Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie r.
Speaker 2: H Garden line with Skip Rictor.
Speaker 1: It's crazy here.
Speaker 3: Gas can use a shrimp. You just watch him as
Speaker 3: we'll go. Gassies and gas.
Speaker 4: Many good things to sup bat basic in bringing the
Speaker 4: glassies and gas. And again you Davos clubs back making
Speaker 4: there not a sid credit the glasses and gas, the
Speaker 4: sun beam and between.
Speaker 2: The gasses and gas.
Speaker 3: First starting and treating.
Speaker 5: Gas.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: Good morning, gardeners, Good morning, and I hope you're having
Speaker 1: a great morning so far. That would include one cup
Speaker 1: of coffee, some piece of quiet while your while your
Speaker 1: brain fully kicks into gear.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some people wake up and their mourning people.
Speaker 1: I used to have a dorm or not a dorm
Speaker 1: apartment roommate in college that was a morning person. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, just about killed me. I just killed them
Speaker 1: because I was like, okay, let's an hour from now,
Speaker 1: let's try to start talking. Anyway. We're glad you're here
Speaker 1: this morning. I don't know if you're a morning person
Speaker 1: or not, but we're gonna be talking gardening today. If
Speaker 1: you want to give me a call and maybe ask
Speaker 1: a question something that's of interest to you'd help you
Speaker 1: have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and
Speaker 1: of course more fun in the process. Well seven one
Speaker 1: three two one two ktr h seven to one three
Speaker 1: two one two ktrh. Chented Forest is garden center down
Speaker 1: there in the Richmond Rosenberg area. In fact, to be
Speaker 1: a little more specific, it's on FM twenty seven fifty nine.
Speaker 1: If you're in Richmond, you're heading up towards Sugarland Way,
Speaker 1: you know, coming up fifty nine. Then it's off to
Speaker 1: the right on FM twenty seven to fifty nine. It
Speaker 1: is a great place to visit. By the way, they
Speaker 1: got big beautiful shade trees and so walking out there,
Speaker 1: even on a hot day, it's just a it's a
Speaker 1: pleasant to be out and about and shopping and seeing
Speaker 1: all the cool stuff they have. And they definitely have
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff, lots of plants to support
Speaker 1: bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, just beautiful plants from color
Speaker 1: to things like herbs and vegetables to beautiful really just
Speaker 1: outstanding flowering shade trees, plants that have foliage. You know,
Speaker 1: right now that it's getting hot, we're thinking about shade,
Speaker 1: and they've got you covered on all kinds of things
Speaker 1: that thrive in shade.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite is a turk cap. It's a
Speaker 1: native Texas native, very very hardy. Tracks hummingbirds like crazy.
Speaker 1: They love those red tubuler balloons that it has and
Speaker 1: it's just tough. I've got one in the backyard. I
Speaker 1: never do anything to it except at the end of winter.
Speaker 1: Cut all the top growth back is because it comes
Speaker 1: back out of the ground again. It makes a nice,
Speaker 1: nice shrub. The firebush the compact compact form of firebush
Speaker 1: called compacta. It's a little smaller than regular fire bushes. Rockrose,
Speaker 1: rockrose is not a rose. It's more kin to hibiscus
Speaker 1: and okra and things like that cotton plant for example.
Speaker 1: They're all in the same family. Rock Rose is beautiful,
Speaker 1: little pink flowers, really nice Mexican petunia like Katie, little
Speaker 1: compact mounting type. They've got all of those there at
Speaker 1: Enchanted Forests. Now, if you what I would recommend you
Speaker 1: do is go to the website number one. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: See everything you need to see, contact numbers, where it's located,
Speaker 1: all of that, and that is Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX
Speaker 1: dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX. Dot com. They are
Speaker 1: open Monday through Saturday the summer hours eight am to
Speaker 1: five and on Sunday from ten am to four pm.
Speaker 1: The Enchanted Forest. They've got you covered on every kind
Speaker 1: of plant for every season that we have. And boy,
Speaker 1: if if you are looking to make some shade, they
Speaker 1: have some great shade trees too. By the way, you
Speaker 1: need to go check those out. Best time flying tree
Speaker 1: was forty years ago. Second best times today. You can
Speaker 1: get it done right there at Enchended Forest. So I
Speaker 1: in my yard, I've been fixing a gate. I had
Speaker 1: a gate that was hanging a little bit, just kind
Speaker 1: of sagging a little bit, and I said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go fix it. So I took the gate off and
Speaker 1: I grabbed onto one of the posts and when I
Speaker 1: grabbed onto it, it moved and I heard a crack.
Speaker 1: Now a person should not be able to reach up
Speaker 1: with one arm and pull a little bit on a
Speaker 1: post and it cracks. That means that thing is about
Speaker 1: twenty years too old. So I got to reset posts
Speaker 1: and get the gate set and everything like that. Our
Speaker 1: grand dog is visiting and the dog likes to wander,
Speaker 1: and so if I don't keep that gate firmly closed.
Speaker 1: We get to go up and down the street finding
Speaker 1: the rain dogs that we're not going to do that anymore.
Speaker 1: Now that I've got that gate fixed, I appreciate that
Speaker 1: very much. The rain that we had has kind of
Speaker 1: settled off for a little bit. You know, we've got
Speaker 1: we got the summer cycle. We're going to be entering
Speaker 1: where rains are fewer and further between. And what happens
Speaker 1: when we get rain the clay soils that are kind
Speaker 1: of predominant in this region. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: you have sands and loams and other things, but a
Speaker 1: lot of clay soils along the Gulf coast. In fact,
Speaker 1: they gave it our local name. It's called Houston black clay.
Speaker 1: That's the official soul scientist's name for the black clays
Speaker 1: we have down here. When they get wet, they swell.
Speaker 1: When they get dry, they shrink. And you know, from
Speaker 1: a gardener's standpoint, not so much of a deal, because
Speaker 1: we can keep them evenly moist by watering them. But
Speaker 1: around your house the tree roots pumping all the water
Speaker 1: out of the soil around the house, that makes that
Speaker 1: wet dry cycle worse. It exacerbates it. It makes it.
Speaker 1: You know, it gets drier and more, and then it
Speaker 1: gets wet, and then it gets very dry again, and
Speaker 1: that causes the problems we have with our foundations. It's
Speaker 1: why you go through parts of Houston and in the
Speaker 1: summer they're fixing water lines because the soil is moving
Speaker 1: so much. It's literally breaking water lines deep underground in
Speaker 1: a bad drought. And then the sidewalks and the driveways
Speaker 1: and everything are moving, and it just it is what
Speaker 1: it is. And so if you are thinking you may
Speaker 1: have a foundation problem, and that would be for example,
Speaker 1: you see cracks in the brick on the outside, typically
Speaker 1: at the corner of a windows where you most see them,
Speaker 1: but that's not the only place. Maybe you have sheet
Speaker 1: rock cracks inside or doors that are sticking. Those are
Speaker 1: all signs you need to have someone take a look
Speaker 1: at it and fix my slab. Foundation repair. They're the
Speaker 1: folks that can do it. Ty Strickland's been doing this
Speaker 1: for twenty three years. He's an eighty Estonian, fifth generation Texan,
Speaker 1: and he knows our soil. He knows how to assess
Speaker 1: and fix foundation problems. The website just just go there.
Speaker 1: Fix myslab dot com. Fix myslab dot com. If you
Speaker 1: want to get him, a call to eight one two
Speaker 1: FI five forty nine forty nine. He shows up on time,
Speaker 1: he fixes it right, he charges a fair price fixmislab
Speaker 1: dot com two eight one two f five forty nine
Speaker 1: forty nine. He knows what he is doing, that is
Speaker 1: for sure. I was visiting with somebody from Ace Hardware
Speaker 1: the other day and I have a barbecue pit that
Speaker 1: I got at Ace Hardware and we are enjoying it.
Speaker 1: In fact, we have plans tomorrow. We got a bunch
Speaker 1: of family coming over and we're going to be doing
Speaker 1: some major barbecue in all through the day. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. But you know, you go to ACE,
Speaker 1: and I don't care what brand you're looking for. If
Speaker 1: it's a quality brand, the top quality brands that exist,
Speaker 1: they've got them there. You know you're gonna find Big
Speaker 1: Green Egg there. You're going to find Tragger, You're going
Speaker 1: to find Rectech, You're going to find Weber and so
Speaker 1: on and all the things you need to go with it.
Speaker 1: And so for your weekend cookouts and stuff, it's your
Speaker 1: one stop shop. You know, if you got a pellet grill,
Speaker 1: you need the pellets. They got those there, of course
Speaker 1: they do. They have everything else you need and for
Speaker 1: your lawn, the fertilizers that we're talking about, by the way,
Speaker 1: they do have propane too, where if you've got a
Speaker 1: gas grill to you can do that. Now, everything that
Speaker 1: you would look at to make that outdoor area just
Speaker 1: a wonderful place to hang out, to make your indoor
Speaker 1: areas more beautiful, you're going to find it Today's hardware.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and then all the hardware stuff that a
Speaker 1: hardware store has. They've got all that, but so much more.
Speaker 1: If you are up in the north side Spring Ace
Speaker 1: on Spring Cyprus. Northeast is Crosby Ace on twenty one
Speaker 1: hundred down southwest is Plantation Ace out there on Mason
Speaker 1: Road in Richmond Rosenberg. You go over to Champions Ace
Speaker 1: on Spring Cyprus up northwest or down on the west side.
Speaker 1: Langham Creek Ace, by the way, is up there on
Speaker 1: five point twenty nine by Copperfield. Those are just a
Speaker 1: few of the miny ace Hardware's And here's how you
Speaker 1: find yours. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Acehardware Texas dot Com.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break when we come back Melbourne,
Speaker 1: Paarland you'll be our first s up. Good morning, gardeners.
Speaker 1: We are we are glad you're back with us. Listen,
Speaker 1: if you are looking to put in some plants that
Speaker 1: can survive the weather here, you know that summer it's coming,
Speaker 1: you can. As native plants specializes, I mean, they have
Speaker 1: every kind of plant in the world, native, non native,
Speaker 1: you name it. But the best selection in natives you're
Speaker 1: gonna find anywhere is right there in Buchanans Native Plants
Speaker 1: in the Heights on Eleventh Street. Just go to the
Speaker 1: website Buchanansplants dot Com. While you're there, sign up for
Speaker 1: the newsletter. Get that newsletter. Make sure you visit the
Speaker 1: website because there's always good timely information on what to do.
Speaker 1: They have an excellent selection, by the way of some beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful plants that are natives that you probably haven't seen
Speaker 1: before or grown before. That's where you find them. Buchanans
Speaker 1: Native Plants, as well as all the fertilizers I talk
Speaker 1: about here on garden Line and everything else you need
Speaker 1: for success. If summer heat is driving you inside, you
Speaker 1: won't believe the selection house plants and succulents and other
Speaker 1: things that are there at Buchanans. It's the place to
Speaker 1: go for a landscape that survives the insects, diseases, heat, drought, coal, rain,
Speaker 1: whatever we have here, the plants that are from here
Speaker 1: that know how to survive it, you're going to find
Speaker 1: their Buchanans native plants. Let's head out now to pair
Speaker 1: Land and if I can get my here we go.
Speaker 1: Hey Melboyne, welcome to garden line. Hey Skip, how's are
Speaker 1: going doing good? Thank you? I've got a question. I've
Speaker 1: got two peach trees.
Speaker 8: One of them is a red baron, the other one
Speaker 8: is a mid pride. They've both kind of gotten pretty
Speaker 8: much higher than managemb One of the bid pride is
Speaker 8: about ten foot, the red baron's about eight.
Speaker 1: So kind of a double question. When is the best
Speaker 1: time to cut them back?
Speaker 8: And how much can I do it for a manageable tree.
Speaker 8: And then also, this year, for whatever reason, most a
Speaker 8: lot of the peaches on it were about the size
Speaker 8: of a ping pong ball, And last year they had
Speaker 8: very good sized peaches on it. You know, it's not
Speaker 8: overloaded with them, and I feed them the Microlife orange bag.
Speaker 2: So those are the questions.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, when you say their ping pong ball s
Speaker 1: eye is ping pong ball size when they're ripe? Or
Speaker 1: is that just what they are right right now?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay? That is small when yeah, yeah, Usually that's
Speaker 1: a function of too many fruit for the for the
Speaker 1: tree branch to be able to fully size up. I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know what the spacing is and stuff,
Speaker 1: But peaches will set about oh ten times more fruit
Speaker 1: than they need in a good year, and we just
Speaker 1: have to thin all the extras off in order to
Speaker 1: have the best size. If you can keep your peaches
Speaker 1: about you know, open up your hand wide and from
Speaker 1: the tip of your little finger to the tip of
Speaker 1: your thumb, that's about how far you want peaches to
Speaker 1: be apart. If the leaves are not large and healthy
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of them, it's going to cause the
Speaker 1: same problem as having too many peaches. You just those
Speaker 1: are the keys. Lots of good sunlight too. If usually
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen within one year Melbourne, but as trees
Speaker 1: start to shade your trees, that will affect fruit set
Speaker 1: and and development. Those are a few things. Make sure
Speaker 1: it has adequate water. Yeah, do the trees look healthy
Speaker 1: in general when you just stand back and look at
Speaker 1: the foliage and everything.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And the rit mid Pride has
Speaker 8: probably got about a three inch or maybe a little
Speaker 8: bit more diameter trunk, and the Red Barren probably got
Speaker 8: a three inch trunk. And this is the first year
Speaker 8: they've ever done that, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I don't know. I'd wait and watch then.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you know how to grow peach, and
Speaker 1: so those are the things that cause yeah, well, those
Speaker 1: are the things that cause lack of fruit size, the
Speaker 1: things I just went over. But as far as the
Speaker 1: tree cutting it back, you can cut back a tree
Speaker 1: some anytime you need to, pretty much. We try to
Speaker 1: do the major printing at the end of a winter
Speaker 1: before the tree leaves out sometime in the winter. If
Speaker 1: you are well going to do something pretty severe, you
Speaker 1: may want to start on some of the printing. Now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was kind of my question, like if maybe
Speaker 8: I'll cut back maybe about a third of the tree
Speaker 8: and encourage the new growth to start growing now. But
Speaker 8: I didn't know when it was the best time to
Speaker 8: do that.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when you do a major prone back, that
Speaker 1: tree is just going to send up shoots everywhere and
Speaker 1: it's going to be a mess, and so you're going
Speaker 1: to have to work with it a while. And when
Speaker 1: shoots are coming out toward the center of the tree
Speaker 1: or you know that you want to keep the center open.
Speaker 1: If you can, you just have to say no, cut
Speaker 1: those off and leave the ones are going in the
Speaker 1: direction you want them to go. Uh, if you if
Speaker 1: you do it, maybe a third of it now you
Speaker 1: can do that. But the main thing you're wanting to
Speaker 1: do is is build a bunch of branches where you
Speaker 1: want them, not where they are now, over the months
Speaker 1: to come. And so that's going to be a kind
Speaker 1: of gradual thing. Now, if you didn't in the at
Speaker 1: the end of winter the best pruning time, it'd be
Speaker 1: easiest on the tree, and the wounds would heal the fastest.
Speaker 1: But then you would just have you would basically be
Speaker 1: giving up most of next year's crop, because that all
Speaker 1: sets at the end of summer and in the fall.
Speaker 1: So if you can do some now and get some
Speaker 1: of the little you know, peaches set fruit on the
Speaker 1: little twiggy growth, the little branches that are uh, you know,
Speaker 1: smaller than a straw, a drinking straw. I mean they're
Speaker 1: they're they're small. Half the size of a straw. That's
Speaker 1: that's where the fruiting comes on last year. So in
Speaker 1: order to have fruit next year, you need to prune
Speaker 1: now and then met probably prune again by the time
Speaker 1: we get to Actually, no, you're not gonna have time
Speaker 1: for another one, but prine now, and then the shoots
Speaker 1: that grow have the ability to set for it for
Speaker 1: next year as you kind of work it back to
Speaker 1: where you want it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was kind of my thinking to do that,
Speaker 8: so it would have some type of fruit next year,
Speaker 8: so you could.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, just remember it's.
Speaker 8: Better to put a five dollar tree in a twenty
Speaker 8: dollars hole than a twenty.
Speaker 1: Dollars three a five dollars hole. Ain't that the truth
Speaker 1: I tried got to get that's all part of that.
Speaker 1: I always say brown stuff before green stuff. It's getting
Speaker 1: getting the soil right is so important. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe he said that. I'm sure he did. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: if you take care, appreciate that, if you'd like to
Speaker 1: give me a call. Seven one three two one two.
Speaker 1: K t r H seven one three two one two.
Speaker 1: K t r H has a number of different fertilizer
Speaker 1: products on the market, quite a few as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, they've got one called Sweet Green that's their
Speaker 1: organic line. It is a eleven percent nitrogen, which is
Speaker 1: really high for an organic product, but eleven percent nitrogen
Speaker 1: fertilizer is typically used by folks for the lawn. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you were to do soil testing, what
Speaker 1: you're going to find is, while the while sun needs
Speaker 1: all these different nutrients, they are all important, when it
Speaker 1: comes to turf grass, the main thing it needs is nitrogen.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times I will switch and
Speaker 1: just do a nitrogen application only occasionally, because if I'm
Speaker 1: returning my clippings and recycling nutrients, I'm keeping most of
Speaker 1: this stuff around. Sweet Green is great for that. You
Speaker 1: know we're talking about basically with the eleven percent nitrogen,
Speaker 1: just a really good quick boost. I had a neighbor
Speaker 1: to use some Sweet Green last year and he was
Speaker 1: talking to me all about three weeks ago and he
Speaker 1: was saying, Man, that stuff just works. I mean it
Speaker 1: greens up and it looks good. Yes, that's true. It
Speaker 1: is a quality product from the folks at Microsoft and
Speaker 1: Microsoft Oh my gosh, I'm not even a computer guy.
Speaker 1: Nitrofoss anyway, you're gonna find nitrofoss products many places, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just talking about Enchanted Forest. They carry night
Speaker 1: foss products down there at in Channon Forest. You can
Speaker 1: find it at Ace Hardware up there, and sick A Ranch.
Speaker 1: If you go up to Arbor Gate, if you go
Speaker 1: to Plants for All Seeds, if you go to you
Speaker 1: know RCW all these nurseries and things, a lot of
Speaker 1: those folks will carry us some nitrofoss products there as well.
Speaker 1: So just give them, give them a check and ask
Speaker 1: sweet green, the organic sweet green from nitrofoss. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Guardline, I'm your host, Skip Richter. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to give me a call seven one three two one
Speaker 1: two ktr H. We're gonna go now to Kingwood and
Speaker 1: talk to Salvator. Am I saying that right is at
Speaker 1: Salvat all right, Salvator Salvator.
Speaker 10: Okay, okay, hey's my help. Uh yeah, I got a
Speaker 10: couple of citrus trees in thirty five gallons uh containers.
Speaker 10: On one of them, I've got a really big, huge
Speaker 10: climbing the sides of the container, a fire ant hill. Well,
Speaker 10: my question to you is I have some granules in
Speaker 10: the garage that work very well, when I hurt the
Speaker 10: tree by you know, sort of maybe putting a hole
Speaker 10: into the hill and just adding some of that. Will
Speaker 10: that do anything to the tree or the fruits that
Speaker 10: are growing on it right now?
Speaker 1: Is this a is this a bait product? Or is
Speaker 1: this just a mound killers?
Speaker 10: Is just a mile killer from Bayer? The granules you
Speaker 10: just spray out from your back and I just want
Speaker 10: to make sure I have limes on it right now,
Speaker 10: and I don't want to ruin the limes or kill
Speaker 10: the tree or anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's there's two. There's two answers to your question.
Speaker 1: The correct and right answer, according to the law is
Speaker 1: the label is the law, and I can't tell you
Speaker 1: to use a product contrary to what the label says.
Speaker 1: That's a big no no. So if it's not on
Speaker 1: the label, don't do it. The other answers does it
Speaker 1: work and will it hurt something? And that's a whole
Speaker 1: nother kind of thing. But bottom line is if you
Speaker 1: look on that label and it doesn't say fruit, trees
Speaker 1: or citrus, then I would not do it. There is
Speaker 1: a product, a bait product called come and Get It
Speaker 1: that is from Fertilom, and it works very well, and
Speaker 1: it's organic, and it happens to have a label for
Speaker 1: use in edible like gardens and stuff, so you could
Speaker 1: use that one then. But anything that's labeled for those
Speaker 1: killing the mound is not that hard, you know. Pretty much,
Speaker 1: any decent insecticide you drenched down into the mound is
Speaker 1: going to kill them. But the baits are the better
Speaker 1: long term solution to that. So that's kind of where
Speaker 1: we are, Salvator. I've got to I've got to go
Speaker 1: immediately to break hang on. I'll come back to you
Speaker 1: when we come back. Glad to have you on garden
Speaker 1: line with us today. If you're back, if you'd like
Speaker 1: to call in ask a question seven one three two
Speaker 1: one two ktr H seven one three two one two
Speaker 1: fifty eight seventy four if you like to die by
Speaker 1: the numbers, had a lady one time bus at me
Speaker 1: forgiven just letters, because then you got to kind of
Speaker 1: go through your phone buttons and find out what number
Speaker 1: that letter is. All right, well, occasionally we'll give you
Speaker 1: the fifty eight seventy four if if that makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier for you, all righty, well, uh,
Speaker 1: if you are looking to get a landscape that is
Speaker 1: state of the art, beautiful, gorgeous, just whatever you want
Speaker 1: out of your landscape. You want it designed, you want
Speaker 1: it built, you want it maintained, whatever you want in
Speaker 1: that way. That's puer Scapes. That's what they do. You
Speaker 1: can go to the website peerscapes dot com. You can
Speaker 1: get them a call. Two eight one three seven oh
Speaker 1: fifty sixty. Do you need the whole thing designed? Do
Speaker 1: you just want to revamp a bed, put in new plants,
Speaker 1: plants that are drought tolerant, heat tolerant, things like that.
Speaker 1: Do you need lighting? Do you need irrigation? Do you
Speaker 1: need drainage to be improved? Pierce Scapes does it all?
Speaker 1: Go to the website, look at it, look at what
Speaker 1: they do. See the quality of work they can do.
Speaker 1: Piercescapes dot com. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty.
Speaker 1: I was talking about some soil of somebody the other day,
Speaker 1: and they had gotten some soil products from Nature's Way Resources.
Speaker 1: Now Nature's Way, for those who aren't familiar, is the
Speaker 1: place up Interstate forty five almost to Toumbo in fact,
Speaker 1: where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia and HiT's
Speaker 1: forty five across the railroad tracks is Nature's Way. So
Speaker 1: if you're going north, you turn right across over the
Speaker 1: tracks and at Sherbrook Circle the website Nature'sway Resources dot Com.
Speaker 1: That's what you need to check out Nature's Way Resources
Speaker 1: dot Com. Look at the products that they offer, so
Speaker 1: many quality products. They take time to do it right,
Speaker 1: and they've been doing this a long time, and they
Speaker 1: know how to make things. If you need a blend,
Speaker 1: like for vegetables, or for fruit trees, or for roses
Speaker 1: and other blooming plants, they've got all of those. Do
Speaker 1: you need something for top dressing, Well, they've got the
Speaker 1: fungal compost, which is excellent, by the way, over Friday
Speaker 1: is Fungal Friday where you get ten percent off bags
Speaker 1: twenty percent off bulk. They also have leaf mole compost,
Speaker 1: which is outstanding for doing top dressing of your lawn.
Speaker 1: You got some areas of lawn that are thin and
Speaker 1: need a little boost, a lilaration, a little compost top
Speaker 1: dressing on those and you can really turn them around.
Speaker 1: And Nature's weighs the place to do that. Nature's Way
Speaker 1: Resources dot Com makes it easy. So anyway, I was
Speaker 1: telling you that earlier this week, I've been working on
Speaker 1: fixing a gate. I also am putting some dud's in
Speaker 1: around the base of some trees. I'm tired of weed
Speaker 1: eating around the base of a tree, trying to kill
Speaker 1: the grass, so I just put a little small bed
Speaker 1: in around it. Put some things there at the base
Speaker 1: that can take the shade and do really well, and
Speaker 1: anything it looks better. So kind of having some fun
Speaker 1: with that. A couple of other projects going on the
Speaker 1: orchard is needing my attention. My fruit trees are young,
Speaker 1: and so they always need a boost a fertilizer. So
Speaker 1: if you're if you've got young fruit trees, and you
Speaker 1: know the goal is to make a bigger tree pretty
Speaker 1: fast so you can hang fruit on it, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got a little scrawny Charlie brown fruit tree. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna put many peaches or apples or whatever kind
Speaker 1: of fruits et ceterus and whatever on it. So you
Speaker 1: want it to grow, and the way to get it
Speaker 1: to grow is to give it a good quality fertilizer.
Speaker 1: Standard lawn fertilizers work fine for fruit trees because they're
Speaker 1: heavy in the nitrogen in they support that growth. But
Speaker 1: buy a fruit, a fruit tree fertilizer, but just give
Speaker 1: one and do it. If you don't know how much
Speaker 1: fertilizer you use on a tree, go up to the
Speaker 1: trunk and figure out how many inches across is it.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's the size of let's say a broomstick,
Speaker 1: a broom handle, Well depends on what kind of broom handle,
Speaker 1: but let's just say that's about an inch and a
Speaker 1: half something like that. Well, for every inch of trunk diameter,
Speaker 1: give it one or two cups of synthetic fertilizer, or
Speaker 1: give it three to five cups of organic fertilizer. So
Speaker 1: it just depends on which of the two you choose
Speaker 1: to use. But that way you know exactly. So someone
Speaker 1: was calling earlier and had some trees with the size
Speaker 1: of a sense of a coke can, so roughly three
Speaker 1: inches across, So that would be three to six cups
Speaker 1: of synthetic spread out in an area all underneath the branches.
Speaker 1: Don't dump it at the bottom or essentially double that
Speaker 1: on organic spread out in that same area, working into
Speaker 1: the soil water. It didn't really good. Keep that tree growing,
Speaker 1: keep training it to, don't let it listen. If you
Speaker 1: get a new puppy and you don't train it at all,
Speaker 1: you're going to have a problem when that thing's a dog, right,
Speaker 1: a big old dog. You gotta train your fruit trees.
Speaker 1: You gotta point them in the direction you want them
Speaker 1: to go. And life is so much better if you
Speaker 1: do so. Fertilize them, get them growing, but train them.
Speaker 1: Go online, go to the Aggi Horticulture website. It's Aggie Horticulture.
Speaker 1: There's a fruit section and a publication on every fruit
Speaker 1: tree you would grow here, and he tells you how
Speaker 1: to print it and do that. The earlier you start,
Speaker 1: the better. When you have to cut a tree way back,
Speaker 1: that's a whole new operation, and you're going to set
Speaker 1: yourself back in your production back in the process. I'm
Speaker 1: going to head out to Pairland now and talk to Jessica. Hey, Jessica,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 11: Hie, thank you so much for taking my call.
Speaker 1: What's up?
Speaker 11: I own a house forty five years and sixty years ago.
Speaker 11: The neighbors that had lived there planted oak trees down
Speaker 11: the property line and they said sold out in the
Speaker 11: city owns that property, but they're claiming the city is
Speaker 11: claiming that the church behind me owns Eastman there and
Speaker 11: they owned the tree, so nobody's claiming ownership of the trees.
Speaker 11: I need to trim them back because of the leaves
Speaker 11: of the branches have grown halfway over my house, and
Speaker 11: I'm wondering, if I just trimmed my side, is it
Speaker 11: going to kill the trees.
Speaker 1: No, it won't kill the tree. Now, I'm not a lawyer,
Speaker 1: so what you really need here is a property lawyer
Speaker 1: to figure out whose trees those are and then to
Speaker 1: tell you what you can and can't do on your
Speaker 1: side of the of the property.
Speaker 11: I know city doesn't want to the city, I'm sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 11: go ahead. The city years ago or twelve years ago
Speaker 11: can take responsibility for the roots growing close up under
Speaker 11: my slab and they came out and cut the roots.
Speaker 11: But now the city that I'm talking to you is
Speaker 11: kind of they don't own them.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I'll just answer the horticultural part of the question,
Speaker 1: and that is if you prune branches back, it's not
Speaker 1: going to kill the tree. So just prune as you
Speaker 1: need to prune. Yeah. Now, you know, as far as
Speaker 1: who owns a tree and legal stuff, that that's a
Speaker 1: different that's a different picture. You know what I would
Speaker 1: do is and if you are you thinking about having
Speaker 1: it done having somebody do.
Speaker 11: It, well, my husband to do it yourself kind of guy.
Speaker 11: But that kind of scares me because I think I
Speaker 11: need a tree company that has insurance that would be responsible.
Speaker 12: If they died.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would. Well, let me give you a
Speaker 1: phone number and y'all I can figure out what you
Speaker 1: want to do with the phone number. Uh, it's Affordable
Speaker 1: Tree Service and it's seven to one three six nine
Speaker 1: nine two six six three. They do this all day long.
Speaker 1: They know how to prune properly. Uh, they can probably
Speaker 1: answer your questions on you know, what you can and
Speaker 1: can't do in terms of property how that all works.
Speaker 1: But uh, they do trimming and feeding and everything. But
Speaker 1: they can come out there and certainly this would be
Speaker 1: just very easy for them just to do a proper
Speaker 1: prune job on those trees. But it's Affordable Tree eight
Speaker 1: uh seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three.
Speaker 1: When you call you, it's Martin Spoon Moore's company. You'll
Speaker 1: probably talk to his mom. It's a family business, so uh,
Speaker 1: just tell him you heard about on Guarden Line where
Speaker 1: they're our customers are are our listeners? Are their their
Speaker 1: priority customers there at Affordable Tree Service.
Speaker 11: All right, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, good luck with that. Thank appreciate to call.
Speaker 1: Just bye bye. All right, I'm gonna take a little
Speaker 1: quick break here and we'll be back. Yes, that's actually
Speaker 1: a song. It sounds like a jingle for a company.
Speaker 1: Maybe pest Bros. Needs to pick that up as their jingle.
Speaker 1: You know, best Bros. Is the company I talk about
Speaker 1: all the time. They cover the whole area. I mean
Speaker 1: from the up in the Woodlands down to Texas City
Speaker 1: and Baytown across the Kadie. They do all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 1: not just mosquitoes, but their mosquito bucket system is awesome.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I have it, I use it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: And my neighbor the other day he said, I got
Speaker 1: to get one of those because he was seeing benefits
Speaker 1: actually at his house from my buckets that they work
Speaker 1: that well. Pest Bros. Is the company you need to
Speaker 1: call for anything. Termites, you know, cockroaches in the house.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe your mother in law's visiting and she's
Speaker 1: screaming running around the house because there's cockroaches and so Okay,
Speaker 1: my wife says, if you're thinking about saying something, don't
Speaker 1: say it because you've already crossed the line. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna leave the mother in law and roaches come out
Speaker 1: alone and just say call pest Bros. Two eight one
Speaker 1: two o six forty six seventy two eight one two
Speaker 1: o six forty six seventy for whatever bugs you well
Speaker 1: with six legs dpestbros dot com dpestbros dot com. Let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go out to Parallel now and we are gonna
Speaker 1: speak with Archie. Hey, Archie, welcome to guard Line.
Speaker 2: Warning you. Hey, a couple of mornings ago, I sent
Speaker 2: you a couple of photos. One was of a black
Speaker 2: picked tree I have in my front yard that's forty
Speaker 2: five years old. And then the other one was think
Speaker 2: some kind of bug that was on my patio. It
Speaker 2: looked like it looked like a stick had a baby
Speaker 2: ride in his back. Hey, it wasn't. I don't think
Speaker 2: it was a sting bug, but I couldn't identify it.
Speaker 2: I just disappeared and I don't see it. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen anything any more of them, but I thought it
Speaker 2: was a strange looking bug.
Speaker 1: Uh Uh, let's see I don't see it was a yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I do.
Speaker 2: I think yeah, because you sent me some kind of
Speaker 2: text that could you for permission?
Speaker 1: Uh to photos? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I'm looking. I'm seeing
Speaker 1: I can find it here, Archie. Uh go ahead and
Speaker 1: tell me describe one of them again for me. What
Speaker 1: did it look like?
Speaker 2: The bug? Yeah, the of the tree.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find your photos. Okay, Oh, why you're
Speaker 1: just not seeing it? I tell you.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give a shout out to Jorge down there
Speaker 2: in Alvin. I went down there a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: ago and got some drift roses from him and at
Speaker 2: a hyberta really really nice roses. And for this time
Speaker 2: of the year, a lot of nurseries who have with
Speaker 2: their roses optober you know, have black spot and everything
Speaker 2: else on them. His his really in good shape. So
Speaker 2: and he's a nice guy. I enjoyed my visit down there.
Speaker 2: So give me a shout out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad to glad to know that it doesn't
Speaker 1: surprise me. Or he's a great guy. They have great stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I'm not I'm not finding you can't find it.
Speaker 1: We must if it's far back. Yeah, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: I see I see one that's aecht?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: What was what was the other one about?
Speaker 2: It was a bug?
Speaker 1: I may have to a long yes, I may, okay?
Speaker 2: And what was what was interesting about it? He had
Speaker 2: a baby on its back, you know, about about the
Speaker 2: fourth of its size. And it was just a really
Speaker 2: unusual looking bug. I've never seen one like it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do this. Let me. I'm gonna need
Speaker 1: some time to find this, so let's let me. We're
Speaker 1: going to hit the top of the hour here pretty quick. Uh,
Speaker 1: could you call back if I find it, I'll talk
Speaker 1: about it. But if we need to talk back and forth,
Speaker 1: just call me back next hour if you would, and
Speaker 1: I'll be able to. Yeah. Right now, we're not getting anywhere,
Speaker 1: but thank you. I'm going to put you put you
Speaker 1: on hold. Go ahead, okay, all right? Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: talking about pest bros. I'll find that. I'll find that
Speaker 1: picture a little bit. A lot of emails come in
Speaker 1: and sometimes kind of hard to keep up with them.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been out to Nelson Nursery and Ruder
Speaker 1: Garden out in Katie. You just head out to Katie
Speaker 1: on Town Turn North on Katie Fort Ben Road, and
Speaker 1: it's just up the street a little bit there. It
Speaker 1: is an outstanding garden center. I mean, it's a destination
Speaker 1: guards if you're you know, we I like to think
Speaker 1: of it as this is your West Houston destination garden center.
Speaker 1: Take friends with you, get out there. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, I mean, if everything from you know,
Speaker 1: landscape laying, a really nice selection of the perennial hibiscus,
Speaker 1: a kind with the big white, pink or red blooms
Speaker 1: that are dinner plate size. They have folks that know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. They can direct you and point
Speaker 1: you in the right direction. Milk weeds for your and
Speaker 1: other plants for your pollinators, beautiful pottery, and of course
Speaker 1: things for water, whether it's putting in a waterfall, putting
Speaker 1: in a disappearing fountain, one of those little, tall, not
Speaker 1: necessarily little, but tall eurns that the water just goes
Speaker 1: out of the top of and then recycles back in.
Speaker 1: It's the place and you're gonna find the products you
Speaker 1: need to have success with your lawn and whatnot there
Speaker 1: as well. Nelson Watergardens dot Com, Nelson Watergardens dot Com,
Speaker 1: Katie fort Benrod and boy, with the hot weather heating up, now,
Speaker 1: what a great time to go out there and walk
Speaker 1: among their beautiful shade trees and enjoy the sound of water.
Speaker 1: Maybe you want to bring some of that home with you.
Speaker 1: I know I do every time I'm around one of
Speaker 1: those water features. It's like I got to have me
Speaker 1: one of these. Someone was asking me. They were down
Speaker 1: I don't know what was it, Clear Lake City, somewhere
Speaker 1: down in that whole area around there, asking me about
Speaker 1: where can I get such and such fertilizer you talk
Speaker 1: about done here? And I said, well, League City Feed,
Speaker 1: League City Feeds in League City there are a few
Speaker 1: blocks south of Highway ninety six, and so you know,
Speaker 1: they were kind of trying to find, well, where do
Speaker 1: you get I can't remember which one it was, which fertilizer,
Speaker 1: but it was like they had nitrofis they have as
Speaker 1: a might, they have microlife. You know, they got Nelson
Speaker 1: plant food. They got you covered on all of that.
Speaker 1: If you want airlom solves by the bag, they got
Speaker 1: that too. There at League City feed. It's just an
Speaker 1: old time feed store, been around over forty years now,
Speaker 1: and they carry the bags out for you know, the
Speaker 1: old time service that you would expect from back in
Speaker 1: the day. Maybe you went to a feed store with
Speaker 1: a parent back when you were growing up, you remember that, Well,
Speaker 1: this is what we're talking about. League City Feed. The
Speaker 1: Thunderbergs have been operating this thing for over forty years now.
Speaker 1: They're open Monday through Saturday, nine to six. You can
Speaker 1: swing by after work, closed on Sundays. Here's a phone
Speaker 1: number two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. So
Speaker 1: that's where you get the fertilizer down there. They cover
Speaker 1: that whole area. Of fact. I think of them as
Speaker 1: the hometown beach store for Santa Fe and Dickinson in
Speaker 1: League City, and Webster and Clare Lake and Lamarx and
Speaker 1: Leone Elkaminarreal, all those communities down there. They serve that
Speaker 1: area just a few blocks south of Highway or of
Speaker 1: Highway ninety six on Highway three right there in League City.
Speaker 1: So if you if you are have not done a
Speaker 1: summer fertilization, it's time to go ahead and get that done.
Speaker 1: And you can make sure that you get your products
Speaker 1: down watermen really good. Follow the label. You know, the
Speaker 1: slow releases are the better choice, but you can use
Speaker 1: an immediate release. You just do it in small applications,
Speaker 1: repeated over time, so you kind of make it slow yourself.
Speaker 1: If you haven't been to the arbor Gate recently, you
Speaker 1: need to go check out what they've got going there.
Speaker 1: By the way, a lot of you love their one
Speaker 1: two three easy system. And that is the food for
Speaker 1: anything with roots, a food for anything with roots, and
Speaker 1: it is a soil that is organic. It has expanded
Speaker 1: shale in it, and it's a compost. The three products
Speaker 1: food soil composts, all organic, all available also by bulk
Speaker 1: from Arburgate. Check out the arbor Gate. It's west of
Speaker 1: Tomball on twenty nine to twenty. You've probably been there before.
Speaker 1: Today'd be a good day to get out there and
Speaker 1: visit it because when you go, your jaw's going to
Speaker 1: hit the ground all the beautiful plants and things that
Speaker 1: they have. It's time for me to quit talking. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna go away and I'll be right back with
Speaker 1: your calls after the hour. All right, folks, welcome back
Speaker 1: to the guard Line. Good to have you back with
Speaker 1: us here. Archie. If you're still listening, I am not
Speaker 1: finding the picture. I don't know why you can't find it.
Speaker 1: In the emails. Send it me again if you would.
Speaker 1: If you got those photos, and then we can give
Speaker 1: me a call. We'll talk about them. Anyway. You're listening
Speaker 1: to garden Line and we're here to help you have
Speaker 1: a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape and hopefully more
Speaker 1: fun in the process. That's kind of the deal, right,
Speaker 1: We want you to enjoy gardening because gardening is a very,
Speaker 1: very enjoyable hobby. People worry about failing at gardening and
Speaker 1: they feel like they can't grow things, and they say
Speaker 1: they have a brown thumb. And I'm here to tell
Speaker 1: you that it's not as difficult sometimes as we make it.
Speaker 1: But it comes down to getting good information and giving
Speaker 1: a plant what it wants. That's the bottom line. Now,
Speaker 1: you go on social media, okay, don't get me started.
Speaker 1: Drives me nuts. All the claims that are made out
Speaker 1: there and all the kind of goofy things. You know,
Speaker 1: if it's used to be a guy I won't use
Speaker 1: his name, but wrote books and everything, and he talked
Speaker 1: about putting beer on your lawn and of course people
Speaker 1: eat that stuff up. They love all kinds of weird
Speaker 1: stuf like that. Just just do things right. Just understand
Speaker 1: what a plant wants. Plants want sunlight, plants want soil moisture,
Speaker 1: plants want good drained and there's variations in all of
Speaker 1: those factors. How much, son, how much do you know?
Speaker 1: There are plants that can take bad drainage. But in general,
Speaker 1: you give a plant what it wants and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have success with it. And so save yourself all the
Speaker 1: gimmicks and home remedies and all the other things, and
Speaker 1: just give the plants what they want. If you got
Speaker 1: any questions about those same, give me a call. You're
Speaker 1: on guarden line. That's over here. We can help you
Speaker 1: have success. We want it to be fun. I promise
Speaker 1: you you do not have a brown thumb, no matter what.
Speaker 1: I don't care how many plants you've killed. You got
Speaker 1: to kill a lot of plants to be a good gardener,
Speaker 1: by the way, but you don't have a brown thumb.
Speaker 1: You have an uninformed thumb. Maybe, so let's inform that thumb.
Speaker 1: Give me a call seven one three two one two
Speaker 1: k t RH. We'll make it simple like that. You know,
Speaker 1: when you think about what a plants want, well, what
Speaker 1: is nature provide for plants?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 1: How where do plants live other than in our yards
Speaker 1: when we pull them from all over the world and
Speaker 1: bring them to one spot here to grow in our yard. Well,
Speaker 1: plants live out where soil is being built by natural processes,
Speaker 1: roots growing and dying and decomposing, earthworms going through leaves
Speaker 1: falling on the surface and decaying away. And microlife fertilizers
Speaker 1: are designed for that particular system. That is exactly what
Speaker 1: nature does. Microbes rule the world. And when you do
Speaker 1: a microlife fertilizer, when you get one, whether it's the
Speaker 1: green bag, the sixty four that we put on our lawns,
Speaker 1: you know, the humates plus the purple bag, we're talking
Speaker 1: about microbes present in those products and built in fact,
Speaker 1: every bag contains just bazillions of beneficial microbes to help
Speaker 1: your plants. And then that includes i say bags, that
Speaker 1: includes their liquids, the Microlife Biomatrix orange label, the Ocean Harvest.
Speaker 1: I just use some Ocean Harvest blue label on some
Speaker 1: plants I'm trying to get a boost on. I got
Speaker 1: some outdoor plants that are in containers and they're just
Speaker 1: kind of not happy. Part of it's my fault for
Speaker 1: not caring for them better. But I've got some Microlife
Speaker 1: Ocean Harvest blue label. It's a four to two three
Speaker 1: fish based fertilizer. Mixed it up in water like the
Speaker 1: label says, and watered with it, and I'll do that
Speaker 1: for the next two or three weeks and they will
Speaker 1: turn around. Because micro Life products work. You can go
Speaker 1: to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out more about it,
Speaker 1: but the bottom line is that they work. My songbirds
Speaker 1: out in the yard and garden are really excited about
Speaker 1: the feeders that we have for them out right now.
Speaker 1: I put some Nesting super Blend in. That's a product
Speaker 1: sold by Wildbird's Unlimited Nesting Superblend, because a lot of
Speaker 1: our birds are nesting. I had some doves that came
Speaker 1: in and I've never seen this before, but we have
Speaker 1: a swallow nest. It's a little mud nest under the
Speaker 1: eaves of the house at the front door, and we
Speaker 1: leave it there because we like it. We like having
Speaker 1: the swallows come in. They came in, did their thing.
Speaker 1: Now they're gone, and some doves came in and start
Speaker 1: bringing sticks and putting them on top of the swallow
Speaker 1: nest to make their nests right there. It's the strangest thing.
Speaker 1: But birds love to hang out at my house because
Speaker 1: we're always giving them quality feed from Wildbirds Unlimited. Cheap
Speaker 1: bird seed is exactly that. It's not just that it's inexpensive.
Speaker 1: In fact, it isn't inexpensive because when half the bird
Speaker 1: seed goes on the ground because birds don't want to
Speaker 1: eat it, that's not inexpensive. That is a cheap product,
Speaker 1: but that's not inexpensive because you're gonna end up buying
Speaker 1: more just to get some in the bird's stomach. Well,
Speaker 1: the folks at Wildbirds Unlimited know how to make blends.
Speaker 1: The Nesting Super Blend that's their exclusive, The Cardinal Confetti
Speaker 1: another awesome blend that my birds love. It's another good one.
Speaker 1: And you can go to any of the six wild
Speaker 1: Birds Unlimited stores here in the Greater Houston area Wan
Speaker 1: in Kingwood, won In clear Lake, When in pair Land,
Speaker 1: Houston West on Memorial Drive, Houston Southwest on bel Air,
Speaker 1: and Cypress. Up there in Barker Cypress, there's a wild
Speaker 1: Bird's Unlimited store there too. You get expertise, you get
Speaker 1: quality bird seed, you get all kinds of feeders and
Speaker 1: houses and everything else you need to be able to
Speaker 1: go out and enjoy a really wonderful time. You know,
Speaker 1: gardening isn't just visual like colors and flowers. Gardening is
Speaker 1: fragrances from scented plants. Gardening is sounds from the birds
Speaker 1: and the sound of running water. And when you create
Speaker 1: that backyard place like bringing in birds, you just add
Speaker 1: to the many scents senses I can't say, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say scent and senses at the same time, the
Speaker 1: many senses that you enjoy your gardens with, the visual,
Speaker 1: the hearing, the smelling. It's a wonderful thing. And Wilbird's
Speaker 1: unlimited is a big part of being able to enjoy that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to need to take a little break here
Speaker 1: in just a second. When we come back from break,
Speaker 1: Mark and Katie, you're going to be our very first stop,
Speaker 1: so hang on, we'll be right back with you. Plans
Speaker 1: for all seasons is the Garden Center up there where
Speaker 1: Luetta comes into two forty nine Tomball Parkway, so you're
Speaker 1: heading up toward tom Ball or down from Tomball towards Houston.
Speaker 1: It's just north of Luetta on the east side of
Speaker 1: the road there. It's been around since nineteenth seventy three.
Speaker 1: True lawn and garden experts at Plants for All Seasons.
Speaker 1: You can give them a call at two eight, one, three, seven, six,
Speaker 1: sixteen forty six. Go in there with your questions and
Speaker 1: your problems, take them samples, take them photos, or just
Speaker 1: walk in. They'll take time with you. They'll, you know,
Speaker 1: describe the situation. I need a container and it's going
Speaker 1: to be in shade, and I wanted to have and
Speaker 1: what are some and they'll explain, give you options and
Speaker 1: put it together. Because they are experts, they know what
Speaker 1: they're talking about. At Plants for All Seasons. I need
Speaker 1: to take a little quick break here and again when
Speaker 1: we come back, Mark and Katie and Veronica and sugar Land,
Speaker 1: you'll be our first two up. All right, welcome back,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to guard Line, folks. Good to have you
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Speaker 1: to Mark. Hello, Mark, Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 13: Good morning Skip.
Speaker 14: We had some foundation work done and they had to
Speaker 14: take the plants out of the backflower bed and there
Speaker 14: were four really healthy, mature Laura Petellum's, And I guess
Speaker 14: my first question is, how do you hoy?
Speaker 2: Do you pronounce it? Is it Laura Peddlum or Laura Petellum?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 1: Laura Pedlum Chinese witch hazelaw? That makes it easier, Okay.
Speaker 14: Anyway, so they did a very poor job, didn't take
Speaker 14: much of the roots and all and put them back,
Speaker 14: and of course they all died. So the quandary, though,
Speaker 14: is that we went out and bought four more new,
Speaker 14: really nice, healthy laurapotolms put them back in the exact
Speaker 14: same spots and the same dirt, exact same sun and shade,
Speaker 14: and they're dying too, so we can't figure out what
Speaker 14: to do about it.
Speaker 1: The key on a new plant like that is to
Speaker 1: keep the roots moist, not overwatering and drowning them, nor
Speaker 1: letting them get dry. And the challenge mark is that
Speaker 1: plant before you bought it was sitting in a garden
Speaker 1: center where somebody's watering it every day, because the whole
Speaker 1: root system is in that cylinder in the container, and
Speaker 1: so when you put it in the ground, it could
Speaker 1: pump that cylinder dry easily, even though you know you've
Speaker 1: watered the whole bed and the soil is moist well,
Speaker 1: the root zone soil is not moist because it pumps
Speaker 1: it dry. So you have to water right there at
Speaker 1: the base for a little while. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: a touch and got thing where you're keeping it moist
Speaker 1: enough but not too soggy wet, and it takes almost
Speaker 1: a daily watering, well early on it does, especially if
Speaker 1: they're in some sun, to do that, and then gradually
Speaker 1: as they get established, then you know you're not worrying
Speaker 1: about such touch and go watering all the time. But
Speaker 1: that may have been what happened. It could have been
Speaker 1: some damage in the transplanting process. But I would just
Speaker 1: dig down with a little hand trowel, go about four
Speaker 1: to six inches down and feel the soil right there
Speaker 1: at the root ball, and that'll tell you if it's
Speaker 1: moist or not and water accordingly.
Speaker 14: Is there any sign I can look forward to know
Speaker 14: that I'm overwatering.
Speaker 1: Well, Digging down and feeling the wet soil is the
Speaker 1: most dependable way, because you know, the soils are all different,
Speaker 1: they hold water, different sun versus shade, hot versus cool,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, there's a lot of variables. But
Speaker 1: how wet is the soil is what you're really trying
Speaker 1: to do. And I would say, what size gallon? What
Speaker 1: size containers? With these about? How are the diameter of
Speaker 1: the pop roughly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think again three gallon, so you could.
Speaker 1: Probably, yeah, you could probably put about on maybe almost
Speaker 1: a gallon of water on them if you're doing it
Speaker 1: every day and they're in some shade, maybe a half
Speaker 1: gallon would be enough to do it. But it's you know,
Speaker 1: I hesitate to give amounts like that because, as I said,
Speaker 1: every situation is different. It's just the real answer. It
Speaker 1: sounds like an avoiding the question, but the real answer
Speaker 1: is enough to keep the soul moist and no more so.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that's why your you know, your fingers on
Speaker 1: the end of your hand, or your best gauge of
Speaker 1: the of of that situation. All right, I'll try that,
Speaker 1: all right, Mark, thanks a lot. I appreciate your call.
Speaker 1: You take care, yes, bye bye.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We can plan any We can plan all year round here,
Speaker 1: but when you plant, you got to it's touch and
Speaker 1: go in the summertime. It doesn't mean it can't be done.
Speaker 1: I still do it. I've got some plants that are
Speaker 1: about to go in the ground. I've been planting very
Speaker 1: much every other week here for a good while, just
Speaker 1: when I can get around, you know, to taking care
Speaker 1: of some plants. If if you haven't been out to
Speaker 1: RCW Nurseries recently, you need to go. They've got some
Speaker 1: really good deals going on out there, and it's a
Speaker 1: great nursery anyway to go to. You good advice, but
Speaker 1: they they can fix you up.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: Yellow is the color of summer, and they have so
Speaker 1: many great plant like goldstaris bronze. You've seen that. It's
Speaker 1: a beautiful yellow plant coliuses that are all yellow in
Speaker 1: the fold. It's just a golden yellow. A little lisamakia.
Speaker 1: It's a ground covering vine that has yellow flowers. One
Speaker 1: called golden globes. The yellow shrimp plant. For shady areas.
Speaker 1: Light colors really brighten up a shade, make it look
Speaker 1: really good. They've got plenty of sun loving geraniums, the
Speaker 1: ones that can take quite a bit of sunlight out there.
Speaker 1: And then of course the gorgeous, just gorgeous cajun hibiscus
Speaker 1: and beautiful kriite myrtles, beautiful roses. Yes, you can still
Speaker 1: plan all that stuff. Just keep the root zone moist
Speaker 1: and then beautiful color. One of my favorite summer plants
Speaker 1: is for annual color is summer snap dragon. It's just
Speaker 1: angelonia is a proper name for it. It's just a
Speaker 1: beautiful plant. They got lots of that at RCW Nursery.
Speaker 1: They're the nursery where Tomball Parkway and About Way eight
Speaker 1: come together. Makes it really easy to get in and out.
Speaker 1: And when you get there, you're gonna find some really
Speaker 1: good stuff. We're going to go to sugar Land now
Speaker 1: and talk to Stephen. Hello, Stephen, Welcome to garden line. Hello,
Speaker 1: good morning, So morning.
Speaker 15: We were gifted at autumn blaze maple tree. It was
Speaker 15: about six foot tall and during transport to our property
Speaker 15: it broke at the base, so it was done well.
Speaker 1: I noticed a little offshoot there. It was about inch tall,
Speaker 1: so I left it.
Speaker 13: Well.
Speaker 15: That thing is now sprouted to about two feet, but
Speaker 15: it's got like a bunch of branches.
Speaker 1: It's more like a bush than a tree.
Speaker 15: So I'm wondering should I And it's got one main
Speaker 15: branch coming off the side. I should probably just snip
Speaker 15: that off right so it could be more of a
Speaker 15: tree light, But the straighter ones we'll take over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it had a good root system, so when the
Speaker 1: top broke off, it had a lot of energy to
Speaker 1: push into growth because it had that good root system.
Speaker 1: I don't you can snip off everything but the central trunk,
Speaker 1: but what I generally recommend is take your prunters and
Speaker 1: just cut the last three or four inches off these
Speaker 1: shoots that you don't want to keep. What that does
Speaker 1: is it dwarfs them and lets the growth energy go
Speaker 1: into the shoot that you're leaving that's going to become
Speaker 1: the trunk of your autumn blaze. Uh, and so when
Speaker 1: you when you when you do that, they stay small,
Speaker 1: but you leave the leaves on them. Because that plant
Speaker 1: lost all its leaves when they got broken off. It's
Speaker 1: food factories were gone. So I don't want to take
Speaker 1: the food factories that it just put out and just
Speaker 1: cut them right away again, cut them off again. So
Speaker 1: if you tip them though off.
Speaker 15: When the other stopped when the main tree broke, I
Speaker 15: mean literally there was nothing left. That offshoot was coming
Speaker 15: off the side of the root like a brand new
Speaker 15: but it has since sprouted up two feet and I
Speaker 15: want I'm thinking I want to cut there's one that's
Speaker 15: kind of coming out the side that's actually gotten taller
Speaker 15: than the main stalk, So I want to I think
Speaker 15: I should just cut.
Speaker 1: It off totally. So so what I'm telling you is
Speaker 1: tip that one, cut it back about four inches, and
Speaker 1: if it tries to sprout some more on that branch,
Speaker 1: cut it back, but leave the leaves that are on
Speaker 1: it to benefit you when we get to fall, you
Speaker 1: will have tipped it more than once to stop anything
Speaker 1: from thinking it's going to become the boss of the
Speaker 1: plant and take over and be the trunk like it's
Speaker 1: doing right now. And then cut it off when we
Speaker 1: get into winter winter printing time, but leave it. We
Speaker 1: call that a nurse limb. A nurse limb, you're you're
Speaker 1: keeping the leaves on it because that tree is in
Speaker 1: shock already and it needs all the food factories that
Speaker 1: can get. And then the one you leave unpruned becomes
Speaker 1: the main trunk. It will take off and you will
Speaker 1: have dwarfed the other one that you don't.
Speaker 5: Want to keep.
Speaker 1: All right, so good good luck with that, you bet,
Speaker 1: I wish you, wish you well on that. If you
Speaker 1: have not had compost, top dressing or aerration done before,
Speaker 1: you need to see it to really understand just how
Speaker 1: good that process is, how effective it is. Mbb turfpros
Speaker 1: dot com. That is the website to go to to
Speaker 1: check it out. BnB turf Pros. They do quality work.
Speaker 1: They take care of their customers. It's very important to them.
Speaker 1: For them, it's not just like here, I show up,
Speaker 1: I do my thing, hand me a check, I'm gone.
Speaker 1: It's a relationship for them with their customers. They do
Speaker 1: high quality work and customers. They want you to be
Speaker 1: happy with what they're doing. That is important and you
Speaker 1: will be by the way they do outstanding work. Now,
Speaker 1: if you live in the area, let's say from sugar
Speaker 1: Land all the way across I six all the way
Speaker 1: to Interstate forty five. You know, so Sugarland, Missouri City,
Speaker 1: Ciena ar Cola, Manvil, Alvin and then up Pairland friends
Speaker 1: would League City, Dickinson forty five. There, that's the region
Speaker 1: they serve, and they do quality work. If your lawn
Speaker 1: is struggling, if it's thin, if you just can't get
Speaker 1: it to grow, you know you fertilize, it's just not
Speaker 1: doing well, probably needs some aerration done and core aeration
Speaker 1: followed by compost top dressing will really turn it around.
Speaker 1: BnB turf Pros only uses top quality materials from Cienamals.
Speaker 1: Just these products I talk about here on guarden Line
Speaker 1: basically family operation, honest quality work BB no end in
Speaker 1: the website. BB Turfpros dot com seven to one three
Speaker 1: two three four fifty five ninety eight. We're going to
Speaker 1: go now to Archie and U pair Land if I
Speaker 1: can get my computer over there. Hey, Archie, I have
Speaker 1: just a second here, but I saw that you did
Speaker 1: resend me an email. But it has the it has the.
Speaker 2: BTEX tree in it, right, Yeah, that's the one, okay,
Speaker 2: and then I'll sent you another one of insect that
Speaker 2: was on my my bricks just in the last thirty
Speaker 2: mini almost at the same time. But there's a second
Speaker 2: one I sent.
Speaker 1: I don't understand this. I got one from units of Itex.
Speaker 1: That's all that's in my box. I'm gonna I've got
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds. I'm I'm I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to run.
Speaker 1: All right, It's fine, give it one give it, give
Speaker 1: it one more try, let's try. I'd really like to
Speaker 1: help you with this one. H. But I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: have to have to go. H. I wish I could,
Speaker 1: wish I could find that email. Well, we'll be right back. Alrighty,
Speaker 1: we're back. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you
Speaker 1: with us. I like hopping music. Keep things going. If
Speaker 1: you if you're if you're looking to get your lawn
Speaker 1: fertilizing done, you need to go ahead and do so.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: It is time. June is the time.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: If you're using slow release fertilizers like you hear me
Speaker 1: talk about all the time, Uh, there are some outstanding
Speaker 1: products out there to do that. Nitrovas has one called
Speaker 1: super Turf nitrovas. Super turf is a slow release. It's
Speaker 1: going to give you four months of feeding. You put
Speaker 1: it down. You put it down now, and you're done.
Speaker 1: You're done till fall. When we get to the fall fertilization,
Speaker 1: that's when we put on a little more potassium in
Speaker 1: our mixes, and that's next time you're going to fertilize.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about October there. Probably I would go
Speaker 1: ahead and get it done, watered in really good. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. Someone called me the other day and
Speaker 1: they'd gotten a gully washer rain after they put down superturf,
Speaker 1: and they said, I need to fertilize again. I said, no,
Speaker 1: you do not. Here's why super turf doesn't just dissolve
Speaker 1: away like typical salt based fertilizer and just you know,
Speaker 1: all gone in a good rain. It releases slowly over time,
Speaker 1: and not all the types of nitrogen are going to
Speaker 1: be affected by water, so it gets real wet. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's all releasing. It's a quality product. It's
Speaker 1: in a silver bag and it's from Nitrofoss, and so
Speaker 1: you can find nito Foss products, you know, at places
Speaker 1: like fish Ers Hardware, there's one down in Pasadena, there's
Speaker 1: one in La Port, there's one in Bellevue, there's one
Speaker 1: in Baytown Stanton Shopping Center, and Alvin carries Night Foss
Speaker 1: products as well as does D and D Feed up
Speaker 1: in a Tumbole area. By the way, if you haven't
Speaker 1: been to D and D Feed, they are three miles
Speaker 1: west of two forty nine and tom Ball, so you
Speaker 1: just head out west, they'll be on the left hand side,
Speaker 1: about three miles out. Dover Family open that place and
Speaker 1: I believe nineteen eighty nine and it just keeps getting
Speaker 1: better and you're gonna find everything you need when it
Speaker 1: comes to fertilizers for your loan. And they even carry
Speaker 1: things like heirloom soils, heirloom sold bagged products there. They
Speaker 1: carry brands of every kind of fertilizer. If you hear
Speaker 1: me talk about fertilizers here on Guardline, they're going to
Speaker 1: have it. At D and DE Feed, they do carry
Speaker 1: a complete selection. They have quality pet foods too, brands
Speaker 1: like Victor Star Pro Diamond Origin. And if you're dealing
Speaker 1: with pass weeds and diseases, their selection of products to
Speaker 1: help manage those plant problems is outstanding. You just just
Speaker 1: head in there again. They're on twenty nine to twenty
Speaker 1: three miles west of two forty nine if you want
Speaker 1: to get McCall two eight one three five to one
Speaker 1: seventy one forty four two eight one three five one
Speaker 1: seventy one forty four out there at d And Defeed.
Speaker 1: I was in there the other day looking at some
Speaker 1: of the products. I always stop into our garden center
Speaker 1: sponsors periodically, just okay, what's new on the shelf, what
Speaker 1: you got, and just really surprised at some of the
Speaker 1: specific products that aren't available in a lot of places,
Speaker 1: but they definitely have them right there in d And Defeed.
Speaker 1: If you are looking to do some pest control in
Speaker 1: your lawns, you know we've got a number of pests
Speaker 1: that begin about this time of the year to either
Speaker 1: attack or to be present in some years. And here's
Speaker 1: what I mean by that. Chinchbugs the first generation that
Speaker 1: we really start dealing with that is a problem in
Speaker 1: our lawns. It starts occurring in June, July, August, and
Speaker 1: the later you get in the summer, the worst the
Speaker 1: chinchbug potential and problem is. Doesn't mean you have them
Speaker 1: right now that are a problem in your lawn. That
Speaker 1: don't mean you have to treat right now. Your lawn
Speaker 1: looks good, You're okay, but watch it because chinchbugs could
Speaker 1: be coming. Sod webworms another one. Late summer, especially fall,
Speaker 1: or late summer and early fall. But that's another one.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean you're going to happen. Some years you don't
Speaker 1: even know you have them. I mean they're there, they
Speaker 1: live in our area, but there's not outbreaks every year,
Speaker 1: but boy, when there are, you got to get in
Speaker 1: ahead of them. Those are just two prime examples. And
Speaker 1: then we've got grubs and grubs. We have two things
Speaker 1: we do, or two attempts at the life of the grub.
Speaker 1: One of them is we typically are doing it in
Speaker 1: June when the June bugs there should be called may
Speaker 1: bugs around here, but the jumbugs lay eggs and the
Speaker 1: little tiny larvae are hatching and feeding near the surface,
Speaker 1: and they're easy to get to right then. That's why
Speaker 1: June is prime time for treating for them. By the
Speaker 1: time we get into July in August, the grubs have
Speaker 1: started going down in the hot weather, the dryer soils
Speaker 1: and stuff. They're moving their way down and they're getting bigger,
Speaker 1: and a lot of products don't make it down that far.
Speaker 1: And so if you look at my schedule, Skip Richter's
Speaker 1: lawn Pest, Disease and weed Management Schedule free online at
Speaker 1: my website gardeningwith Skip dot com, you'll see what I
Speaker 1: just told you about chinchbugside web worms and early grub treatment,
Speaker 1: late grub treatment, and it gives you the products that
Speaker 1: you can use to control them at those times of
Speaker 1: the year. So take a good close look at it.
Speaker 1: It's free. It's online, as is my lawn care guide.
Speaker 1: Our phone number here if you'd like to give me
Speaker 1: a call is seven one three two one two ktr
Speaker 1: H seven one three two one two k t r H.
Speaker 1: We'll be happy to visit about the things that are
Speaker 1: of most interest to you. Hey, have you been down
Speaker 1: to Intended Gardens? Intended Gardens is a garden center there
Speaker 1: in Richmond Rosenberg. In fact, what you do is you
Speaker 1: just head north of Richmond rosa Berg on the Katie
Speaker 1: Fullsher side of Richmond, Okay. The road is FM three
Speaker 1: fifty nine out there where all the new neighborhoods have
Speaker 1: been being built for a long time now. And boy
Speaker 1: is it ever a Great Garden Center. Beautiful, beautiful things.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for pollinators, if you're looking for you know,
Speaker 1: just bringing butterflies and things. If you're looking for summer
Speaker 1: color plants that can just survive the heat, I don't care.
Speaker 1: If it's plants you need for sun or maybe you
Speaker 1: need some plants for shade. They are good to go.
Speaker 1: They've got everything. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: always think of first when I think of enchanted gardens
Speaker 1: is their containers. And the reason is because they have
Speaker 1: so many unique containers. Maria there just does some beautiful designs.
Speaker 1: You can buy those kind of a rustic iron. It's
Speaker 1: almost like a giant, heavy duty wire basket. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a good description of it or not.
Speaker 1: But they line them with liners, fill them with potting soil,
Speaker 1: and do these mixed containers of all types. I saw
Speaker 1: one that was a butterfly container that was gorgeous. It
Speaker 1: was in like a galvanized metal container. You gotta have
Speaker 1: good drainage for those, but that's easy. It had a
Speaker 1: lantana in it, It had milkweed for bringing in the
Speaker 1: monarch larvae. It had what oh, it had pipevine, which
Speaker 1: brings excuse me. Dutchman's pipe brings in the pipeline swallowtail,
Speaker 1: a type of that had rue, which is another source
Speaker 1: for caterpillar. I mean they're gonna be butterflies on that
Speaker 1: lamb eggs for their babies to grow up. All kinds
Speaker 1: of good things to eat. What a cool thing. Make
Speaker 1: one of those. Set it out there on your patio.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, if you've got a little coffee table
Speaker 1: equivalent outside there. They got them. Enchanted Gardens FM three
Speaker 1: fifty nine Katie fullsher Cider Richmond right down the website.
Speaker 1: That's the easiest thing to do. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
Speaker 1: By the way, they're open Monday through Saturday from eight
Speaker 1: to five and also on Sunday as well, So enjoy
Speaker 1: yourself Outn't even chinny gardens. I always do when I
Speaker 1: go there. So what are we looking at here? I
Speaker 1: always have to watch my time and make sure that
Speaker 1: I'm not going too long. It always sneaks up with me.
Speaker 1: They say time flies when you're having fun, and I'm
Speaker 1: always having but here on guard Line, Medina products are
Speaker 1: one of those products. Been around a long long time.
Speaker 1: I do Ecompton back in the fifties. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was talking about Medina products long long time ago, and
Speaker 1: they have so many good products.
Speaker 6: I like.
Speaker 1: Medina Plus is one of the many things.
Speaker 13: That they have.
Speaker 1: It's the regular Medina soil activator, which everybody knows that one,
Speaker 1: but it's got over forty different trace elements. It's got
Speaker 1: a number of different natural growth hormones put in it,
Speaker 1: as well as many other things that help your plants
Speaker 1: that thrive. Plants need more than just a few nutrients.
Speaker 1: They need lots of nutrients, and they need lots of
Speaker 1: substances that are part of nature, part of what plants
Speaker 1: make too, and they're in Medina Plus. You mix it
Speaker 1: in water for transplanting. You can spray it as a
Speaker 1: folier if you wish to do that. Uh, it works.
Speaker 1: Medina Plus. Where you find Medina products, which is pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere you know. You go into ace hardware stores,
Speaker 1: you go into feed stores, you go into our garden centers.
Speaker 1: You hear me talk about they're all gonna have Medina
Speaker 1: products and they work. I've got them on my shelf
Speaker 1: and when I'm heading out into the garden, I can
Speaker 1: just grab them, mix them in water for whatever I'm doing. Transplanting.
Speaker 1: Whatever the activity of the day is, Medina's got a
Speaker 1: product there for you. Let's see, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: run to a break here. When I come back, Tom
Speaker 1: and Rocheron and David and Tomba, you will be our
Speaker 1: first two up. All right, welcome back to Garden Line.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever played blink one eight two
Speaker 1: on guard Line before, but now I have good to
Speaker 1: have you with us. If you'd like to give me
Speaker 1: a call seven one three two one two fifty eight
Speaker 1: seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
Speaker 1: seven for if you've got old metal furniture out there
Speaker 1: in the patio, or maybe you have a decorative things
Speaker 1: that are metal, you know, cast iron, wrought iron, aluminum,
Speaker 1: patio furniture, any of those things. Houston powder coders can
Speaker 1: put a fresh new life into your product. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if it's rusty. You know, if you get some
Speaker 1: old hardware that you need new bolts, they put stainless
Speaker 1: steel hardware back in them. They get them refinished. If
Speaker 1: the straps are worn or the sling fabric is worn,
Speaker 1: they fix all of that. And then you have only
Speaker 1: one hundred plus colors to shoes from oh my, how
Speaker 1: can I ever find a color? And one hundred plus colors.
Speaker 1: When they get through, it looks new. It looks absolutely new,
Speaker 1: way better than painting. Houston powder Coders dot Com is
Speaker 1: the website Houston powder Cooders dot com. Give them a
Speaker 1: call two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty
Speaker 1: eight or email them a picture of what you got
Speaker 1: for a free quote sales at houstoncoders dot com. Head
Speaker 1: out and out to Tom n Rose Sharon. Hello, Tom,
Speaker 1: Welcome to guarden Line.
Speaker 10: Good morning.
Speaker 12: I've got a primacaine variety of blackberries, and this year
Speaker 12: they're really produced. And I noticed for the first time
Speaker 12: that the cane that produced berry towards the end of production.
Speaker 5: It dies.
Speaker 13: Is that normal?
Speaker 9: It can be?
Speaker 6: It can be.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 1: Typically with the non primacaine types, you know, they go
Speaker 1: into the second year when they produce and then they
Speaker 1: die after the production.
Speaker 6: H I have not do you have like.
Speaker 1: Traveler Primark Traveler Primark Freedom? What do you know?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah, uh, just just watch and see. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're going to get a second on the primacaine.
Speaker 1: I thought they would re sprout some and and and
Speaker 1: still do a second, uh, the next year, but I
Speaker 1: think they will.
Speaker 12: But that that pain that produced all the berries, you know,
Speaker 12: or stem whatever you want to call it, that one.
Speaker 13: He might have five of those on a.
Speaker 1: On your plant.
Speaker 12: That stem died after.
Speaker 1: Do I cut that all?
Speaker 6: What should I do?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Anytime, I just want any of the black any kind.
Speaker 1: It was something else happened, I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: mean they blackberries get some little stem splotches, disease splotches,
Speaker 1: and other things that can happen to them. But as
Speaker 1: long as the rest of your plant looks good, I
Speaker 1: think you're okay. But cut it off down near the
Speaker 1: ground and that it'll send up new shoots of course,
Speaker 1: like blackberries do from the base. Yeah, if you want
Speaker 1: to send a picture, I can take a look at it,
Speaker 1: see if I see anything else on it. But I
Speaker 1: would just prien the dead ones. That one's out of there.
Speaker 1: Makes it a more manager patch to keep those old
Speaker 1: things out of there. Okay, thank you, thanks sir. Appreciate
Speaker 1: your call very much. Tom. Those are great blackberries too,
Speaker 1: by the way, glad to hear that you've got those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love those, love those things year round. Houston is
Speaker 1: a company that comes out and does cor aeration in
Speaker 1: compasstop dressing, and they do an awesome job of it.
Speaker 1: They use quality materials, so when you go to year
Speaker 1: Round Houston, you're going to get something that is going
Speaker 1: to help your lawn to just be rejuvenated. It's going
Speaker 1: to breathe new life in the soil. The cor aeration
Speaker 1: they do gets the oxygen down in the root system.
Speaker 1: It helps break up that dense clay soil that gets compacted,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the problems for plants that are
Speaker 1: trying to grow in that kind of a mass. And
Speaker 1: then the compost stop dressing provides a coating over the soil.
Speaker 1: Some of it falls into the whole microbes go crazy,
Speaker 1: they decompose it away, the lawn just gets better. They
Speaker 1: cover the area inside the Beltway, So that's where we
Speaker 1: talk about him. Here on Guardenline is our inside the
Speaker 1: Beltway compost stop dressing and core Aeration. The website year
Speaker 1: round Houston dot com, Year Round Houston dot Com. The
Speaker 1: phone number eight three two eight eight four fifty three
Speaker 1: thirty five. Go out now to Baytown and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Wayne.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: Hello, Wayne, Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 6: Oh well, welcome back here. A two weeks ago, the
Speaker 6: city prepared a water main leak in my Saint Augustine
Speaker 6: yard and the filter that they brought back in has
Speaker 6: a bunch of Johnson grass.
Speaker 1: So really and they and they didn't charge you extra.
Speaker 1: They didn't charge you extra for Johnson grasst.
Speaker 13: I got the Johnthon grats.
Speaker 6: I got the Johnthan grass free.
Speaker 1: Oh what a deal. Oh my gosh. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: Johnson grass got those underground rhizomes and so hand digging
Speaker 1: it out. I know it's in your yards. It's kind
Speaker 1: of hard, but you kind of date out, put the
Speaker 1: grass back down and watered down. That is an option.
Speaker 1: But the other option would be to use my weed
Speaker 1: wiper Wayne. I don't know if you've been to my website,
Speaker 1: but it's gardening with Skip dot com and on there
Speaker 1: is a publication called Skip's Weedwiper tells you how to build.
Speaker 1: It's really easy to build, and you can put anything
Speaker 1: on it that kills grass. I mean, it could be
Speaker 1: a grass only killer, or it could be something like glyphosate.
Speaker 1: And you put it on the sponges and that Johnson
Speaker 1: grass comes up higher than your lawn. So you can
Speaker 1: easily wipe it on the leaves without even stooping over
Speaker 1: with my weed wiper tool, and it translocates down and
Speaker 1: kills the Johnson grass. It's good for any killing anything
Speaker 1: that's coming up above your lawn, or for getting underneath
Speaker 1: like a rosebush, to kill a poison ivy that's coming
Speaker 1: up under there. It's a very versatile tool.
Speaker 6: Oh can I just spray it with spectracide weed stop
Speaker 6: for lawns with a Let's see it supposed to have
Speaker 6: atrosine in it, I.
Speaker 1: Don't unless it's a very young seedling still stage, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's gonna give you good effect. I don't
Speaker 1: think you're gonna get what you're looking for out of it.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be extra careful with that atrocine too. Atrazine
Speaker 1: is primarily something we use as a pre emergent and
Speaker 1: what we say early post emergent. While the little seedlings
Speaker 1: are young, it'll still kill them. But I don't think
Speaker 1: johnsonngrass coming from rhizomes is gonna be killed by it.
Speaker 1: I'd have to check into that to be sure, but
Speaker 1: I don't think so. All righty, I find your weed
Speaker 1: wipper gardening with skip dot Com gardening with skip dot com.
Speaker 1: When you see it, just see a picture of it,
Speaker 1: you go, oh, okay, I know how to build one
Speaker 1: of those, but it walks you through. It's really easy
Speaker 1: to do, and I use it for all kinds of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you bet, Thanks Wayne. I appreciate your call very very
Speaker 1: very much, that is for sure. Uh Yeah. The weed
Speaker 1: wiper is a handy little tool, and I encourage you
Speaker 1: to check them out. Try them out, see how you
Speaker 1: like it. Jorges Hidden Gardens down there in Alvin, Texas.
Speaker 1: It's on Elizabeth Street and Alvin. Someone called today and
Speaker 1: talked about how they've enjoyed Horae. Well, of course they did.
Speaker 1: He's got all kinds of good things. He serves that
Speaker 1: whole region Alvin, Santa Fe Hillcrest, Algoo or Katie Alta
Speaker 1: Loma just south of the Highway six between Alvin and
Speaker 1: Santa Fe on Elizabeth Street seven to one three six
Speaker 1: three to two fifty two. Ninety's got a lot more
Speaker 1: citrus than other kinds of fruit trees in He's got
Speaker 1: beautiful roses and crape myrtles and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: He keeps a good stock of trees and other things
Speaker 1: at Jorges Hidden Gardens at your garden center down south
Speaker 1: of the Houston area. And see here, we've got to
Speaker 1: no time left, think Charles. I'm gonna probably have to
Speaker 1: pick you up right after the top of the hour.
Speaker 1: If you want to hang on, you can do that,
Speaker 1: or you can call back if you don't mind holding
Speaker 1: I'll be back with you when we come back at
Speaker 1: the top of the hour. You're listening to garden Line. Hey,
Speaker 1: I got a special guest coming up halfway through the
Speaker 1: eight o'clock hour. You are gonna love this. Don't go away.
Speaker 1: She will be here also, by the way, in the
Speaker 1: nine o'clock hour. It's doctor Juvanna Rangello Posada. She is
Speaker 1: a honey bee expert. And I'm telling you you're gonna
Speaker 1: learn things that are fascinating and some things that are
Speaker 1: practical too, like how do you take care of your
Speaker 1: bees around the landscape? How do you not kill your
Speaker 1: bees or hurt them around the landscape? She knows it all.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have her here. Can't wait to talk to her.
Speaker 1: Hang around. Time to go get a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: for now, We'll be right back, all right, folks, Welcome
Speaker 1: back to garden Line. Good to have you good heavy
Speaker 1: with us. We're looking forward to visiting with you about
Speaker 1: the kinds of questions that you have. You can give
Speaker 1: me a call it seven one three two one two
Speaker 1: k t r H. Seven to one three two one
Speaker 1: two kt r H. You hear me talk about the
Speaker 1: importance of taking care of the soil before you plant,
Speaker 1: fixing the soil, getting it right, getting it ideal, creating
Speaker 1: the perfect environment for plant roots. If you make roots happy,
Speaker 1: you're going to make the plant happy. And if the
Speaker 1: plant's happy, it's going to grow. It's going to make
Speaker 1: give you roses. It's going to give you tomatoes, it's
Speaker 1: going to give you beautiful green foliage. Whatever you're growing
Speaker 1: that plant for, it starts in the soil. And see
Speaker 1: in a mulch is the spot where you get everything
Speaker 1: you need for making the soil bank account perfect for
Speaker 1: the plant. That would include things like compost, that would
Speaker 1: incl things like maltz. That would include things like bed
Speaker 1: mixes like the Veggian or mix for marylom soils. You
Speaker 1: can get that at cienamalt That would include the nutrients
Speaker 1: that go into the soil, products from microlife and asamite
Speaker 1: and Nelson's plant food and nitrefoss and medina. They have
Speaker 1: it all. So when you go to Cienamltch and go
Speaker 1: home and put their products to work, and then you
Speaker 1: get your wonderful plants you're so excited about, you know,
Speaker 1: go into the garden center getting your plants and you're
Speaker 1: bringing them home. Well, you're putting them into the perfect
Speaker 1: spot for them to thrive. That is cnamals. Cnimalts dot
Speaker 1: com is the website. Go there. You can find their
Speaker 1: hours there by the way, they're open today from seven
Speaker 1: thirty to two that we close tomorrow, but they're on
Speaker 1: FM five point twenty one kind of near where Highway
Speaker 1: six and two eighty eight are. Okay, so Sienna Maltz
Speaker 1: dot com. That's what you need to know. Go check
Speaker 1: it out and then get the products and do not
Speaker 1: do not put a plant in the ground with out
Speaker 1: preparing the soil, and Cienamals can help you do just that.
Speaker 1: And head out now to the woodlands and visit with Charles. Hey, Charles,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 6: Pay sad. Thanks.
Speaker 13: So this year I've got this weed in my Saint
Speaker 13: Augustine lawn and it kind of looks like the small
Speaker 13: version of a mimosa plant or mi mosa tree. Yes,
Speaker 13: and I'm not sure what it is, and I'm not
Speaker 13: sure what I do to kill the weed and not
Speaker 13: the lawn when temperatures are in the mid nineties. So
Speaker 13: what advice do you have for me on that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's called chamber better and just to make sure
Speaker 1: we do have the right weed, because there's more than
Speaker 1: one weed with mimosa like foliage. If you look underneath
Speaker 1: that little pettiole coming off the stem with all the
Speaker 1: little leaflets lined up along it, you should see little
Speaker 1: balls underneath, a little tiny It could be a little
Speaker 1: bit of a flower looking thing, or it could just
Speaker 1: be a little kind of a fuzzy sphere underneath the
Speaker 1: edge of that. That's chamber bitter, very difficult to control.
Speaker 1: When you have it, and it's a problem in your lawns,
Speaker 1: then putting a pre emergent herbicide out is the best
Speaker 1: way to prevent those seeds from coming up, because they'll
Speaker 1: be back every year. So that would include there's a
Speaker 1: product called Gallery that's actually pretty good for that. It
Speaker 1: controls broad leaf weeds specifically, it doesn't control grassy weeds,
Speaker 1: but it works pretty good for that, and so you're
Speaker 1: gonna need to apply it probably, ah boy, I would
Speaker 1: say maybe April, sometime in April, probably between maybe as
Speaker 1: late as early May. But the chamber bitter sprout's late
Speaker 1: and so but you don't want to wait too late
Speaker 1: until it's already sprouted. But gallery will do it post emergent. Wise,
Speaker 1: it's hard to find something that's not going to hurt
Speaker 1: your your turf grass. I have not seen anybody try
Speaker 1: Celsius on chamber bidder as a post emergent application yet.
Speaker 1: I think that it probably would do pretty good, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. So I'm saying that with a big
Speaker 1: caveat on it. You would have to test it out
Speaker 1: to see Celsius is a product that even if it's
Speaker 1: in the low nineties, it's not going to hurt your grass.
Speaker 13: Okay, thanks Gip, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You bet good luck with that. Appreciate the call. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need to check into that well, Celsius control chamber bidder.
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. There's so many products, and there's so many
Speaker 1: weeds and diseases and insects, and then the products change
Speaker 1: and then they change their name. On the products like
Speaker 1: it's like a twenty four seven three sixty five job,
Speaker 1: just trying to keep up with everything that is out
Speaker 1: there going on. Hey, if you'd like to give me
Speaker 1: a call seven one three two one two k t
Speaker 1: r H. Seven one three two one two k t
Speaker 1: r H. Look forward to having you here. On garden Line.
Speaker 1: Nilsen Plant Food, they have a product called turf Star
Speaker 1: Slow and Easy. It's part of the turf Star line.
Speaker 1: Turfstars all their fertilizers for your lawn. Turf Star Slow
Speaker 1: and Easy is a very gradual release of nutrients for
Speaker 1: four plus months out there. So you put it down
Speaker 1: now you're covered all the way up until your fall fertilization.
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 1: It has some ingredients in it that are somewhat acidifying
Speaker 1: to the soil. Now our when our as our shall
Speaker 1: pH gets high, that's when you start to see, especially
Speaker 1: in your Saint Augustine, the iron deficiency, the yellowing in
Speaker 1: your turf, and so anything we do to keep the
Speaker 1: pH down helps reduce iron chlorosis. So you don't want
Speaker 1: to raise your pH. You don't want to send your
Speaker 1: phosphorus through the roof. That's that mental number on the
Speaker 1: fertilizer bag. Those all promote ourn chlorosis and we want
Speaker 1: to bring it down. So turf Star Slow and Easy
Speaker 1: does just that. The blend of nutrients is right, the
Speaker 1: fact that it does the acidifying, it's got a beneficial
Speaker 1: effect really on the soul microbes, and some of the
Speaker 1: forms of nutrients that it puts out are actually can
Speaker 1: be utilized as well. So turf Star Slow and Easy
Speaker 1: from the folks at Nelson Plant Food. Many great products
Speaker 1: from Nelson, from the turf Star line to the nutri
Speaker 1: Star line, which is fertilizers. You get a little jars
Speaker 1: a fertilizer for every kind of plant you can imagine,
Speaker 1: like booga and villia for example, and then the nutri
Speaker 1: Star for palms and ornamental grasses. Good time to be
Speaker 1: applying that too, works very very well. By the way,
Speaker 1: do you know that palm trees are actually a grass
Speaker 1: type plant. That's why we say palms and ornamental grasses.
Speaker 1: From the folks at Nelson in the Nutri Star. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to give me a call, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a little break here, but you can be first up
Speaker 1: seven to one three two one two k t r
Speaker 1: H seven one three two one two k t rh OH.
Speaker 1: By the way, I wanted to mention, I'm still seeing
Speaker 1: gray leaf spot out in the lawns now things really
Speaker 1: heat up. The gray leaf spot tends to subside some
Speaker 1: on us. But when we have high humidity or wet
Speaker 1: grass surfaces so it could be rainfall shade, it doesn't
Speaker 1: dry as fast in shade, so you tend to see
Speaker 1: more gray leaf spots. Sometimes in shady areas you're running
Speaker 1: the irrigation too long that or too often that promotes
Speaker 1: gray leaf spot. To fight it, there's a product called
Speaker 1: Eagle Turf fungicide. It's a systemic fungicide. It protects against
Speaker 1: attack by a number of diseases, including gray leaf spot.
Speaker 1: But it also is a curative in that it moves
Speaker 1: up into the plant, the roots take it up, and
Speaker 1: then moves it up into the plant and makes that
Speaker 1: plant protected. It's kind of an antibiotic, I guess in
Speaker 1: our system, you know, and fighting disease and stuff that's
Speaker 1: equal to her fungicide.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's from the folks at nitrofoss And you're gonna
Speaker 1: find night frost products at places like M and D
Speaker 1: on Beamer and Saegemont, M and D and Clairelake. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find it at oh, I know it plays.
Speaker 1: If you go up to Acid Single Ranch or Aspose's
Speaker 1: up in the woodlands, you're gonna find nitro FoST products
Speaker 1: up there as well. Let's take a little break and
Speaker 1: I'll be back with your calls. Seven one three two
Speaker 1: one two ktr H. All right, we're back, folks. Good
Speaker 1: to have you with us. Hey, you got a gardening question.
Speaker 1: Seven one three two one two ktr H. I want
Speaker 1: to give me a call and we'll help you with that.
Speaker 1: By the way, starting at eight thirty, coming up just
Speaker 1: a little bit here, we are going to have a
Speaker 1: special guest. Doctor Juliana Rangel Posada is going to be
Speaker 1: on and she is a researcher on honeybees in uh
Speaker 1: tex A and m up in college station. Boy, does
Speaker 1: she ever have a lot of good information on bees.
Speaker 1: Number one, You're gonna be fascinated. It is really cool
Speaker 1: information that we're talking about. But also we're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about bees related to our gardening.
Speaker 1: You know, what things we spray affect bees, how do
Speaker 1: we take care of bees, and what are some of
Speaker 1: the issues that we have. Dealer with bees. So anyway
Speaker 1: you can enjoy that she's going to be with us
Speaker 1: from eight thirty all the way through the end of
Speaker 1: the show today, all the way through up to ten o'clock.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned, and you know, if you got any
Speaker 1: kiddos around, they might be interested in bee keeping or
Speaker 1: learning about bees. I think that they will really enjoy
Speaker 1: it as well. I was checking out Spring Creek Feed,
Speaker 1: which is up there in the Tombul areas north actually
Speaker 1: toward a Magnolia direction on FM twenty nine seventy eight,
Speaker 1: So think of northeast of Tumbule, just a few minutes
Speaker 1: away from Grant Parkway and Highway to forty nine. They
Speaker 1: carry all the fertilizers that we talk about from turf
Speaker 1: Star that's the Nelson line, microlife and nitroposs as well
Speaker 1: as all kinds of things to control pests, weeds and
Speaker 1: diseases in your landscape. When you go in there, you're
Speaker 1: going to be greeted by friendly, courtious staff. They just
Speaker 1: it's just a I enjoy going in there. You walk
Speaker 1: in and first when you look straight ahead, you see
Speaker 1: all this cool stuff you know, for your home and
Speaker 1: other things and caps and decorations, all kinds of you.
Speaker 1: Just think, am I in the right place? And then
Speaker 1: you look to the left and there's all the dog
Speaker 1: food and other things, high quality lines like Victor Purina.
Speaker 1: And then you look to the right and there's your
Speaker 1: gardens products, products to control weeds and diseases and pests,
Speaker 1: fertilizers and whatnot. It's all there at Spring Creek Feed. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you are in the military or a senior citizen,
Speaker 1: there are discounts. Just ask them about it. They can
Speaker 1: do special orders and they do delivery service that's available
Speaker 1: as well. Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM twenty
Speaker 1: nine seventy eight. Fun place. I promise you enjoy going
Speaker 1: in there. You probably go home with some stuff for
Speaker 1: your house too, because they got all kinds of good
Speaker 1: stuff as well. ACE Hardware stores all over the Greater
Speaker 1: Houston area. When I say Greater Houston area, I'm talking
Speaker 1: all the way down you know, Rockport, Texas, And for example,
Speaker 1: there's an there is an ACE Hardware store on in
Speaker 1: Port Lavaca on Calhoun Plaza on Rockport on State Highway
Speaker 1: thirty five. Of course, here in the Houston area we've
Speaker 1: got them. We've got K and M out in Kingwood
Speaker 1: on Kingwood Drive, and the one in a Taska Seeda
Speaker 1: on timber Forest Drive. If you are in Spring on
Speaker 1: Rayford Road, there's an All Star Ace there. There's All
Speaker 1: Seasons Ace up on Interstate forty five in Willis up north,
Speaker 1: and then on the east side we've got Uvaldi Ace
Speaker 1: and New Valdi Road, Deer Park Ace on Center Street,
Speaker 1: and Child's Buildings Supply on North sixteenth Way out there
Speaker 1: in Orange. And I could just go on and on
Speaker 1: and on. Lots of east hardware stores. Here's how to
Speaker 1: find yours. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. That's my garden line,
Speaker 1: ACE Hardware group that through the this whole region. Ace
Speaker 1: Hardwaretexas dot Com. Go check them out. And by the way,
Speaker 1: just the tip. Lots of good things for the patio outdoors.
Speaker 1: Of course, they got all the fertilizers. You hear me
Speaker 1: talking about U and barbecue pits. That is my latest obsession.
Speaker 1: I'm becoming a barbeque nut. And it all started with
Speaker 1: a really cool bet from Ace Hardware. Uh you are
Speaker 1: listening to Guardline phone number seven one three two one
Speaker 1: two k t r H. When we get past the
Speaker 1: eight thirty hour, I'm going to be focusing the calls
Speaker 1: more on things that are related to bees. So we've
Speaker 1: got uh, you know, doctor Rangel here at the starting
Speaker 1: just after eight thirty. So if you have a question
Speaker 1: about bees, or taking care of bees, or be keeping
Speaker 1: in general, or be issues and things, this would be
Speaker 1: a good time to call. Maybe you heard some fun
Speaker 1: factor about bees, you want to check it out. We'll
Speaker 1: be visiting with her. It's going to be a fireside chat,
Speaker 1: no lecture here, just enjoying ourselves talking about the wonderful
Speaker 1: world of bees. I listened to a book on tape.
Speaker 1: I can listen on tape as I'm driving, and when
Speaker 1: I have to sit and read, I can't get so
Speaker 1: many books, so little time, That's what I'm saying. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it's called Honeybee Democracy. I'm gonna talk with her a
Speaker 1: little bit about some of the things in that book
Speaker 1: as well. But if you are wanting to have your
Speaker 1: mind belong on the world of honeybees and how they
Speaker 1: communicate and what they do and how they make decisions,
Speaker 1: and even how that applies to human decision making, it is.
Speaker 1: It's mind bodling. It's so cool. Anyway, I'd recommend that
Speaker 1: book Honeybee Democracy really good one. I wanted to before
Speaker 1: we do take a break here. The Plumerius Society of
Speaker 1: America is having their annual show and sale right now
Speaker 1: today at the Bay in Clearlake Bay Area Community Center.
Speaker 1: It's on Nasa Road one in Seabrook, Texas, and they're
Speaker 1: going to have a lot of plumeria growers with their
Speaker 1: their lines and things out there. They you can join
Speaker 1: the Plumera Society if you'd like to do that. Some
Speaker 1: cool raffle tickets. But again, it started at nine am,
Speaker 1: and oh it starts at nine am and it will
Speaker 1: go until one pm. So after garden Line today head
Speaker 1: over there. Head over to the Plumaria Society of America's
Speaker 1: Show and sale. It is at the clear Lake Bay
Speaker 1: Area Community Center on Nasa Road Highway Won in Seabrook, Texas.
Speaker 1: You will love it, I have to warn you. Plummerias,
Speaker 1: like a lot of other specific types of plants, are addictive.
Speaker 1: You get in there and you start. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, Hawaii, you'll be calling you saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: running out of flowers, per lays, can you send us
Speaker 1: some of yours? Because it's a lot of fun. A
Speaker 1: lot of fun to do that. Well, I wanted to, Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, I know what Moss Nursery. I had not
Speaker 1: talked about Moss nurserying a bit. That is a cool
Speaker 1: garden center. Moss Nursery is done in Seabrook, Texas. And listen,
Speaker 1: this place has been around a very long time. Moss
Speaker 1: Nursery eight acres to wander through eight acres and beautiful trees.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about the heat. Just get out there. Lots
Speaker 1: of shade trees. It's wonderful. When you go there, you
Speaker 1: are going to find so much blank. They have some
Speaker 1: of those wall planters for example. Uh, they're just some
Speaker 1: of them are like Mexican tallavera, you know, with all
Speaker 1: the colors and painting and everything. Others are more plain
Speaker 1: and they attached to a wall. And then you just
Speaker 1: plant something that cascades down, you know, maybe a string
Speaker 1: of fill in the blank succulent. It may be something
Speaker 1: like a dichondra, the silver pony foot dichondra is beautiful
Speaker 1: for that. Do you have shady areas, You're not going
Speaker 1: to find a better coalladium supply than at Moss Nursery
Speaker 1: and Seabrook or or Colius for that matter. You just
Speaker 1: need to go check them out. They're on Toddville Road
Speaker 1: and Seabrook, Texas. Here's the website, Moss Nursery dot com.
Speaker 1: Moss is spelled m a A S m a a
Speaker 1: S Nursery dot com. I was in their greenhouse for houseplants.
Speaker 1: I always go there and their selection is unbelievable and
Speaker 1: they have everything from little starter plants like if you
Speaker 1: just you know, want to kind of go get started,
Speaker 1: and maybe a string of pearls or something like that
Speaker 1: you want to just get a little plant for that,
Speaker 1: or if you want like this giant staghorn fern hanging
Speaker 1: from a chain under your trees, you can buy that there.
Speaker 1: I mean, they've got it all, succulents, you name it.
Speaker 1: Their pottery selection is incredible too, really really nice selection
Speaker 1: of pottery. They know what they're doing, they know how
Speaker 1: to take care of things. Let's head out on the phones.
Speaker 1: We're going to go now to Northwest Houston and talk
Speaker 1: to Rosemary. Hey, Rosemary, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 7: Thank you for taking my call. We recently bought a
Speaker 7: small plumbia and we would like to repot it into
Speaker 7: a larger pot and we are wondering what soil we
Speaker 7: could put it in. I did look on the Plumbia
Speaker 7: Society site and it seemed to want you to buy
Speaker 7: three different products and mix them together, and it didn't
Speaker 7: even give what proportions of each one. So yeah, rather
Speaker 7: buy three products, we'd love to be able to just
Speaker 7: buy one thing and put it in it.
Speaker 1: So any any suggestion, right, Well, Plumeria is are you
Speaker 1: know they store a lot of moisture in their trunks
Speaker 1: and leaves and everything. They need a well drained soil.
Speaker 1: They don't want to be in a swamp. So I
Speaker 1: didn't I have them beento that site to look at
Speaker 1: their mix. But I'm sure it's got some chunky pearl
Speaker 1: light or something like that, and it probably there are
Speaker 1: white things that you see in potting soil and you
Speaker 1: can buy those by a small bag at any garden center.
Speaker 1: You know, you probably find them at Ace hardware stores
Speaker 1: and other places like that. So you can take a
Speaker 1: standard potting soil. I might take the one, and Airline
Speaker 1: Soils has a standard one type of potting soil, and
Speaker 1: then they've got one for succulents that is a little
Speaker 1: grittier that would also work well, and you could even
Speaker 1: put a little bit of pearlite in those if you
Speaker 1: wanted to loosen them up just a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Just know that your potting soils break down over time
Speaker 1: and they go from being kind of a looser, chunkier
Speaker 1: to more of a mucky, decomposed down material, so occasionally
Speaker 1: you're going to have to kind of spruce those up
Speaker 1: a little bit. Plumarias are very tolerant of being being
Speaker 1: messed with like that, right. I bet you've went to
Speaker 1: the show and Sail today. I bet they'd have some
Speaker 1: soils for sale down there too, Okay.
Speaker 7: I know that we were pulling it out every winter
Speaker 7: and probably storing it in the garage, so at that
Speaker 7: point we could change out even the potting soil once
Speaker 7: a year. And yes, okay, so that would probably be
Speaker 7: a good idea.
Speaker 5: To do that.
Speaker 1: That's what I would do. I think that it's going
Speaker 1: to be your best bet on those, so yeah, just
Speaker 1: do that. I would. I would do the airloom soils
Speaker 1: potting soil, and probably the succulent type of mix would
Speaker 1: be good, and maybe add a little bit of pearl
Speaker 1: like to it, which is easy to find. Okay, Rosemary.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Enjoy those
Speaker 1: plume areas that you have. We're gonna go real quick,
Speaker 1: George and Jersey Village. I just got about thirty seconds here,
Speaker 1: but let's see if we can help you with those
Speaker 1: tomato plants. What's your question?
Speaker 6: Okay, they're cherry tomato.
Speaker 13: They're absolutely delicious. I don't know what time they are,
Speaker 13: but their skin outside is like shoe leather.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, I know it's no what you got. It's the heat, George.
Speaker 1: It's the heat and that happens. It just you can't
Speaker 1: stop it. There's nothing to fix it. It's just the
Speaker 1: temperatures we're dealing with. You chew on the tomatoes and
Speaker 1: spit out the cellophane. That's about the best advice that
Speaker 1: I can get you. There's not a not a fix,
Speaker 1: but thank you. I appreciate that call. And at least
Speaker 1: with cherry tomates, you have fruit in the summer. That's
Speaker 1: the plus on those folks. We're going to take a break.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with doctor Juliana Rangell. All right,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
Speaker 1: and we are here to help you have a bountiful garden,
Speaker 1: a beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. Don't
Speaker 1: forget that last part. It's supposed to be fun. Well,
Speaker 1: I am privileged this morning to have doctor Jilliana Rangell
Speaker 1: as my guest. Welcome to Guarden Line, Doctor Engele, it's
Speaker 1: good to have you here.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Skip Now we have talked on a different radio station
Speaker 1: long time ago. Doctor Angel is a bee researcher, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to let you tell them about what you
Speaker 1: do and some of the interests.
Speaker 5: That you have.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Sure, I'm professor of apaculture in the Department of Entomology
Speaker 9: at Texas A and M University here in college station, all.
Speaker 1: Right, and you do various kinds of things, specifically kind
Speaker 1: of focusing on honeybees.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 6: So I am.
Speaker 3: They be research faculty at A and M.
Speaker 9: We recently hired someone for the first time ever in
Speaker 9: the history I think of Texas A and M Agrilife
Speaker 9: that is doing apiculture extension. Okay, but I am basically
Speaker 9: sixty percent research, thirty percent teaching at the college level,
Speaker 9: and service ten percent service.
Speaker 3: So the smallest the research that.
Speaker 1: We do in the lab.
Speaker 13: So for those of you.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the line Grende system. We have a
Speaker 1: researching component, a research component, a teaching component, and an
Speaker 1: extension component. An extension basically is taken the university of
Speaker 1: the people. Wherever you live in the two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty four counties of Texas, there's an extension office that
Speaker 1: serves you, and the agents there have access to our
Speaker 1: specialists at the university and at various centers across the state.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of that. I like the way
Speaker 1: that they give us percentages, but really it's one hundred
Speaker 1: percent this one hundred percent and undred that's exactly right. Yes,
Speaker 1: those percentages don't stay in their boxes very well. That's
Speaker 1: well good.
Speaker 13: Well.
Speaker 1: I had asked doctor Rangel to come on the show
Speaker 1: today because I was listening to a book called honeybe Democracy,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know how to describe that book.
Speaker 1: But for those of you who are not knowledgeable about bees,
Speaker 1: you know, like doctor angell Is, you listen to it
Speaker 1: and you just go that just blows my mind. I
Speaker 1: had no idea, I had no idea, and the ways
Speaker 1: that they figure out how bees decide and think and
Speaker 1: do what they do, it's just fascinating. But anyways, listen
Speaker 1: to this book on tape driving down there, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he talks about his former graduate assistant.
Speaker 1: I think doctor Wrangell is like, I know that lady,
Speaker 1: and it reminded me to have Hey, I need to
Speaker 1: have you come in and we need to talk sometimes.
Speaker 1: That's a great book.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a great book for basically almost anybody. It's
Speaker 9: a you don't have to have any expert teasing bees.
Speaker 9: You just want to have some curiosity about the natural world.
Speaker 9: And Tom Seeley, who I'm lucky to call my PhD advisor.
Speaker 9: He's a wonderful writer. So it just makes people understand
Speaker 9: very difficult concepts in a very digestible, easy fun way.
Speaker 1: He is an outstanding writer. And for those of you
Speaker 1: who don't feel like you have time to sit down
Speaker 1: for a book, do it on tape, because I'm telling
Speaker 1: you it is the easiest listening. If you got a
Speaker 1: four hour trip you're going somewhere, well you need to
Speaker 1: make that trip about two or three times, but you
Speaker 1: just need to plug that in and listen to it.
Speaker 1: It is so cool. So I was one of the
Speaker 1: things he talks about in the book, I never I'd
Speaker 1: never wondered how bees find a place to live and
Speaker 1: decide if they should live there and stuff. But if
Speaker 1: you think about this, folks, you're honeybees and your colony
Speaker 1: is expanding, and it's time for one queen to go
Speaker 1: off with some of the colony and find a new home.
Speaker 1: How do they find that home and how do they decide?
Speaker 1: You know, the whole colitay doesn't fly all over the
Speaker 1: place checking out each hone. They have people that people
Speaker 1: I'm gonna anthropomorphized a lot on bees, I'm sorry, But
Speaker 1: they go out and they find places, and they have
Speaker 1: ways of measuring how big they are, because if the colony,
Speaker 1: if the cavity quality or quantity isn't large enough, they're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to throw up enough honey
Speaker 1: to make through the winter and other things. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here talking like I'm telling talking right, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: But how did that When those bees come back, how
Speaker 1: do they tell the colony about that place? And what
Speaker 1: if five bees come back and they all have a
Speaker 1: different place they think is where they should live. How
Speaker 1: do they decide? And in the process of this book,
Speaker 1: you're not just going to learn about honey bees. But
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn some very interesting things. He does such
Speaker 1: a great job of showing how even our human decision
Speaker 1: making can be can be beneficially influenced by what we've
Speaker 1: learned from the bee world.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: One of the interesting and nowog things but that he
Speaker 9: talks about is that honeybees are all working towards the
Speaker 9: same goal because they're highly genetically related.
Speaker 3: They're all basically sisters.
Speaker 9: All the workers in the colony are daughters of the
Speaker 9: same mother queen, and so they have all the same
Speaker 9: interests and they work together for the benefit of the colony.
Speaker 9: And we definitely can learn a lot from bees and
Speaker 9: trying to build in a more communal way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we have different opinions, like I think
Speaker 1: this is great, but you haven't seen that thing. And
Speaker 1: you think that is great and I haven't seen that thing.
Speaker 1: So how does it not become about me? I want
Speaker 1: my place to be the one that with How does
Speaker 1: it become what is really the best decision in this group?
Speaker 1: And boyd, could we ever improve on that aspect?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: The decision making process of what is talked about in
Speaker 9: honeybee democracy. He Doctor C talks about town hall meetings,
Speaker 9: and how we could learn from the bees in how
Speaker 9: to proceed with those types of decision making processes using humans.
Speaker 3: So it's really interesting.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I can tell you about the story of how
Speaker 9: bees move into their new home.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Actually, well, why why don't we do a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. I tell you. One of the things in
Speaker 1: the book that fascinated me, as you know, a science
Speaker 1: manu person, was the things they did to figure out
Speaker 1: the answers to the questions, like the part where they
Speaker 1: glued down a little certain gland flap over the bees
Speaker 1: body so they could exclude that from being the way
Speaker 1: that they put a pheromone or something out, you know,
Speaker 1: and coming to the it's like these guys are thinkers. Yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So we had the bees have so many glands
Speaker 9: on their bodies to produce so many pheromones, and so
Speaker 9: if you want to know if a certain pheromone has
Speaker 9: to deal with a specific type of behavior, then you
Speaker 9: have you have to block those glands from releasing the
Speaker 9: pharaomon and see if you get the same result.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is fascinating. Well, you know how I
Speaker 1: hate to have to take a break when we're right
Speaker 1: in the middle of a great conversation. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a little break here, go to a quick break. Call
Speaker 1: your friends and tell them to tune in the Garden Line.
Speaker 1: They got to hear this stuff. We've got some really
Speaker 1: cool stuff coming up. I promise you you're gonna love it.
Speaker 1: And also get your kids. Your kids need to know
Speaker 1: about these things. We'll be right back all right, Das,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us.
Speaker 1: If you just tuned in, we're talking to doctor Julian Rangel.
Speaker 1: Julana is a researcher in bees and also a teacher
Speaker 1: at Texa and M University in the entomology department, and
Speaker 1: we are picking her brain as best we can this morning,
Speaker 1: and we're going to tie this back not just to
Speaker 1: the fascination of bees, which is alone. I could talk
Speaker 1: for a week with her really just picking her brain
Speaker 1: on that, but on what do we do as gardeners
Speaker 1: because of what we know now about bees? And doctor Ango,
Speaker 1: would you talk a little bit about some of the
Speaker 1: work that you're doing, some of the research that you're doing,
Speaker 1: and then maybe we'll do some application of that from
Speaker 1: a home garden standpoint.
Speaker 9: Sure, so we have a lot of different projects going
Speaker 9: on in the lab at all times. I have anywhere
Speaker 9: from two to five graduate students working on different projects
Speaker 9: at any given time. But right now, the most exciting
Speaker 9: project is a USDA funded grant that is exploring the
Speaker 9: effect of diet on honeybee health at the individual and
Speaker 9: the colony level. So we have a postdoctoral researcher, doctor
Speaker 9: Kanan Money and a graduate student Gustafa working with my colleague,
Speaker 9: doctor Spence Beemer, who is a nutrition ecologists in the
Speaker 9: Department of Entomology, looking at the quality of the food
Speaker 9: that the bees are collecting in a different landscape level.
Speaker 9: So we have agricultural landscapes, rural landscapes, and urban landscapes,
Speaker 9: and so we're collecting pollen from well, we put pollen
Speaker 9: traps on the colonies to collect the pollen that they
Speaker 9: are getting around their colonies. And then we're doing performing
Speaker 9: the all the nutritional content analysis, elemental analysis fatty acid
Speaker 9: analysis of all these pollens, looking at protein content and
Speaker 9: lipid content, carbohydrate content at different times of the year.
Speaker 3: And so we find that.
Speaker 9: Not surprisingly that the quality of food varies depending on
Speaker 9: the location. Actually, urban sites have a decent amount of
Speaker 9: nutritional quality, which you would sometimes think, well, maybe not
Speaker 9: an urban settings, there's a whole lot of variety, but
Speaker 9: there actually is variety around urban areas in Houston actually
Speaker 9: where we collect our urban urban sites, but that the
Speaker 9: nutritional quality changes throughout the year.
Speaker 1: So what what what is this leading us to kind
Speaker 1: of understand in terms of like, let's say I'm a
Speaker 1: gardener and I want to support honey bees or maybe
Speaker 1: a bee keeper in the backyard, and so what does
Speaker 1: the kind of information you guys are learning as you
Speaker 1: do this really ongoing research? Uh, tell us about how
Speaker 1: do we plant?
Speaker 9: Yeah, the the key is diversity. Diversity, plant diversity. You
Speaker 9: want polyfloral diets at all times of the year.
Speaker 3: So the spring is the.
Speaker 9: Time of a bountiful garden and wildlinscape. We all know that,
Speaker 9: but we need to pay close attention to summer months
Speaker 9: in the fall and provide bees with not just diverse pollen,
Speaker 9: but also large enough patches of the same resource so
Speaker 9: that they can come get something really good to eat
Speaker 9: and then go and communicate it to their nest mate
Speaker 9: so that they can come in a bigger group to
Speaker 9: collect from the same nutritional plant.
Speaker 3: Because if you only have one or.
Speaker 9: Two little flowers per per plant type, then the bees
Speaker 9: are just gonna get like a little taste, but they
Speaker 9: can't get enough that is a you know, a large
Speaker 9: enough amount for it to be worth it nutritionally in
Speaker 9: the colony.
Speaker 3: So bigger patches of polyfloral seasonal diets, it's the key.
Speaker 1: So a variety of different kind of like us, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't just eat hamburgers. We need to make our diet up, uh,
Speaker 1: and so doing that and then you mentioned something about
Speaker 1: user word patches. A lot of times as gardeners, you know,
Speaker 1: we go to the garden center and we buy a zennion,
Speaker 1: we buy a petunia, and you know, just a few
Speaker 1: flowers and for the bees, that's like there's not a
Speaker 1: lot there right quantity wise. So to use a really
Speaker 1: silly analogy, it's like we need to turn our backyard
Speaker 1: into a Bucky's where when you drive in, you drive out,
Speaker 1: you tell your friends you got to go to that place.
Speaker 1: You have got to go check in clean bathrooms, clean bathrooms.
Speaker 1: I don't know beesney bathrooms. But you want to create
Speaker 1: a garden that they feel that way about, meaning they
Speaker 1: go back to the hive and there's a lot. And
Speaker 1: I've noticed in my garden that there are some plants
Speaker 1: that are just good bee plants. Now, now we say
Speaker 1: bees as if it's one thing, but we're talking primarily
Speaker 1: honey bees right.
Speaker 3: Now, but old types of bees pollinators.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and we are finding in our research that bees
Speaker 9: actually get to decide what food they go for. So
Speaker 9: they're not they're not randomly eating. I mean, one thing
Speaker 9: is whatever is available at that time of day of
Speaker 9: you know, in March or April or May. But out
Speaker 9: of what's available, they're actually picking and choosing based on
Speaker 9: the nutritional quality of the food. Okay, so they're not
Speaker 9: eating at random or equal amounts of every food. They
Speaker 9: actually kind of shop around for nutrients that they may
Speaker 9: be lacking, really, and so they go and get it
Speaker 9: from from whatever plant is providing that.
Speaker 1: I would I would not make a good bee. I
Speaker 1: have my favorites, you know. I mean, if enchiladas I
Speaker 1: could live on those and nothing, I could have them
Speaker 1: for breakfast. So that's interesting that they that they go
Speaker 1: out and that they do that so a little bit.
Speaker 1: See we've got three minutes here or less before the
Speaker 1: next break. But you were talking about how bees decide
Speaker 1: where they're going to go and do things. So tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the process of like food finding,
Speaker 1: and then whybe'll come back to food finding.
Speaker 9: So when a forager bee which is the name for
Speaker 9: those that collect food, finds a nutritional source like either pollen,
Speaker 9: which is the source of protein for honeybees, or nectar,
Speaker 9: which is a source of carbohydrates, they want to tell
Speaker 9: others that there's a really good food source. So they
Speaker 9: come back to the colony and they perform something called
Speaker 9: the waggle dance. Calvon Frish received a Nobel Price in
Speaker 9: Medicine and Physiology for his discoveries of the waggle dance
Speaker 9: in nineteen seventy three. Yes, it's an a shaped motion
Speaker 9: that has a waggle phase component in the middle of.
Speaker 3: The eight shaped figure.
Speaker 9: The duration of that waggle phase is correlated with the
Speaker 9: distance to which the which the food is located and
Speaker 9: the angle of that.
Speaker 3: Waggle phase. It's not random, it's exactly.
Speaker 9: Correlated with the direction at which the food is and
Speaker 9: so they can communicate exactly where that BUCkies is.
Speaker 1: So you're inside a dark hive and I'm already blown
Speaker 1: by the fact that they can make perfect six sided
Speaker 1: uniform containers and straight lines in the dark. I couldn't
Speaker 1: do that with the lights on.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 1: And but they're doing this dance and the bees are
Speaker 1: watching the dance at the angle of it, so when
Speaker 1: they leave the hive, they know, you know, how far
Speaker 1: to fly. And then the I think what I learned
Speaker 1: from honeybee democracy is their excitement and the number of
Speaker 1: times they cycle this dance also is like, are going
Speaker 1: you guys have got to see this BUCkies. You know,
Speaker 1: it's more than just.
Speaker 9: The figure of the dance. How many times they do
Speaker 9: this dance per unit time. How excited they are is shown.
Speaker 9: And also the smell that they have on their body
Speaker 9: tells them, well, there's the petunia that we're going for.
Speaker 9: Because the smell of the pollen on their body is
Speaker 9: kind of telling them, well, when you get close in,
Speaker 9: go for this smell.
Speaker 3: And that's the one that I'm that's.
Speaker 1: Amazing, that's amazing. Well, gosh, when it comes to the
Speaker 1: bees and the bringing them into the garden, I've noticed
Speaker 1: certain kinds of flowers. And I got to stop hearing
Speaker 1: about ten seconds of music from start playing. We'll keep
Speaker 1: talking into the music, but I found some that the
Speaker 1: bees just really really love. They like Munarda, which is
Speaker 1: bee bomb or bird. They love the basils. There's a
Speaker 1: basil called African blue that just makes a big bush
Speaker 1: full of flowers and it is loaded with bees all
Speaker 1: the time. There's I know, the vitext they used to
Speaker 1: call a beekeeper's fround because it's blooming now and bees
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of itexts around.
Speaker 3: I haven't ten of those in my oh yeah house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they love them. So there's things we can
Speaker 1: plant that are special favorites of them that would be good.
Speaker 1: And then en mass there is another thing you've talked about,
Speaker 1: so not just a few flowers and then covering the season.
Speaker 6: So that's right.
Speaker 1: We won't have time to go into all the flowers
Speaker 1: here today during an interview, but as we go on
Speaker 1: on guard Line, I'm gonna talk about that more in
Speaker 1: the weeks to come about what are the flowers for
Speaker 1: summer and fall and even the cool seasons of the year.
Speaker 1: The bees aren't as acted, but they are out and
Speaker 1: about a bit. Yeah in our content.
Speaker 9: As long as they're the temperature is warm enough, maybe
Speaker 9: above fifty degrees, they will go and get food.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. We'll be right back, folks. Don't go away. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Guardline.
Speaker 6: Folks.
Speaker 1: I'm okay right to say shirt because I want to
Speaker 1: every second we possibly can with our guests this morning.
Speaker 1: Doctor Julian Range is ab researcher at Texas A and
Speaker 1: M Agrilife at TEXA and M University. She's also a
Speaker 1: professor there at the campus, and we're visiting with her
Speaker 1: about all things bees, specifically honeybees, but bees in general.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to come back. We were talking about
Speaker 1: honeybee democracy and you were discussing the waggle dance and
Speaker 1: how it says, hey, these flowers are so awesome. There's
Speaker 1: a BUCkies. I'm beside myself over there. You got to
Speaker 1: all go to this one place and all the bees
Speaker 1: know exactly where to go, and that's nice. What other
Speaker 1: kinds of things about the waggle dance and stuff that
Speaker 1: someone who's reading that book could learn possible?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, surprisingly.
Speaker 9: The bees will use the same language the waggle dance
Speaker 9: to communicate the location not of food, but of potential
Speaker 9: home sites, so colonies. We call them super organisms because
Speaker 9: they live there almost like imagine each little bee is
Speaker 9: like a cell in a body in an organism, they
Speaker 9: can live on their own. So the whole colony as
Speaker 9: a whole, when it reproduces, it needs to split into
Speaker 9: two units. And so that's what we call a swarm,
Speaker 9: which you find on tree branches in the spring and summer.
Speaker 9: So the colony decides to split because it was too large.
Speaker 9: The mother queen generally is the one that leaves with
Speaker 9: about three quarters of the workers. They stay in that
Speaker 9: cluster in place. We call it the BiVO whac and
Speaker 9: they can stay in that BiVO whac for a few
Speaker 9: hours to a few days, it depends on the decision
Speaker 9: making process. And so there's about only three to five
Speaker 9: percent of the bees in that swarm are active, and
Speaker 9: they're called nest site scouts, so in not like they're
Speaker 9: like food scouts, but in this case they're looking for
Speaker 9: potential home sites and they are the ones that are
Speaker 9: active and looking for potential three cavities, while the rest
Speaker 9: of the colony in the swarm, ninety seven percent of
Speaker 9: them are cool quiescent, just kind of letting the knowledgeable
Speaker 9: scouts decide and they start finding places and then if
Speaker 9: they like that place, because they have ways to measure
Speaker 9: the size, the size of the cavity, the entrance size,
Speaker 9: the height above ground, if it's drafty or if there's
Speaker 9: if it's wet, whatever that is. They kind of assess quality,
Speaker 9: come back and they're like, this is a really good place.
Speaker 9: They start performing that waggle dance, and so other bees
Speaker 9: will follow. They will get recruited to that side, and
Speaker 9: they themselves visited and the side by themselves if it's
Speaker 9: worth advertising or not.
Speaker 3: And then they keep doing these waggle dance.
Speaker 9: But they could be doing the waggle dance for several
Speaker 9: locations at the same time time on that.
Speaker 3: On that swarm.
Speaker 9: But each of these dancers does only as a finite
Speaker 9: number of dances. It's like the performance is only maybe
Speaker 9: about seven, six or seven times that they will do
Speaker 9: the waggle dance, and then they stop. And so the
Speaker 9: ones that are have the most vigorous dancers recruit the
Speaker 9: more bees, and each one of those bees is going
Speaker 9: to perform the waggle dance six times that they stop.
Speaker 9: So the ones that the location that's most favorable is
Speaker 9: gonna get the highest number of dances, and therefore it's
Speaker 9: gonna get the favoritism of the of the scouts until
Speaker 9: they basically come down to one location.
Speaker 1: So that's like a consensus concessus building. And because of
Speaker 1: that process, they very seldom get it wrong.
Speaker 3: Exactly, it's about it's about eighty of the time they
Speaker 3: get it right.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's not every time.
Speaker 9: It's also not the first one they find. It's never
Speaker 9: the or not necessarily the best one or the one
Speaker 9: that they will go for. It could even be the
Speaker 9: last one they found that they found to be the
Speaker 9: best quality one and they will move into Wow, that
Speaker 9: is cool.
Speaker 1: And then they had that way and that starts a
Speaker 1: whole other fascinating process, which is swarm moves through the air,
Speaker 1: and how does.
Speaker 3: Those same bees.
Speaker 9: So if you see a swarm and you think, wow,
Speaker 9: this is like a very chaotic cloud of lost bees.
Speaker 9: But in reality, those same scouts that know where the
Speaker 9: new home is act as streakers. And so they did
Speaker 9: the study where they could follow those bees and they're
Speaker 9: actually not moving at random. They are going back and
Speaker 9: forth in a bees line, kind of leading the way
Speaker 9: to where they should all move.
Speaker 1: And you say streaker because this beag ends up at
Speaker 1: the back of the swarm and then he zooms forward.
Speaker 1: That's right, and they all see this guy flying. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's where you go. And then he comes back and
Speaker 1: zooms the one that we need to follow. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: And then they get to the right spot and they
Speaker 1: have to tell everybody drop down here.
Speaker 3: And it's right here.
Speaker 9: And so they start producing a pheromone called the Nazonov
Speaker 9: glan pheromone, which is the very tip of the abdomen.
Speaker 9: You can actually see it quite easily because they open
Speaker 9: up the glan and it looks white and they fan
Speaker 9: their wings and we call that the homing scent. And
Speaker 9: so then they all basically go into into the new box.
Speaker 9: So they never split up into two groups. Let's say
Speaker 9: the rogue bees that decided not to follow suit. No,
Speaker 9: they all everyone goes into the same box.
Speaker 1: I know where to go. They go in and set
Speaker 1: up house. That is that's amazing. And here we thought
Speaker 1: bees are just kind of aimlessly wandering around.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, it's completely the opposite.
Speaker 6: They are.
Speaker 1: That is cool stuff. Really really concerted on one thing
Speaker 1: that I was interested in, and I know we're talking
Speaker 1: about book a lot that it's a good book, but
Speaker 1: is how bees regulate temperature and it can be very
Speaker 1: cold outside or it can be very hot, and the
Speaker 1: way they the distance between bees and what. Could you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about temperature regulation.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so some of one of the most important traits
Speaker 9: of bees in this genus APIs is that they actually
Speaker 9: do thermal regulation. So they try to keep the brood
Speaker 9: nest area where the babies are, it's the most delicate area,
Speaker 9: and they try to keep.
Speaker 3: It at around ninety five degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 9: So if it's above that temperature outside, they do something
Speaker 9: called evaporative cooling.
Speaker 3: Okay, they go and get water.
Speaker 9: They bring in droplets of water, put it on the comb,
Speaker 9: on the surface of the comb, and they fan their
Speaker 9: wings to create a cooling mist to drop the temperature.
Speaker 9: They also hang out on the outside of the box.
Speaker 9: That's called a beard, So it's basically like getting people
Speaker 9: out of a room because of the heat, and so
Speaker 9: that cools down the temperature and if it's too cold,
Speaker 9: then they shiver to produce heat to keep the brood warm.
Speaker 9: So at all times of year they try to keep
Speaker 9: that brude in Asteria at about ninety five ninety seven
Speaker 9: degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 9: In the winter, there's no brood and so they can
Speaker 9: live in a colder environment, and they use that honey
Speaker 9: that they store over winter as their fuel to produce
Speaker 9: calories and to produce the heat. They need to shiver
Speaker 9: so that they can survive the cold winter.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. All right, Well, we gotta take another break.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Stay tuned, folks. We're visiting with
Speaker 1: doctor Gulana Rangell, Texas and M University entomologists who focuses
Speaker 1: her research and her teaching on honey My producer has
Speaker 1: a sense of humor. He's playing Beg's music. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: that's like dad joke, Alejandra, What the heck did you
Speaker 1: come up with that? That's funny. That's why I'm gonna
Speaker 1: use that one. I'm gonna steal it from. Hey, you're
Speaker 1: listening to garden Line. I'm your host, skipt Director, and
Speaker 1: you're here with doctor jimian Orangel from Texas and M
Speaker 1: University Agerlife the entomology department. She researches and teaches about
Speaker 1: honey bees, and we were picking her brain about amazing
Speaker 1: and fascinating things about honey bees. Right now, we were
Speaker 1: just talking about how bees find flowers and how they
Speaker 1: communicate with each other, how they find their nest, their
Speaker 1: new nest when they those swarm breaks apart and goes
Speaker 1: into two, and how they communicate and make a good
Speaker 1: decision on where to go.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And I can't even remember all the things we were
Speaker 1: going to talk about. Now I know what was the
Speaker 1: you had just brought up when we were at break
Speaker 1: Their colony losses, the colony colony losses. Yes, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Sometimes I hear like all the bees are
Speaker 1: going away, We're all gonna die, apocalypse concerns, And then
Speaker 1: I hear things like, well they're down, but they come
Speaker 1: back up again and stuff. Could you help make sense
Speaker 1: of that? And where are we right now? You were
Speaker 1: telling me about some concerns on current be popular. Yeah, So.
Speaker 9: Some researchers and government agencies started doing colony laws survey
Speaker 9: right after we had something that was called colony collapse
Speaker 9: disorder or CCD around the year two thousand and seven,
Speaker 9: where a lot of commercial beekeepers observed a sudden loss
Speaker 9: of the entire colony population, so all the workers were gone.
Speaker 9: There was no pesticide kill, because in pesticide kills you
Speaker 9: see the dead bees on the floor of the box
Speaker 9: or outside the entrance. But in this case the bees
Speaker 9: were just gone. There was still food left, and sometimes
Speaker 9: you still have the queen alive with just a few
Speaker 9: workers around her, and they didn't really know what was
Speaker 9: going on. What they did was find a kind of
Speaker 9: a post mortem type of forensic analysis of bees that
Speaker 9: colonies that had collapsed and whatever was left the bees
Speaker 9: that were left, and they assessed most of those colonies
Speaker 9: that had collapsed had really high levels of honeybee associated viruses,
Speaker 9: and not just one or two, but three or four
Speaker 9: viruses all acting at the same time. Since that year,
Speaker 9: we kept records of colony losses year round, so they
Speaker 9: did summer loss, winter loss, and overall loss. And also
Speaker 9: as the beekeepers a question what percentage of laws is
Speaker 9: acceptable to you over winter. It's kind of like keeping livestock.
Speaker 9: You have a certain amount of loss that you have to.
Speaker 3: Accept.
Speaker 9: And so the number was always like fifteen to eighteen percent,
Speaker 9: but the reality of the losses were thirty to thirty
Speaker 9: five percent. And then in the last five years or so,
Speaker 9: we've seen years where we have losses of forty to
Speaker 9: forty five percent. Some years are better, so they decrease
Speaker 9: down to thirty or so. They haven't gone below thirty
Speaker 9: in at least a decade, but something happening. We have
Speaker 9: not lost less than less than thirty percent per year,
Speaker 9: which is incredibly high because it's always twice at least twice,
Speaker 9: if not more, the amount that's acceptable to a beekeeper.
Speaker 9: And imagine if you own one hundred, no let's say
Speaker 9: ten thousand colonies, that's three thousand colonies that you lost,
Speaker 9: and it's a huge loss of life, a huge monetary
Speaker 9: law that you have to get try to recuperate when
Speaker 9: the spring comes by splitting colonies, many ways to try
Speaker 9: to get up to the numbers that you had before
Speaker 9: the winter loss. But lately, lately it has we're basically
Speaker 9: seeing CCD two point zero. But even worse were the
Speaker 9: early reports in February were of a loss of about
Speaker 9: sixty two percent of the colonies in the US had
Speaker 9: been lost. But at least those beekeepers that reported law
Speaker 9: reported their losses, and in this case there were a
Speaker 9: lot of commercial beekeepers. And so in the US about
Speaker 9: ninety five percent of all bees managed colonies are owned
Speaker 9: by only about five percent of beekeepers. So if you
Speaker 9: get a huge number of commercial beekeepers reporting losses, then
Speaker 9: you can actually account for most of the managed colonies
Speaker 9: in the US, which the number fluctuates between two five
Speaker 9: and two point eight million colonies. And so it was
Speaker 9: estimated that about one point seven million colonies were lost
Speaker 9: last fall.
Speaker 1: What are we thinking is causing it now?
Speaker 9: So the researchers collected samples again forensic analysis of these
Speaker 9: lost colonies, and they just came out with the news
Speaker 9: about a week ago that it looks to be the
Speaker 9: same old culprit as always. The verroa mite, which is
Speaker 9: a mite that attacks honeybees. It feeds off of their
Speaker 9: blood or hemo lymph and a fat body tissue, all
Speaker 9: while transmitting several honeybee associated viruses.
Speaker 1: Okay, so just for a picture, folks, the verrom i
Speaker 1: think of a dog with ticks on it attached to
Speaker 1: the body of the bee. These are sucking blood out
Speaker 1: of it. And as so many things that suck our blood,
Speaker 1: mosquitoes and others can transmit those diseases.
Speaker 3: That's right and to us in the case of this
Speaker 3: might varroa destructor.
Speaker 9: A bee can get infected or parasitized as a pupa
Speaker 9: during metamorphosis or as an adult or both and so
Speaker 9: because there are no anti viral drugs for bees, the
Speaker 9: only thing that we can do is try to keep
Speaker 9: VIRAA levels low. It's almost impossible to keep them off.
Speaker 9: Almost every colony out there has varroamites, but you have
Speaker 9: to basically have them below the threshold level of injury.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, I had a short time as a hobby
Speaker 1: bee keeper some hives and we had to deal with
Speaker 1: verromite way back in that time, and we had strips
Speaker 1: that we hung in the hive. I think there were
Speaker 1: apostan strips, but then some people were using like a
Speaker 1: winter green oil or something. What are bee keepers now
Speaker 1: do to deal with verroit keepers are full scale commercial.
Speaker 9: It's actually both ways, both types. So in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 9: the varroa is an ectra parasite of the eastern honeybee
Speaker 9: in Asia, and then it swapped hosts and now it
Speaker 9: infects our honeybe the western honeybee, and so it's basically
Speaker 9: the honeybee. Our honeybee is not accustomed to having this parasite.
Speaker 9: So when it entered the US in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 9: or so, we immediately it almost decimated the beekeeping industry,
Speaker 9: and so we used the product you said, epistine is
Speaker 9: a pyriethroid fluvalinate. The mites became resistant to it within
Speaker 9: about a decade. So then we moved on to a
Speaker 9: product called kumafaus, an organo phosphate, and they became resistant
Speaker 9: to kumafhaus within a decade. And so then we moved
Speaker 9: to amitras, which is a for mammidine and luckily for us,
Speaker 9: it's been effective for the last twenty years up until now.
Speaker 9: So the report about the high viral viral levels that
Speaker 9: cause all of these bees to die is because we're
Speaker 9: seeing more and more amitrized resistance in the my population.
Speaker 1: Well, we know from insect control in general that when
Speaker 1: you put all your eggs in one basket as the clock, yes,
Speaker 1: it's going to end.
Speaker 9: So, especially hobby beekeepers, they because they have time and
Speaker 9: fewer colonies to treat, they can use organic acids like
Speaker 9: oxalic acid formic acid.
Speaker 3: Thymal is another.
Speaker 9: Type of product that is less harmful to the bees
Speaker 9: because there's a lot of sublethal effects of these chemicals
Speaker 9: on the bees that we want to protect. But it's
Speaker 9: just not very realistic for use in the commercial setting
Speaker 9: because there are a lot of temperature and humidity restrictions
Speaker 9: when applying these products. So we are kind of in
Speaker 9: a moment of discovery for new products. There's a new
Speaker 9: technology called RNA interference that it's showing promising results that's
Speaker 9: stopping the reproduction of the varroamite, and they're trying to
Speaker 9: get that product out this year here in the US.
Speaker 9: A couple more chemistries that are in the horizon, but
Speaker 9: there's not a whole lot of new products. It's new
Speaker 9: formulations of the same old products that are coming out soon.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot of a number of our
Speaker 1: listeners do be keeping, amateur beekeeping. Where would someone like
Speaker 1: that go for information? I mean, you don't want them
Speaker 1: all calling you at home for help with their bees.
Speaker 1: So is there like some online Does AGR Life have
Speaker 1: any kind of publication, or is your certain books or
Speaker 1: what would you recommend?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would recommend.
Speaker 1: So we have.
Speaker 9: Our website, you know, Tamyo Honeybee Lab do edu has
Speaker 9: a section for bekeeper resources. Because we're in Texas, we
Speaker 9: also have the Texas Beekeepers Association, which has a lot
Speaker 9: of useful resources on their website, but one that is
Speaker 9: really good. Actually a couple places the Honeybee Health Coalition.
Speaker 9: It's a nonprofit organization. Honeybeehealth Coalition dot com has amazing
Speaker 9: resources for beekeepers. And Project APIs M as in apes Malifa,
Speaker 9: which is the the scientific name of the western honeybee.
Speaker 9: So Project aps M we call it PAM, has a
Speaker 9: lot of resources.
Speaker 3: Mostly this is for.
Speaker 9: Mostly for honeybees, but if you're looking for stuff regarding
Speaker 9: other bees, not just honeybees, the Surse Society has a
Speaker 9: lot of information as well.
Speaker 1: And that's CEO. No, it's with an x x O
Speaker 1: x E R r c E SBS Society. Okay, what
Speaker 1: was the a n M website?
Speaker 4: Did you tam.
Speaker 3: Honeybee Lab?
Speaker 1: Okay, honeybee Lab? Good, well, wow, that is that is interesting.
Speaker 1: We've got about forty five seconds here to to kind
Speaker 1: of wind this up. So the bottom line is we're
Speaker 1: in a kind of scary spot right now. We've got
Speaker 1: the worst resurgence of the problem that we've seen, and
Speaker 1: our product options are somewhat minimal yep. And so that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: It is interesting for agriculture, for food security, for biodiversity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because honeybees are an agricultural enterprise, just like a
Speaker 1: dairy cattleman has dairy cows and he brings them in
Speaker 1: and milks them to get the milk and things. We
Speaker 1: professionally manage our little herds honeybees that are out there,
Speaker 1: and it does have a significant effect. We're going to
Speaker 1: have to take a break here for the top of
Speaker 1: the news, but we're going to come back and we'll
Speaker 1: be spending the next half hour the rest of the
Speaker 1: show today with doctor Wrangel. We're with doctor Jianne Wrangel today.
Speaker 1: We're going to spend the last part of the show
Speaker 1: this morning, the last thirty minutes, talking a few more
Speaker 1: things about honey bees. Thank for those of you I
Speaker 1: know you'd like to call in. We'll be back live
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning six to ten for all your calling questions.
Speaker 1: So if you have a bee question and I would
Speaker 1: like to get it in real quick, we'll be happy
Speaker 1: to take a question specifically about something we're talking about
Speaker 1: about bees. Doctor Wrangel, I wanted to go into the issue.
Speaker 1: We have a problem with crape myrtle bark scale. They
Speaker 1: suck the juices on of the plant. They basically excrete
Speaker 1: out the sugary substances and we get the black city
Speaker 1: mold all over our crpe myrtles, and people have a
Speaker 1: fix with that. It's hard to control and systemic insecticides,
Speaker 1: the neonicotoid types are fairly effective against it, but once
Speaker 1: you start putting those into plants, you see reports of
Speaker 1: bee losses and things on certain kinds of trees. I
Speaker 1: think you guys did some studies a good while back
Speaker 1: on crpe myrtles and talked to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the importance of craige myrtle's to bees and then
Speaker 1: the issue of so how do I can what do
Speaker 1: I do about scale if I've got the honey bees.
Speaker 3: So crape myrtle is a great.
Speaker 9: Type of tree that produces and provides polland to honeybees,
Speaker 9: especially in times of year when there's nothing else available.
Speaker 9: We did that study on what bees consume in urban settings,
Speaker 9: and we actually had it in five different cities across
Speaker 9: the US, and here in Texas, we did it around
Speaker 9: the city of Austin, and we found that crape myrtle
Speaker 9: was the one of the primary pollen sources for bees
Speaker 9: and urban settings.
Speaker 1: You're looking at what bees are bringing back to the
Speaker 1: hive in the summer, and craig myrtle was number one.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we had pollen traps which collect the poland that
Speaker 9: the bees are collecting. We put them at the entrance
Speaker 9: of the hive, and so it kind of lets the
Speaker 9: little balls that they have of pollend on their legs.
Speaker 9: They can't get through these little grits without the balls
Speaker 9: falling off, and so then you have a little tray
Speaker 9: at the bottom and you collect what the bees are
Speaker 9: bringing in. And so we did the collection of pollen
Speaker 9: every month, once a month, at at least five different
Speaker 9: locations per per city, and crape myrtle came to be
Speaker 9: one of the most important food sources in not just
Speaker 9: Texas in Florida as well so in other urban settings
Speaker 9: in other parts of the country. What also we found
Speaker 9: was we did the pesticide residue analysis of all of
Speaker 9: these pollen types, and we were pleasantly surprised to find
Speaker 9: that urban pollend doesn't contain as much pesticides as we
Speaker 9: thought they would have. The polony is relatively clean in
Speaker 9: urban settings. Even though we did find some traces of chemicals,
Speaker 9: including some nicotinoids, a lot of them were below the
Speaker 9: level of detection. What we did find more of for fungicides, Yes,
Speaker 9: in some of these trees, but again not an alarming
Speaker 9: levels like you would find in agricultural settings.
Speaker 1: So maybe if someone was going to use you know,
Speaker 1: those products have some advantages and that you're not like
Speaker 1: nuke and the whole plant. So a honeybee, I mean
Speaker 1: lady bee lands on the plant or lace wing, and
Speaker 1: it's it's landing on the poison. It's the things that
Speaker 1: are sucking juices out of the plant. They get it
Speaker 1: because it's in the plumbing of the plant. So that's
Speaker 1: a nice advantage. But you're expinning that the damage is
Speaker 1: a little minimal. So would you recommend maybe trying to
Speaker 1: time your applications when it's not like peak.
Speaker 9: Exactly, And that applies to any plant if the use
Speaker 9: of any systemic insecticide should be done avoiding the peak
Speaker 9: blooming time so that the bees don't have access to
Speaker 9: potentially contaminated pollen and nectar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, during a break we're visiting and I was talking
Speaker 1: about squash and squash, you know, have these blooms that
Speaker 1: we have to have pollinated because it's separate male and
Speaker 1: female flowers, and if you kill your bees, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get any squash. And so finding a time with
Speaker 1: something that doesn't last a lot, Like you put seven
Speaker 1: dust out there and it's gonna kill bees for weeks,
Speaker 1: whereas some things that break down really fast and then
Speaker 1: timing them when the bees aren't out as a strategy.
Speaker 1: So and something we should be aware of our flower
Speaker 1: gardens and other things that's right.
Speaker 9: We also have to be concerned with, like incidental exposure.
Speaker 3: For example, you're trying to spray.
Speaker 9: You know, let's say the crape myrtle, well in this
Speaker 9: case not as systemic insect as I'm talking more like
Speaker 9: spray type of pest society. And so you can have
Speaker 9: weeds at the bottom that bees are visiting that may
Speaker 9: also get contaminated. So there's that incidental exposure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and wheats are a really important source of pollen
Speaker 1: and nectar plants. And I know, I realize I'm a
Speaker 1: lot of faithful listening right now. And we've got some
Speaker 1: of you who your lawn has to be perfect, weed free, manicured,
Speaker 1: you name it. I get that. And then we got
Speaker 1: others of you that would just be as happy with
Speaker 1: weeds blooming and bees flying all over the grass and
Speaker 1: everything as anybody would. But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: our lawn weeds that are popular with bees, so especially
Speaker 1: I always think of chick weed because every time I'm
Speaker 1: down in the grass and there's chick weed blooms, it's
Speaker 1: like there's honey bees on them. I've just noticed that. Well,
Speaker 1: we have a caller that I want to bring in
Speaker 1: with a question less in Dayton, Texas, out east of Houston. Hey,
Speaker 1: lest welcome to the garden line. Do you have a
Speaker 1: question for Doctor Range?
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 5: I am a six year bee keeper. I have six
Speaker 5: hives and I have gotten one hive that I let well,
Speaker 5: I let them all requeen.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 5: And it's just something that I wanted a natural uh
Speaker 5: set of bees that without having to kill the queen
Speaker 5: and not a queen.
Speaker 13: I let them requeen.
Speaker 5: But I have one hive that has gotten so aggressive
Speaker 5: that it's actually put me in the hospital.
Speaker 6: So uh.
Speaker 5: Any ideas on on uh fixing that or resolving that problem?
Speaker 3: Are you ever?
Speaker 2: Do you.
Speaker 3: Have access to the queen or is it too large
Speaker 3: and different?
Speaker 5: It's uh, I got four tens uh on it now
Speaker 5: so that you know the top to it for honey,
Speaker 5: and actually, to be honest with you, it's my biggest
Speaker 5: produced and honey hive that I ever had, but.
Speaker 13: The queen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the easiest.
Speaker 3: Sorry, you can keep going.
Speaker 5: You said you're afraid what I said, Yeah, you said,
Speaker 5: do I have access to the queen. It's to the
Speaker 5: point where I'm afraid to even get in there and
Speaker 5: look for it because when I go by the hive,
Speaker 5: just walking by the hive, I'm covered in bees. That's
Speaker 5: with full suit.
Speaker 13: So mm hmm.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think the only way to fix that problem
Speaker 9: is to re queen that colony. And so one easy
Speaker 9: way could be with one of those you can actually
Speaker 9: jerry rig your own little swarm box where you can
Speaker 9: use a funnel and uh get the with a queen excluder.
Speaker 9: So you just kind of dump all the bees into
Speaker 9: a box through the queen excluder and hope, hope that
Speaker 9: the queen will be caught at the top and then
Speaker 9: move away so that you can get her.
Speaker 3: And requeen the colony.
Speaker 5: What are the chance, being in Southeast Texas that they
Speaker 5: have all?
Speaker 1: Right, there we go, Well, thank you, I appreciate, I
Speaker 1: appreciate the call less, and I thank you doctor Rangel
Speaker 1: for being with us. We're gonna come back. We got
Speaker 1: one more segment today, folks, So hang on with your questions.
Speaker 1: Seven one three two one two ktr H. All right,
Speaker 1: folks are back the last little segment of the morning.
Speaker 1: We are visiting and have been visiting with doctor Juliana
Speaker 1: Rangel from Texas and M University Entomology Department. She is
Speaker 1: a researcher and a professor in bee keeping and bees
Speaker 1: and all things bees. If you've been listening very long,
Speaker 1: you've already probably had your mind blown about the amazing
Speaker 1: world of bees and what we're learning now.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: And we have quite a b industry here in the
Speaker 1: in the state of Texas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Texas has a lot of commercial.
Speaker 9: Beekeepers. We don't have the exact number, but it's several
Speaker 9: beekeepers in the state. They actually move quite a bit
Speaker 9: because most of commercial beekeepers dedicate a lot of their
Speaker 9: enterprise to pollination of crops, agricultural crops, and start off
Speaker 9: in February with the pollination of almond in California, California.
Speaker 9: So about two million colonies of bees are taken to California, Yes,
Speaker 9: across from all the way from Florida and the northeast
Speaker 9: all the way to the central Valley of California. For
Speaker 9: pollination of almond, and then from there the migration kind
Speaker 9: of takes off, going to up and down the Pacific
Speaker 9: northwest and down south California, and then going west to
Speaker 9: all the other state and then about some is where
Speaker 9: we get our clover honey production in the north and
Speaker 9: south Dakota and Minnesota. So a lot of people from
Speaker 9: the Texas area have kind of like dual citizenship and
Speaker 9: they are also staying They stay in Texas for some
Speaker 9: part of the year, but then they go and live
Speaker 9: in Minnesota or the Dakota's for a few months.
Speaker 1: So these bees know what it's like to be in
Speaker 1: a rock band on tour. You just jump on the
Speaker 1: bus and every night you're in a different town.
Speaker 9: And that's right, But imagine being like that in by
Speaker 9: the millions. There's a lot of chances of anyone gets
Speaker 9: sick on the bus. Yeah, everyone gets sick. So it
Speaker 9: happens to the bees as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking about romaid. So you go somewhere where
Speaker 1: there's a problem, and now you're taking it everywhere.
Speaker 9: You go, so that new place, they get infected, they
Speaker 9: get sick, they get stressed from just being moved around
Speaker 9: so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet they typically move at night, right that.
Speaker 9: Night, but because they have to go, like if they're
Speaker 9: going from Florida to California, it's gonna take more than
Speaker 9: just one day.
Speaker 1: Well, we got a couple of callers here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to folks, just for the sake of time, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna refer your calls over here with doctor and go one.
Speaker 1: First of all, Bruce and Lagrange had talked about the
Speaker 1: Texas Queen not having a queen Breeders Association, I believe,
Speaker 1: and some of what doctor or Professor Slater is doing,
Speaker 1: we talk a little bit about it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So doctor Garrett Slater, great addition to our team,
Speaker 9: got hired about a year ago for extension apa culture,
Speaker 9: which we didn't have before, and he is actually very
Speaker 9: interested in creating a breeding program for honeybees here in
Speaker 9: our state. So I think we just have to stay
Speaker 9: tuned because I think there will be something similar to
Speaker 9: a Queen Producers Association in Texas in the years to come.
Speaker 1: And one thing that about that is when you have
Speaker 1: a good source of new queens, you can fix a
Speaker 1: lot of problems with the hive very quickly.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like the previous caller asking about a very aggressive
Speaker 9: colony and what to do with that. You have to
Speaker 9: requeen that colony, especially if it's unbearable to work with
Speaker 9: because of its aggressive tendencies.
Speaker 3: It's just not fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have to requeen. Well, I also have
Speaker 1: a call from Mark, and Mark, I'm going to pass
Speaker 1: your call along here, but do you have an opinion
Speaker 1: about maybe taking honey in the morning to reduce allergies?
Speaker 1: And I'm going to expand that question to be pollen.
Speaker 1: I had tried. I can tell I'm probably putting it
Speaker 1: from the spider, but I tried taking little bits of
Speaker 1: b pollen and boy, when I took I mean it's
Speaker 1: like a less than a quarter an eighth of a
Speaker 1: teaspoon of it, my eyes started watering and my nose
Speaker 1: it was like I was having an allergy from it.
Speaker 1: Do you know of and I know you're not a
Speaker 1: medical doctor, but any research that might show that by
Speaker 1: doing that you develop benefits or is that a question
Speaker 1: you'd rather like, Okay, what's the next questions?
Speaker 9: I kind of but like my answer to that is
Speaker 9: the research that I've read on the benefits of consuming
Speaker 9: honey or pollen to.
Speaker 3: Fix allergies is very mixed.
Speaker 9: And the problem is you are allergic to a specific
Speaker 9: type of pollen, which means that you are whatever you
Speaker 9: are consuming has to be that pollen, and you sometimes
Speaker 9: don't even know what that pollen is or whether it
Speaker 9: is a pollen that.
Speaker 3: Would be even consumed by bees.
Speaker 9: Right, because a lot of these pollens that you're allergic
Speaker 9: to our wind pollinated.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And that was the point I was going to make.
Speaker 1: You know, ragweed pollen and things like that. Golden rod
Speaker 1: is not an allergy type pollen, but the heavier pollens
Speaker 1: that bees are picking up, now, there could be ragweed
Speaker 1: pollen on you know, that bloom of sunflower in your garden.
Speaker 9: But yeah, so I mean there is such a thing
Speaker 9: as a plus ebo effect and what consuming and consuming pollen,
Speaker 9: you know, but it has other benefits, protein and other nutrients, right,
Speaker 9: So I'm not saying you should not consume it. But
Speaker 9: the problem is you have to be consuming the pollen
Speaker 9: your allergic to for it to even be any kind
Speaker 9: of Yeah, medical treatment.
Speaker 1: Is that same, and here we are both getting out
Speaker 1: of our league. But that doctors give you the like
Speaker 1: the allergy shots, and I think isn't that a like
Speaker 1: a lower dose.
Speaker 3: That would be a lower dose, but it would be
Speaker 3: more for.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it would have to be for the pollen that
Speaker 9: you're allergic to, or people who are allergic to bees.
Speaker 3: They can do that treatment, but that will go with
Speaker 3: the venom instead of pollen.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh cool, right, well there you go. Oh my, Well,
Speaker 1: but I do recommend taking honey in the morning. It
Speaker 1: makes you happy.
Speaker 3: It's the best sweetener there is.
Speaker 9: Right, it's just that it has all honey contains pollen incidental,
Speaker 9: so you would have to also be consuming the local
Speaker 9: pollen that you might be allergic to from that honey.
Speaker 3: For it to be effective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my wife made a lacto fermented type of lemonade,
Speaker 1: So basically take lemonade and she put some honey on it,
Speaker 1: and you introduce the yeast and it's not making alcohol.
Speaker 1: It's only a few days that it's in there. But
Speaker 1: it's like you know, all the probiotical kim kimchi and
Speaker 1: saur krawd and all all of those things that are.
Speaker 9: Well, there's a lot of research now being done to
Speaker 9: see if all of these or any of these probiotics
Speaker 9: can improve be health. Okay, so doing some additives to
Speaker 9: the food that we give to the bees in times
Speaker 9: of dursts that might improve their health with the use
Speaker 9: of probiotics.
Speaker 1: All right, I wonder if we could talk to katr
Speaker 1: h and say, could you cancel all the shows for
Speaker 1: the rest of the day because we're really just getting
Speaker 1: started today. That was good. Well, I have about a
Speaker 1: minute left and I'd like you to tell again about
Speaker 1: your lab, website and anything that you might have that
Speaker 1: you'd like to close with, as shurined us.
Speaker 3: So well, first, thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 9: As I said, we run the research and teaching aspect
Speaker 9: of apiculture at Texas A and M, and we have
Speaker 9: a very active Facebook page Tamy Honeybee Lab. We have
Speaker 9: over six thousand followers from all over the world and
Speaker 9: that's where we post the latest news from all the
Speaker 9: research that we're performing, all the accolades that students receive
Speaker 9: for their presentations and their hard work. And we also
Speaker 9: have an endowed an endowment fund that people can donate
Speaker 9: money too, and so if you want to donate money,
Speaker 9: just let us know because we'll always take donations for research.
Speaker 9: But just remember that honeybees are responsible for pollinating one
Speaker 9: third of the food we consume, so keeping them alive
Speaker 9: also keeps us alive.
Speaker 1: There you go, Thank you, doctor Engel. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 6: Thank you.