Speaker 1: Welcome to kat r h Garden Line with Skip Rictor's.
Speaker 2: Shoes, crazy gas a trim.
Speaker 3: You can just watch him as well. So many good
Speaker 3: things to supop raising in great.
Speaker 2: Gas not a.
Speaker 3: Sun glass gas sun beamon of.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get this rolling this morning. Welcome to
Speaker 2: garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor. We're here to
Speaker 2: help you have a bountiful garden, beautiful landscape and more
Speaker 2: fun in the process. That's what we want to do.
Speaker 2: Gardening should be fun, and it is fun a lot
Speaker 2: of things. One of the things I like best about
Speaker 2: gardening is it's renewing abilities. It just you know, you
Speaker 2: get outside, you clean up a messy bed. Even that's work.
Speaker 2: I know it's eight outside, but you stand up, you
Speaker 2: look at the work you've done, the accomplishment, and there
Speaker 2: is that is a good thing. It feels so good.
Speaker 2: You know, for years when I was in my main
Speaker 2: career of my life Agrolfe Extension County horticulture agent with
Speaker 2: Texas a and named Agrolife Extension. You know, you go
Speaker 2: to work like any job, and sometimes at the end
Speaker 2: of the day you look back and you go, what
Speaker 2: did I do today? I know I pushed papers around
Speaker 2: and talk to people. But what did I do today?
Speaker 2: And with gardening, you can see what you do today.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be doing some planting later today and
Speaker 2: I'll go outside. I got the beds already, I keep
Speaker 2: mulch on them, and I put those seeds in the
Speaker 2: ground and just sit back, or put the transplants in
Speaker 2: the ground. I say, back and look at it, and
Speaker 2: it looks good and it gives you hope. And when
Speaker 2: you put a seed in the ground and you know
Speaker 2: you're going to get something from that, a flower of fruit,
Speaker 2: a vegeable, whatever you're growing, there's an accomplishment that anyway.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great thing. I do want to
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the lawns right now. Our
Speaker 2: lawns are growing fast, and I mean they are. If
Speaker 2: your lawn, if your soil is moist, your lawn is
Speaker 2: growing fast. And so we need to make sure and
Speaker 2: mow as regularly as we can. The more often you mow,
Speaker 2: the better it looks. It's as simple as that. Now,
Speaker 2: someone a turf specialist, told me that one time. He said,
Speaker 2: the most important single thing you do to your lawn
Speaker 2: is mow it regularly. And I thought, come on man.
Speaker 2: I thought you'd say water, fertilize something else, but those
Speaker 2: are all important. But mowing regularly creates the densest, most
Speaker 2: beautiful turf, just like hedging a hedge regularly creates the densest,
Speaker 2: most beautiful hedge. So as simple as that, I've noticed
Speaker 2: out and about in the lawn there's still a little
Speaker 2: gray leaf spot out there. We're going to be heating
Speaker 2: up enough and kind of growing our way out of that.
Speaker 2: But there's a product by night Frog can used called
Speaker 2: Eagle And one of my family members has a yard
Speaker 2: that has a lot of gray leaf spot in it
Speaker 2: because they're putting a new turf in and watering it,
Speaker 2: you know, twice a day for a while, once a
Speaker 2: day for a while, and all that water created a
Speaker 2: lot of gray leaf spot opportunity and there it goes.
Speaker 2: So Eagle Turf shuts it down. It's a systemic. It
Speaker 2: also works on other diseases too. You can use it
Speaker 2: on the other things that plague your lawns, whether it's
Speaker 2: Saint Augustine or another type of grass. You're gonna find
Speaker 2: night Foss products places like Plantation, Ace Hardware in Richmond
Speaker 2: Rosenberg and i FM three fifty nine Langham Creek Ase Hardware,
Speaker 2: which is raped by Copperfield in the north west part
Speaker 2: of Houston. FM five twenty nine RCW Nursery on Tomball
Speaker 2: Parkway and head down to Angleton Inclute. You got to
Speaker 2: show a couple of lake hardwares there that both carry
Speaker 2: night foss products as well. We're going to run out
Speaker 2: to the phones real quick here and talk to Beth. Hello, Beth,
Speaker 2: welcome to garden Line. Congratulations on being the arderbird.
Speaker 4: I need to want that.
Speaker 5: I know you can plant beans snap beans again this year.
Speaker 5: It's when's a good time? September? O Can I plant
Speaker 5: them now? I don't want I don't I don't want
Speaker 5: the climbing beans. I want snap beans.
Speaker 2: I would I would probably plant those in August uh
Speaker 2: and and they're going to be It depends on the
Speaker 2: variety contenders about a forty eight day to harvest variety.
Speaker 2: But you want them harvesting when the bulk of a
Speaker 2: heat is past because they just don't set well in
Speaker 2: the heat. So maybe October, maybe August. If you do September,
Speaker 2: then it's getting a little late for you to have
Speaker 2: a really good long harvest from them. But probably believe
Speaker 2: late in the August.
Speaker 5: It's too hardly to plan them now.
Speaker 2: Huh, you're not gonna I don't think you're going to
Speaker 2: get good for it. Said, if you plan them now
Speaker 2: that yes, that is correct.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, So so you think you say, my my vegetable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, August, I would say probably for your area, maybe
Speaker 2: you could start in mid August, be pretty good. I'd
Speaker 2: probably finish up by the end of the first week
Speaker 2: of September, somewhere in that range. You may want to
Speaker 2: make more than one planting just to head your bet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you could.
Speaker 5: So you recommend contenders, well, contender is.
Speaker 2: A good old old variety. There's a lot of other
Speaker 2: great new varieties out there. I haven't done a green
Speaker 2: bean trial in a while. Back when we did them,
Speaker 2: Derby was a good variety. There's I would I would
Speaker 2: probably look for a contender. It's good, it's dependable. But
Speaker 2: one thing I do in my garden's bed is every year,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to plant, like green beans, I'll plant
Speaker 2: maybe two varieties. Sometimes I'll do three and just see
Speaker 2: how they do. And then you'll find out for you
Speaker 2: and for what you like, how they perform. But you
Speaker 2: can't go wrong with contender.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you for the call. Appreciate that a lot.
Speaker 2: You take care. Yeah, that is true with our vegetables
Speaker 2: and things. D and D feed is just outside of Tumball,
Speaker 2: in fact, it's about three miles west of Highway two
Speaker 2: forty nine on twenty nine to twenty and you're going
Speaker 2: to find at D and D the fertilizers I talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, turf Star, Nelson Fertilizer, turf Star line, the
Speaker 2: Microlife line, the Nitrofoss line. If you looking for soils
Speaker 2: and by the bag from heirloom soils, they carry that
Speaker 2: out there. They have Medina fertilizer products and supplement products
Speaker 2: as well. Of course, they got high quality feed of
Speaker 2: all types, including for pets, high end lines like Origin
Speaker 2: and Victor Star Pro Diamond, those kinds of things. But
Speaker 2: when it comes to anything to control pest weeds and
Speaker 2: diseases at your house, they're going to have you covered
Speaker 2: for that too. They do a very good job of
Speaker 2: keeping a wide variety of things. I'm most surprised when
Speaker 2: I go in there and seeing all the different things
Speaker 2: that they carry. Go to a break here in about
Speaker 2: one minute. Woody and Kingwood, you'll be our first when
Speaker 2: we come back. I just don't have enough time to
Speaker 2: give you the time you need right before we go,
Speaker 2: So we're gonna take a little break and I'll come
Speaker 2: back and start with you when we come back. If
Speaker 2: you're looking for a beautiful landscape, don't look any further
Speaker 2: than Piercescapes. I talk about them all the time, and
Speaker 2: I keep telling you the same thing, and that is
Speaker 2: go to the website pierce Scapes dot com or give
Speaker 2: them a call. Two eight one three seven oh fifty
Speaker 2: sixty two eight one three seven fifty sixty. They can
Speaker 2: do anything you need done, from a complete new landscape
Speaker 2: to some renovation. You want to add lighting, you want
Speaker 2: to fix the drainage, You want to get your irrigation
Speaker 2: working right. You want somebody to come out and quarterly.
Speaker 2: Come out quarterly to your place and get those beds
Speaker 2: looking good, get the weeds out, replenish the mults, make
Speaker 2: sure irrigation's working well on them. Replace some flowers went
Speaker 2: seasonally as we need to do that. Piercescapes dot com
Speaker 2: two eight one three seven o five zero zero. We'll
Speaker 2: be right back. Just a ride welcome back. Good to
Speaker 2: have you here with us on garden line this morning.
Speaker 2: If you are planning on doing some soil work, and
Speaker 2: I hope you are, because I'm doing soil work twelve
Speaker 2: months out of the year just about. I mean it'd
Speaker 2: mean every day I'm doing it. But I'm always when
Speaker 2: I pull out a maybe I had tomatoes growing and
Speaker 2: I pull them out, playing something for the fall or
Speaker 2: something else. I'm always working on the soil. And Cienamulch
Speaker 2: is a place that you go where no matter what
Speaker 2: you need, they're gonna have it there. Everything for as
Speaker 2: we say, do the brown stuff before the green stuff.
Speaker 2: That's the place to go. Sanamulch is on Highway or
Speaker 2: on FM of five point twenty one, kind of over
Speaker 2: near Highway six and two eighty eight south of Houston.
Speaker 2: Just go to the website Sienna Mulch dot com cinamals
Speaker 2: dot com. You'll find mulches. You'll find all kinds of
Speaker 2: quality mults by the way, lots of bed mixes and
Speaker 2: other things including sand and gravel. If you're putting out
Speaker 2: a little stone patio, they've got it. They'll deliver within
Speaker 2: about twenty miles the location and before you head out
Speaker 2: the door. Just make sure you grab some good quality
Speaker 2: fertilizers that I talk about here on garden Line, from
Speaker 2: Microlife and from Nelson's and from Medina and from Nitrophoss.
Speaker 2: They've got azemite as well, including products by the back
Speaker 2: from here heirloom soil if you want to just get
Speaker 2: a small amountain sanemals. All right, let's head out. We're
Speaker 2: going to go to Kingwood now and visit with Woody
Speaker 2: this morning. Hello Woody, Welcome to garden Line Point Skip.
Speaker 8: I'm thinking about planting a red maple tree in the
Speaker 8: fall and was wondering if they'll grow in our zone
Speaker 8: or our word.
Speaker 2: I would get one of those, it will. I would
Speaker 2: probably talk to h let's see what can wear you.
Speaker 2: I would probably you might find some out there at
Speaker 2: Warren's Southern Garden. Just ask them that they're going to
Speaker 2: be getting those in. That's that's pretty close to you.
Speaker 2: I know RCW carries a lot of trees and they
Speaker 2: grow on themselves, and they're over on kind of the
Speaker 2: northwest west corner of the Beltway there where two for
Speaker 2: twenty nine comes into the Beltway. Red maple will grow here.
Speaker 2: My problem with maples these red maples and others. The
Speaker 2: branch angles are so narrow, and so you really have
Speaker 2: to watch it as you train it to make sure
Speaker 2: you don't have these real narrow vs. Because those are
Speaker 2: not strong in a storm. As that tree gets older
Speaker 2: and it presses bark against bark and you don't have
Speaker 2: a good attachment. So with good training you can do
Speaker 2: a red maple, but that, in my opinion, is one
Speaker 2: of its shortcomings.
Speaker 8: Okay, terrific, Well, thank you for your help. I just
Speaker 8: wanted to make sure for I went out looking for
Speaker 8: one boy.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you called, and anybody listening, I hope you'll
Speaker 2: do that because you're talking out a tree that hopefully
Speaker 2: is going to give you beauty and shade for fifty years.
Speaker 2: We're going to live another fifty years, right, wouldy? Thank
Speaker 2: you for the call. I appreciate that. What is this statement?
Speaker 2: A society is great when old men plant trees under
Speaker 2: which shade they will never set or something like that.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, in other words, I'm planting
Speaker 2: a tree for somebody else. I'll enjoy it in the meantime.
Speaker 2: That works really well. If you're listening to Guardline good
Speaker 2: heavy with us this morning. If you I mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: that you know I get out and I do planting.
Speaker 2: Just all kinds of stuff going on this week. If
Speaker 2: you want to pick up some quality plants and you're
Speaker 2: in West Houston, Neilson Nursery and Water Gardens is a
Speaker 2: place you need to go. Nelson's always has good quality stuff.
Speaker 2: You know how they specialize in water gardens. I mean
Speaker 2: they're nationally famous for that. But they also carry a
Speaker 2: wide variety of plants, some gorgeous pottery, absolutely gorgeous pottery,
Speaker 2: and everything that you might need if you learn for
Speaker 2: a gift plant. But I have some nice little indoor
Speaker 2: house plants that are just beautiful and perfect to give
Speaker 2: us a gift or grab two and keep on yourself.
Speaker 2: There you go, what's going on now? Up there is
Speaker 2: their ding Dang Sale. Did you know they have a
Speaker 2: sale called the ding Dang Sale. It is on Saturday,
Speaker 2: June twenty eighth, which happens to be today, and all
Speaker 2: their clearance items, all kinds of things that you can
Speaker 2: pick up. Just go buy and check it out. It
Speaker 2: is one of the best opportunities, I think for you
Speaker 2: to pick up some really cool stuff. If you've been
Speaker 2: thinking about putting some containers on your patio. Boy. They
Speaker 2: have an excellent selection of containers. By the way, if
Speaker 2: you want to get there, head out I ten West.
Speaker 2: When you get to Katie Fort Ben Road, out Katie
Speaker 2: turn north and it's just upstreet a little bit there.
Speaker 2: West Houston's full service destination garden center. I would say
Speaker 2: Nelson Nursery and Watergardens if you want to go to
Speaker 2: the website Nelson Watergardens dot com. You're listening to garden
Speaker 2: Line if you'd like to give me a call. Number
Speaker 2: is seven to one three two one two five eight
Speaker 2: seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
Speaker 2: seventy four. I'm gonna get Ty Strickland from fix my
Speaker 2: Slab on the air here. We're going to have him
Speaker 2: a little bit later sometime in July, uh and I
Speaker 2: want to pick his brain about foundational issues because a
Speaker 2: lot of you know, we got the black clays here
Speaker 2: in the Houston areas even named after us. It's called
Speaker 2: Houston black clay. That's the soil scientist's name for it.
Speaker 2: The the clay shrinks and swells, you know, it gets
Speaker 2: wet and it swells, it gets dry, shrinks and it
Speaker 2: directs havoc. That's where you see these sidewalks that are
Speaker 2: heaved up, and and that and and some tree roots.
Speaker 2: That's way he cracks in the in the driveways and
Speaker 2: it affects our slabs too, and ties. He's the expert,
Speaker 2: and I do want to get him on to talk
Speaker 2: about the details of this, what people need to know,
Speaker 2: what they can look for and things. He's been doing
Speaker 2: this twenty three years. He's an expert. If you want
Speaker 2: to check, check his website out in the meantime, fixmiyslab
Speaker 2: dot com. It's fixmyslab dot com. His phone number two
Speaker 2: eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine. It's
Speaker 2: been here his whole life. Nati Fewstonian, fifth generation Texan.
Speaker 2: I guess the thing I like most about uh well,
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's the most, but a lot
Speaker 2: about the company. It's something anytime you're going to hire
Speaker 2: somebody to come to your house to do anything, you're
Speaker 2: gonna want these three things. And these three things describe
Speaker 2: fix my slab and ty Strickland. That's on time, fair
Speaker 2: price fixed right, on time, fair price fixed right. That's
Speaker 2: what we want. So anyway we're gonna get him in
Speaker 2: here and I'm gonna pick his brain. If you got
Speaker 2: some questions. When I have these guests in, you're welcome
Speaker 2: to call in on the topic that they are talking about. Today.
Speaker 2: I'm going to have starting at the eight o'clock hour,
Speaker 2: someone from tex A and M Horticulture Department who is
Speaker 2: a fruit specialist. We're gonna be talking about fruit trees
Speaker 2: for your yard and all kinds of things. You got
Speaker 2: some questions you want to call in for well eight o'clock.
Speaker 2: We may run all the way to ten on that one,
Speaker 2: but we'll be glad to take your questions on those things.
Speaker 2: The summer days are a little slower and I try
Speaker 2: to cover as many of the different topics as we can.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of you have enjoyed some of
Speaker 2: the guests that we've had, and so that's what we're
Speaker 2: going to be doing here in the summertime. Tey, what,
Speaker 2: let's's run out to Kingwood again and we are going
Speaker 2: to visit with Howard. Hello, Howard, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 9: Good morning, Thank you. I have a couple of lots
Speaker 9: up there on the lake. Let me sten and they
Speaker 9: were the bullhead was blown out back in August. Rough
Speaker 9: whenever the hurricane came through and I finally got it fixed.
Speaker 9: Apparently there were a lot of bull kids boat houses destroyed.
Speaker 9: But anyway, I got the bulkhead in, I got a
Speaker 9: lot of dirt put in, and now I was thinking
Speaker 9: about to putting grass down. And uh, the guy I
Speaker 9: was talking to, well, you may not want to put
Speaker 9: permuta in, just put some.
Speaker 10: This or that.
Speaker 9: Now what should I put down over this dirt that
Speaker 9: was put back down over the lots?
Speaker 2: Okay? Is this a Is this an area where you
Speaker 2: want a really nice lawn where kids are rolling around
Speaker 2: and playing and things, or is this an area where
Speaker 2: you just want something green on the ground and you're
Speaker 2: in a mow it. But but it needs to be
Speaker 2: tough and and not need as much TLC right the
Speaker 2: second second one.
Speaker 9: I'm not going to plant a tree for somebody else,
Speaker 9: but I don't want to spend a fortune already spend
Speaker 9: a fortune with bulkheads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know that every grass has its pros
Speaker 2: and cons. Saint Augustine, you need to water pretty often
Speaker 2: and uh, but it's pros. It grows in deeper shade
Speaker 2: than than most anything. Uh Uh, there is Bermuda takes
Speaker 2: over the world. It'll crawl into every flower bed you got.
Speaker 2: The more it regularly, it gets tiggers if the kids
Speaker 2: are rolling around in it.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then there's Zoisia, which is a good tough grass,
Speaker 2: but it needs regular mowing to look its best. And
Speaker 2: and uh with a good good mower.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 2: There is a grass that is some people love it
Speaker 2: and some people don't, and that is Behea grass. Behea
Speaker 2: grass does very well in areas like yours, but it
Speaker 2: sends up seed heads almost knee high, you know, the
Speaker 2: little seed heads, like a few days after you mow,
Speaker 2: you got them coming up. I mean they I guess
Speaker 2: they detract from it a little bit. But if you
Speaker 2: want a grass that you can drive a car on,
Speaker 2: and I mean you can just just nobody has to
Speaker 2: really water unless we go into a drought. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: one you can do that. You just got to keep
Speaker 2: it mode down so it doesn't because it will get taller.
Speaker 2: But it makes a decent lawn. They use it in
Speaker 2: Florida for lawns quite a bit. My hey, BAJE like
Speaker 2: the mission b.
Speaker 3: A, but I really don't know the grass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, if I jump on you know
Speaker 2: your search engine, Google or whatever and and just type
Speaker 2: in baheya b a h I A grass and learn
Speaker 2: a little bit about it. University of Florida has got
Speaker 2: some really good information out there on it. We don't
Speaker 2: have it as a turf grass on our anim Texas
Speaker 2: turf page, at least I haven't seen it on there,
Speaker 2: but I have been around a new Christmas tree farm.
Speaker 2: They used it for the parking area. Kept it mode
Speaker 2: so short you felt like you were walking on the lawn.
Speaker 2: And it's tough. It's tough, all right, Hey, yeah, I
Speaker 2: am too.
Speaker 9: Well congressibly class sixty any.
Speaker 2: Well, well, good, hey, but just look at it carefully
Speaker 2: because anybody who's thinking lawn bhea is not, you know,
Speaker 2: in the top for a lawn, but for a mode
Speaker 2: area that you don't have to worry about a lot.
Speaker 2: You just need a good more to get out there
Speaker 2: and get over it. Okay, Well, thank you, skip all right,
Speaker 2: make sure you like it. I don't want you calling
Speaker 2: me back and saying, well, yes, no lawn. I thank you,
Speaker 2: Howard and Gig you take care all right? Uh yeah,
Speaker 2: appreciate that.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 2: Boss Nursery is down in Kingwood, Texas. Kingwood, Texas. Good night.
Speaker 2: Where am I coming from? Seabrook, Texas. Seabrook, everybody in
Speaker 2: that region knows Moss Nursery. Moss has an awesome, awesome
Speaker 2: selection of anything that you could possibly want, and they
Speaker 2: really do. It's a bit right now. I'm excited about
Speaker 2: the hibiscus that they've gotten in. These are the perennial hibiscus,
Speaker 2: the kind they come back each year. They do really,
Speaker 2: really well. And if you are a collector of plants
Speaker 2: and you like things, you want something for a very
Speaker 2: wet area, or you need something for a shady area,
Speaker 2: or you want something that just bowls people over with
Speaker 2: gaudy color. Mos Nursery's got that and more. M AA
Speaker 2: S Nursery dot com. M aa S Nursery dot com
Speaker 2: two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight
Speaker 2: two eight one four seven four two four eight eight.
Speaker 2: Better yet, go down and visit them. It's eight acres
Speaker 2: to wander around. It is a family owned operation, has
Speaker 2: been for a very long time. I love going down
Speaker 2: to Mos Nursery. Take a lottle break for the news
Speaker 2: here and I'll be back. Good morning, and welcome back
Speaker 2: to the garden line. Good to have you with us. Hey,
Speaker 2: if you got a gardening question seven one three two
Speaker 2: one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
Speaker 2: one two fifty eight seventy four, or simply K t
Speaker 2: r H. Makes it really easy. I was outside yesterday
Speaker 2: with a friend and we're walking around just I don't know,
Speaker 2: standing over in an area kind of where actually where
Speaker 2: we put our trash cans to roll out of the
Speaker 2: road and little secluded spots like that are always mosquito magnets,
Speaker 2: you know, you go around to. But it was a
Speaker 2: time of day toward the end of the day too,
Speaker 2: and I just I just noticed I wasn't getting bitten
Speaker 2: by mosquitos, and it's like, that's wonderful. That is a
Speaker 2: good thing. Best Bros. Is the one that provides the
Speaker 2: mosquito buckets that I use, and it basically they come
Speaker 2: out and they service them. But you need to you
Speaker 2: need to give them a call and find out more
Speaker 2: about these things. They are great. I mean they attract
Speaker 2: the mosquitos in the mosquitos lay eggs. The eggs never
Speaker 2: become adult mosquitoes, and the mosquitos when they do that,
Speaker 2: they carry with them stuff. And one of the things
Speaker 2: they carry with them keeps mosquitos from growing in another location.
Speaker 2: These are things that aren't going to hurt your birds
Speaker 2: and fish, and you know, all kinds of things like that.
Speaker 2: One of them is a disease that kills the mosquito itself,
Speaker 2: which I think is the best thing for a mosquito
Speaker 2: to die, along agonizing death from a fungus. That's my
Speaker 2: idea of a happy thought for those of you who
Speaker 2: don't like mosquitos, you know what I'm talking about. If
Speaker 2: you want to get in touch with the pest Bros
Speaker 2: for other things, you know, fire ants out in the yard,
Speaker 2: termite protection. They can do a ten year termite protection
Speaker 2: around your house. It's a little trench and it's just
Speaker 2: the minimum amount of concern. You know, you got your
Speaker 2: pets out there. You don't want to nuke everything with insecticides.
Speaker 2: They know how to do it, they know how to
Speaker 2: treat effectively, they know how to do it in a
Speaker 2: safe manner, and they cover other things. You know, if
Speaker 2: you've got rodents outside, they're causing a problem. If you've
Speaker 2: got cockroaches inside, they'll cover you on those things. Thepestbros
Speaker 2: dot Com. The pestbros dot Com two eight one two
Speaker 2: oh six forty six and give them a call to
Speaker 2: eight one two oh six forty six seventy. Let them
Speaker 2: come out and take a look at your place. Make it,
Speaker 2: you know. And I don't want to say mosquito free,
Speaker 2: because in nature there's no such thing as past free. Okay.
Speaker 2: I can have a yard where I don't think I
Speaker 2: have any fire ins, and almost a sudden one day
Speaker 2: I walk by and there's a firet mound over there.
Speaker 2: And it takes a whall to do that. But you
Speaker 2: can do that. But mosquito's down to a level where
Speaker 2: you hardly notice them here and there. Because that's just great.
Speaker 2: My neighbor told me the other day that they've had
Speaker 2: less mosquitos in their yard as a result of my
Speaker 2: buckets over there, and that's true. I got a couple
Speaker 2: of buckets that are on our shared line, so they're
Speaker 2: even benefiting from it. Boy, if you could get a
Speaker 2: whole neighborhood to do that, we might get close to
Speaker 2: mosquito free from that as well. Have you ever been
Speaker 2: to Enchanted Forest, it's down there in if you're in
Speaker 2: Richmond Rosenberg area and your head up fifty nine or
Speaker 2: sixty nine, it's down twenty seven fifty nine.
Speaker 10: Just do this.
Speaker 2: Go to the website. It's a great website. Enchanted Forest, Richmond,
Speaker 2: TX dot com. Enchented Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. They
Speaker 2: have all kinds of cool stuff right now. They got
Speaker 2: a lot of good shade loving stuff. Stuff that's kind
Speaker 2: of off the radar a lot of times for folks.
Speaker 2: But things like the rock rose, a little Mexican petunia
Speaker 2: called Katie. The stays real short. It's almost like a
Speaker 2: little a rioty sized plant. American beauty beary. Now there's
Speaker 2: a good one that in the fall when it loses
Speaker 2: its leaves, the berries are just gorgeous on it. They
Speaker 2: have turk's cap. I've got turks got in my yard.
Speaker 2: It is a hummingbird magnet. They love that and sun shade.
Speaker 2: It is Unfazed Texas native wonderful plant. Of course. They
Speaker 2: have it down there while you're there. If you need
Speaker 2: to do some things to create a more type of soil.
Speaker 2: They carry microlife s acidifire fertilizer, they carry a rosa
Speaker 2: from nature's way, and and they just know how to
Speaker 2: provide you with the plants that are going to do
Speaker 2: well here. I love it every time. I go by
Speaker 2: the way. You know, it's getting hot out there. When
Speaker 2: you go to Enchanted Forest, you're going to stroll through
Speaker 2: the shade of some big old trees that I just
Speaker 2: think that's wonderful and I enjoy getting to shop around
Speaker 2: the place. Still good time to plant herbs, and they've
Speaker 2: got them Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Go check
Speaker 2: them out. Last time I was down there, I was
Speaker 2: just amazed by the pollinator plants that they have. So many.
Speaker 2: If you want to attract butterflies, they'll sell you the
Speaker 2: things that the adults come to. They'll sell you the
Speaker 2: things that the larva feet on. So you're raising baby
Speaker 2: butterflies right there on your property, and they oftentimes even
Speaker 2: have a larva or two around. They'll let you take
Speaker 2: it home. You can take them home on those plants
Speaker 2: and get your own It's kind of like a sour
Speaker 2: dough starter, right, get your own starter going on on those.
Speaker 2: I was mentioning that I'm gonna do some planning this afternoon.
Speaker 2: Something else. I'm gonna be away from the house a
Speaker 2: little bit and I've got to do some preparations for that.
Speaker 2: And I've got some plants that they need to be
Speaker 2: watered more often, and with me around, that's fine. But
Speaker 2: when I'm gone, I don't, I can't do it. I'll
Speaker 2: typically get a kiddie pool, a kitty waiting pool, you
Speaker 2: know those things I'm talking about. And when I had that,
Speaker 2: I will take that pool, put about maybe maybe two
Speaker 2: inches of water, and depends on the plants that I'm
Speaker 2: setting in there, and I set them in that pool,
Speaker 2: and that's a quantity of water in a wide area,
Speaker 2: and it wakes up from the bottom of the plants.
Speaker 2: And so I can be gone for two weeks and
Speaker 2: you know they'll be getting dry by the time I
Speaker 2: get back because the water level drops. But that really
Speaker 2: works well. The only thing you need to do is
Speaker 2: throw some mosquito dunks in there, or I say some
Speaker 2: throw a mosquito dunk in there, because it'll float and
Speaker 2: release the disease of mosquitoes keeps the larvae from growing
Speaker 2: for like a month. Those of you who heard us
Speaker 2: last week, I talked to someone from a mosquito dunks
Speaker 2: and kind of picked their brains on all of this.
Speaker 2: But if you have a little waiting pool, those are cheap, cheap, cheap.
Speaker 2: Buy them at any kind of store that sells cheap stuff.
Speaker 2: The addition of a mosquito dunk will allow you to
Speaker 2: be gone. I would say two weeks. If just watch
Speaker 2: your plants. A little four inch plant will be drowning
Speaker 2: in two inches of water, but a taller one won't.
Speaker 2: But anyway, this will work. Just don't forget to do
Speaker 2: the mosquito dunks. You can buy them anywhere. They got
Speaker 2: them at feed stores, they got them at the garden
Speaker 2: centers I talk about all the time. Ace hardware stores
Speaker 2: have mosquito dunks. Wherever you want to go, You're going
Speaker 2: to find plenty of opportunities for that. So there's a
Speaker 2: little tip for those you're planning on going on a vacation.
Speaker 2: Be gone a little bit. That's a great way to
Speaker 2: do it. Phone number is seven one three two one
Speaker 2: two k t r H seven one three two one
Speaker 2: two kt r H. Also, need to get out and
Speaker 2: put new bird seed in the feeders. I looked out
Speaker 2: the other day and it's all gone. They just cleaned
Speaker 2: it out, and they like it. Because I'm using the
Speaker 2: Wildbirds Unlimited Nesting super Blend, and this is one designed
Speaker 2: by wild Birds Unlimited. It's sold only at Wildbirds Unlimited
Speaker 2: it's got really cool stuff. They love, you know, sunflower chips,
Speaker 2: dried mealworms, Oh my gosh, they love those, bark butter bits, sap,
Speaker 2: flower tree nuts. It's it's got the calcium in things.
Speaker 2: Birds are still nesting, by the way, so keep on
Speaker 2: feeding it. There's six wild Birds Unlimited stores in the
Speaker 2: Greater Houston area, so you can go to this website
Speaker 2: WBU dot com forward Slash Houston. WBU like wild Birds
Speaker 2: Unlimited WBU dot com Forward Slash Houston. If you are
Speaker 2: over in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive, if you're in clear
Speaker 2: Lake on Eldrado Boulevard. In Parland, there's one on East
Speaker 2: Broadway in West Houston on Memorial Drive, in Southwest Houston
Speaker 2: on bel Air and then up in Cypress on Barker Cypress.
Speaker 2: It's easy to find a wild Bird's Unlimited store. They
Speaker 2: carry the best blends of seeds that are stuff birds
Speaker 2: want to eat, not stuff they're going to kick on
Speaker 2: the ground. Take a little break here and we'll be
Speaker 2: back if you'd like to be first up seven one
Speaker 2: three two one two k t RH Welcome back to
Speaker 2: guard Line. Good to have you with us. If you
Speaker 2: are looking for a place that has every kind of
Speaker 2: supply tool you name it, that you might need. It's
Speaker 2: Southwest Fertilizer. And I don't care where you live, It's
Speaker 2: worth a trip over there. It's been in Houston lawn
Speaker 2: and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five, long time, because
Speaker 2: they do it right. Every fertilizer that you hear me
Speaker 2: talk about, is it Southwest fertilizer. And then some when
Speaker 2: you talk about weed control products, when you talk about
Speaker 2: insect controls, when you talk about fungicide, and you may
Speaker 2: be hearing that going well, I'm organic, okay. The largest
Speaker 2: organic selection in the greater Houston area that I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: It is huge, huge, ninety foot wall of tools. You know, Felco,
Speaker 2: Corona quality brands like that. You hear me talk about
Speaker 2: the garden kneeling bench or kneeling seat. They've got that
Speaker 2: you want to make my weed wiper. They got the
Speaker 2: little tool you used to make the weed bay. They
Speaker 2: have it all. And you can carry a problem in
Speaker 2: there on a picture.
Speaker 10: You can.
Speaker 2: You can have a little sample in a bag. Let
Speaker 2: them put a pair of eyes on it. Southwest Bob
Speaker 2: and his team, they'll figure out what it is and
Speaker 2: they'll point you at the product that works for it.
Speaker 2: Corner of Bissonet and Runwick in Southwest Houston. Southwest Fertilizer
Speaker 2: dot Com seven to one, three sixty six six seventeen
Speaker 2: forty four. We're going to go now out to Galveston
Speaker 2: and talk to Laura. Hello, Laura, Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 13: Good morning.
Speaker 14: It's nice to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Good to talk to you.
Speaker 14: And Uh, I had sent you some pictures last night
Speaker 14: and I'm calling about the largest yew tree in Texas. Uh,
Speaker 14: we have a certificate that they came down and gave
Speaker 14: us for this. You is on the property of Grace
Speaker 14: Episcopal Church in Galveston, and it has a ground cover
Speaker 14: that's growing around it. To me, it looks like asiatic jasmine,
Speaker 14: something like that, and it climbing, yeah, climbing up into
Speaker 14: the tree and in the branches it's completely encircled drunk.
Speaker 14: And I need to know whether that's dangerous to the
Speaker 14: tree and we should remove it, or it's harmless.
Speaker 2: But it's really a great Most people will, yeah, most
Speaker 2: people trim the jasmine around the bottom and any thing
Speaker 2: above where you cut is going to turn brown and die.
Speaker 2: But eventually jasmine is. If it was English ivy, I
Speaker 2: would say it's going to crawl all over your tree
Speaker 2: and shade out all the leaves and not going to
Speaker 2: be good. I would trim it just for aesthetic reasons,
Speaker 2: but it's not as far as is it going to
Speaker 2: hurt the tree? Probably not? Uh, probably not. But uh,
Speaker 2: trimming it is easy. You just cut it all at
Speaker 2: the bottom and then everything above that's going to die.
Speaker 2: If somebody wants to pull out some of it that
Speaker 2: is at the base that's brown, because you don't want
Speaker 2: to see the dead jasmine, you can do.
Speaker 14: That, okay, Okay, well, yep, that's what We'll clean the
Speaker 14: trunk off. And I have some of it growing in
Speaker 14: my yard. What what can you do to get rid
Speaker 14: of it?
Speaker 2: Asian Asian jasmine? Uh huh uh yeah there. It depends
Speaker 2: on where it's growing. Is it growing among desirable plants
Speaker 2: or is it.
Speaker 11: In the gras a lawn?
Speaker 2: Oh, Asian chasmine and the lawn, I would just I
Speaker 2: would pull it. You're gonna have to pull it out.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 2: There are sprays that will kill it, but they're not.
Speaker 2: Your lawn's not going to do well with those sprays,
Speaker 2: So okay, all right, cut it.
Speaker 10: Border.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess just create a border and just make
Speaker 2: that when it crosses the line, you just chop it,
Speaker 2: you know, take a WEEEDI or whatever cut it back
Speaker 2: when it cuts the line. But it will get out
Speaker 2: of hand in time. But it looks happy. Everything looks happy,
Speaker 2: including that huge, very good tree.
Speaker 14: It is, thank you, gorgeous tree. It fell over in
Speaker 14: Hurricane Carla, and everybody said, oh, we got to chop
Speaker 14: it down, and the people pulled it back up and
Speaker 14: braced it for years and years and so it survived.
Speaker 14: It's a very big, happy tree.
Speaker 2: Do they know how old it is?
Speaker 14: I would say easily sixty sixty to seventy years old.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that is cool. I appreciate that. Hey, Laura,
Speaker 2: thank you for the call. You take care and good
Speaker 2: luck with the That's a wonderful, wonderful tree. If you
Speaker 2: have out the Arborgate, you need to go. I don't
Speaker 2: care what season it is. You could be the middle
Speaker 2: of summer and there's a ton of stuff you can't
Speaker 2: live without at the Arburgate. At least that's how I
Speaker 2: feel when I walk through a beautiful, beautiful, heat tolerant
Speaker 2: shade tolerant. Whatever you're looking for, they've got it there
Speaker 2: at the Arborgate. Now they're a mile and a half
Speaker 2: west of two forty nine on twenty nine to twenty,
Speaker 2: just west of Humble. I'm always talking about preparing your soil.
Speaker 2: They've got bags of their one two three completely easy system,
Speaker 2: and that's a food that feeds anything with roots, a fertilizer,
Speaker 2: a soil for any application, and a compost that improves
Speaker 2: any and all soil. And the soil and the compost
Speaker 2: both have some expended shale in them as well, which
Speaker 2: is a very longer term benefit to the clay. You
Speaker 2: can buy the last to the soil and the compost
Speaker 2: by bulk and they'll deliver it to you wherever you live.
Speaker 2: Just give them a call there at Arbrogate, talk to them.
Speaker 2: The Arborgate is a place to anybody who's garden here
Speaker 2: for two minutes has already known about and been out there.
Speaker 2: Remember they got that nice parking lot in the back.
Speaker 2: And whether you're looking for landscape, bling or a plant
Speaker 2: that laughs at our Houston summers, they're going to be
Speaker 2: able to get you covered there at Arburgate. They take
Speaker 2: time to walk through with you It's just a great place,
Speaker 2: great place to visit. I love it. I always love it,
Speaker 2: and I do swing by there because there's always something
Speaker 2: new coming in. I just don't think I've ever been
Speaker 2: there where wass not a shipment in the back being
Speaker 2: unloaded of plants. Someone called a while ago from Livingstone
Speaker 2: talking about the storm, the hurricane that came through and
Speaker 2: what the damage that it did. Affordable Tree Service is
Speaker 2: who you need to call, not after the hurricane, but
Speaker 2: now it's hurricanes. See is here and is your is
Speaker 2: your yard ready? That's what you need to know. A
Speaker 2: top heavy tree, a weak limb can turn into really
Speaker 2: major damage. Don't wait until it's too late. You're want
Speaker 2: to protect your home. You want to protect your trees
Speaker 2: and themselves. You do in order to break apart your
Speaker 2: fences and God forbid your neighbor's home. And Affordable Tree
Speaker 2: Service is our garden line recommended arborist for this area,
Speaker 2: and they have been for a very long time because
Speaker 2: they have decades of experience. Martin Spoon Moore give them
Speaker 2: a call seven to one three six nine nine twenty
Speaker 2: six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two
Speaker 2: six six three. If you want to go to the
Speaker 2: website see all the services they offer a fftree Service
Speaker 2: dot com and they do anything you're gonna need, printing,
Speaker 2: deeper feeding, pests, disease control, stump grinding. If you're gonna
Speaker 2: do any kind of construction around a tree that can
Speaker 2: that is a potential for great damage to a tree,
Speaker 2: called Martin having come out there and look at it,
Speaker 2: advise you and they know what to do. But do
Speaker 2: it before the problem, whether the problem is construction or
Speaker 2: a hurricane. And it's time. We're there in the season.
Speaker 2: Affordable Tree Service seven to one three six ninety nine
Speaker 2: two six six three. They will take care of it
Speaker 2: and make sure it's done right. Well, let's see here.
Speaker 2: I'm about to hear some music in my ears because
Speaker 2: we're hitting the top of the hour. We'll be back
Speaker 2: with your calls if you'd like to be first up
Speaker 2: when we come back. Seven one three two one two KTRH.
Speaker 2: Seven one three two one two KTRH. Remember during the
Speaker 2: eight o'clock and probably nine o'clock hour, we're going to
Speaker 2: have doctor Tim Hartman, who is a fruit specialist with
Speaker 2: texas A and m Agrolife Extension. Term's a friend. I'm
Speaker 2: going to work with for many years. Come in and
Speaker 2: talk to us about backyard fruit. So if you got
Speaker 2: a fruit question, that'd be a great time to call.
Speaker 2: We'll have him here for a couple hours. Uh, just
Speaker 2: give us a call. You are wanting to plant fruit,
Speaker 2: If you've got fruit that's having some issues, let's let's
Speaker 2: talk about it. Between Tim and and myself, we probably
Speaker 2: put our heads together and and tackle whatever kinds of
Speaker 2: questions you might have. Looking forward to that. It's been
Speaker 2: a while since I've seen Tim doctor Hartman. There you go,
Speaker 2: all right, go get you a cup of coffee. That's
Speaker 2: what I'm about to do. Alrighty, we're back. Hey, thanks
Speaker 2: for thanks for tuning in this morning. We always appreciate
Speaker 2: the opportunity to visit with you about gardening. You'd like
Speaker 2: to give me a call about that, and you can
Speaker 2: do so at seven one three two one two k
Speaker 2: t r H seven to one three two one two
Speaker 2: k t r H began as Native Plants has some
Speaker 2: events that's going on. I want to just let you
Speaker 2: know about these. And you know how I always tell
Speaker 2: you to listen to Garden Line with a pen and
Speaker 2: paper nearby so you can write some stuff down on
Speaker 2: let's see on July the nineteenth, creating the Garden of
Speaker 2: your Dreams. They're gonna have a free class on creating
Speaker 2: the Garden of your Dreams July nineteenth. On August second,
Speaker 2: there'll be one on starting a cut flower garden. You
Speaker 2: want to go to this one because this fall you
Speaker 2: could start your cut flower garden. On August sixteenth, they'll
Speaker 2: be growing fall tomatoes. The one on raised bed gardening
Speaker 2: on the twenty third, and one on starting Texas Native
Speaker 2: Plants on August thirtieth. Then you know Buchanan specializes in natives.
Speaker 2: They are, you know, just the leader when it comes
Speaker 2: to that. You're not gonna find a bigger selection in
Speaker 2: natives anywhere than Buchanna's plants as well as experts that
Speaker 2: know about them. You can give them a call seven
Speaker 2: one three eight six one fifty seven two. You can
Speaker 2: give them a call there. All right, just go see
Speaker 2: him a little eleventh Street in the Heights, by the way.
Speaker 2: The website you need to write this one down and
Speaker 2: bookmarket Buchanan's Plants dot com. We're going to go now
Speaker 2: to Richmond, Texas and talk to Linda. Hello, Linda, Welcome
Speaker 2: to garden Line.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Can I help you.
Speaker 13: Yes, I.
Speaker 7: Have a brick home with the driveway, just a typical
Speaker 7: Texas home. Built it ten years ago and the builder
Speaker 7: put in a crape myrtle right by the corner of
Speaker 7: my garage.
Speaker 2: It was the.
Speaker 7: Midnight lilac, one of the smaller but it is a tree,
Speaker 7: not a bush, and it got out of hand and
Speaker 7: last fall it was messy and dirty and just got
Speaker 7: a bit too big for where it was placed by
Speaker 7: the builder. I had my landscaper take it out and
Speaker 7: put in a smaller shrub in that spot last November
Speaker 7: and this year in June. Guess what popped up through
Speaker 7: the mult.
Speaker 2: I kind of I know what happens when you've cut
Speaker 2: a great myrtle off. Yeah, that's right. So you want
Speaker 2: to have to get rid of it.
Speaker 7: How do I get rid of it without damaging the
Speaker 7: other bush?
Speaker 2: M what you do?
Speaker 15: Have to dig the whole thing up?
Speaker 2: No, No, here's what you're gonna do. If you can
Speaker 2: go to my web. First of all, if you go
Speaker 2: to my website, everything I'm about to tell you, you
Speaker 2: can see picture of it. You can. It gives you
Speaker 2: detailed instructions on how to get rid of it.
Speaker 15: Forgive me.
Speaker 7: I'm elderly and don't don't use the computer, so I
Speaker 7: depend on you.
Speaker 2: Not a problem here we go, all right, You want
Speaker 2: to get a product ingredient called tri clo peer t
Speaker 2: r I c l O p y R. That's the ingredient.
Speaker 2: That's not the brand name. There's many brands of it,
Speaker 2: but t R I c l O p y R.
Speaker 2: If you're in Richmond, you've got some ACE Hardware stores
Speaker 2: there that are gonna carry it. You're gonna be able
Speaker 2: to find it at your at your local your local
Speaker 2: Ace Hardware's you know which direction that I don't know.
Speaker 2: I haven't been in there. I usually don't do that
Speaker 2: because I need people that are and what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: So if you go out to uh Richmond Rosenberg UH
Speaker 2: area Ace Hardware is find triclop pere, find a product
Speaker 2: with that. Now, what's gonna somebody cut that off? Cut
Speaker 2: it off again, but not until you got the triclopere
Speaker 2: right there. And taking a little like a little sponge
Speaker 2: paint stick. If you go to you know, like you said,
Speaker 2: home depot, you go to home depot and get those
Speaker 2: little sticks in the paint department that have a sponge
Speaker 2: on the end. That's that's what you want. And you're
Speaker 2: going to put the triclo piers straight, not cutting it
Speaker 2: and not spraying it. You're going to dab it straight
Speaker 2: onto the fresh cuts that you make. So let's just
Speaker 2: say this gets cut off within an hour. You need
Speaker 2: to be putting the tricle pair on there just so. Okay,
Speaker 2: you're wait too long and it's not as effective. So anyway,
Speaker 2: dab it on and it'll move down in the plant
Speaker 2: and it'll work. Now you may have another resprout, but
Speaker 2: you can dab it on again. It's not hard to do.
Speaker 2: Put the minimum amount of pesticide out there in the environment.
Speaker 7: Do you thank you? Do you know if those roots
Speaker 7: go you know, several feet in yards underground, are they
Speaker 7: just kind of localized around it?
Speaker 2: They probably go out in all directions as high as
Speaker 2: the crape myrtle tree is.
Speaker 7: Understand. Okay, so you can't pull it out necessarily, you
Speaker 7: have to kill it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean with a lot of work in digging
Speaker 2: and Thomas sprout shows up, you can dig that root out. Hey,
Speaker 2: I got to run, Linda, good luck with that. I
Speaker 2: appreciate appreciate you calling in Yeah, that technique is on
Speaker 2: what on my website it's called it's called controlling woody
Speaker 2: Weeds in the landscape, and it tells you exactly what
Speaker 2: to do. Whether we could be talking about yo ponts,
Speaker 2: we could be talking about poison ivy, we could be
Speaker 2: talking about hackberry coming up along the fence line. Because
Speaker 2: the birds spoop the seeds out there, it works.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 2: Jorge Hiding Gardens down south of the Houston area is
Speaker 2: it's just a great garden center to find all kinds
Speaker 2: of things. You know, seasonally you're gonna find different kinds
Speaker 2: of vegetables and flowers and whatnot. He is an outstanding
Speaker 2: selection of all kinds of fruit. You know, if you're
Speaker 2: looking for avocados, you're looking for various kinds of citrus,
Speaker 2: all blueberries. And then I was over there this spring
Speaker 2: and my gosh, I couldn't believe on any peaches and
Speaker 2: apples and pears and everything else he had. He is
Speaker 2: on Elizabeth Street. It's an Alvin, Texas address, but he's
Speaker 2: actually located in between Alvin and Santa Fe And so
Speaker 2: you just head down six and you're gonna end up
Speaker 2: turning south and to Elizabeth Street. Once I can't say
Speaker 2: the number one even seven Elizabeth Street south of Highway
Speaker 2: six between Alvin and Santa Fe. Go check him out,
Speaker 2: all of you down there in those areas, like I'll
Speaker 2: go on Arcadia and Alta Loma and Hillcrest and certainly
Speaker 2: Santa Fe and Alvin. This is your hometown garden center
Speaker 2: seven one three six three two fifty two ninety seven
Speaker 2: one three six three two fifty two ninety. By the way,
Speaker 2: he carries that three sixty tree stabilizer I talk about
Speaker 2: all the time as well. So there, he's a great
Speaker 2: guy too, has a lot of fun, and you will
Speaker 2: enjoy shopping. I've had more than one person tell me
Speaker 2: how much they enjoy shopping there. I was talking about
Speaker 2: ACE Hardware just a second ago with Linda, and you
Speaker 2: know ACE Hardware's are all over the place. Let's just well,
Speaker 2: if you go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com, Ace
Speaker 2: Hardware Texas dot Com, and you can find all the
Speaker 2: ones that are in the Greater Houston area. And when
Speaker 2: I say Greater Houston, I mean all the way down
Speaker 2: to Corpus and all the way over to Orange and everything.
Speaker 2: They got you covered. So League City, ACE on West
Speaker 2: League City Parkway is an example. You go up to
Speaker 2: Porter Jnr's ACE on FM thirteen fourteen out in Lake
Speaker 2: Conroe one oh five West Highway one oh five West,
Speaker 2: there's Lake Conroy's Hardware, Rockport, Texas. Hello, all of you
Speaker 2: listening from Rockport, Rockport ACE on State Highway thirty five North,
Speaker 2: Hardware City on Memorial Drive on the west side of Houston.
Speaker 2: See what I mean. They're everywhere, But there's a lot
Speaker 2: more than that. Whether you need quality tools, if you
Speaker 2: need fertilizer for the summer fertilizing we're doing. If you
Speaker 2: need pest control, if you need gardening gardening tools as
Speaker 2: well as well as quality hand tools for building and
Speaker 2: fixing stuff, They've got you covered at ACE Hardware. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna take a little break and we'll be right back
Speaker 2: with your calls. Alrighty, welcome back to guarden Line. Good
Speaker 2: have you with us this week. By the way, if
Speaker 2: you don't follow me on on Facebook, it is a gardener.
Speaker 2: It's garden Line. My name is garden Line on Facebook.
Speaker 2: You should because we post stuff up there that is
Speaker 2: I think very helpful and informative. Just yesterday I posted
Speaker 2: something pictures of a plant my daughter she has a
Speaker 2: little ficus, it's the Fiddley fig ficus, and it was
Speaker 2: like pale yellow and it wasn't looking good and it
Speaker 2: wasn't growing, and I was afraid that thing, maybe it's
Speaker 2: got root rides, can die. I gave her some Medina
Speaker 2: has to grow six twelve six plant food. I got
Speaker 2: little sample bottles. They give those out, a little tiny
Speaker 2: sample bottles, and it just said put this in the
Speaker 2: water and watered a couple of times, you know, a
Speaker 2: little sample bottle made made two gallons of it. So
Speaker 2: she made it and watered it with it and did
Speaker 2: it again. And I posted the pictures and it's the
Speaker 2: before and then twice over the course of about a month,
Speaker 2: the after, and it is. It's obviously helped. It's a
Speaker 2: turning darker green and it's already putting out new growth.
Speaker 2: And Medina has to grow six to twelve six is
Speaker 2: a great plant food period. I use it a lot,
Speaker 2: and when we come to transplanting, because at hyphosphorus you
Speaker 2: had a really good boost for your root system there.
Speaker 2: But this product at bottom lines, it works. It's got
Speaker 2: the six twelve six nutrients and it it also has
Speaker 2: Medina sol activator humate humic acid which helps the sole
Speaker 2: structure and the seaweed extracts too. It's it's a concoction
Speaker 2: that really works. And so follow me on a Facebook
Speaker 2: a garden line. Follow garden line on Facebook and check
Speaker 2: it out. I think that you'll see it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: I was like, man, I got to post this thing.
Speaker 2: This is cool. Medina products are available everywhere. You know,
Speaker 2: you go to feed store, you go to an ace
Speaker 2: hardware store, you go to a garden center, you're not
Speaker 2: gonna have trouble finding Medina products. And there's a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of them. Someone had sent me a question about
Speaker 2: a lawns and with some photos, and the lawn just
Speaker 2: is not doing good. It's struggling. It's I don't know.
Speaker 2: They tell me they're fertilizing it. You know, they're watering
Speaker 2: it and stuff, but it just kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's just thin. And when it's thin, you get weeds.
Speaker 2: And nobody wants weeds, and nobody wants to have to
Speaker 2: put out all the products to control weeds. If you
Speaker 2: can avoid having to do that, well, BMB churros Well.
Speaker 2: I told the person that I call me, is you
Speaker 2: need to get it corrated and then have accomplished top
Speaker 2: dressing put down on it. It really does work. And
Speaker 2: BnB turf Pros they're the ones down south of Houston.
Speaker 2: They cover the area from Sugarland and Missouri City on
Speaker 2: the northeast east end all the way down Highway six
Speaker 2: and over across forty five to Dickinson and League City
Speaker 2: Pairland Friends with all those communities they cover. BB turf
Speaker 2: Pros in the website, there's not an end. BB Turfpros
Speaker 2: dot com. Bbturfpros dot com. Take a look at what
Speaker 2: they do. They really are about. I've talked to them
Speaker 2: a number of times about a different things, but bottom
Speaker 2: line is they are about making sure the customer is happy.
Speaker 2: And it's because it's a relationship to them. They want
Speaker 2: to ensure your satisfaction and they do a great job.
Speaker 2: Prices start around five hundred dollars depending on the yard size.
Speaker 2: Not far they have to travel because it is a
Speaker 2: bulky process, but compared to putting in a new lawn,
Speaker 2: if you've got some good grass in there, let them
Speaker 2: come to a compost top dressing a corporation and you
Speaker 2: will see some good results. BB Turpros dot com. We're
Speaker 2: gonna go out now to Deer Park and talk to Alan. Hello, Alan,
Speaker 2: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 11: Good morning. How you doing today?
Speaker 2: Doing well?
Speaker 11: I got a question about zoysia grass. What's a good fertilizer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fertilizers that I talk about here on garden
Speaker 2: Line are all good for ysia. Zosia needs a little
Speaker 2: less fertilizer than Saint Augustine because you don't want to
Speaker 2: you don't want to overstimulate it to grow. It's thick
Speaker 2: enough as it is.
Speaker 10: But you do.
Speaker 2: You prefer.
Speaker 11: Huh and nitre Foss Imperial and I was told not
Speaker 11: to use that on soy shoe.
Speaker 2: That's not correct. Nitrofuss Imperial, the red bag is fine
Speaker 2: on any grass.
Speaker 16: Uh.
Speaker 2: Now, they may have told you that because it's an
Speaker 2: immediate release. When you put it out, it dissolves with water,
Speaker 2: irrigation or rain, and it's immediately available usually during the summertime.
Speaker 2: If you look at my schedule which is online at
Speaker 2: Gardeningwithskip dot com, I'm recommending silver releases. So you mentioned nitrophas,
Speaker 2: the silver bag, Nitrofos superturf is the one that you're
Speaker 2: going to want to go go with super turf will
Speaker 2: give you about Yeah, it'll give you like four months
Speaker 2: of feeding, so it'll carry you all the way up
Speaker 2: into your fall fertilization, which is going to be in October.
Speaker 2: But go with the super turf and it gives you
Speaker 2: a gradual feed and you don't just get a flush
Speaker 2: of growth and you're mowing a lot. And when you
Speaker 2: overfertilize with nitrogen, it means the grass has less roots,
Speaker 2: which is a weird thing, but that's how it is.
Speaker 2: So switch over to the superturf now. And yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: if it you know, if it's looking great and everything,
Speaker 2: you don't have fertilized as much. But if you're trying
Speaker 2: to get it and give it a boost, that's very important.
Speaker 11: Yeah. Well it's not looking it's looking good, but I've
Speaker 11: seen it look better. So I'm just curious what would
Speaker 11: be a good fertilizer to put.
Speaker 2: On it and help it out. And you've helped it
Speaker 2: a lot. All right, sir, thanks for call. Appreciate that, Alan,
Speaker 2: Good luck with that. Yep, Zlisia does need to be fertilized,
Speaker 2: just not as much as Saint Augustine. If you've been
Speaker 2: to plants for all seasons. Plants for All Seasons is
Speaker 2: up there on FM two forty nine, which is Tomball Parkway,
Speaker 2: just north of where Lueta comes in to Tomball Parkway.
Speaker 2: And it's been there a long time since the seventies.
Speaker 2: You know, these folks, they've lived here, they've gardened here,
Speaker 2: They've answered ten bazillion questions from customers helping them have success.
Speaker 2: I've been in so many many times, and you walk in,
Speaker 2: you look around, and I can tell you that they
Speaker 2: carry products for what you need done. They do from
Speaker 2: the fertilizers to pest and weed and disease control to
Speaker 2: really quality tools. They've got a lot of new tool
Speaker 2: a new tool wall section that has really quality tools.
Speaker 2: Can you buy once and there are a lifetime tool
Speaker 2: to take care of them. Now, right now, you're going
Speaker 2: to find some beautiful plants for summer, some dazzling color,
Speaker 2: and you're going to find plants for shady areas. Whatever
Speaker 2: you need, it's there at Plants for All Seasons. Just
Speaker 2: remember when you go in, if you've got a photo
Speaker 2: or a sample, you can take it in and they'll
Speaker 2: diagnose it for you and point you in the right
Speaker 2: direction if you if you would like to have that
Speaker 2: kind of assistance. Plants for all seasons dot com two eight, one, three, seven, six,
Speaker 2: sixteen forty six. You are listening to Garden Line. I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you
Speaker 2: have a bountiful garden and beautiful garden, beautiful landscape as well,
Speaker 2: and as I like to say, and the most important part,
Speaker 2: more fun, more fun in the process. I was talking
Speaker 2: to somebody the other day and we were talking about
Speaker 2: weeds and lawns, and you know, what one person's idea
Speaker 2: of a beautiful lawn is and what another's isn't always
Speaker 2: the same. Some people want perfect green lawns, as if
Speaker 2: it looks like AstroTurf out. I mean, it's just solid green,
Speaker 2: not a weed insight. Other people know that certain kinds
Speaker 2: of weeds are food for bees. I had a lady
Speaker 2: on Doctor Wrangel the other day on the show, and
Speaker 2: we were talking about bees, honey bees and the things
Speaker 2: they like. And I'm telling you there's a lot of
Speaker 2: the lawn weeds, not all lawn weaeds, but some that
Speaker 2: attract honeybees. And for some people that is a plus. Okay,
Speaker 2: Now I know some of you are going I don't
Speaker 2: understand that. Well, a lot of things I don't understand too,
Speaker 2: But however you want to do it. That's a fun
Speaker 2: thing about gardening. It's between you and the hoa. Let
Speaker 2: me just say that, make the front yard look good.
Speaker 2: In the backyard, do what you want to do. But
Speaker 2: if you want perfect gardening, perfect gardens and everything, you
Speaker 2: can do that. We can advise you. You can do that.
Speaker 2: It's easy to have success. And when you just get
Speaker 2: good information, that's the most important part. Like I like
Speaker 2: to say, you don't have a brown thumb, you have
Speaker 2: an uninformed thumb. And if you'll call in the garden line,
Speaker 2: we will inform your thumb. And then suddenly the landscape,
Speaker 2: the garden, the orchard, everything just looks a lot lot
Speaker 2: better and we can do that. Happy to do that,
Speaker 2: but to each his own U. There is a German
Speaker 2: phrase yeadis tirkin sign pleasirkin. Why am I saying that
Speaker 2: every creature has this pleasure? And boy is that true
Speaker 2: with gardening. Go have fun, don't feel like you got
Speaker 2: to do it a certain way and all this and
Speaker 2: you know, if I talk to them in one time
Speaker 2: that was worried about their flowers and are these colors
Speaker 2: going to go well together. Do you like them together?
Speaker 2: Land them? I don't care where they are on the
Speaker 2: color wheel. You do what you want. Have fun in
Speaker 2: your garden. There you go. I just gave you permission
Speaker 2: to do whatever you want to do in your guard.
Speaker 2: It's it's let it make you happy. Let it be
Speaker 2: fulfilling to you. For me, it's therapy, and it's a
Speaker 2: lot cheaper in therapy too. By the way, Houston Powder
Speaker 2: Coaders is the biggest powder coder here in this region.
Speaker 2: They're up there in North Houston. If you send them
Speaker 2: a picture of your metal, your outdoor metal, furniture or
Speaker 2: decorative or any outdoor metal that you want to get
Speaker 2: a powder coat on. By the way, powder coating is
Speaker 2: way better than painting, they will send you a quote.
Speaker 2: Sales at Houstoncoders dot Com is the email, or just
Speaker 2: go to their website Houston Powdercoders dot com. Houston Powdercoders
Speaker 2: dot com. If your stuff's a little not so great,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a little rusty, or maybe bolts are falling
Speaker 2: out that are holding it together, or the straps, you know,
Speaker 2: the straps and sling fabric and everything on. Some kinds
Speaker 2: of furniture. They can fix that up and when you
Speaker 2: get back, it's going to be like new. Over one
Speaker 2: hundred collars that you get to choose from. Here's the
Speaker 2: website Houston Powdercoders dot com. Here's the number two eight
Speaker 2: one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight two eight
Speaker 2: one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight. They do
Speaker 2: free pick up and delivery in the Greater Houston area
Speaker 2: as well. Oh well, I'm looking at the clock and
Speaker 2: the clock says time for the news at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the hour here, So we're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: do that. We'll be back with your questions. If you'd
Speaker 2: like to be first up, give my producer Alejandro call
Speaker 2: and we will get you on the board and talk
Speaker 2: about the things that are of interest to you at
Speaker 2: seven one three two one two kt r H seven
Speaker 2: one three two one two kt r H. When I
Speaker 2: come back, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: using combinations of plants to have beauty around the landscape
Speaker 2: or to have bounty if you're growing vegetables around the landscape.
Speaker 2: So don't let me forget. I want to spend a
Speaker 2: little bit of time on that as well as your
Speaker 2: calls appreciate the fact that you're listening to your guardline.
Speaker 2: By the way, this morning. I love talking to gardeners.
Speaker 2: That and sitting in my gardener my two happy places
Speaker 2: that I enjoy and so appreciate you listening, and we
Speaker 2: do not take that for granted. All right. Nelson Plant
Speaker 2: Food has a number of different products, and I want
Speaker 2: to tell you about the turf Star line. Turf Star
Speaker 2: is several fertilizers that are in the Turf Star line,
Speaker 2: but the Slow and Easy is the one that I
Speaker 2: want to talk about right now. I was just talking
Speaker 2: to somebody about drag out your fertilizing. Don't dump it
Speaker 2: all on you know, all the nitrogen at one time
Speaker 2: on your summer lawn. Slow and Easy does that for you.
Speaker 2: You put it down now and it's going to feed
Speaker 2: you all the way up to your fall fertilization. It's
Speaker 2: got great nutritions. There are some substances in it that
Speaker 2: help us sidify the soil as well, which when you
Speaker 2: get that pH if it's a little high, you start
Speaker 2: to see that yellowing in your grass, you know, the
Speaker 2: light yellowing in the green and yellow striped grass blades.
Speaker 2: That's ourn deficiency bringing the pH down slowly over time,
Speaker 2: can help grow yourself out of that situation. Very good
Speaker 2: nutrient supplies of carbon for microbes. It's a good product.
Speaker 2: Turf Stars Slow and Easy from Nelson Plant Food. You're
Speaker 2: going to find these products everywhere. While you're there shopping
Speaker 2: for your lawn, you need to pick up a couple
Speaker 2: of their specialty products. They have a Palm and Ornamental
Speaker 2: grasses product that's in the Nutri Star line Palm and
Speaker 2: Ornamental Grasses, and they have a boog and vill you
Speaker 2: one too. Whatever kind of plant you're looking for, that
Speaker 2: Nutri star Line is going to carry the probably a
Speaker 2: fertilizer with your plant's name on it, and if not,
Speaker 2: one that goes very well with your plant. I use
Speaker 2: the boot and Billy on several other different species as
Speaker 2: well because it works very very well. And you can
Speaker 2: refill the jars two in about a dozen places around town,
Speaker 2: which is economical and keeps from throwing that plastic in
Speaker 2: the environment. Let's go to the heights. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk to Ron this morning. Hey, Ron, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 15: Good on.
Speaker 17: Good morning, Skip. I send you a picture of my
Speaker 17: weed that's in the front yard, and I asked you
Speaker 17: last week if I should just sowd over it or
Speaker 17: do I need to kill it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a booger.
Speaker 16: Uh.
Speaker 2: The weeds, weeds that are in that same family as
Speaker 2: a wandering jew. Uh, they're kind of sort of in
Speaker 2: between grasses and broad leaves in a sense. Grassy killers
Speaker 2: aren't that great on them. Broad leaf killers aren't that
Speaker 2: great on them.
Speaker 18: Uh.
Speaker 2: Some people hand removal as a possibility, but boys, that
Speaker 2: ever work and you don't get it all. So you
Speaker 2: have to be so diligent at it that most people
Speaker 2: are not gonna are not going to be able.
Speaker 19: To And of course, and that's what I have.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's what you have. Yeah that Uh, it's
Speaker 2: not basket grass, but it's it's closely related to that
Speaker 2: same kind of results. It does well in shady areas,
Speaker 2: even a little too shady for your lawn. You have
Speaker 2: this stuff growing in it and doing well.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Some people, Yeah, go ahead, Yeah, some people will what
Speaker 2: they'll do run as they'll they'll just kill an area
Speaker 2: and then put grass back in it. And that is drastic.
Speaker 2: But if it's spread too far, that's probably not practical
Speaker 2: to do. But it can be controlled. It just I
Speaker 2: can't point you at a specific we control product that
Speaker 2: you can put on it. If you hire a landscaper,
Speaker 2: they're going to have access to some things that you
Speaker 2: don't that might be able to to kind of shut
Speaker 2: it down a little bit. The main thing is don't
Speaker 2: let it get it, get a start, and pull it
Speaker 2: back and stay on it pulling it back.
Speaker 20: Oh, it's already got because I don't have I don't
Speaker 20: have good QUI answers for those weeds. I hate them
Speaker 20: because they know it's I'm yeah, I'm behind the power
Speaker 20: curve on this one, so I guess I'll Yeah, I
Speaker 20: was thinking about just weed eating it, down it to nothing,
Speaker 20: but you said it'll grow back even with new sad
Speaker 20: over the top. You're saying, okay, well.
Speaker 2: I'll have to I've never tried. Yeah, I've never tried
Speaker 2: putting new sawd over it. But yeah, you could kill
Speaker 2: it with gliphas as you said, it will kill that.
Speaker 2: But okay, yeah, not good options.
Speaker 12: I know.
Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, keep listening. I'm gonna and a break. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna check on and see if I can find any
Speaker 2: suggestion on that. I'm gonna look at some other state
Speaker 2: information because there's anything out there. I want to be
Speaker 2: able to provide it all right, Thank you, Ron, I
Speaker 2: appreciate the calls. Mhm, you bet yeah. Those weeds are
Speaker 2: a bugger. Have you ever tried to kill purple heart?
Speaker 2: I love purple heart, d purple in a sunny areas,
Speaker 2: a lighter purple and in the shady air, it's great.
Speaker 2: But you spray that with round up and it won't
Speaker 2: kill it. I'm telling you it won't kill it. Some
Speaker 2: crazy crazy thing anyway. RCW Nursery is having a sale
Speaker 2: right now. By the way, I didn't want to forget
Speaker 2: to tell you that, twenty five percent off of crate myrtles.
Speaker 2: And they've got all kinds, you know. Creat myrtles are red.
Speaker 2: Great myrtles are write and pink and lavender. They have
Speaker 2: the purples, they have different sizes. You go out there
Speaker 2: and you say, look, I've got it. I need a
Speaker 2: crepe myrtle, and I need it to be just twelve
Speaker 2: feet high, no taller than that, or I want a
Speaker 2: big one to make a shade tree. Natchez is a
Speaker 2: good one for that, by the way. But they've got them,
Speaker 2: and again, twenty five percent off's a good sale. And
Speaker 2: can you plant a great myrtle in June. Yes, you can.
Speaker 2: You're just gonna want to water it regularly at the
Speaker 2: base and it will establish. People plant all through the year.
Speaker 2: They can do that. While you're out at RCW two,
Speaker 2: by the way, check out their other color still got
Speaker 2: boom and Ballos. They've got the out the shrub rows
Speaker 2: of Sharon is another name for it. It looks outstanding. Listen,
Speaker 2: we got plants that can look good, and we just
Speaker 2: need to plant the ones that can. You know, the
Speaker 2: gold Star Esperanza looks good even in the heat. We
Speaker 2: have the Pride of Barbados. It looks good even in
Speaker 2: the out At RCW they got the Cajun series of
Speaker 2: hibiscus that are outstanding even in the heat. RCW Nurseries,
Speaker 2: by the way, is where Tamball Park went and Beltwegh
Speaker 2: eight come together. RCW Nurseries dot Com, RCW Nurseries dot Com.
Speaker 2: Let's now head out to sugar Land and we're going
Speaker 2: to visit with Craig. Hello, Craig, Hey, good morning, Skip.
Speaker 11: Hey, I got a problem with my front flower bed.
Speaker 2: It gets full song.
Speaker 10: You know, I have a couple of rosebushes of sago palms.
Speaker 10: I just can't keep it weed free. And what I'm
Speaker 10: noticed over the years, it's like a vine like weed
Speaker 10: that grows and it's got deep, a deep root. It's
Speaker 10: like the motherboard that creates these vines. But if you
Speaker 10: find that main one which is very deep and it's
Speaker 10: hard to pull out at the doug on near, you know,
Speaker 10: shovel it out with a small hand shovel. But I
Speaker 10: just can't keep it weed free.
Speaker 2: What can I do?
Speaker 10: I just I don't want to kill my rose bushes on.
Speaker 2: So yeah, for sure. So there's there's two ways that
Speaker 2: that these weeds are invaded in your bed. One is
Speaker 2: from seeds and that can be pretty much controlled with
Speaker 2: a good thick mulch and then when they do sprout
Speaker 2: and getting them when they're very young and easy easy
Speaker 2: to get rid of. The other one is for perennial
Speaker 2: kinds of things. They either climb into your bed or
Speaker 2: you know, like bermuda grass, it can come up you
Speaker 2: chop all the bermudograss off the top of the or
Speaker 2: it just popped stuck out of the ground again. And
Speaker 2: for those kind of weeds, you're going to have to
Speaker 2: use some sort of of a product that is effective
Speaker 2: I think what I would suggest, and I'm not seeing
Speaker 2: the situation. I don't even really know what weed we're
Speaker 2: talking about. But if you will go on my website
Speaker 2: Gardening with Skip dot Com and look at skip'sweed wiper,
Speaker 2: I tell you how to build one. It's real simple,
Speaker 2: and then you can put products on there that will
Speaker 2: kill those broad leaf weeds but won't kill the good
Speaker 2: plants because you're not getting them on the good plants.
Speaker 2: It's a little like two sponges that come together and
Speaker 2: squeeze the weed leaves. Take a look at it. I
Speaker 2: also have a publication on herbicides where if you're looking
Speaker 2: at a grassy weed, if you're looking at a broad
Speaker 2: leaf weed, if you know if those kind of things,
Speaker 2: it tells you what product to use on that weed wiper.
Speaker 2: That's the best way I know. You've been out pulling
Speaker 2: and pulling and pulling trying to get them all. If
Speaker 2: you can get a product on there, have it translocated down,
Speaker 2: it'll work for you. I use it in my beds
Speaker 2: as well. But Gardening with Skip dot Com is the website.
Speaker 2: Look for the weed wiper and look for the list
Speaker 2: for for the herbicides to put on it okay, all right,
Speaker 2: and you're in Sugarland, so you just drive up to
Speaker 2: Southwest Fertilizer Besson that and runwick and Bob's got the
Speaker 2: little tool that you used to build a weed wiper.
Speaker 2: Once you get one, you're gonna use it a lot.
Speaker 2: I keep mind hanging in the grab it all the time.
Speaker 2: I got to run for a break. Thank you, appreciate
Speaker 2: your call, sir. All right, folks, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Welcome back to Garden Line. Folks. Good to
Speaker 2: have you with us. If you'd like to give me
Speaker 2: a call. By the way, it's seven one three two
Speaker 2: one two k t r H. Those of you down
Speaker 2: in League City or that whole area Clearlakes, Elkam into
Speaker 2: Reale Baycliff, Lamart, Dickenson, San Leon, that that whole region
Speaker 2: down there. Your hometown feed store is League City feed
Speaker 2: It is in League City, of course, on Highway three,
Speaker 2: just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So
Speaker 2: that's where it's located. Now you just need to go,
Speaker 2: and when can you go, Well, Monday through Saturday nine
Speaker 2: am to six pm, so after work you swing by
Speaker 2: there close on Sunday. By the way, if you want
Speaker 2: to get m call two eight one three three two
Speaker 2: sixteen twelve. Now why would you go, Well, it's old
Speaker 2: fashioned service. It's that old time feed store service. Carry
Speaker 2: the bags out for you. This is the third generation
Speaker 2: in the Thunderberg family is running this store. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm That's what I'm talking about. If you need anything
Speaker 2: to control weeds, pest and diseases, they have an excellent selection.
Speaker 2: And if you're looking for fertilizers for your garden and
Speaker 2: your lawn, they have the nitrofoss line, they have Microlifeline,
Speaker 2: they have Nelson Plant Food Line. You're going to find
Speaker 2: soils by the bag from Heirloom Soils there, so you
Speaker 2: can just swing by there and pick that up again.
Speaker 2: They're on Highway three, a few blocks south Highway ninety six.
Speaker 2: League City Feed two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.
Speaker 2: Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. I was
Speaker 2: at my yard the other day and notice that I
Speaker 2: had a fire at Mount popping back up in there.
Speaker 2: I thought I had those guys under control. Well you
Speaker 2: never get them completely forever gone night Fiss has a
Speaker 2: product called fire ant Killer, And you know, normally I
Speaker 2: would say use, use baits here and there through the
Speaker 2: year to suppress the fire ants. But what if you've
Speaker 2: got a mount and you need to get rid of
Speaker 2: it now, Well that it's not going to work that
Speaker 2: fast on it. Fire ant killer from Nitrofuss does. It
Speaker 2: is a very effective you know, just you've got a
Speaker 2: party tomorrow and you want to knock those out. This
Speaker 2: is what you're going to need to use. Fire Ant
Speaker 2: killer from Nitropos and night Fuss products are available all
Speaker 2: over the place. I know Hiden and feed On Student
Speaker 2: or Airline has it. All the Fissures hardwares in Pasadena, Laporte,
Speaker 2: Mont Bellevue and even Baytown they carry it. Stanton Shopping
Speaker 2: Center down there in Alvin. For those of you who
Speaker 2: are up in the Cypress area, you've got M and
Speaker 2: D Cypress and Langham Creek Ase Hardware too, all carry
Speaker 2: night Foss products. You're listening to the guard line and
Speaker 2: we're here to try to helpe you have success. That's
Speaker 2: kind of my goal in doing this. If you want
Speaker 2: to give us a call, I'm about to the next hour.
Speaker 2: We're going to have doctor Tim Hartman, who is a horticulturist,
Speaker 2: a fruit specialist from Texas A and m agrolife extension
Speaker 2: on the show. And if you've got fruit tree questions,
Speaker 2: give us a call on that. I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to focus on fruit trees for these for these next
Speaker 2: couple hours. But this is your chance to pick his brain.
Speaker 2: You want suggestions for planting a fruit tree, you want
Speaker 2: you dealing with a problem on a fruit tree. He
Speaker 2: can help you with all those things. If you walked
Speaker 2: in my attic. I went up in my attic the
Speaker 2: other day and oh my gosh, I thought I was
Speaker 2: gonna melt, you know, like a wax candle up there
Speaker 2: is so hot. Arctic insulation solutions can help cut down
Speaker 2: your bills. You know, the thing runs all day practically
Speaker 2: trying to keep up. There's a lot of ways they help.
Speaker 2: They've got foil radiant barriers that can go in the roof,
Speaker 2: the ceiling of the attic rafters and thirty degrees or
Speaker 2: more get that temperature down. They have fiberglass insulation that
Speaker 2: they can blow in, or they can do any kind
Speaker 2: of insulation you need up there, and it really makes
Speaker 2: a difference. And then going in and sealing those holes
Speaker 2: around like your light fixtures and switches and plugs and things.
Speaker 2: Hot air can leak through that and does leak through that,
Speaker 2: and that can make a big difference. One study they
Speaker 2: did is that just like having an open window in
Speaker 2: a room and closing it, that's the difference it makes
Speaker 2: Solar Attic fans another thing. Just go to their website.
Speaker 2: If you're like me, you can't spell Arctic. There's a
Speaker 2: C in the middle that I keep forgetting about a
Speaker 2: rc TIC Houston dot com Arctic Houston dot com eight three,
Speaker 2: two five, eight six, twenty eight ninety three. Give them
Speaker 2: a call right out here to Liberty, Texas now and
Speaker 2: visit with Jason. Hello, Jason, Welcome to garden line.
Speaker 21: Anyway, I got a question.
Speaker 7: Get me and my daughter.
Speaker 21: We planted a little some seeds. We had some really
Speaker 21: good oranges and were planted some seeds. That was the oranges.
Speaker 21: It was a brown Hurricane Ike before Hurricane Ike came in. Anyway, Well,
Speaker 21: they all blew away, and I seen one out there.
Speaker 21: I found one that a little sprout was coming out of,
Speaker 21: so I transplanted it. Make a long story short, it
Speaker 21: grew to a really big orange tree, had big thorns
Speaker 21: on it and everything, but it made really really good oranges. Okay,
Speaker 21: I got two seasons of it. We made good oranges,
Speaker 21: and then it froze when we had a twenty twenty
Speaker 21: freeze or whenever that hard freeze was okay, Well, it
Speaker 21: died all the way down to the root system, and
Speaker 21: then it came back up. It was like eight or
Speaker 21: ten feet tall. Never seen a blossom on it that year,
Speaker 21: Never seen a blosom on the next year. And then
Speaker 21: we had that other breeze and it killed it back again,
Speaker 21: and now it's like eight or ten beats all again.
Speaker 21: I haven't seen a blossom. My question is I'm gonna
Speaker 21: have to wait another fourteen years. So that's how long
Speaker 21: it took for the fort to ever produced any fruit
Speaker 21: from the time we planted it.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's going to take that long,
Speaker 2: but it can take a while. This just so I'm
Speaker 2: absolutely sure you're talking about a seedling, not a grafted one, right.
Speaker 15: The originally original of the orange.
Speaker 2: So so just to put it in a real fast nutshell,
Speaker 2: when when a fruit tree starts to grow from a seed,
Speaker 2: it's in a stage called juvenile. It cannot reproduce. It
Speaker 2: does not able. It's like a you know, a very
Speaker 2: young human being.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then it reaches the stage at some point where
Speaker 2: it starts to produce mature wood and it can bloom
Speaker 2: and fruit. That that's plant reproduction there, And so yours
Speaker 2: died back to the around so you're starting with juvenile
Speaker 2: wood again. It's going to take some time to get
Speaker 2: to that stage. That's why we buy grafted plants. If
Speaker 2: you had a grafted plant, the grafted part is mature wood.
Speaker 2: So if you died back to like an inch above
Speaker 2: the graft, if you protect the graft, then it is
Speaker 2: going to re sprout with wood that can that is
Speaker 2: already ready to be able to bloom and set.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: So on yours, I think it's going to take a while.
Speaker 2: So your options are to try butting or grafting it,
Speaker 2: or buy a plant or something, or just wait.
Speaker 21: Okay, it was like the trunk of this thing was
Speaker 21: like almost tentages are or was about tentages in diameter,
Speaker 21: you know, it was. It was big years. Yeah, it
Speaker 21: was a huge arm tree and it played like a
Speaker 21: truckload of oranges and they were really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 21: Well anyway, okay, well I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 11: Oh it's well, I think I think time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just I think it's it's gonna be.
Speaker 2: It's just going to take time. But thank I hate Jason,
Speaker 2: I've got to run for the break at the top
Speaker 2: of the are, but thank you for the call. Good
Speaker 2: luck with it. I feel your pain on having to
Speaker 2: wait on that one though, I certainly do. Uh, we're
Speaker 2: going to take a break. I want to remind you
Speaker 2: that next hour we're going to have doctor Tim Hartman
Speaker 2: from the horticulture department at Texas A and M University.
Speaker 2: Tim is a expert on all kinds of things fruit,
Speaker 2: and so you can give us a call. Between the
Speaker 2: two of us putting their heads together here, I bet
Speaker 2: we can come on answer for you if you're thinking
Speaker 2: about planning fruit. If you got a fruit problem that uh,
Speaker 2: you know, like we just had that call on oranges, Uh,
Speaker 2: that that started from a seedling. That's a that's a
Speaker 2: great question. So feel free to give me a call
Speaker 2: seven one three two one two k t r H.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask that let's keep it fruit
Speaker 2: for these next couple hours, uh, and then I'll be
Speaker 2: back again tomorrow morning with your calls on whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call and talk about. At the seven or
Speaker 2: six o'clock and seven o'clock hour and the nine o'clock hour.
Speaker 2: I have a guest at eight o'clock tomorrow, so anyway,
Speaker 2: thanks for being a listener. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Starting out an ache.
Speaker 2: All right, gardeners, welcome back, Welcome back to Guardline. Good
Speaker 2: to have you with us. My guest for these next
Speaker 2: two hours doctor Tim Hartman from the Texas A and
Speaker 2: M Horticulture Department, part of the Texas and M Agrolife
Speaker 2: Extension Service. He's a fruit specialist. So here's your chance.
Speaker 2: You want to ask us some questions about fruit growing,
Speaker 2: maybe what to plant or you know, we just went
Speaker 2: in to break from that last one talking about an
Speaker 2: orange tree that came up from a seed and didn't
Speaker 2: produce for a long time, and so we're we're happy
Speaker 2: to take all those kinds of questions. Seven one three
Speaker 2: two one two kt r H. You know, I talk
Speaker 2: all the time about brown stuff before green stuff, brown
Speaker 2: stuff before green stuff. In other words, prepare the soil
Speaker 2: before you plant the plants. And if you do that,
Speaker 2: you are gonna have the best chance at success. And
Speaker 2: Nature's Way Resources has built a tradition about creating the
Speaker 2: best compost products, the best mult type products. They've got
Speaker 2: it all. There a great selection.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 2: John Ferguson when he created that place, he called it
Speaker 2: Nature's Way because it was all about recognizing the fact
Speaker 2: that nature knows how to build soil over a long time,
Speaker 2: and we get to cut that short by buying a
Speaker 2: few cubic yards and creating a flower bed or improving
Speaker 2: the soil that we have Nature's Way Resources dot Com.
Speaker 2: That's the website, Nature's Way Resources dot Com. Don't forget
Speaker 2: that ever. Friday is Fungal Friday. Ten percent off bags
Speaker 2: of fungal based compost, and there is a twenty percent
Speaker 2: off deal on Fridays on bulk compost. That is a
Speaker 2: good deal, whether you go there and get it, whether
Speaker 2: you have them deliver it, or whether you buy it
Speaker 2: buy the bag in area stores. Nature's Way Resources products
Speaker 2: will help you take care of that brown stuff. So
Speaker 2: the green stuff is happy. I like to say the
Speaker 2: plants hit the ground running because they're in good soil. Well,
Speaker 2: doctor Hartman, Tim, I'm gonna call you Tim today. Please
Speaker 2: welcome to garden Line. It's good to have you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me here this morning.
Speaker 2: You bet well, we've got just so many fruit, so
Speaker 2: little time I know as to where to begin. What
Speaker 2: if someone were wanting to plant I don't know, let's
Speaker 2: just say one, two, or three fruit trees or bushes
Speaker 2: or whatever in their landscape, what would you recommend as
Speaker 2: being kind of like, this is a good one to
Speaker 2: start with. You're not gonna go nuts, You're not gonna
Speaker 2: spray it every other day and have a lot of
Speaker 2: trouble with it. But it would be a good fruit
Speaker 2: that you would recommend. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Two that come to mind right off the bat would
Speaker 1: be fig There's a lot of interesting figs, so many
Speaker 1: different varieties. We have over one hundred varieties that we're
Speaker 1: looking at right now between myself and doctor Dave Creech
Speaker 1: at SFA. They grew very well in Houston.
Speaker 2: A hundred varieties of figs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's so many more out there.
Speaker 1: We kind of gave up on trying to collect them all,
Speaker 1: like the pokemon or whatever. But but yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of different ones are super easy to propagate. A lot
Speaker 1: of people like to trade them, but they're just easy.
Speaker 1: They really have very few pests and disease issues, and
Speaker 1: Houston is an excellent place to grow them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It is you know, we had a fake industry
Speaker 2: in Houston at one time. Yeah, that's what I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it was over one hundred acres or one.
Speaker 1: Hundred I want to say thousands of acres actually is
Speaker 1: what from the Texas Historical Commission.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot. I wasn't there obviously, but yeah, I grew.
Speaker 2: Up with a fig tree in the backyard and that's
Speaker 2: a fun memory. Figs are pretty easy. You know, they
Speaker 2: get the rust, but yeah, you know it's kind of
Speaker 2: ye yeah, not a lot of pestive diseases. But what
Speaker 2: would you say in terms of getting a fig and
Speaker 2: choosing a variety? First of all, what are the characteristics
Speaker 2: of that fruit that you think are most important in
Speaker 2: choosing that variety?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 2: And the also the ones that you enjoyed the most
Speaker 2: that you think people would would be happiest with. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So one of the first considerations I think we're
Speaker 1: on the same page on this skip is that we're
Speaker 1: selecting a varieties.
Speaker 3: We want to go with a closed eye variety.
Speaker 1: So a fig is a some conium people refer to
Speaker 1: it basically, well, it's I think technically now considered a
Speaker 1: hollowed out peduncle. But it's basically an inside out flower,
Speaker 1: and that eye or ostiole would normally be to facilitate
Speaker 1: pollination via the fig wasp. We don't have it in Texas.
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 1: We're not worried about that because are common fig that
Speaker 1: we grow doesn't require fruit. It sets seedless fruit poll
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, thank you for.
Speaker 2: All the all the female parts of the flower, all
Speaker 2: the flower parts are inside the fig inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And unlike a lot of other figs, like the
Speaker 1: Smyrna capra san pedro, they don't need pollination. And so
Speaker 1: what we have is this this eye that we don't
Speaker 1: need because we don't need the pollination. It serves as
Speaker 1: an entry way. So we get dried fruit, beetle, leather,
Speaker 1: insects in there. They they don't take their shoes off
Speaker 1: when they come in. They track in uh A, Cido,
Speaker 1: bacter and and all kinds of germs, and you get souring.
Speaker 2: It's souring and it almost is a fermenting kind of
Speaker 2: thing because wasps like to go there. Another reason you
Speaker 2: don't want an open eye for all possible What what
Speaker 2: are two or three varieties that you think people would
Speaker 2: be happy with?
Speaker 1: Yes, there are obviously a lot of them out there,
Speaker 1: so less at least as far as closed eye. That's
Speaker 1: what I think of as a closed eye celestis. It's
Speaker 1: it's very tight. There are a lot of figs out there.
Speaker 1: I like green, the green Issha variety. It's got a
Speaker 1: great flavor. It's really pretty on the inside, but it
Speaker 1: does have a bit more of an open eye. Now
Speaker 1: there's some varieties that have a very open eye, and
Speaker 1: there's you've kind of got a spectrum in there. But
Speaker 1: especially in Houston, where it's humid, it's rainy, you definitely
Speaker 1: want to closed eye.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, good, Well. Figs are a good one.
Speaker 2: I've always been a fan of per simmons because I
Speaker 2: like the way they taste. Some people don't care for them.
Speaker 2: I like the the astringent types and let them get
Speaker 2: fully ripe. It's like a bag of jelly. And the
Speaker 2: only way to eat an astringent per semon when it's
Speaker 2: fully ripe is to get into the bathtub and have
Speaker 2: someone handy so you can just enjoy it and then
Speaker 2: just shower off because you're gonna make a mess. But
Speaker 2: I love those. They're the non astringent types that don't
Speaker 2: pucker your mouth so much. But that's another one, not
Speaker 2: really pest and disease issues or that you're having to
Speaker 2: spray for now.
Speaker 3: I absolutely love her simmons. We've got to skip.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard me talk about this, but I'm
Speaker 1: a collector. We have about eighty varieties of Asian per
Speaker 1: simon at our research farm. In fact, I was just
Speaker 1: grafting yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just they're super easy.
Speaker 1: They're very ornamental as well, and I agree with you
Speaker 1: the a stringent variety, even though they're a mess. I
Speaker 1: think they have a more rich flavor. But most people
Speaker 1: prefer the non astringen, the saruga, the fuou, the moto,
Speaker 1: you know those types that remain firm when they're ripe,
Speaker 1: And yeah, you can eat the skin and everything.
Speaker 3: You basically eat it like an apple.
Speaker 2: Now, if you're listening and you're going, what did he
Speaker 2: just say on those varieties? If you go to the
Speaker 2: Aggie Horticulture website, and we need to mention there's more
Speaker 2: than once. While we're visiting Aggie Horticulture website, there's a
Speaker 2: fruit section right on the front page lower to the left.
Speaker 2: You'll click on fruit and you have a publication full
Speaker 2: color multi page for free on every kind of fruit
Speaker 2: you can imagine, from avocado to I don't know what
Speaker 2: fruit begins with the Z but size of it. There
Speaker 2: you go, the genus of there's one and there's a
Speaker 2: precimon publication and it talks about varieties. In these publications
Speaker 2: talk about how to perunem and how to plan them
Speaker 2: and take care of them. And they're all free. So Aggie,
Speaker 2: Horticulture website Fruit section. Uh, everything we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about today, you're going to find good information like that
Speaker 2: on there. I got to take a little break here
Speaker 2: for some paying the bills, as I say, and we
Speaker 2: will be right back with doctor Tim Hartman and your
Speaker 2: questions at seven one three two one two kt R.
Speaker 2: H's welcome back to Guardline folks. Good to have you
Speaker 2: with us. Hey, we have doctor Tim Hartman, who's associate
Speaker 2: professor in the horticulture department here at Texas A and
Speaker 2: M and a statewide fruit specialist. So any kinds of
Speaker 2: things fruit, that's what we're going to be talking about
Speaker 2: for the rest of this hour and next you'd like
Speaker 2: to give me a call and ask him a question.
Speaker 2: Seven to one three two one two kt R h
Speaker 2: seven one three two one two k t R H.
Speaker 2: You were talking about per Simmons before we went to break.
Speaker 2: The one thing that I forgot to mention, which is
Speaker 2: why I like to recommend persons, is they are ornamental.
Speaker 2: The foliage turns beautiful fall colors. I mean you have
Speaker 2: to drive to the northeast to see colors pretty as
Speaker 2: at oranges. Yeah, that is true. The other thing is
Speaker 2: the fact that they occurred a time of year when
Speaker 2: we don't have a lot of fruit ripening and so
Speaker 2: the holiday baking and whatnot. I love per Simon bread. Well,
Speaker 2: what would be another fruit? You know, you were talking
Speaker 2: about figs, We talked about per Simmons. What's another one
Speaker 2: that you would recommend for people kind of getting started
Speaker 2: or wanted to try. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you're talking about in the backyard and kind
Speaker 1: of small spaces, I think you can't go wrong with
Speaker 1: a BlackBerry. I think more people should be growing blackberries.
Speaker 1: I say that all the time. Blackberries are small, they
Speaker 1: don't take a lot of room. We usually space them
Speaker 1: about three feet apart. You really need some type of trails,
Speaker 1: but it could be very rudimentary, just some steaks or
Speaker 1: even a tomato cage. The other cool thing about blackberries
Speaker 1: is that they're very precocious. They come into fruit very quickly.
Speaker 1: You can have fruit certainly by the second year. By
Speaker 1: the third year you should be looking at a full
Speaker 1: crop already. They can be grown in containers. I've grown
Speaker 1: them in you know, half whiskey barrel size twenty five
Speaker 1: gallon pots. We have a lot of varieties out there too.
Speaker 1: I want to give a mention to Steven Yannick. Steve
Speaker 1: and Yannick, one of my colleagues here at A and M,
Speaker 1: is a program specialist and actually working on his PhD
Speaker 1: in blackberries. He's down in the Hallettsville area, not too
Speaker 1: far away, and he's doing a lot of variety trialing.
Speaker 1: But if you're not familiar, we do have a lot
Speaker 1: of varieties of BlackBerry. We've got thorn less varieties. We
Speaker 1: also have from the University of Arkansas what we call
Speaker 1: primo caine fruiting blackberries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool. That's a fairly new development in the
Speaker 2: history of blackberries. But tell us about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so blackberries, we say that they produce on biennial canes. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what that means is is, let's say during twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, We've got a leafy prime ocine. It's primarily
Speaker 1: or basically just going to be vegetative. Okay, it'll grow
Speaker 1: this year, and then that same cane over the wintertime
Speaker 1: transitions to become a flora caane, think flowers flora caanes,
Speaker 1: and then it produces fruit the next year. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, that cane dies, but we have new ones
Speaker 1: that replace it. Only these primo canes, these first year
Speaker 1: canes are only vegetative. Well, we get to throw that
Speaker 1: out the window with some of these primate cane fruiting
Speaker 1: varieties Primark Freedom, Primark Traveler, Primark Horizon, Primark forty five
Speaker 1: again from University of Arkansas. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: you can actually get a crop early on. Usually I
Speaker 1: would say in your area, Primark Freedom is going to
Speaker 1: be ripe late April, pretty pretty early. But then you
Speaker 1: can potentially get another crop. Uh here in College Station,
Speaker 1: it's going to be around July fourth or so, and
Speaker 1: then sometimes another crop or two in the fall. Now,
Speaker 1: you can't count on those additional crops because sometimes it's
Speaker 1: too hot, the fruit don't set, they're not very good.
Speaker 1: But I mean I've there have been years where I
Speaker 1: pick blackberries all the way from late April into November
Speaker 1: where there was not a two week break in between there.
Speaker 2: And they're thornless too. They're thornless. That's a good deal. Hey,
Speaker 2: we Gota. We got a call here I want to
Speaker 2: go to and bring in. We have Beta in Paarland. Hey,
Speaker 2: welcome to garden Line Beta.
Speaker 13: Hiki, are you.
Speaker 2: Doing good? What's your question?
Speaker 16: My question is I grew alvocado trees this for fun.
Speaker 16: I probably have about fifty to one hundred.
Speaker 2: Trees, and you have fifty avocado trees.
Speaker 16: Oh man, wow, wow, all of them in my backyard.
Speaker 16: When at what point do they all need to be
Speaker 16: grafted or the same thing with lemon tree.
Speaker 14: You planted them?
Speaker 16: Yeah, I planted them by planted.
Speaker 2: Them from seed from a store bought avocado. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: so the question, well, let's start with that question. Beata's
Speaker 2: question is h And by the way, my guest doesn't
Speaker 2: have a head set of headphone, so I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to repeat these uh today, I'd provide him one. I
Speaker 2: should have the planting seeds of avocados from the store,
Speaker 2: A fifty plus one hundred seed, got it? And how
Speaker 2: does she graft them and when does she graft them
Speaker 2: in any advice on that?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, great question, and I'm just going to kind
Speaker 1: of preface that a little bit with.
Speaker 3: Grafting. Okay, So avocados do have to be crafted.
Speaker 1: Okay, So most fruit don't come true from seeds, so
Speaker 1: basically you don't know what you're going to get.
Speaker 3: It's the whole box of chocolate's thing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: You may get something good, you may get something not good,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be like the parent. Avocados
Speaker 1: are especially like that, so you have to graft. The
Speaker 1: other reason is an avocado from seed can take ten
Speaker 1: to twenty plus years to make fruit, so they have
Speaker 1: a very long juvenile period. So grafting is something you
Speaker 1: would definitely want to do. As far as how to
Speaker 1: do that, they're fairly easy to graft, different ways to
Speaker 1: do it. I've butted them before. I've used a lot
Speaker 1: of different techniques. Commercially, what's done most commonly is going
Speaker 1: to be a cleft graft, where some people refer to
Speaker 1: it as a top wedge. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: nursery producers that will actually graft them in a very
Speaker 1: young stage a few months old seedlings. As soon as
Speaker 1: they start to get a little bit stiff, just coming
Speaker 1: right out of the pit, you can graft that. Shoot
Speaker 1: my experience though, when you're selecting that graft wood, and
Speaker 1: again you'd want to get it from a tree that
Speaker 1: is producing a known variety that's going to of course
Speaker 1: you'll be able to propagate that variety, but you'll also
Speaker 1: have something that is matured and will start flowering and
Speaker 1: fruiting very quickly. But anyway, selecting that wood, I like
Speaker 1: to get wood that's a little bit stiffer. From my experience,
Speaker 1: if you're using cyan wood, a graft wood on avocado
Speaker 1: that is kind of so green and really kind of
Speaker 1: flaccid and suck doesn't work too well. So I like
Speaker 1: to kind of go back and get stuff that's a
Speaker 1: little bit older. But but yeah, cleft graft is probably
Speaker 1: one of the oldest uh graphs out there, and the
Speaker 1: Bible talks about grafting Roman's eleven. I always picture that
Speaker 1: being a cleft graft. Of course you can find lots
Speaker 1: of videos on that.
Speaker 2: See ancient woodcut photos of cleft graph. Yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 2: do you what do you wrap that with? When you
Speaker 2: make the graft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a lot of things you could use. Personally,
Speaker 1: I when I graft, I like to use a product
Speaker 1: called buddy tape. You can get it on Amazon b
Speaker 1: U d d Y Buddy tape. But people use parafilm.
Speaker 1: I've used white poly butting tape, basically something that is
Speaker 1: going to seal that graft. You want to make sure
Speaker 1: that all those cuts where the sign and roots dot
Speaker 1: come together, You want to make sure that that is
Speaker 1: sealed off so it doesn't try out. And then I like,
Speaker 1: if I'm not using like a plastic butting tape, I
Speaker 1: actually like to use is like a rubber band strip
Speaker 1: to to really get a little more tension on there,
Speaker 1: just to help bind it better.
Speaker 2: All right, will Beta. There's a lot of info right there,
Speaker 2: and there are a.
Speaker 3: Lot of videos online about it too.
Speaker 16: Crafting avocados yeah, so it has to be with an
Speaker 16: avocado tree that's producing.
Speaker 2: Yes, if you have a neighbor that has an avocado
Speaker 2: that is producing, almost all the well, the trees you
Speaker 2: buy are probably all going to be grafted on avocado.
Speaker 2: They should be so that they're already they already have
Speaker 2: mature wood on them. If you will so that thing
Speaker 2: about waiting twenty years, you don't have to worry about.
Speaker 2: Just get a little okay, go online for reading first.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I've done that.
Speaker 16: I'm just scared to take the I'm scared to take
Speaker 16: the plunge.
Speaker 14: But what about is it the same for a lemon tree?
Speaker 16: Because I have about fourteen or fifteen lemon trees.
Speaker 2: Are these all seedlings too? Yes, your love, I'm sorry.
Speaker 22: They came from a they came from a seed.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, about fifteen lemons from seed? Same recommendation or
Speaker 2: would you shift to a different propagation like a tea
Speaker 2: bud or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if lemons, I will say, they have a shorter
Speaker 1: juvenile period, it's only a few, maybe three or four years.
Speaker 1: It's a lot shorter than that twenty years. If you don't,
Speaker 1: if you don't graft them so they will make seed,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get something that's a little bit different, but
Speaker 1: you could get something pretty interesting. Citrus can be grafted
Speaker 1: by by what we call butting, or some people call
Speaker 1: it bud grafting. Tea bud is most common, but they'll
Speaker 1: cleft graft really easily too. Actually, and you can pretty
Speaker 1: much graft citrus any time of year. Spring is always
Speaker 1: a nice time as long as it's not too hot.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be doing it when you're you know,
Speaker 1: up well up into the nineties or one hundred degrees.
Speaker 16: Okay, okay, that's nice, great, Thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot you got I think
Speaker 2: we he just puts you to work. Thanks, Meta, I
Speaker 2: appreciate your call. Uh, you're listening to garden line seven
Speaker 2: one three two one two ktr H. I'm visiting with
Speaker 2: doctor Tim Hartman from Taxi and M Extension Service Horticulture Department,
Speaker 2: State fruit specialist and assistant professor there in the department.
Speaker 2: Let's see, I have probably thirty seconds before break, so
Speaker 2: I'm gonna ask you another question, but you can call
Speaker 2: in and ask any kinds of fruit related questions you
Speaker 2: want of doctor Hartman. I'm sure he will have the answer.
Speaker 2: I learned something from him every time I talk to him,
Speaker 2: and fruit is so much fun. I'm going to pick
Speaker 2: your brain about some of the types of centa s
Speaker 2: when we come back, if we can do that, Doc Harmon,
Speaker 2: I just planted a satsuma and a blood orange. I
Speaker 2: know blood orange is a little far north, but anyway,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that. Welcome back to garden Line seven
Speaker 2: three two one two k t R H. I'm visiting
Speaker 2: with doctor Tim Hartman from Texas A and m Agrilife
Speaker 2: Horticulture Department about all things fruit. If you want to
Speaker 2: give us a call that related to fruit, here's the
Speaker 2: here's the opportunity. We'll call it the stump the chumps
Speaker 2: and see if you can. If you can can stomp
Speaker 2: us with the fruit. I shouldn't challenge you like that.
Speaker 2: I know people out there that will make up a
Speaker 2: question about Okay, we're going to go now to out
Speaker 2: to Houston and talk to Joshua. Hello Joshua, Welcome to
Speaker 2: garden Line.
Speaker 19: Hi, good morning. I got a couple of avocados that
Speaker 19: I planted from seed also and I'm going to grab them,
Speaker 19: but might have some neighbors that talk to me, you know,
Speaker 19: about a little bit about avocados. So they told me
Speaker 19: you can't really plant them over here, uh, And I
Speaker 19: just I don't know if I should. If it's protection
Speaker 19: from the winter time, they say they freeze, and I
Speaker 19: don't know if I should just put them in a
Speaker 19: bigger pot and be able to try to put them
Speaker 19: in a place where I can wheel them in, or
Speaker 19: if I can plant them and put them, you know,
Speaker 19: close to a building to protect them and know what
Speaker 19: I just got you.
Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, they're they're trying to grow an avocado
Speaker 2: in a pot is going to be a big challenge.
Speaker 2: But I'm not saying it's impossible. Everything's possible, but that's
Speaker 2: gonna be a challenge. Did when you were set you're
Speaker 2: going to graft them? Or are you'd or what's the plan?
Speaker 2: Because they're from seeds? Okay, So I just want to
Speaker 2: offer I'm going to turn this over to you, Tim,
Speaker 2: but when we've had two now that are planning avocados
Speaker 2: seeds from the grocery store that is not a super
Speaker 2: hardy avocado, and the kind that we recommend here, the
Speaker 2: smoother skins types are pretty hardy, but on any kind
Speaker 2: of a fruit, even ceteras, where you know, we could
Speaker 2: have one of those winners. When we get into the
Speaker 2: cool season and the cold is coming, mound up a
Speaker 2: bunch of soil or compost around the base of that plant,
Speaker 2: even like a foot or more high, and you don't
Speaker 2: want to leave it there. We don't like multi volcanoes
Speaker 2: but it will protect the graft, and even if it
Speaker 2: freezes down to that, you still have your tree that
Speaker 2: will take off growing like crazy. So the question is
Speaker 2: again a seeded avocados in a pot going to be grafted.
Speaker 2: Where would you plant them? And would you recommend trying
Speaker 2: to grow them in a pot?
Speaker 1: You can grow them in a pot. They want to
Speaker 1: be really large trees, but they can be grown in pots.
Speaker 1: I've got a Chuckhette variety that I've had for about
Speaker 1: ten years actually in a twenty five now.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty good sized pot and it's done fairly well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you want to put in the ground,
Speaker 1: and you should certainly be able to do that again
Speaker 1: being ready to protect it.
Speaker 2: This really goes for all fruit trees.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you think about a fruit tree is taking
Speaker 1: that solar energy converting it into chemical energy show or
Speaker 1: in this case oils. Okay, So the more sun the better, Okay,
Speaker 1: so full sun. The other thing is drainage. Okay, fruit
Speaker 1: trees need drainage, I don't care what it is. Especially peach,
Speaker 1: especially avocado, they need drainage. So if you're especially kind
Speaker 1: of in the southern long it ten and kind of
Speaker 1: in that more southern coastal area where you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of that gumbo soil. You have got a plant
Speaker 1: on a mound or raised bed that is really going
Speaker 1: to pay off, all right, if it's avocado or something
Speaker 1: like that, a citrus that you want to protect from
Speaker 1: from the cold. Putting it on the south side of
Speaker 1: a structure like a house can also help.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, all right, Joshua, Hey, I appreciate your call.
Speaker 2: Good luck with that. Sounds like a fun project, except
Speaker 2: for the part about moving it indoors. All right, you
Speaker 2: take care. Good to talk with you. So let's see,
Speaker 2: we've talked about blackberries as a is a pretty easy
Speaker 2: crop to grow. Peaches, in my opinion, are the queen
Speaker 2: of the fruit garden here at least, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people love to grow peaches as well as other
Speaker 2: fruit other than drainage which is critical for a peach
Speaker 2: especially and good sunlight. Like you said, what are some
Speaker 2: tips that you would give people for choosing planting or
Speaker 2: growing peach tree?
Speaker 1: Kind of in a nutshell, yeah, so with any kind
Speaker 1: of what we'd call temperate fruit. Okay, these are gonna
Speaker 1: be things like pears, apples, and peaches and things like that.
Speaker 1: They need winter chilling. Okay, they have to have a
Speaker 1: certain amount of cold. We're not tom that below freeze
Speaker 1: and kind of you think refrigerator temperatures below forty five fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: They need a certain number of hours, depends this various
Speaker 1: by variety, by species, and if they don't get that chilling,
Speaker 1: they are not going to be able to flour and
Speaker 1: produce a good crop. Okay for you in your area,
Speaker 1: especially the Houston are your child is going to be
Speaker 1: getting enough chilling. Well, guess what on peaches, we fortunately
Speaker 1: have a lot of options for you. Doctor Dave Byrne
Speaker 1: peach longtime peach breeder Texas A and M who has
Speaker 1: just retired, has developed about forty varieties of peach and nectarine.
Speaker 1: Most of these are low chill. We have varieties that
Speaker 1: are even as low chill as one hundred and fifty hours.
Speaker 3: They could grow.
Speaker 2: You could almost go in Galveston with that.
Speaker 1: Oh easily, oh easily. Yeah, a lot of two fifties,
Speaker 1: three fifties. We've even got some doughnut shaped peaches, lots
Speaker 1: of nectarines, and these are bread for Texas.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good. Well, there you go. We had a
Speaker 2: question come in from Evelyn in Katie, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to go to that now. Hey Evelyn, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 6: Good morning.
Speaker 2: Morning.
Speaker 6: I am calling. I am going to plant fruit trees
Speaker 6: this fall, and I wanted to know what do I
Speaker 6: need to do to prepare the whole.
Speaker 11: I don't want to just dig a hole and stick
Speaker 11: the trees down in or because.
Speaker 6: I really want them to have the right soil and
Speaker 6: whatever to plant that tree and have a.
Speaker 19: Survival.
Speaker 2: Rates well that you got the right instincts on that, Evelyn.
Speaker 2: And the question is about how do you prepare the
Speaker 2: soil for planting a fruit tree. You talked about physically
Speaker 2: raising the soil up so it can drain off from there,
Speaker 2: but this is definitely another case of brown stuff before
Speaker 2: green stuff. To just buy the tree and bring it
Speaker 2: home and plant it without any prep is probably not
Speaker 2: a good idea. How would you recommend a homeowner prepare
Speaker 2: soil for putting in a fruit tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question, and I love getting back
Speaker 1: to basics the foundations. So unless you have deep deep sands,
Speaker 1: really on any fruit tree, I would recommend planning on
Speaker 1: a mound. And I want to be clear that what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, we're talking about making a mouth,
Speaker 1: and a foot two feet is great, but even a
Speaker 1: foot is going to make a big difference. I always
Speaker 1: kind of describe it as a picture's mound. If you're
Speaker 1: doing one tree, like a peach tree, a six by
Speaker 1: six square area about a foot high. And yes, that
Speaker 1: means you would probably need to bring in some soil
Speaker 1: or at least kind of scrape it together. This can
Speaker 1: be done, you know, like you do a vegetable garden,
Speaker 1: raised bed with lumber, or you could just simply have
Speaker 1: it mounded and gently sloping down pitts.
Speaker 3: Some mulch pictures mound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, an organic material okay, we love brown as
Speaker 1: much carbon as you.
Speaker 3: Can get into that soil. Compost amendments like skipped.
Speaker 1: I know it has talked about a lot that is
Speaker 1: really going to help that tree, and I want to
Speaker 1: be clear that when you plant that tree on a mound, okay,
Speaker 1: you're literally going to plant it the bottom of that
Speaker 1: root ball above the existing grade. So it's almost imagined
Speaker 1: like putting that tree on the ground and put piling
Speaker 1: soil around it, rather than digging a deep hole and
Speaker 1: planting it and always plant it at the same depth
Speaker 1: it was originally.
Speaker 2: Did that cover your your question, Evolent?
Speaker 6: Well, it kind of My question is if I buy
Speaker 6: do I need to I live in the country, so
Speaker 6: do I need to just dig a hole, put it
Speaker 6: in there and put the stuff around it? Or do
Speaker 6: I need to put like garden soil, fruit tree soil.
Speaker 6: They have so many different soils, So do I need
Speaker 6: to put something in that hole when I dig it
Speaker 6: or just put the tree in there and then prepare
Speaker 6: it around with the mound.
Speaker 2: If you can get a quality truly a sandy loan
Speaker 2: type soil, a top true top soil. Sometimes things are
Speaker 2: sold that are not that and create a mound out
Speaker 2: of that. But a lot of organic matter is good too.
Speaker 2: And I know the folks at Nature's Way they make
Speaker 2: a fruit tree blend specifically for use in that, and
Speaker 2: I would I would talk to them about that. But
Speaker 2: that here's here's what I want you to picture. It's
Speaker 2: not exactly accurate, but if you picture this, you'll do
Speaker 2: it right. Go out and set your fruit tree on
Speaker 2: the ground and then bring in soil all around it
Speaker 2: up to the top of the fruit tree soil. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that what does that end? Up being that ends
Speaker 2: up being that that picture's mound, you know, and then
Speaker 2: and then you've got it the right. Now, you're not
Speaker 2: going to put the bed that way. You're going to
Speaker 2: create a bed and then dig a hole. But you
Speaker 2: want to dig the hole into the soil that the
Speaker 2: fruit tree is going to be growing in. And don't
Speaker 2: put compost in the hole, don't put a bunch of
Speaker 2: especially fast release fertilizer in the hole. Just just give
Speaker 2: it its best chance. But get those roots up out
Speaker 2: of the sagi wet for the best results.
Speaker 22: Right, Okay, great, okay.
Speaker 6: That will help me to get these fruit trees in
Speaker 6: the ground and hopefully they'll be successful.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Uh and you know you know my rule on guarden Line.
Speaker 2: My advice is free, but I do expect half of
Speaker 2: the fruit that you grow because of this good advice
Speaker 2: you've heard on Gardenline from doctor Puttin. I just bring it.
Speaker 2: I'll spe I might even share some with him, all right,
Speaker 2: Thanks Evelyn. Hey, we gotta take a break. Karen in
Speaker 2: the Woodlands and Russell and Pearland. You'll be our first
Speaker 2: two up. Welcome back to Guardenline. It is good to
Speaker 2: have you with us today. Hey, if you are looking
Speaker 2: for quality organic products you can use on your plants,
Speaker 2: I won't tell you about two liquid products from Microlife.
Speaker 2: The Biomatrix is an orange label. It's a seven to
Speaker 2: one to three organic product that high nitrogen. Is good
Speaker 2: for your house plants, especially because you know, basically a
Speaker 2: foliage plant. And I use it online as a water
Speaker 2: and it works. Another one is Ocean Harvest. That's a
Speaker 2: blue label. It's a four to two three and it's
Speaker 2: a fish based fertilizer. Now I would use that one outside.
Speaker 2: You can use either one outside because it has a
Speaker 2: little bit of a fish oder, so if you have
Speaker 2: family cats, they're gonna have an opinion about that. But
Speaker 2: the Ocean Harvest blue labe as that's melly. It's just
Speaker 2: I prefer to use that one outside. But it works
Speaker 2: so well, and I can tell you a number of
Speaker 2: different plant pots that I've put it in that and
Speaker 2: the results that I've gotten from it. And Microlife products
Speaker 2: are as easy to find as anything in the world.
Speaker 2: You can go to Microlifefertilizer dot com to find places
Speaker 2: you can get them and to learn about some of
Speaker 2: their other products. But always keep a couple of those
Speaker 2: jugs on hand because you need to give a real
Speaker 2: quick watering in of something and it works. Doctor Hartman,
Speaker 2: Doctor Tim Hartman is my guest today. We're talking about
Speaker 2: all kinds of things related to fruit, and we're going
Speaker 2: to go to the woodlands and talk to Karen. Hello, Karen,
Speaker 2: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 23: Good morning.
Speaker 11: How are you this morning?
Speaker 2: Morning? Doing well?
Speaker 16: Good?
Speaker 24: I'm calling because we have a nectarine tree in our
Speaker 24: backyard that has started producing fruit the last couple of years,
Speaker 24: and we are at our wits end trying to figure
Speaker 24: out how to keep the squirrels and critters and bugs
Speaker 24: from eating all of them. We haven't gotten any.
Speaker 2: Wow for us either year well, and we've.
Speaker 24: Tried a few different things.
Speaker 15: Wondering if you have any suggestions.
Speaker 2: Okay, Doc Harmon. The question is you got a nectarine
Speaker 2: tray and they don't get to enjoy any of the
Speaker 2: fruit because their squirrels are running around there. What are
Speaker 2: those solutions? Remember, we can't recommend any ballistic solutions because
Speaker 2: it's yeah, so you can't eat. If you can't eat nectarine,
Speaker 2: you can eat squirrel if it tastes like ne Greene.
Speaker 2: They don't taste like all right, joking aside, Doc Harmon,
Speaker 2: what would you recommend?
Speaker 1: So, one humane solution that I've actually come up with
Speaker 1: that works pretty well is basically making a cage out
Speaker 1: of cylindrical cage out of chicken wire, poultry netting around
Speaker 1: the trunk, and you have to have it supported with
Speaker 1: something like PVC pipe or something like that. That's going
Speaker 1: to be an insulator, non conductive, non conductive. And then
Speaker 1: I actually run an electric fence charger. Already have an
Speaker 1: electric fence for the deer around my orchard, but I
Speaker 1: just run a hot wire over to that.
Speaker 3: It's going to shock the squirrel, but it's not going
Speaker 3: to kill it. It's not really going to hurt it.
Speaker 1: And if you can keep it from jumping from another tree,
Speaker 1: if you basically prevent it from going up that tree,
Speaker 1: it does work pretty well usually.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you squirrels can jump about eight feet,
Speaker 2: especially if they get a higher because I've had him
Speaker 2: get into a feeder that was eight feet away from
Speaker 2: a fence.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, I know, not even a flying squirrel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go, Karen. You've got any thoughts on.
Speaker 24: That, well, yeah, that's something we haven't tried.
Speaker 15: So I'm happy to try it.
Speaker 24: We clean that haven't worked, so yeah, anyway, Yeah.
Speaker 2: What happened to the climbshells? Well, Karen, tell me what
Speaker 2: happened with the clamshells?
Speaker 24: What the squirrels were able to open them? Either squirrels
Speaker 24: or raccoons.
Speaker 2: Oh they open them.
Speaker 15: Well, I've talked to and they still got through them.
Speaker 15: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Okay, squalls are smart. If you want to be entertained,
Speaker 2: go on YouTube and look at the contraptions people have
Speaker 2: tried to thwart squirrels with and watch the squirrels. It's sad,
Speaker 2: but it's very thanks Karry, I do okay, Yeah, appreciate,
Speaker 2: appreciate you call very much. Let's see here. We're going
Speaker 2: to go now to Russell in Paarland. Hey Russell, welcome
Speaker 2: to garden Line.
Speaker 3: Good morning.
Speaker 25: Got a grapefruit tree that's just three years old ish.
Speaker 25: Our previous one was killed in the freeze, and boy,
Speaker 25: I'm glad to hear the information that y'all gave about
Speaker 25: how to protect them from getting freeze. So it's about
Speaker 25: three years old and I'm really having trouble controlling the
Speaker 25: leaf miners. I'm using kneem oil, but that's all I'm using.
Speaker 25: Do you have any other suggestions?
Speaker 2: So you've been using the neeme oil, what would you
Speaker 2: recommend for citrus leaf miners and how do you go
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what's most commonly recommended for homeowners? It's going
Speaker 1: to be UH spinosid. That's the active ingredients spinosid.
Speaker 21: It is UH.
Speaker 1: There's conserve a lot of brands out there, but it
Speaker 1: is labeled for organic use. Mixed that with UH, and
Speaker 1: of course always make sure you follow the label, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people will mix that with oil, with
Speaker 1: a summer oil and will spray that on the shoots
Speaker 1: when they're a few inches long. And basically you want
Speaker 1: to kill those leaf minor larvae before they really get going.
Speaker 1: Of course, every time you've got a new flush of growth,
Speaker 1: you'll have to you'll have to repeat this.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, and what did you call that? That first?
Speaker 7: UH?
Speaker 2: Chemical spin spins It's it's spin like s p I
Speaker 2: N the letter O and then sad like you're sad
Speaker 2: because mixed? Okay with what mix it with?
Speaker 21: What?
Speaker 2: Mix it? Mix? The spinocid with summer oil. Summer oil,
Speaker 2: a light, very lightweight oil. Oil kind of evaporate. So yeah,
Speaker 2: a summer. Oh, would you be concerned about time of
Speaker 2: day spraying a summer oil on citrus.
Speaker 1: Citrus are really are renowned for being very tolerant of oil,
Speaker 1: whereas other plants you would burn them. But yeah, if
Speaker 1: you could do it like in the evening, is probably
Speaker 1: a safer bad. Yeah, if you really, if you're concerned
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: I might be What about even trying to do a
Speaker 2: little bit upward from underneath the leaf, because I know
Speaker 2: there's there's scale, insects and sometimes are up underneath.
Speaker 3: There will summer oil work on those or is it
Speaker 3: just too light weight? No, it'll it'll work.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oil's not a poison. It's mothers them. So that's
Speaker 2: why spraying upward where if a pest are hiding underneath
Speaker 2: the leaf, like sometimes sometimes spider manks, sometimes scale, certain
Speaker 2: kinds of scale will.
Speaker 25: Be up under Okay, wonderful, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you for the call. I appreciate that.
Speaker 10: Well.
Speaker 2: We're having a good time here on garden Line. Lots
Speaker 2: of questions and lots of things to talk about, and
Speaker 2: I'm about to hear the music that says we're at
Speaker 2: the top of the hour for the news. Tim I
Speaker 2: don't know where to go next. I mean, my brain
Speaker 2: is going in a thousand directions, but I let's do this.
Speaker 2: Let's when we come back, talk about some not so
Speaker 2: common fruits. That's good that people, And just to give
Speaker 2: you a little teaser, don't go away. If you've got
Speaker 2: friends that are interested in fruit, tell them to tune
Speaker 2: in the garden Line. If you want to give me
Speaker 2: a call seven to one to three two one two
Speaker 2: kt RH. We might talk about golden kiwi's who knows
Speaker 2: what that is? How about pineapple, guava? There's another one.
Speaker 2: We're going to get into some not so common fruit
Speaker 2: yet and yes, the quick answer is you can grow
Speaker 2: some of this stuff here. All right, all right, well,
Speaker 2: I just want to remind you that, uh when for
Speaker 2: the rest of today we're gonna be talking with doctor
Speaker 2: Hartman on fruit trees. I'll be back with just regular
Speaker 2: calls in the morning. We hear from six am to
Speaker 2: ten am. You can listen to garden Line on the radio.
Speaker 2: You can also listen to garden Line on the app,
Speaker 2: the iHeartMedia app, and I know people that do that.
Speaker 2: That way, you take your phone with you out in
Speaker 2: the garden. You could be right now you could be
Speaker 2: in your garden. I won't say pulling weeds. I know
Speaker 2: you don't allow weeds in your garden. You could be
Speaker 2: in your garden harvesting flowers and beautiful things. Listening to
Speaker 2: garden line. You see a bug, take a picture, email
Speaker 2: it to me and live from your garden. Is garden line.
Speaker 2: That's how that would work, all right. I'm not hearing
Speaker 2: music here in my ear, and I think we're about
Speaker 2: at that time. I see, okay, there we go. Just
Speaker 2: looking at my clock a little bit wrong. I want
Speaker 2: to remind you that OBA Palooza is coming up on
Speaker 2: August second, Saturday, August second. If you guys follow Joe Gardner,
Speaker 2: Joe Lample, he is outstanding. He's going to be speaking,
Speaker 2: given two talks there. I'll be giving a talk there
Speaker 2: myself on beneficial in a key ingredient and sustainable landscapes,
Speaker 2: all kinds of good organic information here now, it's at
Speaker 2: the United Way on wad Drive, the United Way of
Speaker 2: Greater Houston. If you want more information, go to OBA online.
Speaker 2: That's HbA online dot org. Slash register that's how you
Speaker 2: can register and find out more information about it. So
Speaker 2: there you go. Hope to be able to see you
Speaker 2: on Saturday, August second for the Obapalooza. I Love it
Speaker 2: Oba Police eight a m. Before pm. All right, all right, folks,
Speaker 2: we're back here we go. We are with today. I've
Speaker 2: got as a special guest doctor Tim Hartman, Assistant professor
Speaker 2: in the horticulture department at Texas A and M, but
Speaker 2: also state wide statewide fruit extension specialists. So if there
Speaker 2: is a fruit out there is he has probably either
Speaker 2: grown it. Every time I talk about some of these,
Speaker 2: go yeah, I got three of those at my house. Tim.
Speaker 2: One of the things I appreciate about the work you
Speaker 2: have done is being willing to jump out beyond just
Speaker 2: the peaches, plums, apples, pears, basics of fruit, and look
Speaker 2: at some of these other fruit that are quite unusual.
Speaker 2: And I'd like you to talk about that because you've
Speaker 2: actually done the research on some of these. Let's start
Speaker 2: with pineapple guava. That's a plant people plant for a hedge,
Speaker 2: and it's a beautiful hedge. The flowers are edible, with
Speaker 2: the pink flowers almost a cotton candy kind of fluffiness
Speaker 2: to them. Not that sweet, but you can grow it here.
Speaker 2: But if you just go down this store to buy
Speaker 2: a pineapple guava and you get two or three of them,
Speaker 2: they may not fruit well. And why is that and
Speaker 2: how would you tell somebody to have success with pineapple guava.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, just like we talked about avocado, you started
Speaker 1: from sea. They're not true to type. Same thing with
Speaker 1: pineapple guava. Generally, any plant you're going to get from
Speaker 1: a nursery, if it's a landscape to be a landscape plant,
Speaker 1: that pineapple guava is going to be from seed.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: The fruit in two or three years usually or be
Speaker 1: able to bloom in two or three years, but the
Speaker 1: quality may not be that good. Pineapple guavas also need
Speaker 1: cross pollinations, so you need two different ones. They have
Speaker 1: different genetics that bloom at the same time. So you
Speaker 1: usually recommend if you're trying to get fruit and you're
Speaker 1: just going with, you know, the run of the mill nursery,
Speaker 1: one do at least three and you can probably get fruit.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of varieties out there too.
Speaker 1: Improve varieties.
Speaker 2: Okay, and tell me a little bit about you did
Speaker 2: some heartiness research up in college station on pineapple guava
Speaker 2: and what kinds of things have we learned about them?
Speaker 2: In terms of their ability to take cold and then
Speaker 2: maybe a few varieties that you think might be superior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Doctor Dave Creech at SFA and I have been
Speaker 1: working for several years on a pineapple guava research project
Speaker 1: and we've got a little over forty varieties named varieties
Speaker 1: up in College station.
Speaker 2: Of course you do.
Speaker 1: And usually we say cold hardiness is around ten degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: Now that varies so much depending on you know, how
Speaker 1: hardened off they are, but I can tell you that
Speaker 1: you get below ten certainly six fahrenheit, which doesn't happen
Speaker 1: off and thank goodness, yes, I know South Louisiana got
Speaker 1: even colder than that this this past winter. That will
Speaker 1: do some damage to them. But yeah, varieties, a lot
Speaker 1: of them out there. One that we really like, and
Speaker 1: it's fairly easy to find, as easy as a pineapple
Speaker 1: guava variety is going to be defined, which is not
Speaker 1: super easy.
Speaker 3: But Apollo has done really well for us. It's an
Speaker 3: old variety.
Speaker 1: We've gotten pretty large fruit the size of you know,
Speaker 1: pretty about the size of a chicken egg or a
Speaker 1: large chicken egg. Pretty good sized, great quality, very productive
Speaker 1: ripens early, and we've been pretty happy with that variety.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, most of our listening area is way south
Speaker 2: College Station, and I think you would have less problems
Speaker 2: with how cold it gets. You mentioned the term hardening off,
Speaker 2: and for those of you who don't know what that means,
Speaker 2: basically that's does a tree is it out there? And
Speaker 2: it's bermuda shorts and flowery shirt one day and the
Speaker 2: next day it needs a parka. Okay, it wasn't. It
Speaker 2: didn't have time to get ready for that cold front.
Speaker 2: And so gradually cooling off is what you mean by
Speaker 2: hardening off, and that's important. So we could have a
Speaker 2: not hardened off guava even down south where it doesn't
Speaker 2: get as cold, but then a good hard cold could
Speaker 2: come through.
Speaker 3: And absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of a few years ago when we
Speaker 1: had that December freeze that killed a lot of our
Speaker 1: crepe myrtles to the ground to the station. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all about that, that conditioning beforehand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very important to do. So pineapple guava is a
Speaker 2: possibility now, that's uh. You said the ones in the
Speaker 2: stores are typically seedlings. Seedlings, did you.
Speaker 1: Get the nursery. Yeah, usually they're going to be seedlings.
Speaker 1: There are some nurseries mostly online, but there are some
Speaker 1: nurseries out there. The Douce sell name varieties. They're usually
Speaker 1: going to be grafted. They don't root from cuttings. We've
Speaker 1: been trying to prove that we're actually looking at tissue
Speaker 1: culture now, but most nurseries including uh, you know that's
Speaker 1: what we do as we propagate by grafting.
Speaker 2: Okay, we are talking with doctor Tim Hartman, fruit specialists
Speaker 2: for Texas with Texas A and m Aggrlife Extension Service.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to give us a call and ask
Speaker 2: a fruit question seven one three two to one two
Speaker 2: kt r age. Before we went to a break, I
Speaker 2: kind of teased the listeners with this thing called golden kiwi.
Speaker 2: What is a golden kiwi? And what have you learned
Speaker 2: in your research from them?
Speaker 10: Here?
Speaker 3: So golden kiwi fruit, if you haven't tried them, you
Speaker 3: need to.
Speaker 1: Sixty six last I checked sixty six species of kiwi
Speaker 1: of actin India.
Speaker 3: This is actin India, cheninzus.
Speaker 2: So do you have five at your house?
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 2: Do you have fifty five of the species at your house?
Speaker 16: No?
Speaker 3: I think at our research from I think we have
Speaker 3: about maybe forty or something.
Speaker 1: That Okay, I shouldn't. Don't encourage him. You're saying you're
Speaker 1: working with a new crop. You know, you want to
Speaker 1: cast that net wide in terms of genetics. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a cousin of that kind of funky fuzzy
Speaker 1: green kiwi fruit and it is native to China. But
Speaker 1: this is a yellow version and it's basically smooth. It
Speaker 1: has very little to no fuzz. Generally, yellow flesh tends
Speaker 1: to have less acid, tends to have a sweeter profile,
Speaker 1: more vitamin seed. I don't know if you've seen these.
Speaker 1: I've heard there at Kroger. I tasted them when I
Speaker 1: was in there's a red one now.
Speaker 2: Oh, you gave me a few from the lab, but
Speaker 2: they were all yellow.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, there is a red one now. When I
Speaker 1: was in New Zealand setting kiwi fruit in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I got to taste it. It was or less experimental.
Speaker 1: Now they're apparently in the on the shelves here, and
Speaker 1: that's a red version, red flesh version of the golden kiwi.
Speaker 2: All right, So we have trouble with kiwis and a
Speaker 2: lot that is fluctuating temperatures big time. So what's the
Speaker 2: difference between a golden kiwi and a regular kiwi in
Speaker 2: terms of trying to get it to live here.
Speaker 1: Well, the good news is for all of us who
Speaker 1: prefer golden kiwi based on my research, and I've worked
Speaker 1: a lot with Dave Preach at SFA on this too,
Speaker 1: we're partners in crime on this research. But the gold
Speaker 1: is actually much better adapted to us than the green.
Speaker 1: Why so, the issue with kiwi is cold heartiness. If
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, think with steria, okay, with steria
Speaker 1: on steroids. It's a big deciduous vine. The twines around
Speaker 1: in Alabama where they do a lot of research, they
Speaker 1: call them cut zoo. Don't worry, they're not invasive like that.
Speaker 2: But this is so trellis would almost be like a
Speaker 2: roof of of something overhead. Yes, that they're growing on
Speaker 2: a flat top.
Speaker 3: They want to be flat more or less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, not like a you're gonna have to have
Speaker 1: a really beefed up grape trellis if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to do that. But but yeah, so
Speaker 1: woody vine. And we've seen measured cold heartiness below zero fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: The problem is they've got to be like Skip and
Speaker 1: I were talking about they've got to be asleep. They
Speaker 1: have to really be well hardened off. So I've also
Speaker 1: seen plants killed to the ground, young plants by twenty
Speaker 1: five fahrenheit just because it was in the fall. They
Speaker 1: were not ready. They were going full throttle, full steam ahead.
Speaker 1: That plant wasn't conditioned and it got hit by an
Speaker 1: early hard freeze and killed to the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Boy, when that happened to creat myrtles up in
Speaker 2: the am area, I was shocked because it was myrtles
Speaker 2: or bread up north of Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty one.
Speaker 19: Did you do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So is this a golden kiwis typically grafted or un rated?
Speaker 1: Uh, they're usually grafted commercially, like in New Zealand and
Speaker 1: in Chile. They're going to be grafted onto a green
Speaker 1: kiwi roots to However, I'm actually advocating if you're going
Speaker 1: to try them here to grow them own rooted. They
Speaker 1: do root pretty easily from cuttings, okay, because it's the
Speaker 1: green key that is actually really susceptible to that to
Speaker 1: that freeze. Okay, the gold tends to go to sleep earlier.
Speaker 1: It didn't stay up and party late into the night
Speaker 1: into the fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good. Well, we're gonna hold that thought. I will
Speaker 2: probably come back to those. We've got a couple of
Speaker 2: callers on the line. Ruthie, you'll be first when we
Speaker 2: come back. Hang on, folks, lots about fruit today. Welcome
Speaker 2: back to the Garden Line. Good to have you with us.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to give me a call. I'm with
Speaker 2: doctor Tim Hartman today talking fruit. Uh seven one three
Speaker 2: two one two K t r H. We're gonna go
Speaker 2: out to Humble now and talk to Ruthie. Hey, Ruthie,
Speaker 2: welcome to the Garden Line.
Speaker 13: More, good morning, Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: And I do love that song though it's so cute.
Speaker 13: I am calling about my low quots I've had forever
Speaker 13: and they grow just really really well. There's specially to
Speaker 13: me because it's something that's kind of like a I
Speaker 13: don't know, an heirloom. I guess I've had them since
Speaker 13: I was a little kid in Victoria. But anyway, about
Speaker 13: three or four, about three or four years ago, I
Speaker 13: lost my kumquat tree to this strange looking thing. I
Speaker 13: learned a new word called fraft. There was these little
Speaker 13: white things sticking out of my kumquat, and I didn't
Speaker 13: know what to.
Speaker 2: Do with it?
Speaker 14: And were they anyway?
Speaker 2: Were they like toothpicks, Yeah, like toothpicks sticking Okay, yes,
Speaker 2: like little white toothticks.
Speaker 13: And I just knowed it about two months ago on
Speaker 13: my low quat. Is there any way to say that.
Speaker 13: I heard the word promethrin uh and tried that. But
Speaker 13: it's looking kind of.
Speaker 2: Sad because of where they live and what they feed on.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult. But I'm going to have doctor Hartmann comment,
Speaker 2: We've got a question about Ambrosia beetles on a low quat.
Speaker 2: They lost another different kind of plant to them, but
Speaker 2: it's definitely the tipics sticking out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, sorry to hear that to start off. Yes,
Speaker 1: Skip mentioned that's a tricky one because they really minor.
Speaker 3: I'm not in them all. I just don't want to.
Speaker 3: I want to offer that up.
Speaker 1: But they are actually uh, not really feeding on the
Speaker 1: wood itself, as my understanding, They're actually feeding on a
Speaker 1: fungus that that grows in those galleries, those tunnels that
Speaker 1: they make, and it's that fungus.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for that reason, I don't think that the
Speaker 1: stemic insecticide like a metacloprid uh dinoteph ran are going
Speaker 1: to be that effective. There may be some topical insecticides
Speaker 1: you could spray to try to keep them, you know,
Speaker 1: prevent them from getting into a healthy tree. Now, most
Speaker 1: of these bores and bro should be to Wallso now
Speaker 1: they will sometimes attack health the trees, but they tend
Speaker 1: to really go after they they kind of pick the uh,
Speaker 1: the straddlers and the herd. They go after the the old,
Speaker 1: that the weak or the really young trees. And so
Speaker 1: just trying to keep your tree as healthy as possible.
Speaker 2: That that's it.
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 13: Yeah, well that one got a little distressed from from
Speaker 13: the freeze.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I've seen those going to growers fields, you know,
Speaker 2: nursery growers that are growing containers, and.
Speaker 3: It just the will to have a stated golden Kiwi
Speaker 3: free even too golden.
Speaker 2: Okay, well ruthy uh didn't give you a lot of
Speaker 2: silver bullets.
Speaker 13: What should I do with the tree? Are they alive
Speaker 13: in there? And and they'll like you know, go through
Speaker 13: some kind of a larva pupa something stage and lay
Speaker 13: eggs and go to another tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do, they do have the life cycle. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: you could, I mean you could burn the branches that
Speaker 2: have it. It's not going to be they're not there,
Speaker 2: you know. Obviously they showed up from where was it,
Speaker 2: you know, on this tree. So but I wouldn't I
Speaker 2: wouldn't just leave it. Yeah, you could do that, all right,
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: By bye.
Speaker 2: Okay, bye bye. We're going to now go out to
Speaker 2: uh Tomball and talk to Keith. Hello, Keith, welcome to
Speaker 2: garden Line.
Speaker 23: Hey, good morning, guys, thanks for taking my call. I
Speaker 23: have a couple of meer lemons and they're in large
Speaker 23: pots and they every spring they bloom beautifully, they start
Speaker 23: to sprout fruit, but when the fruit gets to be
Speaker 23: about a quarter of an inch, they just disappear over
Speaker 23: a matter of a few days that I know something's
Speaker 23: eating them. I don't know if it's geckos, because it's
Speaker 23: got lots of geckos running around. I don't know if
Speaker 23: it's rodents, rats or mice. Is there anything that you
Speaker 23: guys can recommend that I can keep that from happening?
Speaker 23: I bet I had one hundred flowers, Yeah, two lemons.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, Well, Keith's got my lemon and a blue
Speaker 2: black crazy one hundred flowers and you've got two lemons.
Speaker 2: They hit about a quarter anch and fall off. And
Speaker 2: I know, uh, citrus will abort fruit that's not pollinated,
Speaker 2: but any thoughts.
Speaker 1: On them, they will go through several different waves of
Speaker 1: fruit drop.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, go ahead to say that, Keith.
Speaker 23: They're not being they're not being dropped. You're being eaten
Speaker 23: by a pet.
Speaker 2: Okay, he said there, he's not finding dropped fruit that
Speaker 2: it's being it's he thinks something's come in and eating
Speaker 2: because they're gone. Yeah, we need to go over there
Speaker 2: at night with a game cam up or some Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know anything that would just come in and
Speaker 2: nip the fruit. Are you seeing damage to the ends
Speaker 2: of shoots or leaves or anything.
Speaker 23: Yeah, yeah, definitely, they're just they're just like they're a
Speaker 23: little sald off.
Speaker 2: The leaves and stems are so.
Speaker 23: Well, the stem where the fruit bud is just just
Speaker 23: completely like it's been snapped off.
Speaker 3: The shoots still there on the grounds.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they're not shoots missing.
Speaker 3: Also, it's just the fruit that's missing fruit.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, gotcha on that one, Keith. We're not going
Speaker 2: to have an answer, are you on this? I don't
Speaker 2: know what would do it other than mischief. There's not
Speaker 2: a pest and we've been doing this for a long
Speaker 2: time that goes around and just nips the tiny lemons
Speaker 2: off a tree. Now, okay, let me throw one thing
Speaker 2: out there. I don't know if squirrels or rats would
Speaker 2: do something like that. I don't know why they went
Speaker 2: road would be my only guess. That's our best guess.
Speaker 2: So if you wanted to try dealing with it like
Speaker 2: a rodent problem, getting rid of rodents, that might help
Speaker 2: you might. Yeah, so that'd be a shot. And that's
Speaker 2: that's a shot from the hip.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, all right, thank you, all right, you bet
Speaker 3: appreciate that call.
Speaker 2: Now, Mark in Brenham, Hey, Mark, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 3: Thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 15: Two quick questions.
Speaker 2: I have a.
Speaker 18: Nectarine tree and a low quat tree and they both
Speaker 18: fruit like crazy.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 15: A low quat we typically can get some fruit off of.
Speaker 15: My daughter makes jelly out of it.
Speaker 18: But the nectarine tree something is like like stinging it,
Speaker 18: boring holes in the fruit. And I'm looking to know
Speaker 18: two things. What can I do to really stimulate production
Speaker 18: even more? And also what is a good organic insecticide
Speaker 18: to spray that fruit with?
Speaker 15: Once it's set.
Speaker 2: All right, Mark's got a question about it. He's got
Speaker 2: nectarines and loquats said, fruit like crazy loqus getting some
Speaker 2: fruit off of it. But the nectarines, you said, do
Speaker 2: you feel like something stinging the fruit? Is the fruit
Speaker 2: kind of turning dimpled because of that?
Speaker 15: It actually the fruit will get you know, a small
Speaker 15: baseball size.
Speaker 18: And then it's when I go out to try and
Speaker 18: pick it, you know, trying to let it ripen on
Speaker 18: the tree where it gets a little softer.
Speaker 15: There are actually holes in it that that are rotted.
Speaker 18: Around these holes, it appears that that something is either
Speaker 18: again stinging it or boring into it and eating the fruit.
Speaker 3: I'm just not sure.
Speaker 2: Then the fruit, have you split any of them open
Speaker 2: and looked for Have you split any of them open
Speaker 2: and looked for a little worm around the seed? You know?
Speaker 18: Skip, I haven't, okay, As I said, Unfortunately, I go
Speaker 18: out there one day it's pristine and beautiful and it
Speaker 18: seems like I'm trying to let ripe it on the tree,
Speaker 18: and then the next next day or two, it's all
Speaker 18: on the ground.
Speaker 2: Something is bored into these doctor Harmon and uh, it
Speaker 2: just sounds like plumb corculio to me, But do you
Speaker 2: know anything else from the outside of a peach just
Speaker 2: boor straight on into it.
Speaker 1: It kind of sounds like peach twig or maybe they
Speaker 1: will go on the fruit itself. Yeah, they will go
Speaker 1: straight in, yeah, before pit hardening, peach twig bor and
Speaker 1: it'll also attack the shoots too.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there you go, that's a possibility. Uh, you
Speaker 2: know you're not going to want to spray your fruit
Speaker 2: at that stage. Are you trying to deal with it
Speaker 2: at a time or is it when they're young or well,
Speaker 2: there's almost a baseball side. I mean you used toy
Speaker 2: attacked a little bit earlier. But I mean we do
Speaker 2: for you know, peach and nectarine, they are a tricky crop.
Speaker 2: They are a high input crop, and so we do
Speaker 2: typically if we're really trying to maximize production, we'll do
Speaker 2: a cover spray every ten to fourteen days, a fung
Speaker 2: aside and insect aside. Now you don't have to do that,
Speaker 2: but again that's if you want maximum yield and fruit
Speaker 2: quality and everything. Yeah. Paches have a list of enemies,
Speaker 2: including a plumb curculio, which when you open that fruit
Speaker 2: you'll find a little worm inside the extra protein. Yeah,
Speaker 2: extra protein for you. The stink bugs will get on
Speaker 2: them and mess with the fruit. We've got leaf diseases
Speaker 2: and other things. But if you're up there in the
Speaker 2: Brenna mar you can talk to your AGR Life Extension
Speaker 2: office picture too. Yeah, and you could also send me
Speaker 2: a picture if you want to do that. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: can pass that along. Make sure, in fact, if you
Speaker 2: could do it in the next fifteen twenty minutes, we'll
Speaker 2: take a look at it here live on the show today.
Speaker 15: But if not, just unfortunately yeah, unfortunately no, but and
Speaker 15: I have seen quite a few.
Speaker 18: The foliage is beautiful, but as I said, the fruit
Speaker 18: just are getting zapped, and I have seen quite a
Speaker 18: few stink.
Speaker 15: Bugs in and around.
Speaker 18: So yeah, but I will try to get a picture
Speaker 18: of the fruit if there's any left on the ground,
Speaker 18: and I will get an email and send it to you.
Speaker 2: Skip all right, Yeah, show me the outside of the
Speaker 2: fruit and then cut Yeah, show me the outside of
Speaker 2: the fruit and then cut it open and let's look
Speaker 2: in the inside. See if you've seen any worms inside,
Speaker 2: and make sure of those two. Thanks, thanks a lot, Mark,
Speaker 2: I appreciate your call. Yeah, we're going to go to
Speaker 2: break here Liam in Brazoria. We will come to you
Speaker 2: first when we get with this news break in about
Speaker 2: ten seconds, so just hang on for the rest of you.
Speaker 2: Seven one three two one two K t R H.
Speaker 2: We'd like to visit with doctor Hartman about fruit. Hey,
Speaker 2: welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have you with us.
Speaker 2: You would like to give us a call. I'm visiting
Speaker 2: with doctor Tim Hartman, who is an assistant professor tex
Speaker 2: A and M Horticulture Department and state wide fruit specialist,
Speaker 2: and we're talking about every kind of fruit you can imagine,
Speaker 2: entering all kinds of calls about fruit questions. Uh, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to go straight to the calls. We're going
Speaker 2: to head out to Brazoria and talk to Liam this morning. Hello, Liam,
Speaker 2: Welcome to Garden Line. Patty skip.
Speaker 11: A contry.
Speaker 12: A few years ago, the.
Speaker 11: Cawer company come in and put a guy whire.
Speaker 22: We're almost right in the middle.
Speaker 12: Run over a pecan tree that was okay uh uh
Speaker 12: A friend of mine gave me and uh it was
Speaker 12: a graph tree, and I was wanting to know if
Speaker 12: I could take a branch of it and actually get uh.
Speaker 11: Off of it and start rooting it from off of
Speaker 11: a limb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well, uh earlier I don't know if you're
Speaker 2: listening to the show, but okay, we were talking about
Speaker 2: juvenile versus mature and how we want would to be
Speaker 2: mature in order to be able to bear in this
Speaker 2: case pecans or not. But it is essentially impossible to
Speaker 2: root a cutting from a pecan. It just you're not
Speaker 2: going to have success. But what you can do if
Speaker 2: you go to the Aggie Horticulture website and look at
Speaker 2: the fruit and nut resources. It's a little click right
Speaker 2: there on the front page. You will see in the
Speaker 2: section of all the stuff on fruit trees there's something
Speaker 2: called the inlay and four flap graph methods. And so
Speaker 2: if you got a seedling and plant it, just get
Speaker 2: a pecan somewhere, plant them in a pot, do several
Speaker 2: pots so you make sure you get one out of it,
Speaker 2: and when they get up to a certain size, you
Speaker 2: could then take a bud i mean a stick off
Speaker 2: of your pecan tree in the winter and graft it
Speaker 2: onto the seedling tree that you plant, so you could
Speaker 2: propagate it that way, but you need to watch the
Speaker 2: videos and take some time. It's not super easy to do.
Speaker 2: But it's very doable. I've done it myself. Okay, Well
Speaker 2: thanks all right, sir, you bet, thanks, thanks for the call.
Speaker 2: Appreciate that. So we were talking about the golden kiwis
Speaker 2: a minute ago, and a question I had was about
Speaker 2: the chilling hours. You know it with so many fruit,
Speaker 2: that's very important, and so what about those chilling hours
Speaker 2: on that? Where can you plant golden kiwis around?
Speaker 1: So that's that's the hard part, because you've got the
Speaker 1: cold hardiness in, You've got the chilling issue. So for
Speaker 1: a plant that is modestly cold hardy kiwi Also, most
Speaker 1: of the varieties have a pretty high chilling requirement. So
Speaker 1: by high, I mean we're talking seven hundred to one
Speaker 1: thousand hours. The Auburn varieties has that really both totally.
Speaker 1: Both gold Golden Dragon, AU Golden Dragon AU Golden Sunshine
Speaker 1: Dragon has done the best for us. It's an Auburn
Speaker 1: University variety, but it needs at least seven hundred hours
Speaker 1: to bear. And so you know you're looking at being
Speaker 1: pretty far north, you know, probably toward I twenty and
Speaker 1: of course then you got that cold hardinessue cold heartiness issue.
Speaker 1: I still think dragon Golden Dragon and it's a female.
Speaker 1: They're separate male and female plants. You would need the
Speaker 1: male c K Dash three, also known as meteor. That's
Speaker 1: the mail the pollenizer that goes with it. I still
Speaker 1: think those are the best for Texas. Now we are
Speaker 1: testing some lower chill varieties. We think they only need
Speaker 1: about three to four hundred hours. Unfortunately, they're not available
Speaker 1: to the public yet, but maybe that'll hopefully that'll change
Speaker 1: in the next several years.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, that's a lot of good information on this.
Speaker 2: By the way, we're talking about unusual fruits and stuff
Speaker 2: that I just want to make it really clear that
Speaker 2: on these kind of obscure things. Please, if you are
Speaker 2: thinking about commercial fruit production, we're not talking to you
Speaker 2: when we're talking about these. We're talking about homeowners that
Speaker 2: are wanting to go to great links to try to
Speaker 2: grow something in the house. Doctor Hartman and I were
Speaker 2: just talking a while ago about, you know, in the
Speaker 2: backyard you can do all kinds of things that are
Speaker 2: not practical commercially, and so I just want people to
Speaker 2: not go away thinking, oh, I live in Huntsville, I'm
Speaker 2: going to plan an avocado tree. Well, no, don't do that.
Speaker 2: Go to the store. They have avocados there. Now back
Speaker 2: to the phones to Marty in Fairfield. Hey Marty, welcome
Speaker 2: to Guardline.
Speaker 13: Good morning she both of you.
Speaker 22: Hey, I have I got the tail end of your
Speaker 22: discussion on blackberries. But I was donated a punka BlackBerry.
Speaker 14: It's in a pot.
Speaker 22: He told me to put it in my garden that
Speaker 22: I don't have a room for it. How big does
Speaker 22: it get? Can I put it in a big pot?
Speaker 4: And what do I see?
Speaker 21: It?
Speaker 7: All?
Speaker 12: Right?
Speaker 2: Here we go?
Speaker 19: Uh?
Speaker 2: Punkah BlackBerry was given in a pot stowing a pot?
Speaker 2: Can she grow it in a bigger pot?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: And you how do you feed it? How do you
Speaker 2: take care of it to have success? On a punka? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So blackberries they can be grown in a pot. They're
Speaker 1: not a woody plant. They're not, you know, a shrub
Speaker 1: or tree. I think in general twenty twenty five gallon
Speaker 1: pots should be adequate. Doesn't mean you have to provide
Speaker 1: that size right now, but but ultimately that's what's going
Speaker 1: to be best. I would fertilize it with a slower
Speaker 1: least fertilizer. You could use Osma code or something like that.
Speaker 1: Most of these plants, including blackberries, most of these fruiting
Speaker 1: plants primarily need nitrogen. We also want to fertilize pretty
Speaker 1: early in the spring and then not really fertilized after
Speaker 1: after June. We're talking about acclamation hardiness. We want those
Speaker 1: plants to kind of slow down after June, not be
Speaker 1: really juicy going.
Speaker 3: Into the fall. Not as big of a deal for BlackBerry.
Speaker 2: But now, what about in a container for tralising a punko?
Speaker 2: What would you do because it's got some long vigorous shoots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, punka is kind of unique in that it's it's
Speaker 1: not a really vigorous plant. It has it's pretty dwarfy
Speaker 1: the internet, the internetes. The buds are really close together,
Speaker 1: so it's pretty erect on its own. So tipping, we
Speaker 1: we recommend just pinching the tip out of the really
Speaker 1: tall shoots induced branching.
Speaker 3: That'll help.
Speaker 1: But you could make a trail us out of cattle
Speaker 1: panel or something like that. Even a tomato cage, what
Speaker 1: are the real the largest tomato cage you could get
Speaker 1: would probably at least help.
Speaker 2: You'd have to secure it to the pot and then
Speaker 2: be ready when the wind blows for that pot not
Speaker 2: to blow over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so on your pot, make sure that you've
Speaker 1: got some weight in there or maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of sand or something in that substrate.
Speaker 2: All right, Marty, did that answer it?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yes, thank you so much.
Speaker 11: Good one.
Speaker 2: All right, Hey, I've never had a punk BlackBerry, but
Speaker 2: I'm so looking forward to half of the ones you grow.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you ahead of time for doing it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye, bye bye. Oh, don't quite have enough time
Speaker 2: to take Tom here before we go to a break,
Speaker 2: Tom and Montgomery. I tell you what, let's start. Let's
Speaker 2: start this call and see if we may have to
Speaker 2: carry you over. Hey, Tom, welcome to garden line. Hey you,
Speaker 2: good morning guys.
Speaker 19: Just a quick question.
Speaker 17: God yellows washed cercodillo squash lees are beautiful, growing just nicely.
Speaker 17: But my fruit seems to come out about let's just
Speaker 17: call it three inches, and then they start to shrivel up.
Speaker 11: I just can't get them to go past that.
Speaker 2: Okay, do you see whiskery growth out on the belly
Speaker 2: button under the fruit or not? You may not be
Speaker 2: at the end of it, or does it, Yeah, at
Speaker 2: the end of it, or does it just shrivel where
Speaker 2: the bloom attached to the fruit.
Speaker 19: Yeah, it starts to shrivel up, but the fruit itself.
Speaker 11: I guess it starts to shrivel up as well.
Speaker 2: So okay, I don't know how long.
Speaker 3: So what that is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on your squash, you have separate male and female blossoms.
Speaker 2: And what's happening is it's not getting pollinated or it's
Speaker 2: it's not it may you know. It could be a
Speaker 2: lack of bees carrying the pollen. It could be because
Speaker 2: of temperatures and things. Whatever reason, it doesn't make it
Speaker 2: in pollination, and it does shrivel up. Now, sometimes when
Speaker 2: we have rainy weather, like we've had a lot of here,
Speaker 2: and when the bloom falls off, it's like a little
Speaker 2: wet wound on the end of the fruit and you'll
Speaker 2: get a disease that called chow and offer a rot
Speaker 2: that actually starts to rot into the fruit. But just
Speaker 2: the shriveling itself.
Speaker 19: Uh.
Speaker 2: For for whatever reason, viable seed did not develop and
Speaker 2: that and that that or has died and that squash
Speaker 2: is not gonna yeah, not gonna make it for that reason.
Speaker 2: So not a lot you can do other than don't
Speaker 2: kill your bees.
Speaker 11: Yeah you can, you out there. Yeah, I see cucumber
Speaker 11: as well.
Speaker 19: They seem to love the cucumber.
Speaker 11: I think one bee just hopping back and forth.
Speaker 2: But well, and you can go out with a little
Speaker 2: you can artist paint brush. Uh, just get some pollen
Speaker 2: from the male flower, take it to the female flower
Speaker 2: and do that. You need to do it every morning
Speaker 2: early in the morning for the blooms shrink up.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll just pick a male bloom, pull the petals
Speaker 2: off and use that anther just to go around dabbing
Speaker 2: it on the female blooms without the brush. But either
Speaker 2: way you go about it or work. All right, sir,
Speaker 2: time forth, thank you, kay, thank you, all bye. All right, folks,
Speaker 2: take a quick break. We'll be right back with our
Speaker 2: last short segment with doctor Hartman. All right, welcome back
Speaker 2: to Guardline, folks. We got our last segment of the morning,
Speaker 2: and we had been enjoying picking the brain of doctor
Speaker 2: Tim Hartman. He is a Associate professor in the Department
Speaker 2: of Horticulture at Texas A and M, and state wide
Speaker 2: fruit specialist. He deals with commercial fruit growers all over
Speaker 2: the state and does a lot of research both in
Speaker 2: college station and elsewhere, looking into hey, can you grow
Speaker 2: pineapple gava here? What's the best variety? And on and on.
Speaker 2: We've talked about some of that already, and so it's
Speaker 2: been a great opportunity to have you as a resource.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that very much. Any other tip that you
Speaker 2: might give a home fruit grower in general about having
Speaker 2: success or it could be about a specific fruit, or
Speaker 2: just in general, because people go they spent a considerable
Speaker 2: amount of money on a fruit tree, and then we
Speaker 2: don't want them to and disappointment. You mentioned importance of
Speaker 2: sunlight and importance of drainage.
Speaker 3: Earlier on talked a little bit about fertilizer.
Speaker 1: We don't when we plant a new tree, especially a
Speaker 1: bear root tree, we do not fertilize it. We want
Speaker 1: that thing to develop a root system before we push
Speaker 1: a lot of shoot growth on it. Later in the spring,
Speaker 1: you can give it a little bit of fertilizer, but
Speaker 1: otherwise we don't want to really put anything but soil
Speaker 1: back in that hole when we plant.
Speaker 2: So now we've got a lot of fruit being grown
Speaker 2: in containers and we have the circling root issue that
Speaker 2: can happen. I always tell people to cut the roots
Speaker 2: on the outside. I know that's a shock to the plant,
Speaker 2: but I did I think at an Arborgate Garden Center
Speaker 2: nursery up in Tumble where we pulled a tree out
Speaker 2: of a pot, cut the roots, put it in, and
Speaker 2: came back two weeks later and there's all these fresh
Speaker 2: white roots coming right out of that cuts. Don't be
Speaker 2: afraid to do it, but that's important if you wanted
Speaker 2: to establish well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially per simmons and pecans are the worst about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're going to get real big. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: will really do that temperate circling, Okay.
Speaker 2: So make sure and take care of that so you
Speaker 2: can have success. Looks like we may have time for
Speaker 2: a quick call here, got one coming in. Just thinking
Speaker 2: about fruit and mistakes that people often make. I do
Speaker 2: see the lack of sunlight on a lot of plants,
Speaker 2: even in a vegetable garden. If you're growing leafy greens,
Speaker 2: it can take some. Shade doesn't want it, but it
Speaker 2: can take some. But if it's got roots and fruit
Speaker 2: that are full of carbohydrates, you got to put it
Speaker 2: in the sun. So roots and fruit in the most
Speaker 2: sun and leafy greens, if you've got to shove something
Speaker 2: in the shade, they'll take it. But with fruit, we
Speaker 2: have some that do, okay. I've seen some citrus in
Speaker 2: a little bit of shade, or maybe a fig tree
Speaker 2: and a little bit of shade.
Speaker 3: Blueberries, especially blueberry berries, are pretty forgiving.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if you're determined to have one and you
Speaker 2: just can't sell your trees down, blueberry might be one,
Speaker 2: but not a lot of shade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you still want at least six hours of full sun,
Speaker 1: and try to if you're going to give it shade,
Speaker 1: try to give it afternoon shades. So you would plant
Speaker 1: that tree, that plant to the east if your tree
Speaker 1: or your house or whatever is blocking it.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's we got a call here. We're
Speaker 2: going to run try to get him in here. Allan
Speaker 2: in Texas City. Hey, welcome to garden mane Alan. Good morning.
Speaker 4: My quick question is I just planted a couple a
Speaker 4: lemon and a lime tree, probably just a few months ago,
Speaker 4: out in the middle of the yard. It gets about
Speaker 4: ten hours of aur longer of sunlight. But they're not
Speaker 4: doing too well, and I thought I planted them properly.
Speaker 4: My question is, can I do playing them the way
Speaker 4: I've been listening to y'all today, tight them correctly?
Speaker 2: Okay, boy, that's a very good question. Doc Harmon Allen's
Speaker 2: planted elemon and a lime and they're just not doing well.
Speaker 2: They get plenty of sun, like ten hours of sun.
Speaker 2: But at this point, would he dig them up? He
Speaker 2: was listening to us talk about the soil. Would he
Speaker 2: dig him up now and then redo that bed, make
Speaker 2: it right and then replant them or I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking out loud. Would you have him wait
Speaker 2: till fall?
Speaker 12: Or what?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if if you're convinced it's kind of a lose
Speaker 1: lose situation with respect to the soil, yeah you could
Speaker 1: dig them up, but yeah, I would wait till fall
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 3: This is just such a I mean, we're going to
Speaker 3: the heat of summer. This is such a tough time.
Speaker 2: Because no matter how careful you are, alan when you
Speaker 2: dig it up, you're going to tear up a lot
Speaker 2: of the active uptaking root system of those plants.
Speaker 4: Okay, Like where I live at it used to be
Speaker 4: like a cow pasture, so nothing but a sandy soily area.
Speaker 4: So I added some soil to it, and you know,
Speaker 4: dug it and made the rootball ground level.
Speaker 2: But now I want to like that. I don't think
Speaker 2: they're doing too well. So I just thought about what
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I don't know. It's situation doesn't sound
Speaker 2: too bad to me. Lots of sand. Now, when you
Speaker 2: said you made the root ball ground level, you're talking
Speaker 2: about the top of the of the cylinder of roots
Speaker 2: that you bought in the pot, or are you talking
Speaker 2: about you your whole plant was above ground level?
Speaker 4: What the black better dug a hole out? I would
Speaker 4: have set the pot in the ground. That top of
Speaker 4: that root ball would have been ground level.
Speaker 2: Oh good, okay, well, that's good. You didn't plant it
Speaker 2: too deep. But in a lot of sand. I don't know.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't shouldn't have you do have a lot of sand?
Speaker 4: Yes, nothing, but practically that.
Speaker 2: Sind and clay. Well, the bottom line is this, does
Speaker 2: it drain well or not? And I don't know what
Speaker 2: how high that clay level is and the underneath there.
Speaker 2: But you can dig a hole with a little postolele
Speaker 2: egger or just dig straight down. H Maybe I would
Speaker 2: go like a foot and a half and fill it
Speaker 2: with water and see how long it takes for the
Speaker 2: water to drain out of that hole. If it drains
Speaker 2: out in eight hours, you're good. You're good. If it
Speaker 2: takes it twenty four hours. You're okay. If it takes
Speaker 2: it two days, you got it. You definitely need to
Speaker 2: raise good for.
Speaker 4: That, Okay, Okay, I do see a lot of spiders
Speaker 4: in it. That calls me poet of the seven does.
Speaker 2: No, sir, there, No spiders are good. They're there to
Speaker 2: eat their their cornivores, and they're they're eating other insects.
Speaker 3: Love spiders.
Speaker 2: We love to see spiders.
Speaker 3: Spider.
Speaker 2: I love spiders. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 4: I've never seen so many spiders in my and in
Speaker 4: my backyard. I haven't any place I've lived in my life.
Speaker 4: But but okay, thank you.
Speaker 2: There you go. Well, let them live until you know,
Speaker 2: we said Faull. But if if you can let them
Speaker 2: go into even a cooler season, it's a little you know,
Speaker 2: a little less stress on them. But late fall, maybe November,
Speaker 2: it might be a good time to do the digging. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, thank you, Ellen, appreciate that. A couple of
Speaker 2: minutes here, how do we wind up our time on
Speaker 2: so many more questions and so little time? Okay, here,
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Subpruit requires pollinators, and some don't. Peaches don't,
Speaker 2: and figs don't, and per simmons really don't need it.
Speaker 19: Uh.
Speaker 2: But then we got these things like blueberries and plums
Speaker 2: and pears, apple that are kind of in between. You know,
Speaker 2: so what what would you recommend on those things and
Speaker 2: what like? Why would you I'm just going to cut
Speaker 2: to the chack. Why would you plant two different blueberries
Speaker 2: because one blueberry could have some fruit on it? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I get this question all the time. I'll
Speaker 1: give away a tree or whatever do I need to okay,
Speaker 1: And the question is do we need cross pollination? Okay, apples, pears,
Speaker 1: a lot of plums, I'm sure, blueberries in general. Okay,
Speaker 1: A lot of these crops need cross pollination. They are
Speaker 1: not capable of pollinating themselves.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at I don't know, saying a
Speaker 1: Dorset gold apple, okay, you need another apple tree to
Speaker 1: pollinate that tree. Okay, doesn't do any good to have
Speaker 1: another Dorset gold. That is, basically, if you have two
Speaker 1: Dorset Golds, you're basically doing self pollination. Still you plant
Speaker 1: something like an anna apple though next to it, you're
Speaker 1: basically you have two varieties that are genetically different. They
Speaker 1: bloom at the same time, they are swapping pollen with
Speaker 1: each other. They swap pollen and they will set fruit.
Speaker 1: And even varieties like Anna is a self fruitful apple,
Speaker 1: Methley is a self fruitful plum. Even these self fruitful varieties,
Speaker 1: in these crops that normally need cross pollination, they will
Speaker 1: set better. Actually you'll get more fruit generally, like when
Speaker 1: blueberries get larger fruit if you get that cross pollination. Okay,
Speaker 1: And of course you need the insects to move that
Speaker 1: pollen around.
Speaker 2: All right, And that's very important and a good point.
Speaker 2: And when someone has a lonely hearts club tree that
Speaker 2: needs a pollinator and it's blooming, you could go to
Speaker 2: a neighbor of a different variety, put it in a
Speaker 2: coke can full of lot or tie up to the
Speaker 2: and let the bees visit both. How often do you
Speaker 2: think you ought to replace those branches? Maybe every couple
Speaker 2: of days.
Speaker 3: Depends on the crop, but yeah, probably twice a week
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 2: Well, that'll give you time to go buy that other
Speaker 2: tree so that your poor tree has a partner and
Speaker 2: have good fruit.
Speaker 3: Or if you're feeling really adventurous, you could try grafting
Speaker 3: a branch.
Speaker 2: O there you go, oh wow, you got fruit fruit cock.
Speaker 2: We've been talking with doctor Tim Hartman today from the
Speaker 2: Horticulture Department in Texas, A and M fruit specialists. Tim,
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough. This has been great, as
Speaker 2: as you could tell from the calls that we're coming in.
Speaker 2: People love fruit, good topic, good information. This has been fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, all right, thank you very
Speaker 2: much for coming. Well, folks, there you go. I'll be
Speaker 2: back on guard Line six am tomorrow morning. I'll be
Speaker 2: there with a cup of coffee. Will you show up.
Speaker 2: I hope you will be there from six to ten. Remember,
Speaker 2: you can listen on the radio, you can listen on
Speaker 2: the iHeartMedia app either way, and we'll be wide open
Speaker 2: for questions during the six and seven o'clock hour at
Speaker 2: least