker 6: first thing this morning, I was talking about gardening being
Speaker 6: a a h that we grow into and we learn
Speaker 6: and we change things, and it's just it's enjoyable and
Speaker 6: you can do that yourself, but you can also hire
Speaker 6: somebody to do it. And Pierscapes peerscapes dot com is
Speaker 6: the website. They can take care of everything for you,
Speaker 6: from design to hardscapes, to fixing irrigation to landscape lighting,
Speaker 6: to quarterly maintenance, trimming, weeding, fertilizing, checking the irrigation, doing
Speaker 6: seasonal color changes, making sure the mulch is kept up.
Speaker 6: They can keep those flowerbeds looking really good. So maybe
Speaker 6: you don't want anything added, you just want it maintained. Well,
Speaker 6: they can do that too, Pierscapes dot com two eight
Speaker 6: one three seven oh fifty sixty. I'll be right back. Hey,
Speaker 6: Welcome back to Guardline folks. On what is gonna be
Speaker 6: a nice Saturday. I'm looking forward to getting out and
Speaker 6: getting some things done after the show today. For those
Speaker 6: of you who you know, I don't know if how
Speaker 6: you listen to garden I'm always curious that you know,
Speaker 6: are people listening on the radio or they're listening on
Speaker 6: an app that they're listening on their computer. And there's
Speaker 6: a lot of ways you can listen to garden Line.
Speaker 6: One of the ways I think makes a lot of
Speaker 6: sense is to get a radio app like the iHeartMedia app.
Speaker 6: It's free and you can just put in garden Line
Speaker 6: on there and you can listen to past shows a podcast.
Speaker 6: Once I finish a show, they put it online so
Speaker 6: that you can listen, re listen if you missed the
Speaker 6: show for the first time listen, and you can also
Speaker 6: listen live on that app. And so you know, if
Speaker 6: I were not in here in front of a microphone
Speaker 6: talking to you. Once you get a little sunlight outside,
Speaker 6: I'm going to be outside getting some gardening done.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 6: Take my phone, turn it upside down and listen to
Speaker 6: the garden line while I'm working in the yard, because
Speaker 6: this is the season where we like to get that
Speaker 6: stuff done early in the day, right unless you just
Speaker 6: enjoy a sauna sweating outside. By the way, fall is coming.
Speaker 6: Fall is coming, and when fall gets here, there is
Speaker 6: a lot going on. So now would be a good
Speaker 6: time to build your soil. Whatever you're going to do
Speaker 6: to build your soil, get it done now. Maybe you
Speaker 6: want to plant broccoli this fall, or maybe you're looking
Speaker 6: forward to planting some cool season flowers like between our pansies. Well,
Speaker 6: build the soil now, because whenever the soil is not wet,
Speaker 6: or when it's moist not soggy wet, is a great
Speaker 6: time to mix in organic matter and make it better
Speaker 6: to bring in mixes and stuff. Then when planting season occurs,
Speaker 6: even if it's rainy and wet, you're ready to go.
Speaker 6: What did they say, make hay while the sunshines, right, Well,
Speaker 6: make garden beds while the sunshines while it's not rainy
Speaker 6: and things. That's just a little tip for you to
Speaker 6: think about. We've been talking about fertilizers and you know,
Speaker 6: we were discussing magnesium with the previous collar and I
Speaker 6: mentioned it had a little Christmas tree shape in the center,
Speaker 6: and it was a secondary nutrient. You know, we have primaries.
Speaker 6: It's nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Those three, the three numbers on
Speaker 6: a fertilizer big are primary nutrients, and all primary means
Speaker 6: is not they're more important, it's that they're needed in
Speaker 6: more quantity than other nutrients. There's twenty something nutrients that
Speaker 6: are all essential. They're all important, they're all essential. The
Speaker 6: secondary group would include things like magnesium and calcium for example.
Speaker 6: Those are secondary nutrients. Then we have the trace minerals,
Speaker 6: the ones that are in azumite. I've talked about asmite before.
Speaker 6: Those be things like molybdenum, manganese, copper, zinc, iron. Those
Speaker 6: are trace minerals. And we put the azamite out on
Speaker 6: our soil to build up the trace mineral content, and
Speaker 6: a soil test will tell you exactly where you are
Speaker 6: on all the different nutrients. And I always recommend starting
Speaker 6: with the soil test because that way you fertilize intelligently
Speaker 6: based on your soil. You know your soil and your
Speaker 6: neighbor's soil can be different, even though originally they're probably
Speaker 6: the same type of soil there, but they've been fertilized
Speaker 6: and amended in things, so the nutrient levels aren't the same.
Speaker 6: And soil tests a good way to do it. But
Speaker 6: as mite is those trace minerals, and generally I'll say
Speaker 6: just you know, once a year, do an as and
Speaker 6: mite application to your lawn to provide a bank account there.
Speaker 6: You know, those trace minerals don't make the grass grow.
Speaker 6: You know, nitrogen pushes new growth. That's pushes is not
Speaker 6: a good word, but it it basically, it stimulates the
Speaker 6: new growth. But these trade minerals they're not going to
Speaker 6: do that. But to support new growth, you have to
Speaker 6: have them. And so think of it as a bank account.
Speaker 6: You put the money in the bank account so when
Speaker 6: you need it you can make a withdrawal. That's what
Speaker 6: asamite is doing for your soil. It's putting trace minerals
Speaker 6: in the bank account. You can go to asimite Texas
Speaker 6: dot com find out more about it, and it's widely available.
Speaker 6: It's all over the place. It's much if I talk
Speaker 6: about some feed store, garden center, ACE hardware stores, you
Speaker 6: know Southwest fertilized all those places, or you're going to
Speaker 6: be able to get asamite there. They are set up
Speaker 6: to do just that. But soil building while the sunshines.
Speaker 6: That is something to remember. And I know you know,
Speaker 6: when you're having temperatures that are forecasts to be really
Speaker 6: hot outside, it's kind of hard to get excited about
Speaker 6: going to get soil or bringing soil in and going
Speaker 6: through all the amendments and whatnot. But this is a
Speaker 6: time to do it. Get it done in the early morning.
Speaker 6: You can take you can take a better part of
Speaker 6: a week just working just a little bit in the
Speaker 6: mornings to get those those things done, because then later
Speaker 6: you are going to have success. Remember it all begins
Speaker 6: in the soil, brown stuff before green stuff, and what
Speaker 6: that means is decomposed organic matter and fertilizers in the
Speaker 6: soil to create the best possible soil condition you can get.
Speaker 6: That's it I'm talking about. As mit Ace Hardware stores
Speaker 6: is a great place to get anything you hear me
Speaker 6: talk about here on Guardline. The fertilizers, including as might
Speaker 6: the micro nutrient or trace mineral application. If you have
Speaker 6: pests and diseases and weeds go to ACE Hardware. They've
Speaker 6: got it. They carry it all there, and you know,
Speaker 6: we've got forty of them in the Greater Houston areas.
Speaker 6: So close your eyes and throw a rock and you're
Speaker 6: probably going to get an ACE Hardware store. There's the
Speaker 6: minium around here. But seriously, you can go online to
Speaker 6: ACE Hardware dot com. That's the website Ace Hardware dot
Speaker 6: Com and find the store locator and you get a
Speaker 6: little map with the red dots all over it, and
Speaker 6: you can find every Ace Hardware store around you. Maybe
Speaker 6: you're you know, you're out visiting family and some other
Speaker 6: outside the Greater Houston area, you can find the ACE
Speaker 6: Hardware store near you. That I mean, they're everywhere, and
Speaker 6: they carry all the things we're talking about. Especially our
Speaker 6: Houston group. Those stores around here, we work together, and
Speaker 6: you know, so that I don't just start naming some
Speaker 6: product that they've never heard of. They are going to
Speaker 6: carry the things that I talk about on Guarden Line,
Speaker 6: and that's important. It's a one stop shop. And you
Speaker 6: know when you go onto ACE, you're gonna have You're
Speaker 6: gonna have everything else you could possibly need for setting
Speaker 6: up that beautiful area. You know, barbecue pits. It's still
Speaker 6: barbecue season, and hey, here comes football season, and what
Speaker 6: do we do. We have to put some burgers and
Speaker 6: hot dogs on the grill. Well, Ace Hardware can get
Speaker 6: you set up with grills, including grills on steroids like
Speaker 6: the Big Green Egg and the Traeger grills and the Weber.
Speaker 6: Weber's a great brand of grill and all the supplies
Speaker 6: that you need. Of course, I love outside to have
Speaker 6: those little strings of lights that create the ambiance.
Speaker 16: You know.
Speaker 6: I call them beer garden lights because you know that
Speaker 6: kind of gives you that outdoor setting under the trees,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of picture. Stringing some of those around
Speaker 6: outside just creates a beautiful ambiance. We start to get
Speaker 6: a little cooler weather and the little more pleasant to
Speaker 6: be outside late in the day, and you need to
Speaker 6: be set up. And that's just one of the things.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: ACE is the place. What do you need? Ace is
Speaker 6: a place They're going to have it. That is kind
Speaker 6: of nice to know. Alrighty, well, it looks like we're
Speaker 6: about to have to put this hour in the books.
Speaker 6: I believe I'm running out of time on it. Appreciate
Speaker 6: you staying with us through the first hour. We're going
Speaker 6: to be back for a second hour. Got planning more
Speaker 6: things to talk about. I got a few things I
Speaker 6: want to tell you about today as we get through
Speaker 6: the show. It's always a good time. I'm going into
Speaker 6: a break if you want to give us a call,
Speaker 6: if you're even to be right up on the boards
Speaker 6: there when we come back. Seven to one three two
Speaker 6: one two k t R seven to one three two
Speaker 6: one two k t R H. I want to remind
Speaker 6: you that if you're interested in the second annual Strawberry
Speaker 6: Jamboree and Lake Jackson, Texas, you're going to have a
Speaker 6: day full of speakers. You know, October is the best
Speaker 6: time to blent strawberries down here in our area. And
Speaker 6: if you go to this, it's September twenty first, from
Speaker 6: eight to noon, so all morning, September twenty first, Lake
Speaker 6: Jackson Civic Center. Want more information, here's a phone number
Speaker 6: nine seven nine eight six four fifteen fifty eight. Nine
Speaker 6: seven nine eight six four fifteen fifty eight are called
Speaker 6: the Brazoria County Extension Officebus taken Welcome back, Welcome back
Speaker 6: to Guardline. Good have you with us today. We've got
Speaker 6: plenty things to talk about today. If you'd like to
Speaker 6: give us a call, if you have a question or
Speaker 6: want a plan identified or whatever. The question is seven
Speaker 6: one three two one two kt r H. Seven one
Speaker 6: three two one two kt r H. It's as simple
Speaker 6: as that. I'd be glad to help you have a
Speaker 6: I like to put it this way. We want you
Speaker 6: to have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape.
Speaker 6: That's kind of a goal here on garden Line to
Speaker 6: guide you in the right direction. And if I can
Speaker 6: just rant for a minute, I just we allow me
Speaker 6: just a real quick rant here. Social media is not
Speaker 6: the place you need to get all your gardening information
Speaker 6: unless you really know the source. Unless you really know
Speaker 6: the source here. Here's why. What I find is that
Speaker 6: when you go on social media, anybody who has a
Speaker 6: computer can be an expert. And you see stuff. There's
Speaker 6: several categories. There's stuff that is just clickbait and it's
Speaker 6: a waste of your time. You know, put beer on
Speaker 6: your lawn. That was an old one, used to be
Speaker 6: real popular, and if it's weird, it's going to be popular.
Speaker 6: The second category are people that kind of know what
Speaker 6: they're talking about, but not really and so you know,
Speaker 6: you can start with the truth and end up in
Speaker 6: a lie. Okay, that because it's been or it's applied
Speaker 6: in a way that it doesn't apply, or you know,
Speaker 6: anything like that. That's that's the second category is like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I know why you're saying that, but what you're saying
Speaker 6: is wrong, or it's wrong for the Houston, Texas area,
Speaker 6: or it's wrong for a different version of the planet
Speaker 6: you're talking about or whatever. That's the second hutter. And
Speaker 6: then there are people that just wing it. And I'm
Speaker 6: always amazed when I see things posted and someone says, oh,
Speaker 6: what bug is this? And these people are just throwing
Speaker 6: out all these answers, and it's like, what where do
Speaker 6: you even come up with that? It's good to I've
Speaker 6: had to learn this. It's good to know when to
Speaker 6: keep your mouth shut right and just not be the
Speaker 6: expert out there. But that's social media for you. And
Speaker 6: so I always cringe at it, and I can. Boy,
Speaker 6: I wish we had a slide show I could put
Speaker 6: up right now for you to see of all the examples.
Speaker 6: A cluster of tomatoes where one tomato is primary blue
Speaker 6: and another one is primary red, and another one is
Speaker 6: primary purple. I mean not Cherokee purple tomato. I'm talking
Speaker 6: about purple tomato and another one is yellow and they're
Speaker 6: all on the same cluster. That doesn't happen. It's a lie.
Speaker 6: And they're selling seeds for this, and you know people
Speaker 6: are going to buy it. It's like, Oh, wouldn't they
Speaker 6: be cool to have that plant? Don't do it, don't
Speaker 6: believe it. It's just does that mean there's no truth
Speaker 6: on social But of course not. Of course not. Guardline
Speaker 6: has a Facebook page. I mean, so I'm there and
Speaker 6: I have an Instagram to you, but it's just saying
Speaker 6: that in general, it's it almost seems like the people
Speaker 6: that most don't know what they're talking about have the
Speaker 6: loudest boys, or at least they're they're ubiquitous and everywhere,
Speaker 6: and that that's just not a good a good way
Speaker 6: to get good gardening advice. You have a number of options.
Speaker 6: We've got garden Line Radio, we have got your local
Speaker 6: county Agrolife Extension office. Where in the greater Houston area
Speaker 6: you got, like I mek six different horticulturists. There's one
Speaker 6: in Montgomery County, Brises County, Harris County, Fort benk County,
Speaker 6: Brazoria County, Galveston County, Orange, out in Orange out there?
Speaker 6: Who am I leaving out? Don't want to leave anybody out.
Speaker 6: But anyway, there's a lot of horticulturists done here in
Speaker 6: the greater scenario too. There's way garden centers, the mom
Speaker 6: and pops, the independent garden centers. You go in there
Speaker 6: with your your picture or your question, or maybe you
Speaker 6: saw something on social media, you know, take it in
Speaker 6: on your phone and show it to them and say
Speaker 6: is this true? And just wait a minute, because it's
Speaker 6: gonna they're gonna have to get up off the floor
Speaker 6: where they were rolling around laughing. Answer your question, but seriously,
Speaker 6: don't don't be fooled by all that stuff. All right,
Speaker 6: Well that was my little soapbox. Thank you for allowing
Speaker 6: that to Hope you didn't turn off the radio. Uh
Speaker 6: A word of the wise, though, I'm telling you, what
Speaker 6: did Pt. Barnum say there's a sucker born every minute? Yeah,
Speaker 6: don't be that one when it comes to gardening. Uh,
Speaker 6: Martin Spoon Moore. Someone is asking me the other day
Speaker 6: whould I recommend for? And I can you know, I'm
Speaker 6: not going to finish the question, but it was a
Speaker 6: tree question and I just set Affordable Tree Service Martin
Speaker 6: spoon Moore. It's as simple as that. You need somebody
Speaker 6: that knows what they're talking about to deal with your trees.
Speaker 6: When someone shows up on your property with a chainsaw
Speaker 6: or any kind of saw and they don't know what
Speaker 6: they're doing, they can do damage that never gets fixed.
Speaker 6: Once you turn a big beautiful tree into a hat
Speaker 6: rack or some other version of that, it'll never be
Speaker 6: the same. I mean, and it's you gotta you gotta
Speaker 6: have somebody who knows what they're talking about. That's Martin
Speaker 6: spoon Moore an affordable tree. You can go to the
Speaker 6: website aff Tree Service dot com a fftree Service dot com,
Speaker 6: or you could just give him a call. Give Martin
Speaker 6: a call at seven one three, six nine nine twenty
Speaker 6: six sixty three. You know you should always listen to
Speaker 6: Garden Line with a pen and paper around, because I'm
Speaker 6: gonna give out websites and brand names and products and
Speaker 6: plant names and things that you want to write down.
Speaker 6: So hopefully you've grabbed it by now here. It goes
Speaker 6: again seven to one three six nine nine two six
Speaker 6: six three Affordable Tree Service. Uh, get ready for storms.
Speaker 6: When when storms hit, if a tree is properly pruned,
Speaker 6: it's less likely. Doesn't mean it guarantees you want have damage,
Speaker 6: but it's less likely to have damage. Have them properly proved,
Speaker 6: Have your trees trained right, anything you need done around
Speaker 6: a tree, trees living the roots. You put a trench
Speaker 6: by a tree and you have cut a huge section
Speaker 6: of the roots off. Call Martin first, how do we
Speaker 6: go about this? Have him come out. He charges for
Speaker 6: a consultation to come out. If you hire him to
Speaker 6: do some work. That consultation fee goes into the price
Speaker 6: of what you hired him to do. But have him
Speaker 6: come out and take a look at it before you
Speaker 6: make a mistake that you're gonna definitely regret later. It
Speaker 6: always I cringe driving around town and seeing the kinds
Speaker 6: of damage that had been done to trees, because I know,
Speaker 6: you know, so one the other day took a picture
Speaker 6: of it and it was like, that tree, just go
Speaker 6: ahead and take it out. It's over. It's over. I
Speaker 6: don't know, you know what kind of two jerks on
Speaker 6: a chainsaw tree service drove by. You know you own
Speaker 6: a pickup and and a chainsaw. You can call yourself
Speaker 6: a tree service. Anyway you get the idea. Well, let's
Speaker 6: take a little break here. I'll be right back. The
Speaker 6: number if you'd like to call in seven one three
Speaker 6: two one two KTR eight. Then if you would like
Speaker 6: to ask a gardening question, you can give me a
Speaker 6: call seven one three two one two k t R
Speaker 6: eight seven one three two one two k t R
Speaker 6: h nightro fives has a product called Sweet Green, and
Speaker 6: I've talked about it before. Here here's the thing that
Speaker 6: I think is really cool about sweet Green. Sweet Green
Speaker 6: is a molasses based product. That's where that's what it
Speaker 6: began with is molasses, and molasses is basically a bunch
Speaker 6: of carbon. Sugars are basically long chains of carbon, and UH,
Speaker 6: microbs need that, especially some of the beneficial backter we're
Speaker 6: talking about. That source of carbon is very important for
Speaker 6: them in order for them to proliferate and grow, and
Speaker 6: Sweet Green does just that. Organic gardeners have known for
Speaker 6: a long time that molasses can be beneficial for the plants.
Speaker 6: There's products that are just molasses that you put out.
Speaker 6: Sweet Green is eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer for your lawn
Speaker 6: and it releases those nutrients pretty quickly into the soil
Speaker 6: where microbes then do their work and the plant roots
Speaker 6: get access to that nitrogen that they want. Well, sweet
Speaker 6: green can be applied. It's about a ten or eleven
Speaker 6: percent nitrogen. So you put about let's see, ten pounds
Speaker 6: per thousand square feet. But right now, how I would
Speaker 6: recommend you use it. Listen to me here please, as
Speaker 6: I would put half of it down now, and then
Speaker 6: I'd weigh about a month and put another the other
Speaker 6: half of it down, so about five pounds now, about
Speaker 6: five pounds about a month, and kind of spread that
Speaker 6: out a little bit over time. After that we're going
Speaker 6: to be you know, it's really time to be doing
Speaker 6: our fall fertilization here, so you can go ahead and
Speaker 6: follow my schedule. And by the way, if you haven't
Speaker 6: seen my fertilizing schedule online, it's at Gardening with Skip.
Speaker 6: There's a schedule for mowing, watering, and fertilizing. That's the
Speaker 6: how to take care of your lawn schedule. Then there's
Speaker 6: a schedule for insects, pest diseases, weeds, all those kind
Speaker 6: of things, the things that want to attack our lawn
Speaker 6: or infest our lawn. That's a different schedule. Both are free.
Speaker 6: They're both there and if you look at them you'll
Speaker 6: see when we do fertilizing and the different products that
Speaker 6: I think will do a super job for you. So
Speaker 6: sweet Green from nitrofoss it smells wonderful. I like to
Speaker 6: kind of half tongue in cheeks say it smells so
Speaker 6: good you want to throw a bag in the back
Speaker 6: of your car and drive around the Loop in Houston
Speaker 6: one more time, just to enjoy the fragrance on the
Speaker 6: way home. Hey, where do you get sweet green? Well,
Speaker 6: you're gonna get it in Channa Forest Adam Richmond Rosenberg
Speaker 6: Growers outlet up and Willis carries it as well as
Speaker 6: RCW Nursery on Tomball Parkway right where it comes into
Speaker 6: built Way eight. Sweet Green. Our phone number is seven
Speaker 6: one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
Speaker 6: one three two and two five eight seven four if
Speaker 6: you would like to give us a call. I'm a
Speaker 6: broken record on garden line about preparing the soil.
Speaker 14: Right.
Speaker 6: It's because I know that that is the single most
Speaker 6: important thing you do to have successive plants, single most
Speaker 6: important thing that you do well. How do you do
Speaker 6: that well? One of the basic ways we do that
Speaker 6: is we put decomposed organic matter into the soil to
Speaker 6: create better structure, to improve internal drainage, Water drains down
Speaker 6: through the soil to improve aeration, Oxygen gets down deeper
Speaker 6: for a deeper, more resilient root system. All of that.
Speaker 6: And the place that's been doing this longer than about
Speaker 6: anybody is Nature's Way Resources. John Ferguson Ian Ferguson out
Speaker 6: there at Nature's Way, uh for a long time now,
Speaker 6: Nature's Way has been producing quality materials I'm talking about.
Speaker 6: You hear me talk about rose soil. Well, Nature's Way
Speaker 6: is where rose soil was born. You hear me talk
Speaker 6: about leath Moore composts for a lot of things, including
Speaker 6: top dressing a lot. Nature's Way is where that was born.
Speaker 6: They've been long. John is a walking encyclopedia and has
Speaker 6: been for a long time of all things soil. And
Speaker 6: all you need to do is head out there there
Speaker 6: on Sherwood Circle up as you're going up Interstate forty
Speaker 6: five where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia, you
Speaker 6: just exit their turn right instead of turning left toward Magnoia,
Speaker 6: turn right, go across the tracks that sherwood. Circle back
Speaker 6: in there, and that will be Nature's way. Take a truck,
Speaker 6: take a trailer, call them to make have them deliver
Speaker 6: it for you. Go buy and pick up bags of it,
Speaker 6: bags of composts, bags of these different soil mixes, bags
Speaker 6: of mulches to go on top of the soil surface.
Speaker 6: But here's something you need to do. You need to
Speaker 6: tell them that you heard about it on garden Line.
Speaker 6: All of these products, all these soil based products are
Speaker 6: on a special if you will a really good special
Speaker 6: if you will tell them that you heard about it
Speaker 6: on garden Line. So don't forget that. Make sure and
Speaker 6: mention that when you talk to them. Here's the phone
Speaker 6: number if you just want to give them a call.
Speaker 6: Nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine
Speaker 6: three six three two one sixty nine ninety Right now
Speaker 6: is the time to get your soil ready because if
Speaker 6: you're gonna plant herbs this fall, perennials this fall, woody
Speaker 6: ornamental shrubs, trees, vines, if you're gonna plant vegetables, flowers,
Speaker 6: whatever it is, do the bed prep now. And Nature's
Speaker 6: way resources helps you do the bad prep so that
Speaker 6: when it's time to plant it doesn't matter if it's
Speaker 6: been raining for three days. You can get right out
Speaker 6: in there and get your plant in the ground because
Speaker 6: you've prepared good soil using nature's way resources products. I
Speaker 6: think about this a lot. I always think about things
Speaker 6: that are hard to convince people of. For example, fall
Speaker 6: planting in spring. Everyone's a gardener. Everybody wants to be
Speaker 6: a gardener in spring. And when it comes to planting, though,
Speaker 6: the best season of the year for planting is in
Speaker 6: the fall. That means it's the only season we can
Speaker 6: plant twelve months out of the year here. But if
Speaker 6: you plant in the fall, let's say October November, for example,
Speaker 6: the plant has all winter when there's essentially no demands
Speaker 6: on it at all to speak of, to get that
Speaker 6: root system growing out of what was the cylinder roots
Speaker 6: and the container into the soil around it. So when
Speaker 6: next June comes, or when it may, when summer begins
Speaker 6: here in our area, when it heats up, that plant
Speaker 6: has a better root system than one that was planted
Speaker 6: in the spring. It's just a way to get there
Speaker 6: faster and easier. The recommend that you do your soil
Speaker 6: prep and you're planting, get that done in the fall.
Speaker 6: It's the best season of the year to put these
Speaker 6: things in. And I wish I could convince you that,
Speaker 6: just like trying to convince people to buy brown stuff
Speaker 6: when they're staring at all these plants with big, beautiful
Speaker 6: blooms on them, Well, just make a new Year's resolution
Speaker 6: and at the end of summer, and that resolution is
Speaker 6: if I buy a plant, I'm going to buy something
Speaker 6: to make the soil better. With that plant, go and
Speaker 6: fix the soil better, but always better. It's not a
Speaker 6: one and off. You're always improving it, fertilizing, compost, things
Speaker 6: like that. And then when you put that plant in,
Speaker 6: it's going to thrive. And you know, you go to
Speaker 6: a place like Plants for All Seasons, which is on
Speaker 6: let's see Tumball Parkway Highway FM two forty nine. Going
Speaker 6: up the Tamba Plants for All Seasons, you exit Luetta
Speaker 6: and it's just path past Luetta, just north of Luetta
Speaker 6: on two forty nine Tumbo Parkway. They have tons of
Speaker 6: plants there, but they also have all these soil products there.
Speaker 6: I mean, when you walk through the you know the
Speaker 6: stories you're heading toward checkout, they just all around you.
Speaker 6: There's soils there's fertilizers, there's everything you need to make
Speaker 6: the brown stuff right. Don't just grab a plant and
Speaker 6: head to the car. Grab something else to so that
Speaker 6: that plant is happy. If it's happy, it'll make you
Speaker 6: happy with blooms and fruit and whatever you're wanting to
Speaker 6: get out of that plant. Plants for All Seasons is
Speaker 6: the website, by the way, is Plants for All Seasons
Speaker 6: dot com. The phone number two eight one three seven six,
Speaker 6: sixteen forty six. Listen, when you go into there and
Speaker 6: you bring that stuff home, the plants and the soils
Speaker 6: and things, your brown thumb is going to get really green.
Speaker 6: And they also are experts on helping you with any
Speaker 6: kind of question that you might have for success with
Speaker 6: your plant. We're going to head now to Cyprus, Texas
Speaker 6: and talk to Ed. Hello, Ed, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you receive the photos I sent you.
Speaker 6: Uh, let's see here. I probably did find them. Tell
Speaker 6: me what the photos were of.
Speaker 2: Okay, there were of some mullygrass that got a why yes, yes,
Speaker 2: growth on the or I.
Speaker 6: Don't know what it is, absolutely yes, I did, okay,
Speaker 6: So Ed, there were two things. There was the wild
Speaker 6: morning glory was the vining beautiful flowered vining weed growing
Speaker 6: in there, and you need to follow it to where
Speaker 6: it comes out of the ground. There's gonna be a
Speaker 6: tuber underground that you can just dig that up, or
Speaker 6: you can apply a product to it. But you want
Speaker 6: to be real careful because the morning glory crawls all
Speaker 6: over your desirable plants, so if you spray it, you're
Speaker 6: probably gonna hurt the desire marble plants too. But that
Speaker 6: is one morning glory. The white stuff is a meai
Speaker 6: bug UH, and it's probably the mealy grass meaie bug.
Speaker 6: It attacks a lot of different types of mealy grass
Speaker 6: and other ornamental grasses too. By the way, UH and
Speaker 6: meali bugs are very difficult to get rid of. They
Speaker 6: hide and so products don't get to them. They have
Speaker 6: that protective fluffy coating, so your spray doesn't get down
Speaker 6: there to the bug. You know, it gets caught up
Speaker 6: on the outside. So what I would recommend is, if
Speaker 6: you've got those in there, which you do in the pictures,
Speaker 6: I would cut that grass all the way back down
Speaker 6: to the ground and I would get all the debris
Speaker 6: out of there, put it in a trash sack and
Speaker 6: get it off the property because it's going to be
Speaker 6: full of meai bugs. Your grass is going to send
Speaker 6: new growth up out of the base the crown of
Speaker 6: the plant. And then I would use a product that's
Speaker 6: a systemic insecticide to get in the plumbing of the
Speaker 6: plant so when those mealy bugs suck juices, they get
Speaker 6: the poison. It's like your that becomes a bait station.
Speaker 6: Now with a lot of plants, I don't recommend the
Speaker 6: systemics because we got bees coming to the flowers. With
Speaker 6: newly grass, we don't have that concern, So I would
Speaker 6: use There is one called Immido Cloak Bred some welcome back.
Speaker 6: Good to have you here with us on Guardenline. Hey,
Speaker 6: we're looking forward to talking to you about the things
Speaker 6: that are of interest to you. We also direct you
Speaker 6: to good sources for the various supplies that you need
Speaker 6: for your success, whether it's lawns, gardens, tree shrubs, vegetables
Speaker 6: all that.
Speaker 11: Well.
Speaker 6: Leake City Feed down in Leake City, Texas is a
Speaker 6: great source. We love feed stores here on Garden Line
Speaker 6: and down at Leake City. You're going to find all
Speaker 6: the fertilizers I talk about. You're going to find the
Speaker 6: products to help you have success, whether it's a fertilizer,
Speaker 6: controlling pests, diseases, weeds. All of that League City feed
Speaker 6: is on Highway three, just a few blocks of Highway
Speaker 6: ninety six in League City, Texas. All of those communities
Speaker 6: down there. I mean, I'm talking about not just a
Speaker 6: League City, but Santa Fe, Clear Lake City, Elkaemeno, Reale,
Speaker 6: San Leone, Lamark, Webster Bay Club, all of those communities.
Speaker 6: This is your hometown feed store and they're open Monday
Speaker 6: through Saturday from nine to six. Are closed tomorrow, closed
Speaker 6: on Sunday, but with the nine to six. If you're
Speaker 6: at work all day and you're swinging by on the
Speaker 6: way home, just stop in and grab what you need.
Speaker 6: It's that old time service. They carry the sacks out
Speaker 6: for you and they carry everything that I talk about
Speaker 6: on guardline, as well as quality pet food supplies for
Speaker 6: your backyard chickens, whatever you need. Here's a phone number
Speaker 6: two eight one three three two sixteen twelve two eight
Speaker 6: one three three two sixteen twelve to get to get
Speaker 6: a hold of the folks there at Leak City feet
Speaker 6: I'm going to head now out to Cypress again. I
Speaker 6: believe we're going to talk to Ed.
Speaker 10: Hello, Ed, Yes, so.
Speaker 2: Can you spell that systemic and sect the side again
Speaker 2: for the.
Speaker 6: Multigrass, Yes, it's I AM I.
Speaker 10: D O.
Speaker 1: C L O.
Speaker 6: P R I D Okay, got no prid. And if
Speaker 6: you come even work close to that and you say
Speaker 6: this is a systemic insecticide, they're gonna be able to
Speaker 6: They're gonna be able to tell you just if you
Speaker 6: just see the I M I D O part. That's
Speaker 6: the only in sex side I know that begins with
Speaker 6: those letters.
Speaker 2: Okay. Then one other thing, I've got armadillos. How do
Speaker 2: I control those things?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 6: They they're bumbling little things and they tend to come
Speaker 6: along and like if you've got a privacy fence or
Speaker 6: the side of the house, they kind of bounce along
Speaker 6: that and then go out into your yard and do
Speaker 6: the little digging. A live have a heart trap is
Speaker 6: a good way to do it, you know, one of
Speaker 6: those live capture traps. But you almost have to funnel
Speaker 6: them into it, like a couple of boards at the
Speaker 6: mouth of the trap pointing outward in a V shape.
Speaker 6: You see what I'm saying. So as there are bumbling,
Speaker 6: they're they're not smart, and so you kind of force
Speaker 6: them in. Here's a little trick that wildlife management specialists
Speaker 6: told me a long time ago works, and that is
Speaker 6: to get elbow macaroni, little elbow pasta and boil it
Speaker 6: in a beef boo yon. I guess that makes it
Speaker 6: taste like a tasty grub or something. I don't know.
Speaker 6: And you can don't put too many of them. You
Speaker 6: don't want to fill up the armadilla, but you can
Speaker 6: kind of put one and then a little further forward
Speaker 6: put another one, and you can kind of lead them
Speaker 6: into the trap that way, and once they get in there,
Speaker 6: then it closes behind them and you have to relocate
Speaker 6: them somewhere else. All right, thank you, all right, Okay,
Speaker 6: I was going to offer you recipes for armadilla, but
Speaker 6: I figured that probably wouldn't go over it. All right,
Speaker 6: take care of it. Thanks for the call. Appreciate that. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm told people eat those things. I cannot imagine that.
Speaker 6: That just doesn't work for me. Mental block. I'll try
Speaker 6: a lot of things. I'll try a lot of new things,
Speaker 6: but that one I'm gonna die domb on that impossum.
Speaker 6: You know, you can call me if you if you
Speaker 6: love either of those, to tell me why that's wonderful,
Speaker 6: But I'm not gonna go there. All right, Uh, we've
Speaker 6: had storms, this sprank, we had one heck of a
Speaker 6: one that put power out for a very long time.
Speaker 6: Then comes hurricane Barrel power out for a very long time.
Speaker 6: People are interested in getting a generator, and you by
Speaker 6: generators a lot of places, and you know, Generak is
Speaker 6: an outstanding brand. But I'm telling you, if you're going
Speaker 6: to get a generator, please listen to this. Quality Home
Speaker 6: Products of Texas is where you need to get it.
Speaker 6: They carry Generac as well as another brand of generators,
Speaker 6: but Quality Home it's all about the way that you're
Speaker 6: treated and the service you get before and after the seale.
Speaker 6: You walk in there you go, hey, I need a generator.
Speaker 6: They're not just going to be like, well here's the Cadillac,
Speaker 6: go buy this one. They're going to ask you what
Speaker 6: do you need it for? I mean, are you just
Speaker 6: trying to keep a refrigerator going? Is it a whole
Speaker 6: house that you need to get going?
Speaker 10: What is it that you need?
Speaker 6: And they designed that make sure you get the right generator.
Speaker 6: They come out and they pour a pad, not bringing
Speaker 6: in a little cheap pad that's going to crack that
Speaker 6: The generator comes all the way out to the edge
Speaker 6: of the pad, so you hit it with the lawnmar
Speaker 6: Now they have a they pour a bigger pad than
Speaker 6: the generator so that it protects that valuable piece of equipment.
Speaker 6: And they go through all the hoops of the permissions
Speaker 6: that you got to go through to get all that done,
Speaker 6: and the city codes and whatever. They do all that.
Speaker 6: All their technicians are in house. They don't have to
Speaker 6: subcontract out to some electrician to come in or some
Speaker 6: other technician to come in. They have those in house,
Speaker 6: and then after you they're there for service after the sale.
Speaker 6: That's why they've won the Pinnacle Award, the Better Business
Speaker 6: Bureau's most prestigious award for customer service eight times eight
Speaker 6: times over five fourteen thousand, five star reviews. Last time
Speaker 6: I looked. It's a family owned business since nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 6: right here in Houston, Texas. Quality tx dot com. That's
Speaker 6: the website. Quality tx dot COM's really good website. You
Speaker 6: can learn a lot, but you need to call them.
Speaker 6: Ay it's seven to one three quality, seven one three
Speaker 6: quality and find out they have financing options right now.
Speaker 6: If you trade in an old portable generator, any brand
Speaker 6: or size, five hundred dollars off of what you are
Speaker 6: about to purchase, so you can't go wrong. And if
Speaker 6: you're going to get one, talk to the folks at Quality.
Speaker 6: They know what they're talking about and they do take
Speaker 6: care of their customers. You're listening to Gardenline and we're
Speaker 6: here to answer any kinds of gardening questions that you
Speaker 6: may run across, for example, tables, lawns, weeds, trees, shrubs,
Speaker 6: whatever your questions are, just give us a call. Seven
Speaker 6: one three two one two kt R H seven one
Speaker 6: three two one two k t R H.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 6: I was talking with Joey from Enchanted Gardens out there
Speaker 6: in the Richmond area. In fact, Channed Gardens is actually
Speaker 6: on the north side of Richmond, that Katie Fullscher side
Speaker 6: of Richmond. They're out there on FM three point fifty nine.
Speaker 6: I was visiting with Joey a little bit over at
Speaker 6: the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association show in San Antonio.
Speaker 6: That was a little bit a week or so ago. Uh,
Speaker 6: and uh, you know, I always like going out to
Speaker 6: in Channa Gardens because it is such a wonderful place.
Speaker 6: It is enchanting number one. You get there and it's like,
Speaker 6: oh my gosh, this is big, and there's there is
Speaker 6: every kind of plant you can imagine, and the best varieties,
Speaker 6: new varieties, things you've never tried. Do you want to
Speaker 6: bring in hummingbirds? They've got every kind of hummingbird thing
Speaker 6: you can imagine there at Enchanted Gardens and Richmond. They
Speaker 6: have beautiful pottery out there, gorgeous pottery. And I think
Speaker 6: pottery is an investment. And if you buy cheap pottery,
Speaker 6: you get what you paid for, get you a quality piece.
Speaker 6: You have to buy it all at once, but gets
Speaker 6: you some quality pieces of pottery. And there's pretty is
Speaker 6: the plant you put in them out and Enchanted, you're
Speaker 6: going to find things that aren't so common, like, for example,
Speaker 6: creeping wiregrass or wire vine. Excuse me, creeping war vine.
Speaker 6: It is a really cool little groundcover that you don't
Speaker 6: just find everywhere. They've got that. Do you want to
Speaker 6: bring in butterflies? They have every kind of butterfly plant
Speaker 6: you can imagine there at Enchanted Gardens and much much
Speaker 6: much more beautiful garden. Blame everything all of the above
Speaker 6: at Enchanted Gardens. Here's the website, Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
Speaker 6: Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Go out there, but take
Speaker 6: some friends when you go, because this is a destination
Speaker 6: place to visit. I'll be right back. Hey, welcome back in.
Speaker 6: Good to have you with us. Good to have you
Speaker 6: with us here on garden Line. Looking forward to visiting
Speaker 6: with you about the things that are most interest to you.
Speaker 6: I did a post to our Facebook page the other
Speaker 6: day where I'm talking about Medina has to Grow supergrow Plus.
Speaker 6: Now Medina products, you've been familiar with them since the
Speaker 6: nineteen fifties. I believe they may even go further, but
Speaker 6: I believe that's when they begin, in other words, a
Speaker 6: long time, and they've been on garden Line for just
Speaker 6: about that minut of time too. Medina has to grow,
Speaker 6: there's the has to grow lawn, and there's the has
Speaker 6: to grow supergrow Plus for lawns. Also, the supergrol Plus
Speaker 6: has a sixteen zero two fertilizer content. A lot of
Speaker 6: things have fertilizer content in them. This one also includes
Speaker 6: a keylated form of iron. Now, when your long grass,
Speaker 6: when you're Saint Austine starts a yellow that's an iron
Speaker 6: deficiency and it can be due to various reasons. But
Speaker 6: by applying the supergril Plus, which by the way, it's
Speaker 6: a quart bottle, hooks up the garden hose, covers four
Speaker 6: thousand square feet. It takes about ten minutes to do it.
Speaker 6: By applying that, you're getting the folier nutrient on the plant,
Speaker 6: the grass plant, the grass blades, but you're also getting
Speaker 6: it done in the soil and it really helps with
Speaker 6: that iron chlorosis. It also has molasses. I was talking
Speaker 6: earlier about molasses and why we like that. It also
Speaker 6: has humic acid for example, and seaweed extract that is
Speaker 6: just a concoction. Now it's made. You know, it's promoted
Speaker 6: as a lawn fertilizer, but you can use it on
Speaker 6: a lot of other plants and gain the same kinds
Speaker 6: of benefits from it. Widely available like all Medina products
Speaker 6: here in the Greater Houston area. We're going to go
Speaker 6: now to the phones. I'm going to head out to
Speaker 6: Kingwood and talk to Bill. Hey, Bill, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 8: I have a question about box woods. The Okay, the
Speaker 8: problem we have is we have boxwoods around our and
Speaker 8: occasionally one of them will just turn bright yellow and dye.
Speaker 8: And I heard from rumor that there is some kind
Speaker 8: of fungus or something that invades the soil that will
Speaker 8: kill the box woods, and then if you plant another
Speaker 8: one in that location, it'll die too. So you probably
Speaker 8: know the whole story. So would you please at number
Speaker 8: eight for me?
Speaker 6: Yeah, boxes have several problems. Two of them are root problems.
Speaker 6: One is a vascular wilt. It plugs the plumbing of
Speaker 6: the plant and so it's like you cut the branch
Speaker 6: off and threw it on the sidewalk. The results are
Speaker 6: fast and they look like that, like what you're describing.
Speaker 6: There's not a spray or a drench for Verticillium or Fusarium,
Speaker 6: which are two common vascular wilts. Boxes. Secondly, in the
Speaker 6: soil get nematodes on the roots, especially in a sandy soil,
Speaker 6: but it can occur in other types and those make
Speaker 6: it less and less efficient. So it just looks like
Speaker 6: it needs to be watered and fertilized as it declined down.
Speaker 6: Typically that doesn't kill it. Boxwoods are pretty tough and
Speaker 6: they're able to survive with the nematods, but they don't
Speaker 6: look good then there's a boxwood blight, which is a
Speaker 6: disease and it can cause the complete death. And so
Speaker 6: I can't tell you what you're seeing on this one.
Speaker 6: You would have to have somebody take a look at it.
Speaker 6: One thing you can do is if you have one
Speaker 6: that's dyed the plant is it, but right before it's
Speaker 6: completely gone, while there's still some green in it, you
Speaker 6: can take a knife and slice the trunk. Slice into
Speaker 6: the trunk vertically like down the direction of the trunk,
Speaker 6: and underneath the outer bark you'll see some brown staining.
Speaker 6: The way I describe it as it's almost like a
Speaker 6: cigarette filter, you know, that has that tar staining in it.
Speaker 6: That's what it looks like. That's an indication of the
Speaker 6: soil born fungus problem. Now the blight itself, that's going
Speaker 6: to be something that's attacking above ground, and it just
Speaker 6: is what it is. Occasionally you get broken branches. Occasionally,
Speaker 6: had we just had a row coal winter, I would
Speaker 6: suspect coal damage splits to the trunk as well, which
Speaker 6: can happen. But so in other words, the answer to
Speaker 6: your question could be several answers, but those are some
Speaker 6: ways you can try to just tell between the two nematodes.
Speaker 6: You wash some soil up with a good strong blast
Speaker 6: of water, and the roots will have little bumps and
Speaker 6: knots on them, almost like an ugly sing string of
Speaker 6: pearls or the michelin Man kind of look.
Speaker 8: So, all right, those are a systemic thunge side that
Speaker 8: would treat one of those conditions.
Speaker 6: No, the systemics, there's just not one that's going to
Speaker 6: do a good job on verticillium and fusarium. It's a
Speaker 6: matter of just pulling them out, you know, And I
Speaker 6: know that is a horrible answer for someone who's spent
Speaker 6: money on a bunch of boxwoods. But they'll gradually work
Speaker 6: its way from one to the other across the plant.
Speaker 6: You'll see more and more because again, think of it
Speaker 6: as all those root tips are like the opening of
Speaker 6: straws that bring in water, and the straws take the
Speaker 6: water all the way up to the top. It affects
Speaker 6: some and then it affects others, and as it affects them,
Speaker 6: everything that those roots are feeding starts to turn ten
Speaker 6: and die. And if it's the blight again, you would
Speaker 6: need you can take a sample of a box would
Speaker 6: and that's probably the best thing to do. Get one
Speaker 6: that is dying but not dead. The plant clinic at
Speaker 6: an m will do diagnosis, but they can't do autopsies.
Speaker 6: So get one that's sick and you can see this
Speaker 6: one's going out. Pull it up, shake some soil off
Speaker 6: the roots, get some good roots with it, put it
Speaker 6: in a bag box. You can drive it up to
Speaker 6: the clinic. That's probably the easiest way. It's about an
Speaker 6: hour and fifteen minutes up the road and the clinic
Speaker 6: address is plant Clinic, Plant Clinic dot t a m
Speaker 6: U dot e edu, plant Clinic dot HAMMOU dot edu.
Speaker 6: And that way you can have them diagnosed. It's not
Speaker 6: that expensive to do. And if you're looking at a
Speaker 6: lot of boxwoods, it's cost effective to do that because
Speaker 6: then you know what the next step to take is
Speaker 6: instead of meet giving you all the possibilities.
Speaker 8: Okay, so that's just another example of nature developing a
Speaker 8: new disease that we can't control. Basically, well, well, some of.
Speaker 6: These have been around, Yeah, yeah, well that's yeah, that's
Speaker 6: what nature is. Hey, Bill, thanks, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 6: I'm gonna have to run, but thank you very much
Speaker 6: for that call. I appreciate that if you live up
Speaker 6: in the Conroe area, the Lake Conroe area, the Montgomery area.
Speaker 6: Ana Plants and Produce is a garden center that you've
Speaker 6: got to visit. It's your hometown garden center up there,
Speaker 6: that whole Lake Conroy area. A and A Plants and Produce.
Speaker 6: Right now, they have a hot summer sale going on
Speaker 6: any plant forty percent off, thirty percent off all their
Speaker 6: metal and pottery. And if you've ever been to Ana,
Speaker 6: you know they got tons of cool blaying up there.
Speaker 6: Metal and pottery, thirty percent off. Ana Plants and Produce
Speaker 6: on Highway one oh five on the east side of Montgomery, Texas.
Speaker 6: You got to go visit if you haven't been there,
Speaker 6: because this is a really cool place and there's always
Speaker 6: something new coming in at Anta Plants and Produce, And
Speaker 6: boy do they ever have a great selection of all
Speaker 6: the fertilizers I talk about, I including soil amendments as well.
Speaker 6: Let's see here, I'm going to Greg and Trinity. Greg,
Speaker 6: we're gonna hear music in a minute, and if we
Speaker 6: have to quit talking, I'll finish with you after the break.
Speaker 6: But how can I help?
Speaker 13: Great?
Speaker 1: Got a problem?
Speaker 13: Good morning?
Speaker 15: Hey, I planted some hybrid poplars.
Speaker 13: Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 15: Okay, I planned some hybrid poplars a few years back.
Speaker 15: Quick growing tree. They do about eighty eight a year. Uh,
Speaker 15: And I get the staff plan FuMB them off their
Speaker 15: root lines. They run a real shallow root line. And
Speaker 15: when I took those out, they grew pretty well in
Speaker 15: a bucket, and then I transplant them. My question to you,
Speaker 15: he is, should I plant them this year? They're about
Speaker 15: three feet tall in the buckets right now?
Speaker 6: All right, let me let me get there.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 6: Now, you want to plan them this fall in November?
Speaker 6: Pull them out of the bucket. You're not going to
Speaker 6: want to do this, but cut the roots that are
Speaker 6: circling in the pot. Put them in the ground in
Speaker 6: November and they'll have the best chance possible. Plan them
Speaker 6: if the same depth they were. Don't put anything in
Speaker 6: the planning hole, just the SOI you dug it out.
Speaker 6: This is the end of our segment. I'm gonna go
Speaker 6: ahead and put you on hold, but if you need
Speaker 6: to stick around, I'll be back. Welcome back. So good
Speaker 6: to have you with us. Glad you're listening in today.
Speaker 6: I'm going to take you about thirty minutes here and
Speaker 6: I'm bringing a special guest in that is a wealth
Speaker 6: of knowledge when it comes to things related to monarch,
Speaker 6: butterflies and milkweed. And I say that because, well, I'm
Speaker 6: talking about Howard and Amarov. Howard and I have been
Speaker 6: I guess, penpals in a sense in terms of, you know,
Speaker 6: communicating through our emails and whatnot over a number of
Speaker 6: years now. Howard's a certified master gardener text here in
Speaker 6: Texas with an advanced entomology certification. So when he's not
Speaker 6: research and Howard's out in his garden, his yard, the laboratory, right, he,
Speaker 6: like me, is forever curious, wanting to learn more and
Speaker 6: learn a good information. As part of his entomology research,
Speaker 6: Howard has read a number of peer reviewed papers, recent
Speaker 6: peer reviewed papers about monarch butterflies, about their migration, and
Speaker 6: about this plant, tropical milkweed that you've heard a lot
Speaker 6: about and you hear people say, don't plant it. You
Speaker 6: hear people say cut it down and the end of
Speaker 6: the year and it carries some disease of the monarchs.
Speaker 6: We're going to get to the bottom of all that here.
Speaker 6: I'm holding calls during this next thirty minutes. Once you
Speaker 6: get past about eight thirty or so, we'll be taking
Speaker 6: calls again. But first of all, I want to go
Speaker 6: to the phones and welcome Howard to garden Line. Hey, Howard,
Speaker 6: it's good to talk to you again. Welcome to garden
Speaker 6: Line Radio.
Speaker 10: Oh, thank you for having me on SKIP.
Speaker 6: Well, looking, I'm really looking forward to this. You know,
Speaker 6: I've picked your brain before on this issue. But we're
Speaker 6: talking about a disease that affects monarchs. Can you can
Speaker 6: you go a little bit into exactly what is that
Speaker 6: disease and how does it affect monarch butterflies?
Speaker 10: Okay, Well, the disease is Afrio sistus electroscira, and from
Speaker 10: here forward we will call that OE. It's acronym.
Speaker 6: I think everybody's thanking us for having a brief a
Speaker 6: brief oe for that long word.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, I understand. And it is a It's a
Speaker 10: parasite that commonly builds up primarily on tropical milk weed,
Speaker 10: and it gets consumed with when the moner caterpillars consume
Speaker 10: the leaves, they ingest this oe and it starts this
Speaker 10: replication cycle that results in when they come out of
Speaker 10: their chrysalis, they have these spores on their wings, and
Speaker 10: then when they fly off, they will spread those spores
Speaker 10: to other milkweed, and that could include native milk weeds.
Speaker 6: I see. It's like coronavirus spreading around the country. Huh,
Speaker 6: from one person to another.
Speaker 10: Yeah, there with people who are not isolating or you know,
Speaker 10: and when they're sick. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Okay, So you mentioned that they come out, but a
Speaker 6: lot of times doesn't it affect the development of the
Speaker 6: butterfly in the crysalis itself.
Speaker 10: It does in many of the monarchs emerged deformed and
Speaker 10: they can't fly, but there is a small percentage that
Speaker 10: remain healthy enough to fly off and spread these bores
Speaker 10: onto other milk weeds.
Speaker 6: Wow, okay, well, so actually I guess that I'm not
Speaker 6: making it is a good thing for the sake of
Speaker 6: all the monarch population. But that's correct. Well, why are
Speaker 6: we talking about tropical milk weed, because you know, that's
Speaker 6: the one you see most in garden centers. I know
Speaker 6: a lot of people have promoted the milkweeds, but it's
Speaker 6: basically the tropical that everybody's planting. And what's wrong with
Speaker 6: that plant? Why aren't other milk weeds just as bad
Speaker 6: as that?
Speaker 10: Well, tropical milk weed has it's well adapted to our climate,
Speaker 10: so it stays evergreen. And that's the challenge because plants
Speaker 10: like tropical milkweed that keep their leaves all and into
Speaker 10: the fall will continue to have those spores on their leaves.
Speaker 10: Native milk weeds generally go dormant once or twice during
Speaker 10: the growing season, so when they do any any spores
Speaker 10: that were on those leaves fall away to the soil
Speaker 10: and disappear from this cycle. So when they push new
Speaker 10: leaves out from their roots, those leaves are clean, and
Speaker 10: if a monarch comes along and eats those leaves, then
Speaker 10: they won't get infected.
Speaker 6: I see, well that that makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 6: And I think is there some other stuff about tropical
Speaker 6: milk weed where just feeding on the planet itself, aside
Speaker 6: from the spore concern, may be an issue for the monarchs.
Speaker 10: And I'd like I like to preface this that I
Speaker 10: used to grow tropical milk weed until I read a
Speaker 10: lot of research that all pointed in the same direction
Speaker 10: from slightly different perspectives. Researchers have found that the monarchs
Speaker 10: who feed on the tropical milk weed as larvae have
Speaker 10: less effiicient metabolism and shorter and smaller wings. Now, both
Speaker 10: of these mutations make it harder to fly long distances,
Speaker 10: which damages the migration. Basically, these monarchs are less likely
Speaker 10: to complete the migration. And that's really what we want
Speaker 10: to support, is that migration that's been going on for
Speaker 10: thousands of years, right.
Speaker 6: That and the fact that we would not like them
Speaker 6: to be carrying the spores around. You know, when they
Speaker 6: go back to Mexico, there's all the pursures of them
Speaker 6: in the forest, just as like solid butterflies there in
Speaker 6: the fourth Yeah, okay, so even the planet itself has
Speaker 6: some issues. You know, I've had tropical milk weed for
Speaker 6: a very long time and I love the plant, you know,
Speaker 6: for a number of different reasons, and so this is
Speaker 6: kind of interesting to put it in a spotlight here
Speaker 6: and talk about it a little bit and some of
Speaker 6: the issues that maybe people weren't aware of. That's one
Speaker 6: reason I wanted to have you on, just so people
Speaker 6: get a chance to hear a little bit more, a
Speaker 6: little bit more about that. So now, what what what
Speaker 6: is a gardener?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 6: You know, can can we do to help this issue?
Speaker 6: I know, planting the natives is important. Uh, and and
Speaker 6: there are a number of species around they're often kind
Speaker 6: of hard to find.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's that's a problem, Uh that the natives are
Speaker 10: not available at the wholesale level, so the retailers couldn't
Speaker 10: find them for sale. And there's uh this, there's a
Speaker 10: lot of people who are concerned. And one of these
Speaker 10: concerns is they're they're promoting is well, plant more milkweed.
Speaker 1: Ford.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm sorry to have to interrupt.
Speaker 6: I'm not looking at my clock, and I got this
Speaker 6: hard break here. We're going to come right back. Stay teen, folks,
Speaker 6: We're gonna come right back to this point with Howard.
Speaker 6: I'll be right back if you will come back. I'm
Speaker 6: gonna jump right in here into the music. We want
Speaker 6: to get right back out to talking with Howard Nemoroff,
Speaker 6: Howard Numerff, Certified Master Gardner, Advanced Entomology training and we're
Speaker 6: talking about monarchs and tropical milk weed, and Howard, I
Speaker 6: kind of cut you off there in the middle of
Speaker 6: a native milkweed a spiel. We've got some great nursery
Speaker 6: Sharon Houston that really focus on native plants, and we
Speaker 6: can find a few of the natives here. They're a
Speaker 6: little bit of a challenge though. You kind of have
Speaker 6: to adjust your thinking in that. You know, they don't
Speaker 6: sit there and look pretty all year. You know, they
Speaker 6: like you said, they do their bloom and then they
Speaker 6: drop leaves, and so you may want to elaborate just
Speaker 6: a bit on that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they do, and their best planted it amongst a
Speaker 10: number of other plants. So think think a pocket prairie.
Speaker 10: Think of of a space where you have a number
Speaker 10: of native plants that work together. So when the milk
Speaker 10: weeds go dormant, it doesn't really impact your your visual appeal,
Speaker 10: and it doesn't stop the pollinators from visiting your gardens.
Speaker 10: So everything keeps rolling along and then the milk weeds
Speaker 10: will do their thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's a that's a very good point because
Speaker 6: you know, we have our standard Saint Augustine. Half the
Speaker 6: plants in the landscape originated in Asia, you know, those
Speaker 6: kind of landscapes, and then we have the natives, and
Speaker 6: the natives it's a different look. It's a beautiful look.
Speaker 6: But I think that's a is a very very good
Speaker 6: point to make. I want to go ahead, No, go ahead,
Speaker 6: I'll come.
Speaker 10: I was just going to say that you don't really
Speaker 10: need to plant milk weeds. The research is showing that
Speaker 10: the population monoch populations and the stable for the last
Speaker 10: decade or more, and that there's enough native milk weed
Speaker 10: in the summer breeding range to maintain the population.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, skip, Okay, all right, Well, what can a
Speaker 6: gardener do to help support monarchs other than not planning
Speaker 6: the tropical milkweed? What are some things you can do
Speaker 6: to really support the monarch.
Speaker 10: Well, what we need to support here in Texas is
Speaker 10: the migration. They come through here from their Mexico overwintering
Speaker 10: site in the spring and then they come back from
Speaker 10: the north in the fall and they pass through Texas.
Speaker 10: They all pass through Texas. So what they really need
Speaker 10: is fuel. They need nectar to refuel so they can
Speaker 10: complete their migration. So a simple but powerful contribution that
Speaker 10: everybody should be able to make is to grow nectar flowers.
Speaker 10: And they could be betting plants that you can buy
Speaker 10: in spring. It could be Zenya's for example, that you
Speaker 10: buy at the stores. It could be popular natives like
Speaker 10: Greg's mist flower, or verbinas or echinaesia, the you know,
Speaker 10: purple cone flower. There's there's a lot of options that
Speaker 10: are really doable for pretty much any gardener.
Speaker 6: And then you still are attracting them to your landscape,
Speaker 6: so you get to enjoy them and you are and
Speaker 6: everything like that. That makes sense. That's just what we
Speaker 6: do with hosaft. You know, we we fuel them up
Speaker 6: so they can The fact that a hummingbird can fly
Speaker 6: across the Gulf of Mexico is still blows but we
Speaker 6: have to feel that kind of true. Yeah, I would
Speaker 6: exactly a mile out from shore, I would run out
Speaker 6: of energy and turn around.
Speaker 10: It's amazing what they can do. Yeah, and the monarchs.
Speaker 10: Remember is some of these monarchs coming from southern Canada,
Speaker 10: so they are traveling three thousand miles in the fall
Speaker 10: to get to Mexico.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Wow. And you watch a butterfly fly and it's
Speaker 6: not exactly like a homing pigeon. That's you know, like
Speaker 6: a bullet shutting past. It takes some few capes to
Speaker 6: get there. Well, it's good. You know some other good
Speaker 6: native plants that we would talk about, and I think
Speaker 6: you included this in a program I saw that you did.
Speaker 6: The latrous which is called gay feather. It's a native species.
Speaker 6: Maximilian sunflowers another one I think that you had on
Speaker 6: the list. That is one that blooms in the fall,
Speaker 6: late summer fall season, so it spreads it out. Verbinas
Speaker 6: Joe pieweed, golden rod another full blooming plant. Purple cone
Speaker 6: flowers another native plant that does well. And then you
Speaker 6: mentioned the misflower, the Greg's missflower, and another one called
Speaker 6: shrubby bone set that's another type of misflower that does well.
Speaker 6: I just want to get some names out there for
Speaker 6: people to consider.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and then when you go to these go to
Speaker 10: the gars. You know, they may have some other suggestions.
Speaker 10: But we need to remember that monarchs have been coming
Speaker 10: through here for thousands of years, so they have been
Speaker 10: finding native plants to refuel on. And so it gives
Speaker 10: us a lot of options if we just look up
Speaker 10: and find out what's native to our local area, which
Speaker 10: are our county.
Speaker 13: Or you know our.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's true. In fact, I think this you'll find
Speaker 6: this interesting.
Speaker 12: Well.
Speaker 6: One of our garden centers of Buchanan's Native Plants in
Speaker 6: the Heights of Houston, they actually have a table where
Speaker 6: it's just Harris County natives. You know, it's just natives, right,
Speaker 6: here as opposed to be in a Texas Native which
Speaker 6: is much broader range, which I think is kind of cool. Well, so, people, I.
Speaker 10: Definitely agree with that principle. Good. Yeah, No, I definitely
Speaker 10: think you try and find county label level natives. And
Speaker 10: I've heard about Buchanans. I don't live there, but I
Speaker 10: know a number of people gardeners that really think highly
Speaker 10: of the set they're promoting the local natives.
Speaker 6: Well, when you're ready to jump in the car and
Speaker 6: head this way, I have to give you a list.
Speaker 6: We have more of these centers that I've ever seen here,
Speaker 6: you know. I know over in Austin area and in
Speaker 6: San Antonio there's a lot of great garden centers, but
Speaker 6: oh my gosh, North, South, East West ones that you
Speaker 6: go into and it's like, why can't I have something
Speaker 6: like this where I live, you know, because they're they're
Speaker 6: interesting and cool. Well, okay, so now I'm gonna I
Speaker 6: kind of, I guess a little bit put you on
Speaker 6: the spot in that. Uh And we talked about this before,
Speaker 6: but uh, I'm aware of the fact that people listening
Speaker 6: to the show, everybody's not gonna go out and pull
Speaker 6: up their their tropical milk weed. It just doesn't quite
Speaker 6: work that way.
Speaker 10: Uh uh.
Speaker 6: And while that I know for you, that's a passion
Speaker 6: and a concern for sure, for reasons of your research.
Speaker 6: If someone has a tropical milkweed plan, uh and they're
Speaker 6: just like, you know, okay, what can I do to
Speaker 6: minimize the issue, especially the issue with the disease on
Speaker 6: the plant? What what would you recommend? I know you're
Speaker 6: going to try talking and pulling it out and putting
Speaker 6: a different milk weed in bute to at least make
Speaker 6: it less of a concern.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm not a garden nazi. I'm not going to
Speaker 10: come and harass people or break in and pull out
Speaker 10: pull out their tropical milk weed. I do recommend removing it, however,
Speaker 10: best practices if if you're going to keep it. If
Speaker 10: you're going to keep.
Speaker 6: It, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 10: Oh no, it's not good in Texas to crash into
Speaker 10: somebody else's property. But anyway, if there's two times a
Speaker 10: year when you you should cut it down to the ground. Remember,
Speaker 10: tropical milk weed is a perennial, so we'll come back
Speaker 10: from the roots. So if you cut everything down to
Speaker 10: the ground in late winter, early spring, before the monarchs
Speaker 10: arrive from Mexico, they'll have fresh leaves. And if you
Speaker 10: cut it down to the ground again in late September
Speaker 10: before the monarchs arrive on their way to Mexico, you
Speaker 10: will also help the migration because research has also found
Speaker 10: that some of the females drop out of their reproductive
Speaker 10: dormant cycle to lay eggs when they find tropical milk weed.
Speaker 10: What we really want to do is we want those
Speaker 10: females to travel all the way to Mexico, where they
Speaker 10: will come back from in the spring and lay eggs
Speaker 10: as they start their natural journey north.
Speaker 6: Okay, so just to in a nutshell, you said, cut
Speaker 6: it to the ground at the end of winter, cut
Speaker 6: it to the ground again at the end of September,
Speaker 6: and that's right, I'm not correct. Okay, all right, Well,
Speaker 6: I know you you know your your your main concern
Speaker 6: is is looking toward native milkweeds and recognizing the fact
Speaker 6: that probably we do a better benefit to the monarchs
Speaker 6: by getting the flowers that fuel them. But I know,
Speaker 6: we got a lot of different versions of gardeners out
Speaker 6: there that that uh uh, you know, are going to
Speaker 6: to one degree or another change the way they garden
Speaker 6: or not. Wow, well, we got about three minutes left here.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 6: So one thing that Lincoln that I got from you
Speaker 6: is from the Native Plants Society in Texas and it's
Speaker 6: bring Back the Monarchs to Texas. And uh, of course
Speaker 6: they're going to come here whether we bring them back
Speaker 6: or not. But the article is really good and it's
Speaker 6: at the website. I'm not going to give you the
Speaker 6: whole thing to this article, but it's n P s
Speaker 6: o T dot org. So n P s o T
Speaker 6: is Native Plant Society of Texas dot o r G.
Speaker 6: And the article is bring Back the Monarchs to Texas.
Speaker 6: And it's a very very helpful article.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
Speaker 10: I can't remember exactly right now every detail, but they
Speaker 10: do give people a lot of good tips on how
Speaker 10: you can do it. And like you said, you have
Speaker 10: you have gardeners at different levels of knowledge and experience.
Speaker 10: So it gives people an opportunity to read up on
Speaker 10: what they can do and then figure out what works
Speaker 10: best for me and my garden that I can do.
Speaker 6: Well. And that's that is really true. And I know
Speaker 6: you you know as an aster gardener, uh and just
Speaker 6: a lifetime gardener.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: You recognize the importance of things that that we grow here,
Speaker 6: choosing things we go here, designing our landscapes appropriately, whether
Speaker 6: we're looking at water conservation or you know, taking care
Speaker 6: of our beneficial insects and all of those. There's a
Speaker 6: lot of practices. Yeah, and it all begins one garden
Speaker 6: at a time.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it does. And you made a good point, and
Speaker 10: I'd like to make make this point that what you
Speaker 10: do that that benefits other pollinators. I got a will
Speaker 10: benefit monarchs. Yeah, it'll benefit monarchs. And what benefits monarchs
Speaker 10: benefits all of our native pollinators that live here all
Speaker 10: year round.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that is true. That is absolutely the case.
Speaker 6: I Uh, I lost part of what you said my
Speaker 6: my audio uh clicked out a second there. But talking
Speaker 6: about with all the other important native pollinators and taking
Speaker 6: care of them, and there is so much that we
Speaker 6: can do in order to do that. Well, Howard, I
Speaker 6: really appreciate you taking time to come on today. It's
Speaker 6: been wonderful. I know, I'm gonna I'm gonna hear a
Speaker 6: lot about you know, the talk, the information that you provided,
Speaker 6: and one thing that I just wasn't aware of was
Speaker 6: the issue of just feeding on that plant is not,
Speaker 6: as I'm gonna say, not as nutritious, not as helpful
Speaker 6: for the butterfly development or whatever is specifically that and
Speaker 6: that that was kind of interesting as well. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: have to run to a break, but thank you again.
Speaker 6: I appreciate look forward to future corresponding with you on
Speaker 6: this and a lot of other topics as we have
Speaker 6: in the past. So thank you for being a guest
Speaker 6: on Guardline.
Speaker 10: Well thanks for having me skied.
Speaker 6: Yes, sir, you you enjoyed that segment. I thought it
Speaker 6: was very informative and very helpful when it comes to,
Speaker 6: you know, our dealing with butterfly gardening and the monarchs
Speaker 6: and some of the issues that we've heard before. I've
Speaker 6: always heard bits and pieces of it, but I got
Speaker 6: a little bit bigger, bigger picture, I think in visiting
Speaker 6: with mister Nemrov, I want to remind you, or not
Speaker 6: remind you, tell you for the first time. Actually, the
Speaker 6: Montgomery County Fall Home and Outdoor Living Show is coming up.
Speaker 6: It's two weeks from today and it's over the weekend
Speaker 6: two weeks from day, September seventh and September eighth, and
Speaker 6: this is always a great show up there. In the
Speaker 6: Montgomery County area. It is at the Lone Star Convention
Speaker 6: and Expo Center and I'm going to be there on Saturday,
Speaker 6: So all of you listening up in the like Conroe
Speaker 6: area up Conroe, willis just that whole direction, come on out.
Speaker 6: I'd like to meet you. I'm going to be given
Speaker 6: a talk on fall gardening, not just vegetables, but fall
Speaker 6: gardening in general, and then I'll be answering your gardening questions.
Speaker 6: I'll be having a lot of different kinds of products,
Speaker 6: supplies and stuff. We're going to be given away some
Speaker 6: different things that I think you would be very interested in,
Speaker 6: and just there for the Q and I always like
Speaker 6: to meet the folks that listen to garden Line. That's
Speaker 6: the Montgomery County Fall Home and Outdoor Living Show September
Speaker 6: seventh and eighth at the Lone Star Convention Center and Expostcenter.
Speaker 6: Now you can find out more by going to techswood
Speaker 6: Shows dot com, Textwood, t exwod Shows, all one word
Speaker 6: dot com. I'm going to be there on Saturday, and
Speaker 6: i'll get there I believe about noon. I believe that's
Speaker 6: what I've got scheduled to show up and be there
Speaker 6: for a couple hours actually out at the show, so
Speaker 6: twelve to two. Yeah, that's correct. All right, folks, I'm
Speaker 6: going to head straight out to the phones now. No,
Speaker 6: we had some folks that have been waiting to talk.
Speaker 6: We're going to go to Cyprus and tuck to Nick. Hello, Nick,
Speaker 6: Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 10: Hello.
Speaker 17: How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm well, thank you? Okay, okay, yes, sir, I just
Speaker 6: want to check in on about I have two.
Speaker 18: Texas sage bushes growing in the front yard and I'm
Speaker 18: about to cut back. Yes, I want to cut them
Speaker 18: back to give them some shape. I was curious about
Speaker 18: what time. What's the best time to do that?
Speaker 6: Before any time? Yeah, it's a it's a shrub. It's
Speaker 6: an evergreen shrub. So, I mean people share their shrubs
Speaker 6: all the time. Depending on what the goal is, you
Speaker 6: can share Texas sage. It affects its bloom. Show to
Speaker 6: do that, I mean, it doesn't mean it keeps it
Speaker 6: from blooming. It just means you've you've created a wall
Speaker 6: instead of a I when I trim my Texas sage
Speaker 6: in the past, I will go in and do what's
Speaker 6: called thinning. So if you imagine this kind of bushy
Speaker 6: plant that has never been trimmed, and you got a
Speaker 6: gangly shoot going out here on the left side, and
Speaker 6: so you go back and you cut it off where
Speaker 6: it joins another shoot. And so when you get through pruning,
Speaker 6: it doesn't look sheared. It just looks smaller. Do you
Speaker 6: see what I'm saying? And so, okay, there's two ways
Speaker 6: to do it. One is shearing, which is kind of
Speaker 6: unnatural and I don't like the results. The other is
Speaker 6: to bring things back by cutting a long shoot back
Speaker 6: to where a side shoot occurs, and you just kind
Speaker 6: of bring it into a little better shape that way.
Speaker 6: So those are your options.
Speaker 18: Okay, excellent, Thank you.
Speaker 6: I appreciate it. All right, So thanks for the call.
Speaker 6: I appreciate appreciate that very much. We're going to go
Speaker 6: now to Larry and sugar Land.
Speaker 1: Hello Larry, Hello Sarah. How are you.
Speaker 6: I'm well. I'm well. You sent me some pictures of
Speaker 6: some unhappy grass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, only the one section, the one rectangle there. The
Speaker 1: rest of my yard front and back is beautifulest and
Speaker 1: great shape. What do you think is going on?
Speaker 6: Let me tell you, yeah, let me tell you what
Speaker 6: I see. Number one, My first question is does that
Speaker 6: front area between the curb and the sidewalk get watered
Speaker 6: as efficiently as the rest of the lawn does. And
Speaker 6: that's rhetorical. You just kind of do with that as
Speaker 6: you wish. I'm to ensure that the fact that the
Speaker 6: grass looks good in the yard and bad between the
Speaker 6: curb and the sidewalk. The first thing I think of
Speaker 6: is chinchbugs. Now, chinchbugs make it look like the grass
Speaker 6: hasn't been watered. It shrivels up, it starts to die
Speaker 6: back slowly as the chinchbugs just more and more increase
Speaker 6: their population and march out into the lawn finding new
Speaker 6: grass runners to suck the juices out of. That's kind
Speaker 6: of how they work, so they almost always start in
Speaker 6: the sun next to a curb. One specific thing I
Speaker 6: noticed in your photo is that there's a couple of
Speaker 6: places where the tree branches probably tend to shade more,
Speaker 6: and the grass looks better there. So that makes me
Speaker 6: think not so much chinchbugs, but maybe the watering isn't
Speaker 6: as good, so the demands are less where they're shade.
Speaker 6: But my bottom line is my best guess is you've
Speaker 6: got chinchbugs out there, and they will cross over the
Speaker 6: sidewalk and start into the rest of the lawn. You
Speaker 6: need to part the grass, get on your hands and
Speaker 6: knees in the zone between healthy and dead. You know,
Speaker 6: once they kill grass, they move on. They won't be
Speaker 6: in dead grass, they'll be in living grass. Part it.
Speaker 6: Go online. Look at a chinchbug. What they look like.
Speaker 6: They're really tiny. They're very small. They're like an eighth
Speaker 6: of an inch long, black and white. The younger ones
Speaker 6: are kind of a bronze red color with a white
Speaker 6: stripe across their back. But once you see them. Another
Speaker 6: way to check for them, Larry, is to get some soap,
Speaker 6: like a dish soap ivory liquid kind of thing, or
Speaker 6: better than that, actually better than that is the lemon
Speaker 6: scented soaps that you wash dishes in and put it
Speaker 6: in a watering can with water. Just squirt a little
Speaker 6: soap in there, you don't need a lot, and then
Speaker 6: pour that watering can into that zone between healthy and
Speaker 6: dead where we think the chinchbugs are most feeding, and
Speaker 6: you'll see them come crawling up out of the truck.
Speaker 6: They hate that wet soapy material. It brings them crawling
Speaker 6: straight up out of there.
Speaker 1: That's another way to check Okay, now I put on
Speaker 1: bug out a couple of weeks ago, you know, with
Speaker 1: an anticipation that maybe something was going on. And you know,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, well the dead is dead.
Speaker 6: It works. Yeah, it works, it works, and so you
Speaker 6: may be that some damage was done and you've shut
Speaker 6: it down. That's why I always say check for them,
Speaker 6: because I hate to send people out with more and
Speaker 6: more pesticides when the problem doesn't need that. So you'll
Speaker 6: check that first. But that'd be my suggestion.
Speaker 1: Okay, well you've got a shot. Take it question. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry this some bug this. Uh, We've got some hibiscus
Speaker 1: in the backyard that are just doing great. Should I
Speaker 1: bet they're of course blooming all the time. Should I
Speaker 1: kept them back? And you know what, what what do
Speaker 1: I do? They're getting they're getting big.
Speaker 6: Okay, is this a tropical hibiscus shinier leaves and really
Speaker 6: beautiful colored blooms, or is this the perennial hibiscus that's
Speaker 6: got either red, pink or white blooms that dies to
Speaker 6: the ground and comes back.
Speaker 1: No, these don't don't die back. Of course we protect them,
Speaker 1: but no, they are tropical.
Speaker 6: I guess what what what color are the blooms.
Speaker 1: Oh lords, got some yellow red? Yeah? Okay, okay, got
Speaker 1: more red, pink okay.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, tropical, that's an issue. Look, I'm gonna have
Speaker 6: to hit a break here and come back. Can you
Speaker 6: hold on and we'll finish. Yeah, I'll be happy to
Speaker 6: side of bright all right, We'll be right back, folks.
Speaker 6: The number seven one three two one two five eight
Speaker 6: seven four. I'll be right back to the guardline. We're
Speaker 6: glad you're with us. Appreciate you listening in. Have you
Speaker 6: been RCW Nursery before those of you listen? You know
Speaker 6: that's the garden center. That's where Tumble Park, Wind Bilt
Speaker 6: Way eight come together. RCW Nurseries dot Com is their website.
Speaker 6: RCW Nursery dot com. Right now, they have an August
Speaker 6: sale that you need to listen to. This fifty percent
Speaker 6: off select roses. And they carry more types of roads
Speaker 6: than anybody I know. They've got certain ones that are
Speaker 6: off fifty percent and that is unbelievable. Fifteen percent off
Speaker 6: all the trees and then include citrus trees. So if
Speaker 6: you've thought about putting in a citrus, now's a good
Speaker 6: time to get it in because you wanted to settle
Speaker 6: in and establish before winter comes. Fifty percent off all
Speaker 6: Cajun hibiscus, my favorite type of hibiscus. Really, I just
Speaker 6: I love my Cajun hibiscus. And ten percent off all
Speaker 6: the shrubs. So what kind of shrubs do you need
Speaker 6: to replace in your landscape or do you want to
Speaker 6: add to your landscape. This is all part of the
Speaker 6: August Island Listen, August is almost over. Don't delay if
Speaker 6: you want to take advantage of this really really good deal.
Speaker 6: It's got to happen either this weekend or next week.
Speaker 6: And RCW Nurseries is a place to go for that
Speaker 6: and a lot of other things. What a deal, What
Speaker 6: a great time to get that done. Let's head out now.
Speaker 6: We're going to go to Larry and sugar Line. Hey Larry,
Speaker 6: we are back now, and I think you kind of
Speaker 6: had a follow up question. Could you repeat that for
Speaker 6: folks who just joined out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, We've got some hibiscus in the back that are
Speaker 1: just doing great and I'm just trying to They're almost
Speaker 1: out growing, They're getting so big. When do you trim them?
Speaker 1: Their you know, blooming beautifully. Everything is super, But when
Speaker 1: do I need to trim them back? A little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can do the pretty much anytime. Being a
Speaker 6: tender species, we try to avoid pruning them after August.
Speaker 6: And here's an example. You know, you get into late
Speaker 6: September or October and you prune them back, and here
Speaker 6: comes all this fresh new growth. Pruning stimulates new growth
Speaker 6: to come out. And now this new growth, it doesn't
Speaker 6: have a chance when we get frosty, freezing wheather or whatever.
Speaker 6: It's even more susceptible than the planet itself. So I
Speaker 6: would get that done now. If you need to do
Speaker 6: some trimming back, that would just be fine. A lot
Speaker 6: of people will cut them back because they bring them
Speaker 6: into the garage or some greenhouse or something in the
Speaker 6: winter and they'll prune them back just so they can
Speaker 6: get them in the door and not take up so
Speaker 6: much space.
Speaker 1: Right right, right, okay, all right, very good, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Welcome. Go ahead, go ahead, No, I go ahead.
Speaker 1: That kind of pruning.
Speaker 6: I'm just going to say, yeah, I was just said,
Speaker 6: that kind of pruning right before moving them in. That's
Speaker 6: fine too, said to it now, not later. But if
Speaker 6: you need to print them right before you bring them in,
Speaker 6: that that is also okay. They're going to try to
Speaker 6: resprout in the garage or wherever, and typically there's not
Speaker 6: a lot of light in those places, but that's that's
Speaker 6: just it.
Speaker 1: S Thank you so much. Welcome to you.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Appreciate the appreciate the call a lot.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: We were talking, you know, we're talking about with Larry,
Speaker 6: you know, you sent the photos of the lawn and
Speaker 6: he said he'd use nit Fross bug out Max and
Speaker 6: bug out Max is an excellent, excellent product. It's granules.
Speaker 6: You put it out and then you have to water
Speaker 6: a little bit, not a lot, just a little bit,
Speaker 6: and it dissolves that pesticide off the granule and it
Speaker 6: goes into the thatch area and that's where chinch bugs
Speaker 6: are living. They hide in the thatch.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: Also sid web worms during the day are down there
Speaker 6: in the thatch. So this will work against fleas, ticks,
Speaker 6: and a lot of other things. Within how about forty
Speaker 6: eight hours, it's pretty much done what it's going to do.
Speaker 6: It's very very quick to get to work, but then
Speaker 6: it lasts. You don't have to apply it every a
Speaker 6: few weeks. It's going to last for a good while.
Speaker 6: So applying it now takes care of that whole lawn
Speaker 6: insects season, which basically is mid to late summer primarily
Speaker 6: that we deal with those. Now you're going to find
Speaker 6: bug Out Max at Ace Hardawar City of Memorial Drive,
Speaker 6: a hiding and feed up on student or Airline has
Speaker 6: it plants for all seasons. On Highway two forty nine.
Speaker 6: Talk about Parkway is another place that you can find
Speaker 6: that bug Out Max when we're when I'm talking about
Speaker 6: all these things today. By the way, I hope you
Speaker 6: enjoyed our visit with Howard Nemerov on monarchs and tropical milkweed.
Speaker 6: I think it's really good to learn about that and
Speaker 6: to understand that we try to have some guests on periodically.
Speaker 6: That's something I'd like to do a little bit more.
Speaker 6: I know, you know we're all about calling in and
Speaker 6: things like that, but I think guests really help bring
Speaker 6: in a new person, effective and some new information to
Speaker 6: the show. So I hope you're enjoying that that we do.
Speaker 10: I know I do.
Speaker 6: I enjoy getting to pick their brain as during that time.
Speaker 6: Remember when you're watering your grass, your lawn grass, this
Speaker 6: is like my public service announcement. When you're watering your
Speaker 6: lawn grass, during this hot summer weather. A good deep,
Speaker 6: infrequent watering is best. Just two words to remember, deeply
Speaker 6: and infrequently. So if you take an inch, let me
Speaker 6: do this. If you take an inch of water, and
Speaker 6: you were to say, I'm going to water four times
Speaker 6: next week, because skip says put an inch of water
Speaker 6: a week when you're Saint Augustine lawn. Okay, so I'm
Speaker 6: going to water four times. I'm going to a quarter
Speaker 6: inch on each time. That quarter inch of irrigation would
Speaker 6: what the grass blades that thatch and not even get
Speaker 6: into the surface of the soil, and then when the
Speaker 6: irrigation goes off, it all evaporates away. But by doing
Speaker 6: that four times, you've increased the problems with diseases on
Speaker 6: any plant. Wetting the foliage repeatedly is not a good thing.
Speaker 6: If you put that inch on it one time, and
Speaker 6: that may require what we call cycle and soak so
Speaker 6: that it doesn't run off. Most soils, especially clays here
Speaker 6: in the Houston area, you can't put an inch on
Speaker 6: at one time. It starts to run off faster than
Speaker 6: can soak in. So you water for a while, let
Speaker 6: the irrigation go off for forty five minutes, and have
Speaker 6: that cycle come back on again and water again, and
Speaker 6: you can cycle it soak two or three times and
Speaker 6: get that inch in the soil. Now, the surface is
Speaker 6: still going to dry out the grass blades of thatch
Speaker 6: and all that. That water is always going to evaporate
Speaker 6: away no matter how you water. But you've put the
Speaker 6: rest of it into the soil and wet the soil deeply,
Speaker 6: and that creates a deep, resilient grass plant. And you
Speaker 6: are using drinking water to put on your lawn. When
Speaker 6: you irrigate, you waste less money on your drinking water,
Speaker 6: which also saves you in most communities on your sewer
Speaker 6: bill as well, because it's tied to the water build
Speaker 6: in most communities. So that's just a tip of the wise.
Speaker 6: A good deep soaking on an infrequent basis, deep soaking
Speaker 6: on an infrequent basis, that is the secret to proper watering.
Speaker 6: And I've explained the reasons why it's so important. I
Speaker 6: used to live in Cypress area and I had a neighbor.
Speaker 6: The water came on, I don't know three times a week,
Speaker 6: which is way too much, and it he just was
Speaker 6: watering too often, and the irrigation heads were so misaligned.
Speaker 6: That one head was spray in my car and my driveway.
Speaker 6: So I'd park backwards on some days so I could
Speaker 6: wash the other side of the car. But that's not
Speaker 6: the way to water well. I talk about bronze stuff,
Speaker 6: and you're not going to find a better place to
Speaker 6: get quality things to make your soul the best it
Speaker 6: can be than Cienamulch. Cienamult is down north of Roe, Sharon.
Speaker 6: It's on FM five twenty one. Here's the website. Just
Speaker 6: just write this down Sienna dot com. They carry the
Speaker 6: best soil mixes. They have things like the Veggie nerd
Speaker 6: mix from Heirloom Soils for example, many many others soils
Speaker 6: and mulches and blends and bed mixes and composts and
Speaker 6: they just you can buy stop bulk. You can buy
Speaker 6: stop by the bag. I think they deliver within about
Speaker 6: twenty miles for small delivery fee of the area. But
Speaker 6: ever fertilizer I talk about is there at Cienamultch and
Speaker 6: including a lot of other things composts and whatnot by
Speaker 6: the bag. Now, so when you go into Cienamltch and
Speaker 6: you drive away, or when you call them and have
Speaker 6: them bring it, if you're close by. You have taken
Speaker 6: care of the brown stuff, and now you're ready to
Speaker 6: put plants in and have success. Cienamltch sets your garden
Speaker 6: beds up for success. That's as simple as that. I
Speaker 6: was driving past D and D Feed up there in
Speaker 6: Tumble the other day, and D and D Feed is
Speaker 6: just it's an awesome food store. Their phone number if
Speaker 6: you like to get them called two eight one three
Speaker 6: five one seventy one forty four. They carry every fertilizer
Speaker 6: I talk about on guardline everyone, and you need to
Speaker 6: swing in there to see it. They also have a
Speaker 6: great selection of everything you need to take care of
Speaker 6: your lawn. You hear me say, we'll use this for
Speaker 6: ince X, or use this for diseases and use this
Speaker 6: control week. Go to D and DE feet they get
Speaker 6: you set up there. They carry age leaf, more composed
Speaker 6: and rose, soil and fruit, very citrus, very veggy, and
Speaker 6: irg sails all from airloom sauce. It's a great place
Speaker 6: and they have plants out fine too. Go by and
Speaker 6: say hi to them in there, and you got to
Speaker 6: go inside that that is it is really really cool. Well,
Speaker 6: it looks like I'm about to put another hour in
Speaker 6: the books here, So I'll just say see in a
Speaker 6: minute if you'd like to give us a call. We
Speaker 6: got the phones open again here seven one three two
Speaker 6: one two K.
Speaker 10: T R H.
Speaker 6: If you're looking for finding here, we are back again.
Speaker 6: You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
Speaker 6: and we're here to answer your gardening questions. What kind
Speaker 6: of question? Do you have something identified? You want something diagnosed,
Speaker 6: I want a suggestion for a plant, or I don't know,
Speaker 6: you tell me. We're happy to entertain those because we
Speaker 6: want you to have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape,
Speaker 6: and I want you to have fun out there in
Speaker 6: the garden gardening. It is fun and it promotes our
Speaker 6: health in any ways. I talk about that all the time,
Speaker 6: but it should be fun. You know people that It
Speaker 6: just breaks my heart when I hear somebody go, yeah,
Speaker 6: I got a brown thumb. I can't grow anything. I
Speaker 6: tried that it died.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: It's like no, no, no, no, no, here, come here,
Speaker 6: let me talk to you. We can fix this. There
Speaker 6: are no such things as brown thumbs. There are uninformed
Speaker 6: thumbs and will inform your thumb. That's why Granny could
Speaker 6: grow stuff. You think, anything Granny put in the ground,
Speaker 6: it just grews. She had all these beautiful flowers. Rannie
Speaker 6: just knew the right things to do. It's as simple
Speaker 6: as that. I talk about preparing the soil and how
Speaker 6: important that is. I talk about picking plants that want
Speaker 6: to grow there, planting them properly. If it wants sun,
Speaker 6: give it sun. If it wants shade, give it shade.
Speaker 6: Do you see what I'm saying, All of those aspects,
Speaker 6: that's just the basics. And that's how you have success
Speaker 6: with plants. And you can too. You can too. And
Speaker 6: gardeners are always trying to do stuff that's outside the box.
Speaker 6: And that's okay, that's part of the fun of it.
Speaker 6: We're here to help you have success. That's what we
Speaker 6: want to see because it's fun. It's a fun thing.
Speaker 6: Something that's not fun is mosquitoes. You know, all that
Speaker 6: rain we had a while back, Oh my gosh. I
Speaker 6: walked outside and it was like any of you ever
Speaker 6: see the hitch Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. If you haven't, well,
Speaker 6: it probably probably doesn't hold up over time, because now
Speaker 6: things are so much more horrific in the movies in
Speaker 6: a scary movie. But oh, that one was frightening. Back
Speaker 6: in the day birds it flocks of birds attacking. Well,
Speaker 6: I thought it was in the movie the Birds, except
Speaker 6: it was the mosquitos was the name of the movie.
Speaker 6: They were coming in from everywhere. Mosquito dunks is what
Speaker 6: you need to always have on hand. Now, there's a
Speaker 6: lot of ways to manage mosquitos. You know, people have
Speaker 6: foggers that they go out there and do that and
Speaker 6: all that. Mosquitoes breed in water, and they don't need
Speaker 6: much water. A thimbleful of water is enough for certain
Speaker 6: species of mosquitoes to be able to do their life
Speaker 6: cycle in And it's just a matter of days. They
Speaker 6: lay the egg turns into a larva. The larva's there
Speaker 6: for a bit, it comes out, and here we are
Speaker 6: another mosquito. You put mosquito dunks in water, and mosquitoes
Speaker 6: cannot grow up. They will die. It is a disease
Speaker 6: only of mosquitoes. Won't hurt birds, won't hurt pets, it
Speaker 6: won't heart beneficial insects water. It's a disease of mosquitos
Speaker 6: and fungal fungus knots. By the way, it Lossoo kill
Speaker 6: fungus nuts. So you take a dunk, it's a donut.
Speaker 6: You throw it out there in the pond and it'll
Speaker 6: cover one hundred square feet and last a month. Or
Speaker 6: break it up, or just buy the granular form of
Speaker 6: mosquito dunks from Summit Responsible Solutions and throw those into that.
Speaker 6: Maybe you got a hollow up in a tree where
Speaker 6: water stands and mosquitoes are breeding up there, a saggy
Speaker 6: roof drainage channel. I can't even say the properly. Throw
Speaker 6: them up in there, underneath the catch basins, underneath the
Speaker 6: pots where water stands. Throw it in there, a bird
Speaker 6: bat throw it in there, won't hurt the birds. Mosquito
Speaker 6: dunks easy to get, available in a lot of different places.
Speaker 6: For example, they're almost all independent nurseryes, feed stores, and
Speaker 6: ace hardware stores carry those mosquito dunks, so just keep
Speaker 6: them on hand. I mean, welcome to Southeast Texas. Mosquitoes
Speaker 6: are part of life. It rains a lot here. If
Speaker 6: you were in Elpaso, you wouldn't have so many mosquitoes.
Speaker 6: But who wants to live in Opaso? And you can
Speaker 6: live here and grow all kinds of good things. Here
Speaker 6: in the Houston area, a mosquito Duk's what you need
Speaker 6: to know. I mentioned Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware. There's forty
Speaker 6: stores in the Greater Houston area and that is so convenient.
Speaker 6: No matter where you live, there's an ACE Hardware store.
Speaker 6: So for example, you know, go to Acehardware dot com,
Speaker 6: forward sled, go to Aceharbor dot com and find the
Speaker 6: store locator and you can find the stores near you.
Speaker 6: I want to tell you this though, for those of
Speaker 6: you anyone out west, kind of west northwest. Langham Creek.
Speaker 6: ACE Hardware is on Highway five twenty nine in Cypress,
Speaker 6: that's near the Copperfield neighborhood. It's at the intersection of Barker,
Speaker 6: Cypress and FM five twenty nine. Langham Creek Ace Hardware.
Speaker 6: You can find it by going to Acehardware dot com.
Speaker 6: On Friday of this coming week, Friday the thirtieth, they're
Speaker 6: going to have a giveaway of an Ego Power String
Speaker 6: Trim or two hundred and fifty dollars machine. They're given
Speaker 6: away because this is part of their grand reopening at
Speaker 6: Langham Creek Case Hardware. They're going to do demos on
Speaker 6: Weber grills Saturday, they'll be giving away a four hundred
Speaker 6: and fifty dollars Weber gas grill. That's a big giveaway.
Speaker 6: They'll be demonstrating Big Green Egg and the Goseny Picha
Speaker 6: pizza oven. Those are cool. You got to see that.
Speaker 6: They'll have fifteen percent off all still units only on
Speaker 6: Saturday thirty first. Hear me clearly still open house only
Speaker 6: on Saturday the thirty first for the still unit fifteen
Speaker 6: percent off. Then on Sunday they're giving away a painting
Speaker 6: room makeover worth two hundred dollars and they'll be demoing
Speaker 6: trigger grills. So it's going to be a lot of
Speaker 6: cool stuff. I was there earlier this year and we
Speaker 6: had a great time there, and then they just they
Speaker 6: kind of shut things down a little bit, did a
Speaker 6: complete revamp, and they're opening up again at Legham Creek
Speaker 6: Ace Hardware, one of the forty eighth hardware stores here
Speaker 6: in the Greater Houston area. Well, you were listening to
Speaker 6: Garden Line. Our phone number is seven and three two
Speaker 6: one two k t r H. Seven to one three
Speaker 6: two one two k t r H. While I was
Speaker 6: out at the TNLA show, I got to meet a
Speaker 6: lot of different folks. You know, a lot of our
Speaker 6: sponsors go out to that show, and then there are
Speaker 6: a lot of folks there's really from all over the country.
Speaker 6: Just about people are coming in. People that wholesale plants
Speaker 6: of different types and products and all kinds of things, equipment.
Speaker 6: It's a great, great for horticulturists. It's a great, great show.
Speaker 6: I was out there visiting with Dean Nelson and Shelby
Speaker 6: and some of the team out at Nelson Fertilizers, Nelson
Speaker 6: Plant Foods. Nelson's has been making quality plant food for
Speaker 6: a long time and they have a number of really
Speaker 6: good good products. I wish, I wish I could talk
Speaker 6: about all of them, but that would take about three shows,
Speaker 6: I think, to really do a good job of that.
Speaker 6: But Bruces Brew is something you can use as part
Speaker 6: of the turf Star line. It's grand or fertilizer anytime
Speaker 6: grass is growing for a quick green hu Now it's
Speaker 6: not just quick. It does have a gradual release component
Speaker 6: to it also. But you can do bruces brew right now.
Speaker 6: If you have not fertilized this summer, go ahead and
Speaker 6: do the Bruces Breu. Now, I just do a light
Speaker 6: application of it and it'll carry you forward. It's an
Speaker 6: excellent fertilizer. But while you're purchasing products from Nelson, nutri
Speaker 6: Star and the color Star line lots of different options
Speaker 6: for tropical plants, for viining plants, for flowering trees and shrubs,
Speaker 6: for just general trees and shrub The nutris Star Tree
Speaker 6: and shob will give three to four months per application
Speaker 6: of release of that nitrogen in the nutrients, and that
Speaker 6: helps get your trees and shrubs growing faster, helps the established.
Speaker 6: All of these plus a couple dozen of the products
Speaker 6: available from Nelson Plant Food which are available widely throughout
Speaker 6: the Greater Houston area. Okay, here, let's see. I was
Speaker 6: gonna what was I want to tell you guys. Oh,
Speaker 6: just another reminder. I know what it was before I forget,
Speaker 6: because I tend to get the end of the show
Speaker 6: and forget something. The Fall Home and Outdoor Living Show
Speaker 6: September seventh and eighth. That's two weeks from today, September seventh.
Speaker 6: I'll be there on September seventh. This is the Montgomery
Speaker 6: County Fall Home and Outdoor Living Show. It's at the
Speaker 6: Lone Star Convention Center up on the North side Airport
Speaker 6: Road in Conroe. I'll be there from twelfth to two
Speaker 6: and I'm going to be given a talk on fall gardening,
Speaker 6: and then I'm going to be entering. I'll answer garden
Speaker 6: questions to the cows come home. So bring your questions,
Speaker 6: bring me samples, bring pictures on your phone. Let's talk.
Speaker 6: I'm giving you a two week warning there the Fall
Speaker 6: Home and Outdoor Living Show September seventh and eighth. I'll
Speaker 6: be there on the seventh Montgomery County Fall Home and
Speaker 6: Outdoor Living Show. Hope you'll come see me. That's always
Speaker 6: a fun time. A lot of folks up there in
Speaker 6: that region that really love gardening. Time for me to
Speaker 6: take a break. When we come back, I'll be talking
Speaker 6: with Randy and Richard first and your call as well.
Speaker 6: We're gonna go straight to the phones and just get
Speaker 6: down to business. Right here, We're gonna head out to
Speaker 6: let's see Randy. Hello Randy, and welcome to Garden Line.
Speaker 17: Hello, sir, I have a question about some I have
Speaker 17: a question about some oak trees that we plan in.
Speaker 17: Back in April May, we got two hundred gallon live
Speaker 17: oats and four fifty gallon and got them planted and stuff.
Speaker 17: But the one hundred gallon are.
Speaker 1: Not doing good.
Speaker 17: One of them's already looked like it's dyed, and now
Speaker 17: the other one hundred gallon is starting to get a
Speaker 17: lot of brown leaves falling and stuff. It's still got
Speaker 17: new leaves on it, the baby leaves. But I was
Speaker 17: wondering if there's a something that I can you know,
Speaker 17: blend with water to try and help them or And
Speaker 17: the second question is about the deep water in some
Speaker 17: PCD down beside the two pieces beside each tree, and
Speaker 17: I've tried that.
Speaker 10: Is that good?
Speaker 17: Or should I just top water them? Or all the
Speaker 17: middle woods are doing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would water them from the top down with
Speaker 6: a slow, deep soaking and focus your watering on where
Speaker 6: the original roots cylinder was that went into the ground,
Speaker 6: because when you plant a tree like that, like a
Speaker 6: live oak, it takes a long time for the roots
Speaker 6: to really spread out and make a resilient plant. And
Speaker 6: this is several years and so especially during that first summer,
Speaker 6: you were just imagine that they didn't take the container
Speaker 6: off and they just dropped the container with the tree
Speaker 6: in the ground. You would know then all the water
Speaker 6: and has to be done right where that cylinder is right,
Speaker 6: because there's no reats can get outside that container. Well,
Speaker 6: that's kind of how it is, is it slowly spreads out,
Speaker 6: so it'll pump that cylinder dry. Even though the soil
Speaker 6: around it is kind of moist. It can't wig in
Speaker 6: fast enough, and so you've got to continue to water
Speaker 6: that cylinder area. And that's the best thing you can do.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 6: Now you don't want it to be submerged underwater soggy swamp,
Speaker 6: you know, but you do want to just recognize that
Speaker 6: every day that tree can pump that cylinder dry, I
Speaker 6: mean on a hot, hot summer day.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 6: Okay, well it's a matter too of the quantity. I
Speaker 6: don't know how much you're putting on, and it's hard
Speaker 6: for meat over the area, you know, kind of go, well,
Speaker 6: put this many gallons on or whatever. That's the main
Speaker 6: thing you can do. There's no special concoction at this
Speaker 6: point to do it. I'm about ninety five percent sure
Speaker 6: that the die back is due to it using water
Speaker 6: faster than it can take it up in that root zone.
Speaker 10: And so.
Speaker 6: You know that that would be my suggestion or Randy
Speaker 6: on trying to bring those back A disease wouldn't hit
Speaker 6: it that fast. Insects not the cause of that. It's
Speaker 6: got to be just due to the water, heat and
Speaker 6: the heat. Yeah, and the heat. Oh yeah, and the
Speaker 6: heat absolutely. But remember it's a it's essentially an evergreen species.
Speaker 6: So when it cools off, the demands go down, but
Speaker 6: it still has leaves and it's still using water. So
Speaker 6: you back off the watering a little bit. But it's
Speaker 6: just as important to be watering in September and October,
Speaker 6: for example, November, even if we're not getting the rain
Speaker 6: to supply an adequate amount.
Speaker 17: Yes, sir, how long should I wait for the one
Speaker 17: hundred gallon to determine whether to dig it up? Or
Speaker 17: how long should I give it to say? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 17: back the other one?
Speaker 6: You should. You should see a re sprouting coming up
Speaker 6: here in the next few weeks or months if it's going.
Speaker 6: If you wanted to give it until spring, you could
Speaker 6: do that. If you've bend twigs and they are there's
Speaker 6: no moisture in them, you know, they're is dry, like
Speaker 6: like you're bending a toothpick and it snaps, Uh, then uh,
Speaker 6: it might try resprouting from the trunk.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: You may get some new sprouts in there, But then
Speaker 6: you've got a whole different tree, and you just have
Speaker 6: to decide if you would prefer to just go ahead
Speaker 6: and replace it. So it comes down to aesthetics and
Speaker 6: money and the trade off between those two. All right, Randy, Hey,
Speaker 6: I got an I don't have to run, but you
Speaker 6: bet wish you wish you very very well. We're going
Speaker 6: to go now to Kingwood, Texas and talk to Javon. Hello, Yevon, Hello, Hi,
Speaker 6: you're on a guard line. How can we help? You're
Speaker 6: on guardline? Jevon, I turn off the radio if it's on.
Speaker 14: I moved into a house with existing knockout roses that
Speaker 14: have I think never been trimmed.
Speaker 19: Can I trim them now?
Speaker 14: Or do I need to wait till February.
Speaker 6: Now's a great time with you. Trim them now. You're
Speaker 6: gonna get reg like crazy and you'll have a beautiful
Speaker 6: bloom show in October, late September and October. Okay, thanks,
Speaker 6: all right, you beat you bad. Take care. Let's see
Speaker 6: let's do another one quick.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 6: We're going to go to Sherry and Hello, Sherry, welcome
Speaker 6: to guardline.
Speaker 16: Hi, Hi, Skip, can you hear me?
Speaker 6: Yes, ma'am Hi there.
Speaker 16: Okay, we really enjoy your show. Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 16: So what I'm talking about are mealy bugs. I have
Speaker 16: been dealing with them since June. They it's a terrible
Speaker 16: infestation right now.
Speaker 7: And back in June, somebody else had called into you
Speaker 7: asking about the mealy bugs and you had mentioned that
Speaker 7: they have a coding of protective coating and to use
Speaker 7: pesticide on them.
Speaker 16: So that's what I've been doing. I've been using this
Speaker 16: bio Advance three and one in sect disease and my
Speaker 16: Control so it says to apply every thirty days, of
Speaker 16: which I've done since June because they come back and
Speaker 16: I mean they're just ravaging at this point. They're on everything.
Speaker 16: It's terrible. So and I've also been out there and
Speaker 16: I've wiped off the hibiscus like with the alcohol. But
Speaker 16: the thing is is they're on everything, and I just
Speaker 16: have too many plants to do that. So I'm kind
Speaker 16: of I don't know what to do.
Speaker 6: Okay, Well, if a plant is blooming, I tend to
Speaker 6: not like to use a systemic on it because that
Speaker 6: can get up in there and affect pollinators that are
Speaker 6: coming to the blooms. But stomachs are a great way
Speaker 6: to control meai bugs because they're sucking the juices out
Speaker 6: of the plant and you're basically putting a poison in
Speaker 6: the plumbing of the plant. Yeah, so that you know,
Speaker 6: they thought, like a lady beetle could crawl across the
Speaker 6: surface and not be affected because there's not a spray
Speaker 6: on the surface. It's drenched in the roots. And so
Speaker 6: I think that you know, probably those options get real
Speaker 6: limited for mealai bugs. They're difficult to kill. It's hard
Speaker 6: to get them all. So things like soaps and sprut
Speaker 6: and oils and whatnot, that all just you know, it
Speaker 6: just you just can't get it on all of them,
Speaker 6: and that that is one of the problems with you
Speaker 6: using any kind of a product on the mealy bugs.
Speaker 6: Cutting back the top growth, like on an ornamental grass
Speaker 6: or something that's invested, you can just cut the top
Speaker 6: growth off at the ground just a few inches above
Speaker 6: the ground and get all that out of there with
Speaker 6: all the old meea bugs and eggs and larvae that
Speaker 6: are in it and kind of start over coming up.
Speaker 6: You're still going to have them, but you kind of
Speaker 6: gotten it under control. Where then spring is a little
Speaker 6: easier because you have better access to them. For some
Speaker 6: plants that you can't do that with, sometimes people just
Speaker 6: go ahead and make the decision to pull the plant
Speaker 6: because they're not going to be able to get get
Speaker 6: good control.
Speaker 16: Really, so, is there a time in a year where
Speaker 16: they or they disappear or are we in an environment
Speaker 16: where I've never have dealt with the million bucks before.
Speaker 16: This is the first year. So here it go away
Speaker 16: and then.
Speaker 6: Well they're there, but you don't really see them all
Speaker 6: out like that when it's freezing weather and whatnot. But
Speaker 6: they'll they'll overwinter and they'll come back. That bio advanced
Speaker 6: by the way that you use that does have the
Speaker 6: systemic in it, and it will get in the plumbing
Speaker 6: and kill the plant, I mean killed the insect, but.
Speaker 16: Right, but yeah, but they come back, and it seems
Speaker 16: like this last time I applied it, it seems like
Speaker 16: it didn't work the entire thirty days. I mean, it
Speaker 16: maybe worked twenty days. So I'm like, well, I wonder
Speaker 16: if you know it's just it stops working earlier, kind
Speaker 16: of like it stop working. So my plants really aren't
Speaker 16: even blue me now because I don't want Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: Okay, well, that that's an option. You know, if you
Speaker 6: can get a spray to the mealy bugs uh the
Speaker 6: and the horticulture loyals uh in sexidal soaps, those can
Speaker 6: be somewhat effective. They're a physical killer, not a poison,
Speaker 6: but you just can't reach them all with the spray
Speaker 6: and so you're just you're just addressing the part that's
Speaker 6: you know, it's like chopping a weed off and it
Speaker 6: comes back from underground. You just chump when you do
Speaker 6: those kind of sprays. So, uh, the product you mentioned
Speaker 6: is fine. Uh, just just stay with it, uh and
Speaker 6: and realize that there's the decision. It's an effective product.
Speaker 6: But mealy bugs are difficult to get control over and
Speaker 6: get ahead of, and you may have to reapply it.
Speaker 6: And there are times when pulling a plant is the
Speaker 6: best thing just because you can't get ahead of them,
Speaker 6: and there's times when cutting it off and getting all
Speaker 6: that old growth out is the best thing. Is there's
Speaker 6: not a one size cuts all, but you can win.
Speaker 6: And that BioAdvance should that should do it. That should
Speaker 6: help a lot.
Speaker 12: Okay, okay, all right, well, thank you so much.
Speaker 16: For your time.
Speaker 6: You bet I hope that hope that helps. We're going
Speaker 6: to go now to Tomball and talk to Michelle and
Speaker 6: Michelle I got about one minute before we hit break,
Speaker 6: but let's see how far we can get.
Speaker 14: Yes, sir, so, I was calling because we have what
Speaker 14: we what they call carpet grass in our backyard. We're
Speaker 14: trying to get rid of it. That's one question. Second,
Speaker 14: as we have some crab grass we want to get
Speaker 14: rid of as well. And then third, we just lost a.
Speaker 19: Fur baby from a coral snake bite, which because they
Speaker 19: don't make anti vanom for coral snakes, and we've learned
Speaker 19: that they live in the ground, so knowing what to
Speaker 19: do to keep snakes so other babies don't get harmed
Speaker 19: or us.
Speaker 6: All right and all all right, good questions, they're telling me.
Speaker 6: It's sign for a break in my ear. I will
Speaker 6: be right back and we will tackle those. Thank you
Speaker 6: very much. We were right back fors Hey. We are
Speaker 6: glad you are with us today. We're got a board
Speaker 6: full of calls here. We'll head straight out to fair Field.
Speaker 6: Oh no, excuse me, still working with Michelle there. Hey, Michelle,
Speaker 6: you were talking about carpet grass and crabgrass, getting rid
Speaker 6: of those first, both of those can be controlled with
Speaker 6: anything that kills the top of the plant. They don't
Speaker 6: have a underground system to bounce back from like bermuda
Speaker 6: grass would for example. So there are you know, burn
Speaker 6: down products that things like vinegar would be an example
Speaker 6: of that, but there are others that you can purchase
Speaker 6: and sprown and mchillum, or you could just use a
Speaker 6: grass killer. There's a couple of grass killers. If you
Speaker 6: go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening
Speaker 6: with Skip dot Com, there is a publication that says
Speaker 6: herbicides that you use with my weed wiper, and there
Speaker 6: it lists weed killers by the kind of weed they kill,
Speaker 6: and there's a group for grasses and they're all listed
Speaker 6: right there. That would work on life with those if
Speaker 6: it's if what you have is crabgrass that is going
Speaker 6: to come back from seed every year, it's an annual
Speaker 6: so using a pre emergent in the spring, which is
Speaker 6: on the same website on my Pest Disease and Weed
Speaker 6: Management schedule for lawns, it tells you what and when
Speaker 6: do you do it that'll prevent the grab grass from
Speaker 6: coming in next year. So that would be that. Now
Speaker 6: as far as the coral snakes. I don't know a
Speaker 6: great way to control those. There are some products that
Speaker 6: you put out that are they they smell to the snake.
Speaker 6: One of them. One of them have oh gosh, what's
Speaker 6: the ingredient. It's like essentially mothballs kind of thing, that
Speaker 6: kind of odor. Another one is based on the napthalene,
Speaker 6: is what I was trying to say. Another one is
Speaker 6: based on like oils like clove and cinnamon oil, cedar
Speaker 6: oils and things. They're going to give you a certain
Speaker 6: amount of repellent. But they mainly work on pit vipers
Speaker 6: like rattle snakes, and I guess watermarks and snakes. I
Speaker 6: don't think they work on coral snake. You don't have
Speaker 6: to get a label and look at it. I'm definitely
Speaker 6: not a snake expert, as I'm proving on the air
Speaker 6: right now.
Speaker 10: Okay, okay, well this is helpful.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, keeping things trim back so you can see
Speaker 6: them that that will be another thing they liked, do
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 14: Yeah, we keep our yard cat every week. It's it's
Speaker 14: a thick yard. My husband, it's it's super thick. It's
Speaker 14: Saint Augustine. But we only have the problems in the backyard,
Speaker 14: not the front.
Speaker 6: Well, the good news on coral is, unlike the pit vipers,
Speaker 6: they got these big fangs and they strike you and boom,
Speaker 6: they've got you. Corals have to kind of bite and
Speaker 6: be able to actually grab. Like you know, if you
Speaker 6: look between your thumb and forefinger, you got some extra
Speaker 6: skin right in there that they could get their mouth
Speaker 6: around and bite. They more need to go at it
Speaker 6: that way. But they are very poisonous. It's just that
Speaker 6: there were things to inject the venom in the same way.
Speaker 14: Yes, they got my dog on her lip. She was
Speaker 14: a thirty five pounds healer mix and they don't make
Speaker 14: into venom anymore.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, Michelle's that's
Speaker 6: the best I can do on the snake one. But
Speaker 6: I appreciate your call. Thank you very much. I know
Speaker 6: I'm giving you guys the hebgbi's listening talking about snakes.
Speaker 6: But here we go. We're going to go to Fairfield
Speaker 6: now and talk to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome, regard.
Speaker 10: Line, Good mornings.
Speaker 3: Get I'm sorry that her little dog. Understand, Hey, I
Speaker 3: had I needed all purpose food for my potted plants.
Speaker 3: On a patio that gets full sun all day. I'm
Speaker 3: watering a lot.
Speaker 10: But there it's a mix.
Speaker 3: I've got the videos, I've got firecrack crap, I've got
Speaker 3: high buscus is. Short of putting every different food on
Speaker 3: each different one, is there an all purpose that I
Speaker 3: could use instead?
Speaker 6: You know, all of those would be okay to use
Speaker 6: those kind of specifics. You know, Nitrophis and Nelson's makes
Speaker 6: specific little jars for all those kinds of plants and things.
Speaker 6: Just the color star would would work fine. Some of
Speaker 6: Nitrofhoce's products you know for color plants and things, would
Speaker 6: would also work. It we put these certain ratios on
Speaker 6: a label and say this is a food for citrus
Speaker 6: or four tomatoes or whatever, and it's it's just a
Speaker 6: good general guess on those kinds of things. It's not
Speaker 6: like you can't use the tomato food on a citrus
Speaker 6: for example. I mean they're nutrients and they will help.
Speaker 6: It's just and if you're trying to cover your bases
Speaker 6: and not buy ten products for ten different plants, I
Speaker 6: would just go with a standard like that.
Speaker 3: Like I mentioned, well, I have ten different products for
Speaker 3: all my plants. I have micro you already got I've
Speaker 3: got for fox Farm, I've got Ozma cut, I've got
Speaker 3: every color food you can imagine. But I just sort
Speaker 3: of put in each individual one on and do I
Speaker 3: use full strength right now? Or do I use partial
Speaker 3: strength because of the heat.
Speaker 6: Yeah? And you're talking about containers of flowering plants right, yes.
Speaker 3: And I've got the mulch to put on the top,
Speaker 3: and now I want to feed them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can do it now. I would do it
Speaker 6: at a moderate rate and make sure you keep them
Speaker 6: adequately watered. If it's a synthetic, it's a salt based
Speaker 6: and if you overapply, you can get root burn from
Speaker 6: the concentrated salts. But if it's organic, it's going to
Speaker 6: break down slow, it's going to release. It'll be a
Speaker 6: little slower to release, but you're not going to get
Speaker 6: the burn. But either way you can have great success
Speaker 6: with plants. It's just sometimes well we have operator error
Speaker 6: as they call it, you know, where someone gets a
Speaker 6: great product and they'll dump it on and do damage
Speaker 6: when the product is not the product's fault, right.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well I'll just keep using the individual one. Then
Speaker 3: I've already lost my mandavilia and I just gave it
Speaker 3: some Boolavilia food, so I just thought maybe there was
Speaker 3: an all purpose. All Right, I'll keep plugging in.
Speaker 6: Well, I would consider color Star a pretty good all
Speaker 6: purpose in general.
Speaker 13: On that.
Speaker 6: All right, that's got a big I was talking about
Speaker 6: Nelson's products.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a big jar of I just bought
Speaker 3: a couple weeks ago. We would use that instead.
Speaker 6: There, you go follow the label. Anything that you're using
Speaker 6: it on that might be an overwintering plant like a oh,
Speaker 6: especially a shrub, or something that might be a little
Speaker 6: cold tender, don't fertilize late in the season. Go ahead
Speaker 6: and get it done now, because you don't want to
Speaker 6: push something tender into late season growth, because that just
Speaker 6: makes it more coal susceptible. Okay, very good, Okay, well,
Speaker 6: thank you so much. All Right, you bet appreciate your
Speaker 6: call very much. Landscaper's Pride produces quality soils and mulches
Speaker 6: and they have many many types out there. Every month
Speaker 6: of the years is a good time to maltz. You
Speaker 6: should always keep bear soul covered with mult and Landscaper's
Speaker 6: Pride has twenty something products, including several quality multch products.
Speaker 6: But they also have soil products and now's the time
Speaker 6: when whether you're putting a container for a fall color,
Speaker 6: whether you're putting in a new landscape bed. Things like
Speaker 6: Gardner's Magic. It's an organic pine based product. It's got
Speaker 6: humus screen, pine composted rice sools and a chicken pullet
Speaker 6: fertilizer that's going to feed for about three months out
Speaker 6: as it decomposes a way in the soil. It's good
Speaker 6: for raised beds, good for containers. They're mushroom compost I mean, gardeners, No,
Speaker 6: mushroom compost is rocket fuel for plants, and they have
Speaker 6: a mushroom compost product that provides a wide variety of nutrients.
Speaker 6: They've got healthy soil compost that is an excellent recycled
Speaker 6: composted plant material. And then the black humous, beautiful, dark,
Speaker 6: rich composed. It's basically composted pine bark and some loamy
Speaker 6: topsail mixed in together. It's good for creating a new
Speaker 6: established bed or even just kind of building up an
Speaker 6: existing bed that you have. All from Landscaper's Pride. You
Speaker 6: go to Landscaperspride dot com and they'll tell you where
Speaker 6: you can find these and they are widely available here
Speaker 6: in the Houston area. We're going to take a break
Speaker 6: right now. When we come back from break, Shay and
Speaker 6: sugar Land, you'll be our first show in this today.
Speaker 6: Looking forward to I don't know, it's a few more
Speaker 6: calls here, maybe maybe certainly plenty of things we need
Speaker 6: to be talking about here as we go forward. I'm
Speaker 6: gonna first I just wanted to talk a little bit
Speaker 6: about a company I haven't talked about in a good
Speaker 6: wall and that's green Pro. Green Pro is a company
Speaker 6: that will come out and they will do core aeration
Speaker 6: of your lawn and compost stop dressing, and they basic
Speaker 6: service the service the area. Basically service the area, oh,
Speaker 6: let's say between I ten and Interstate thirty five. They
Speaker 6: kind of handle the northwest quadrant in a little north
Speaker 6: central as well. But Greenpro is one of those companies
Speaker 6: that does it right. I don't care if it's heat
Speaker 6: or dry spells, or foot traffic or take a root
Speaker 6: rot or chinch bugs or whatever. When your turf is stressed,
Speaker 6: getting a good deep time aera to get pull that
Speaker 6: plug a core arash and pull the plug out of
Speaker 6: the sole, leave it on the surface, and then follow
Speaker 6: that up with the compost top dressing. It's an It
Speaker 6: costs to do that, but it's still cheaper, especially than resotting.
Speaker 6: And when you're trying to take the grass you have
Speaker 6: and bring it back as best you can. This is
Speaker 6: a regimen that I would recommend. Aerating and compost top
Speaker 6: dressing now right now through fall. They've got a deal
Speaker 6: where they will aerate your lawn for free when you
Speaker 6: purchase the compost top dressing service. Now there's a two
Speaker 6: yard minimum, so they can't come out and you know,
Speaker 6: I just want one yard to compost and then aerrate. No,
Speaker 6: it's a two yard minimum to do this, but they'll
Speaker 6: airate for free when you purchase a compost top dressing.
Speaker 6: Prices start at about five seventy five plus tax. It
Speaker 6: depends on how big of an area, how far they
Speaker 6: have to drive. You know, they're carrying a big multi
Speaker 6: product all over the place. But Greenpro knows how to
Speaker 6: do it, and they do it right. Greenpro always does
Speaker 6: a proper job. So one I was, you know, visiting,
Speaker 6: I think I was talking to you guys. Somebody called
Speaker 6: the other day and we were discussing the whole idea
Speaker 6: of compost stop dressing and why that, why that helps
Speaker 6: and why that's important. And I'm telling you it just
Speaker 6: really really matters that you get somebody that knows what
Speaker 6: they're doing and that you get it done, because you
Speaker 6: can improve it a lot that way. If you want
Speaker 6: to go to the website, it's greenpro dot net, greenpro
Speaker 6: dot net. If you need a phone number, it's two
Speaker 6: eight one three five one. Let's see forty seven, Yeah,
Speaker 6: forty seven thirty three two eight one three five one
Speaker 6: forty seven thirty three. I'm going to head out now
Speaker 6: to sugar Land and we are going to talk to
Speaker 6: say hello, sh and welcome to Gardenline.
Speaker 20: Hi Skim, thanks for taking my call. I have a
Speaker 20: I know I'm not using the actual name, but I
Speaker 20: say they're elephant ears. They they're call and they have
Speaker 20: the heart shaped leaf, and I just I cannot get.
Speaker 15: Rid of them.
Speaker 20: We will pull them out at the root, and sure
Speaker 20: enough they just come right back and they've just taken
Speaker 20: over our garden in the back. And they started in
Speaker 20: the backyard and now we see them in the front yard.
Speaker 14: So is there anything.
Speaker 12: Go ahead?
Speaker 6: I never tried approaching it that way. They have underground
Speaker 6: storage structures and so you know, whatever you do at
Speaker 6: the top. If there's a piece in the ground, it's
Speaker 6: gonna come back out. They proliferate that way. So hand
Speaker 6: digging is an option, but you're probably have to come
Speaker 6: back because you may miss the piece or two. But
Speaker 6: that is an option. As far as sprays, I'm going
Speaker 6: to give you my best guess idea here and I
Speaker 6: have not tried these, so I'm not saying anybody listening
Speaker 6: that I know this will kill Ala famire, But I
Speaker 6: would think that one of two things would work. Either
Speaker 6: applying a general purpose week killer to them. That would
Speaker 6: include like a glyphosate type ingredient. You know, people are
Speaker 6: all familiar with that and have different opinion about using
Speaker 6: that product that but the key to it is having
Speaker 6: a spreader sticker. And wherever you go shopping for your products,
Speaker 6: like you're in sugar Land, you're not too far away
Speaker 6: from Southwest Fertilizer on Businet and Runwick, Bob's got spreader sticks,
Speaker 6: all of our garden centers, all our ace hardware, stort
Speaker 6: they got spreader stickers and stuff. But put that on
Speaker 6: there because if you've ever noticed, when it rains, the
Speaker 6: water just balls up and rolls right off the leaf
Speaker 6: and you need the spray to spread out and stick,
Speaker 6: and the other thing would be a triclope here ingredient.
Speaker 6: And if you go online to my website Gardening with
Speaker 6: Skip dot Com, I put something up about how to
Speaker 6: build your own weed wiper, and with it there's a
Speaker 6: publication on herbicides to use. And what it does is
Speaker 6: it says, if you've got woody weeds, use this product.
Speaker 6: If you've got grassyweeds, use this product. You know, if
Speaker 6: you and so on and on. There you'll find out
Speaker 6: what are the products that contain life, I'll say, or
Speaker 6: what are the products that contain trici peer we People
Speaker 6: used to always just say, well round up glycas Well,
Speaker 6: round Up's not glyphs it anymore. For most home and
Speaker 6: garden centers where you go in when you buy roundup,
Speaker 6: you're not buying glavasate most of the time. So that's
Speaker 6: why I've made that where you can find the products
Speaker 6: that contain either of those ingredients. So Gardening with Skip
Speaker 6: dot Com.
Speaker 20: Okay, all right, well, thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Okay, bad, all right, by bye bye bye.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That that kind of reminds me I need to I
Speaker 6: need to look into that. I want to. I need
Speaker 6: to check out on elephant ear come up. It's always interesting.
Speaker 6: I've been answer your question for thirty five years. He's
Speaker 6: a County Agrolife Extension horticulturist and as a radio host
Speaker 6: and now's a radio host of Garden Line. Uh, and
Speaker 6: I have not had that question before. So that's that's
Speaker 6: always fun. Keeps me young, keeps me on top of
Speaker 6: my toes. But they say part of me in sparts
Speaker 6: and knowing what you're dumb at. I'm learning that I'm
Speaker 6: dumb at a lot of things as I get. When
Speaker 6: I was young, I knew everything all right. Hey, if
Speaker 6: you're out in sugar Land and you haven't been to
Speaker 6: Chanted Forest, you ought to go. Enchanted Forest is an
Speaker 6: outstanding garden center. If you're in let's say you're in
Speaker 6: rosenbur I said sugar Land. That it's near sugar Land too.
Speaker 6: If you're in the Richmond area and you go towards
Speaker 6: sugar Land up up fifty nine, it's off to the right.
Speaker 6: The actual road is FM twenty seven fifty nine, twenty
Speaker 6: seven to fifty nine. Awesome garden center. Their selection of
Speaker 6: plants is unbelievable. Coming up on September twenty eighth, Danny Linderman,
Speaker 6: owner of the Chanted Forest, is going to be talking.
Speaker 6: He's giving a talk call the Fall Kickoff. There's going
Speaker 6: to be all kinds of festivities. I'm going to be
Speaker 6: speaking out there this fall. They have something almost every
Speaker 6: weekend from September twenty eighth all the way, I don't know,
Speaker 6: maybe November two. There's something going on every weekend out
Speaker 6: an Enchanted Forest. The ninth thing going on there is
Speaker 6: great plants, great selection, just outstanding. And if you're looking
Speaker 6: for a pottery, if you're looking for blame for the garden,
Speaker 6: you know, a herd, a bird bath kind of thing.
Speaker 6: It's it's fall planning season. They're loaded up on shrubs
Speaker 6: and herbs and perennial him in and Chanted Forest before
Speaker 6: you need to go and all you need to do
Speaker 6: if you want to you want to go out there
Speaker 6: is remember en Chentedforest, Richmond, TX dot com