Speaker 1: Success. And you know, it's easy to get excited about
Speaker 1: a tomato plant because you can taste the tomatoes before
Speaker 1: you even get the plant home. Right, It's easy to
Speaker 1: get excited about flowers because they're gorgeous, maybe fragrant, maybe
Speaker 1: attract butterflies or that's easy. But if you want to
Speaker 1: realize those dreams and those hopes, you got to start
Speaker 1: in the soil. Sometimes the brown stuff isn't so exciting. Personally,
Speaker 1: I get excited about it. I mean I could lay
Speaker 1: in a polo composts and make compost angels and just
Speaker 1: be happy as a clam. But for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's dirt, that's brown, that it's something
Speaker 1: I have to do so I can have flowers. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if I can't talk you into enjoying compost as an
Speaker 1: end in and of itself, at least let me tell you.
Speaker 1: If you want those flowers to look good, you got
Speaker 1: to start with the foundation that the plants are going
Speaker 1: to thrive in, because plants live in their roots. So
Speaker 1: there we go. That is my constant every show, public service.
Speaker 1: And then because that's where I see most people make
Speaker 1: their mistakes. When the soil isn't right. The plants won't
Speaker 1: be happy, and you won't be happy because you won't
Speaker 1: be enjoying the things that you get to enjoy. Last
Speaker 1: year was a hammering year when it came to storms.
Speaker 1: We had two that knocked the power out for extended
Speaker 1: periods of time. Family members in the area were out
Speaker 1: of power for two about they've been two weeks, maybe longer.
Speaker 1: And it's just crazy. And basically the reason the power
Speaker 1: goes down is because the trees. That's one of the
Speaker 1: single most significant factors is the fact that trees break
Speaker 1: a limb, the tree falls over whatever, and it takes
Speaker 1: power out on a storm. And you know, we don't
Speaker 1: know when those storms are coming. They may come even
Speaker 1: in the winter time with a nice storm or something.
Speaker 1: They're unpredictable. But what you do have control over is
Speaker 1: making sure your trees are as strong as they can be.
Speaker 1: And I encourage you when you planted tree, start training
Speaker 1: it from day one into a strong structural form. And
Speaker 1: there's information out there. You can learn how to do it,
Speaker 1: or you can hire somebody to come in and do it,
Speaker 1: but start from day one. Because trees develop bad structural problems.
Speaker 1: They just do It's kind of like people picking up
Speaker 1: bad habits and they're harder to break later when you
Speaker 1: don't when you allow yourself to pick them up and
Speaker 1: establish them early on. And so if you let a tree,
Speaker 1: a young tree, develop a real narrow branch angle, that
Speaker 1: branch is going to get that situation's going to get
Speaker 1: worse year after year after year, until someday you come
Speaker 1: out and that branch is split off because it was
Speaker 1: poorly attached. There wasn't as much strength in the attachment
Speaker 1: as there could have been. You got to take care
Speaker 1: of your trees. And unless you're a certified arbist, know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, a specialist in trees, just a
Speaker 1: very experienced arbuss. Whatever you are out there, you're not
Speaker 1: going to know how to do it right. And marnspoon
Speaker 1: More knows how to do it right. Martin is with
Speaker 1: Affordable Tree. That's his company. He and his wife Joe
Speaker 1: run the company Affordable Tree Service. And if you've not
Speaker 1: just listen to this. If you can't remember the last
Speaker 1: time you had your trees pruned and evaluated for health,
Speaker 1: now's the time. Get it done now. Uh You everything
Speaker 1: that an experienced person like Martin can do to a
Speaker 1: tree just helps build resiliency in it. Now, when we
Speaker 1: get a hurricane come through, that'll blow a house over.
Speaker 1: I mean you, you know there's things that are going
Speaker 1: to happen to trees. But there's so much you can
Speaker 1: do to increase the strength and to get you through
Speaker 1: the storms. It should not be causing problems. Martin Spoon
Speaker 1: more Affordable Tree Service. Here's the number seven one three
Speaker 1: six nine nine two six sixty three. I'll say that again.
Speaker 1: Seven one three six nine nine two six six three.
Speaker 1: You can swing by the website at Afftree Service dot com.
Speaker 1: But Martin come out and he evalue at your trees.
Speaker 1: He can give you an estimate on what needs to
Speaker 1: be done, including pruning, including things like deep root feeding.
Speaker 1: For example, maybe you need some advice on you know
Speaker 1: you're gonna put a trench in toward the house and
Speaker 1: that's gonna take out a bunch of tree roots. Martin
Speaker 1: can advise you on the best way to go about that,
Speaker 1: what needs to be done. He is able to do
Speaker 1: a lot of things from root barriers to you name it.
Speaker 1: Just call him, have him come out, have him take
Speaker 1: a look. He'll explain what's what's wrong. What's going on,
Speaker 1: and maybe nothing's wrong. Maybe maybe it's fine. It just
Speaker 1: needs a little support during the summertimes. But this is
Speaker 1: pruning season, and don't delay on this. Just go ahead
Speaker 1: and get it done. Martin Spoon More Affordable Tree seven
Speaker 1: one three, six nine nine two six sixty three. All right,
Speaker 1: that was my best effort at making you making sure
Speaker 1: you have a long term success. You know, the most
Speaker 1: valuable plant in your landscape is a tree. It is
Speaker 1: a lot of other good, beautiful plants, but when it
Speaker 1: comes to trees, you can't fix broken bad pruning practices
Speaker 1: is what I mean by broken. Now, you can go in,
Speaker 1: you can clean it up, you can try to make
Speaker 1: the best of it. But when you allow somebody that
Speaker 1: just happens to own a pick up a chainsaw and
Speaker 1: sticks a business card in your door to train your
Speaker 1: trees and they do a bad job, that is for life. Again,
Speaker 1: there's things that a good tree person can do to
Speaker 1: fix it a little bit, but the damage is for life,
Speaker 1: and the weakening of the structural integrity is for life.
Speaker 1: So don't let people touch your trees. Don't know what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and don't delay. The longer you delay, the worse.
Speaker 1: The problem gets We like to be ostriches and put
Speaker 1: our head in the sand because we don't want to
Speaker 1: deal with this right now. Well, I'm telling you delaying
Speaker 1: makes it a lot worse, could make it more expensive,
Speaker 1: but definitely takes away from the value of your home.
Speaker 1: You know how much a tree add to the value
Speaker 1: of your home. Now imagine that tree being split in
Speaker 1: a storm, and now you're going to sell out the
Speaker 1: same house and you got a tree that's half a tree.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. It's worth investing to take
Speaker 1: care of things like that. All right, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to run here, take a little break. I'll be right
Speaker 1: back by the way. Our phone number ought to give
Speaker 1: you that since this is a call in show seven
Speaker 1: to one three two one two kt r H. Seven
Speaker 1: one three two one two kt r H. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. All right, Good morning, and welcome back to
Speaker 1: Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricker, and we're here
Speaker 1: to help you have a more beautiful garden, a more
Speaker 1: bountiful landscape. And this is very important more fun in
Speaker 1: the process. Gardening is fun. Gardening should be fun. Let's
Speaker 1: figure out how to make it fun for you. If
Speaker 1: you've been struggling along with something, give me a call
Speaker 1: seven one three two one two kt RH. We're going
Speaker 1: to run now out to Meadows Place and talk to Girardo. Hello, Girardo,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden line. Uh all right, hello Girardo. We'll
Speaker 1: get Oh there we go. I got you, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm well, I'm well. How can we help today?
Speaker 2: Heard last on last week's show, you own a bunch
Speaker 2: of peach trees back back in the day, And I
Speaker 2: have a couple of peach trees? What do I need
Speaker 2: to uh spray on them? Do I start spraying something
Speaker 2: on them? I mean, because we just had the cold weather,
Speaker 2: all the leaves fell off, so, you know, and dormant
Speaker 2: and stuff to uh young, should I go ahead and
Speaker 2: do a dormant spray? I figured you'd be the man asked.
Speaker 2: Is you're like you owned a bunch of them?
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Did so right now. The only spring we would be
Speaker 1: doing is is dormant oil sprays. And you want to
Speaker 1: do that before the new foliage comes out. But as
Speaker 1: as you wait a little long, just watch the buds
Speaker 1: on them, and when the buds start to swell up,
Speaker 1: you need to get that spray on. Once they start opening,
Speaker 1: the spray will burn bloom petals and little tender leaves
Speaker 1: coming out and whatnot, So you got to get done
Speaker 1: ahead of time. Now that spray is primarily for scale.
Speaker 1: That's the main thing the Dorman oil spray controls. So
Speaker 1: if you don't have scale, then you may not need
Speaker 1: to do it. Now, there's nothing wrong with doing it
Speaker 1: just in case, but watch your trees. Scale will show
Speaker 1: up in different ways. Usually on peaches it'll be a
Speaker 1: white kind of flaky material, almost like kind of like
Speaker 1: cigarette ashes, I guess, but white, very white. Or there
Speaker 1: are some little scales that look like little flattened volcanoes
Speaker 1: that are smaller than a typed o that lowercase o
Speaker 1: that you would see along the branches. But look for
Speaker 1: those things. If you see either of those, you definitely
Speaker 1: need to do Dorman oil and get good coverage. Every
Speaker 1: square inch of a branch needs to have oil on
Speaker 1: it because it only once.
Speaker 4: You just do it.
Speaker 2: You just do it once, okay, and then and then
Speaker 2: is there anything once?
Speaker 1: Every winner After that, The next time you might spray
Speaker 1: would be at the end of bloom, when you would
Speaker 1: spray to protect the peaches from a little insect that
Speaker 1: causes the worm inside the peach. Uh. Again, I tend
Speaker 1: to go I tend to stay away from the spray
Speaker 1: and all the time approach, you know, I try to
Speaker 1: go with the avoid spraying. When you can't or don't,
Speaker 1: don't waste your time and money spray. And if you
Speaker 1: don't need to so like if you don't have scale,
Speaker 1: well you don't really need to do a Dorman oil spray. Now,
Speaker 1: if they start to show up, then you're gonna be
Speaker 1: on a Norman oil schedule going forward.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: If you have peaches and they don't have a worm
Speaker 1: in the fruit, you don't see any of that, Well
Speaker 1: you can wait. And once those things arrive, then they're
Speaker 1: going to be in your in your area. Uh and
Speaker 1: you're gonna it'll be an annual thing to control them.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, thank thanks so much, sip.
Speaker 3: Thank you you bet all right?
Speaker 1: Good luck with that ot. You know, Gerardo, we don't
Speaker 1: charge for advice on garden Line, but we do ask
Speaker 1: for half of your produce because I figure it out.
Speaker 1: You got peaches, all right? Thank you?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: Bye bye our phone number seven one three two one
Speaker 1: two k t r H seven one three two one
Speaker 1: two k t r H. I have been in uh well,
Speaker 1: I've got a flower bed that is needing to be finished.
Speaker 1: I started it, I put some organic materials in there,
Speaker 1: started working on the soil, got busy with other things,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get it planted. It's going to
Speaker 1: have mostly some tropical types of plants, you know the
Speaker 1: well I like what white butterfly ginger. I absolutely love
Speaker 1: that plant, and so I'm going to be planting some
Speaker 1: gingers in there, although they are perennial here with a
Speaker 1: little malt, but i need to get that soil right,
Speaker 1: and I've got a bunch more organic matter got to
Speaker 1: put in. They're going to build it up good, make
Speaker 1: sure it drains well right at the under the eaves
Speaker 1: of a house, so that ginger is kind of happy
Speaker 1: when it's not in the full brun of sun. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to be getting that worked out. And anytime
Speaker 1: you're building the soil, you want to make sure and
Speaker 1: do the content of nutrients too. And there are a
Speaker 1: lot of nutrients plants need, you know, they need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium.
Speaker 1: That's the big three NPK, that's the three numbers on
Speaker 1: a fertilizer bag. But they also need secondary nutrients and
Speaker 1: micronutrients also called trace minerals, and Microlife products have the
Speaker 1: trace minerals in them because they are made from organic
Speaker 1: materials from things that were once alive. If you will,
Speaker 1: you know, leaves that have been decomposed, whatever the organic
Speaker 1: material is when when the plant is gone, or you
Speaker 1: have the materials left the compost, the leaves, the whatever
Speaker 1: you have. Those materials contain everything a plant needs because
Speaker 1: they came from that. So they don't just have the
Speaker 1: three numbers. They've got all the other numbers as well.
Speaker 1: And here's why, because to grow a plant you have
Speaker 1: to have all the nutrients. You have to have, not
Speaker 1: just the big sixteen we talk about, but even up
Speaker 1: to twenty different or more different nutrients depending on the
Speaker 1: plant and the stage of its life that are needed.
Speaker 1: And so with Microlife, you're applying the whole nine yards
Speaker 1: when you do that. And Microlife has They've been around
Speaker 1: for a long time, over thirty five years now, well
Speaker 1: over thirty five years. They're the number one organic fertilizer
Speaker 1: in sales in the whole Houston area. And they're not
Speaker 1: going to burn because they're organic they have. Again, I
Speaker 1: said they have a lot. They have more minerals than
Speaker 1: standard fertilizers because over one hundred minerals are in microlife,
Speaker 1: because that's what's in the materials that Microlife's made of
Speaker 1: that I have poultrymner in them. They're safe for humans,
Speaker 1: safe animals. They are really designed to create success in
Speaker 1: the soil. Each bag of Microlife has over seventy essential
Speaker 1: nutrients and each bag contains billions of billions of beneficial
Speaker 1: microbes that helping growing a stronger plant to help in
Speaker 1: improving your soil. When you use that on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: little by little, you are improving the soil, not just
Speaker 1: adding nutrients. Because you're continuing to improve the soil. You
Speaker 1: can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out where
Speaker 1: to get them. They're widely available. Microlife products are all
Speaker 1: over the place, so get out there, get some on hand,
Speaker 1: and use them everywhere from your houseplants to your yard plants.
Speaker 1: The stuffworks, and I say that because I've used it.
Speaker 1: I've been using Microlife products for over ten years now
Speaker 1: and they work. You are listening to garden Line if
Speaker 1: you'd like to give us a call this morning, seven
Speaker 1: to one three two one two KTRH will be happy
Speaker 1: to help you have success. What's going on at your
Speaker 1: guard gardener? What are you going to do at your garden?
Speaker 1: This has been my theme all through January. Now I'm
Speaker 1: just going to keep going in February here. What are
Speaker 1: you going to do nude this year? What are you
Speaker 1: going to do different this year? You're going to try
Speaker 1: a new kind of gardening like herb gardening or vegetable gardening,
Speaker 1: or flower gardening, or growing orchids indoors or making a terrarium.
Speaker 1: Do you see what I mean? I mean they are
Speaker 1: all kinds of ways to get involved with gardening. What
Speaker 1: are you going to do new this year? What new
Speaker 1: plants are you going to grow that you haven't grown before?
Speaker 1: I just talked about white butterfly ginger or the butterfly gingers.
Speaker 1: I love gingers, especially the butterflies, because they make great
Speaker 1: cut flowers. Some of them have unbelievably heavenly fragrance. Just
Speaker 1: if you like something like a gardena, the smell of
Speaker 1: that will get you a white butterfly ginger and smell
Speaker 1: that it's good. We had when my their daughter was born.
Speaker 1: We were my wife and baby. We're in the hospital
Speaker 1: and I brought a cut headachem from home, a white butterfly,
Speaker 1: gender stuck it in a vase in the hospital room.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding you. Nurses were coming. They're walking down
Speaker 1: the hall smelling something and followed their nose into that
Speaker 1: hospital room. Wanted to know where that wonderful smell was
Speaker 1: coming from. That is how wonderful that ginger is. Have
Speaker 1: you grown that before? Why not try it this year?
Speaker 1: That's just one of ten billion plants that you could grow.
Speaker 1: How about a different way of pest control I mentioned yesterday.
Speaker 1: Have you ever used garden mesh fabric? Think of something
Speaker 1: super lightweight, super soft and pliable. But it is a
Speaker 1: tiny little screen, a little smaller than screen on your
Speaker 1: house and definitely softer, and you just put it over
Speaker 1: your plants and bugs can't get in. So the question
Speaker 1: is not you know what insecticide kills beetles or caterpillars.
Speaker 1: The question is where do I get garden mesh and
Speaker 1: just put it over the whole plant and they can't
Speaker 1: get it in. The mots can't get into lay eggs,
Speaker 1: and it's a screen porch over your plant. That's something
Speaker 1: new That's just an example. Well, I was checking out
Speaker 1: plants for all seasons the other day and stop by
Speaker 1: and say, hey, talk to them, see what's going on.
Speaker 1: I always like to see what's happening in the garden centers.
Speaker 1: And if place looks great, they are loaded up. They
Speaker 1: got all the fertilizer and soil stocked up. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't get out of that place by what without
Speaker 1: walking through the fertilizer and soil. I like that. You
Speaker 1: know you got your plants. You're excited, all right. Don't
Speaker 1: go to the checkout until you get your fertilizer and
Speaker 1: your soil. That's very important, and they've got it. They
Speaker 1: understand that because they are gardeners. They've been around since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. They're right there on Tombol Parkway two
Speaker 1: forty nine, just north of Luata, and you can go
Speaker 1: in there. You can take pictures, you can take samples
Speaker 1: and ask them questions. You know, you're driving down the
Speaker 1: road and you see this plant in somebody's yard, zoom in,
Speaker 1: take a picture, go buy plants for all season? Say
Speaker 1: I need one of these? Do you have them? Can
Speaker 1: you get them? And the chances are they do You
Speaker 1: can go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can give them a call to eight one
Speaker 1: three seven six sixteen forty six two eight one three
Speaker 1: seven six one six four six. Is it like to say, there,
Speaker 1: get your green on it. Plants for all Seasons. I
Speaker 1: don't care if you are a experienced gardener or if
Speaker 1: you're a rookie gardener. They've got what you need and
Speaker 1: they can help you to have success outside. Yesterday had
Speaker 1: some little tiny birds that were coming along and I've
Speaker 1: got my feeders out and they are really happy and
Speaker 1: doing great. You know, wild Birds Unlimited has got everything
Speaker 1: you need for your birds. They got the feeders right now.
Speaker 1: The new thing, the exciting thing is the cardinal confetti.
Speaker 1: That's a special blend of oh, just a lot of
Speaker 1: different kinds of really great seed that bring the red
Speaker 1: cardinals in just by the flocks. It is a really
Speaker 1: cool seed. They also have a cardinal tube feeder and
Speaker 1: a good evening cardinal feeder. It's called works really really well.
Speaker 1: And while you're in there, check out their bark butter products.
Speaker 1: This product has been documented to bring over one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty species of birds in go to WBU dot
Speaker 1: com forward slash Houston to find the wild birds near you.
Speaker 1: I'm taking a break. I'll be right back. Don't go away,
Speaker 1: We'll be back with your questions. Alrighty, alrighty, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're back with garden Line, talking gardening everything gardening. What
Speaker 1: are you going to do new this year? What are
Speaker 1: you going to do different? What are you going to
Speaker 1: try out? There are parts of gardening you've never experienced
Speaker 1: that you need to experience. They are fun and you
Speaker 1: know what, if you don't like it, well, don't do
Speaker 1: it anymore. At least you tried it. But I guarantee
Speaker 1: you this your favorite tomato you have yet to eat.
Speaker 1: I mean that there are tomatoes that are out there
Speaker 1: you haven't tried, and there are tomatoes to come. As
Speaker 1: readers keep improving on things in various ways, that you
Speaker 1: will never discover them if you don't try some things new.
Speaker 1: Every year, when I'm in my vegetable garden, I try
Speaker 1: to grow my standards, and then there's I have some
Speaker 1: personal standards, and then I try to grow some new things,
Speaker 1: some things that haven't grown before. For example, tomatoes celebrity
Speaker 1: that is one of the few nematode resistant tomatoes. By
Speaker 1: the way, it is. It is a Texas Superstar TEXA
Speaker 1: and M Superstar Trial tomato. That is the standard. It's
Speaker 1: been around a long time, but it is an awesome tomato.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: I'll try new ones every year, two or three different
Speaker 1: things I haven't grown, and who knows, I'll find my
Speaker 1: new favorite sometime. But it's a standard contender. Green beans,
Speaker 1: the old bush contender green bean is just a great
Speaker 1: green bean, you know what. I was talking with Joey
Speaker 1: out in China Gardens a while back, and he was
Speaker 1: telling me the Valentino bean has just really impressed him
Speaker 1: when he's grown it in the gardens. He loves that bean.
Speaker 1: So guess what's on my list this year. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try Valentino. We're gonna throw it in there and see
Speaker 1: how it does, see what I think about it. Who knows,
Speaker 1: it may become my next new favorite. By the way,
Speaker 1: Oh well, I mentioned Chenne Gardens. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: audited in Chenne Gardens on Saturday, February fifteenth, So we've
Speaker 1: got a couple of saturdays away here. I'll be there
Speaker 1: from twelve noon to one thirty and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be talking about something I love to talk about, and
Speaker 1: that is how do you get more from your garden
Speaker 1: with less sweat and less ibuprofen. The title is Tips
Speaker 1: from making Gardening Less Work and we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: good time. I'm gonna give you all kinds of ideas
Speaker 1: on ways to make your gardening easier, make it more productive,
Speaker 1: and make it more fun. But anyway, I'll be there
Speaker 1: two Saturdays from yesterday the fifteenth, twelve noon to one thirty.
Speaker 1: Now add in Chenne Gardens if you haven't been out there,
Speaker 1: They've got a whole bunch of ship They got a
Speaker 1: whole shipment of the beneficial insects in you know, things
Speaker 1: like the prank mount is, the green lace swings and
Speaker 1: others that are out there. And you can beneficial nematodes,
Speaker 1: that's another one. You can pick them up. But don't
Speaker 1: delay because those are living creatures that need to find
Speaker 1: a good home and they will. They'll be gone if
Speaker 1: you delay going out to get them. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in that, always good things out in Chanta Gardens. You
Speaker 1: know you're always going to find an excellent supply of
Speaker 1: all kinds of plants, from strawberries to right now. They
Speaker 1: got some great herbs in they look awesome. Of course,
Speaker 1: this is still the time to plant shrubs and trees,
Speaker 1: and their supply of shrubs and trees is outstanding. It is.
Speaker 1: It is roses also, roses also ceterus. Just keep naming
Speaker 1: things and they've got them. That is in Chanty gardens
Speaker 1: out in the Richmond Rosenberg area. Let's see. I am
Speaker 1: gonna be doing some traveling in the coming weeks, and
Speaker 1: I love when I travel to go to botanical gardens
Speaker 1: because every you know, every and also garden centers. One
Speaker 1: of my stops will be Phoenix and Phoenix, Arizona. That's
Speaker 1: not quite Houston, Texas, is it. It's a little more
Speaker 1: humid here, but Phoenix has a beautiful desert botanical garden.
Speaker 1: I was out in West Texas, a big bend area,
Speaker 1: at one of our botanical gardens out there at Saul
Speaker 1: Ross State University, and it's just fun go into those
Speaker 1: and then you go check out the garden centers in
Speaker 1: that town and you always get to see something new.
Speaker 1: And I call that horticultural tourism, and I think you
Speaker 1: should do it too, wherever you're going. You know, if
Speaker 1: you were going to go I don't know, Boston or
Speaker 1: Kansas City or wherever. Find out what's local there that
Speaker 1: you can go visit. And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing you'll learn when you do that.
Speaker 1: We are lucky to have all the garden centers we
Speaker 1: have here in the Houston area. And when I say
Speaker 1: garden centers, I don't mean a placing by plants along
Speaker 1: with hammers. If you know what I'm talking about, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about a garden center that is mom and Papa,
Speaker 1: I'm locally owned, that is filled with people that know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. You walk in, you ask them
Speaker 1: a question, and you get an accurate answer, and you
Speaker 1: get treated right. That is the kind of garden center
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Someplace you can grab a bug and
Speaker 1: put it in a bag and bring it in and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is eating on my fill in the blank, and
Speaker 1: how do I control it and what do I do
Speaker 1: about it? That is the kind of garden centers. And
Speaker 1: here in the Houston area, north, south, east, west, and
Speaker 1: central there are great garden centers everywhere. And you need
Speaker 1: to you need to make a gardening tour, you know,
Speaker 1: like wouldn't wouldn't February be a great month for a
Speaker 1: garden tour around Houston. Just go visit some of our
Speaker 1: garden centers, go to the botanical gardens, go to any
Speaker 1: kind of place where you can get inspiration. Because you know,
Speaker 1: you're not a landscape designer, unless you're one of the
Speaker 1: few that are landscape designers. I'm not a landscape designer.
Speaker 1: But when I drive around and I a plant or
Speaker 1: I see a plant used in a different way, it
Speaker 1: gives me an idea. It's like I can do that
Speaker 1: at home, take a picture of it and do that.
Speaker 1: I think that is a good idea, and plus it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. But I'm not kidding you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying that because I'm here on the
Speaker 1: air in Houston. I've been to a lot of cities,
Speaker 1: and that includes San Antonio and Dallas and Austin. Here
Speaker 1: in our great state of Texas too. We're fortunate we
Speaker 1: have more great garden centers than any place I've ever
Speaker 1: been to. But I'll keep shopping around the country as
Speaker 1: a travel different places and learning more and having more fun. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go. If you'd like to get a skull
Speaker 1: here on garden line. I'll be happy to visit with
Speaker 1: you about whatever you're interested in. Related to gardening seven
Speaker 1: one three two one two kt r H seven one
Speaker 1: three two one two kt RH. This is a time
Speaker 1: to get fruit planted. It is fruit planting seas and
Speaker 1: the best time now a container grown fruit. You can
Speaker 1: plant twelve months out of the year, but make it
Speaker 1: easier on yourself. Get it done now so that tree
Speaker 1: can get its roots down, and this summer will be
Speaker 1: less touch and go. It'll be less difficult, less you know,
Speaker 1: touch and go constant maintenance. When you get your fruit
Speaker 1: trees and get them in the ground, grab you some
Speaker 1: nutri star from Nelson. That Nelson makes a nutri star
Speaker 1: that is called citrus fruit and avocado. So if it
Speaker 1: is a tree, shrub, vine, or bush that you're growing
Speaker 1: to eat and eat stuff off of citrus fruit and
Speaker 1: avocado from Nelson is the one. It's got essential nutrients
Speaker 1: that enhance the growth and fruit production. And as you
Speaker 1: build a better leafy, healthy fruit tree, shrub or vine,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have better tasting fruit. The flavor comes from
Speaker 1: a lot of fat activities, but good healthy leaves in
Speaker 1: sunlight is the big elephant in the room. When it
Speaker 1: comes to good, big tasty fruit, you're gonna use it
Speaker 1: about every three months. But every three months is enough
Speaker 1: for that. And uh, I don't know whatever kind of
Speaker 1: fruits you got. If you have fruit and a container too,
Speaker 1: Nelson's nutri star citrus fruit and avocado comes in a
Speaker 1: little jar is good for container fruit, your container citrus
Speaker 1: as well. All right, got to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Don't go away. I'll be right back with your questions.
Speaker 1: By the way, the phone number seven one three two
Speaker 1: one two K t R H. A little bit of
Speaker 1: the music. I love Toby Keith, late Toby Keith. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to hear a nice uh word about
Speaker 1: Toby Keith, uh, there's Stephen Colbert did a little thing
Speaker 1: on his show one time where he talked about him.
Speaker 1: And you're not going to have two people that are
Speaker 1: kind of polar opposites in many ways than Stephen Colbert
Speaker 1: and Toby Keith. But talking about hearing it, hearing about
Speaker 1: Toby Keith from Stephen Colbert, that was a very interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Quite quite quite a nice fellow. Good great music too,
Speaker 1: by the way. Well, this isn't a music show, although
Speaker 1: I do like to play music. On this show. This
Speaker 1: is Garden Line, and if you want to talk about gardening,
Speaker 1: we can do that. Just give me a call. Seven
Speaker 1: one three two one two kt R H seven one
Speaker 1: three two one two k t R h Okay, I
Speaker 1: got a quiz for you. I got a gardening quiz
Speaker 1: for you. Where can you find a huge selections of
Speaker 1: seeds and seed starting supplies? Where can you get your
Speaker 1: lawnmower blades sharpened? Where can you get your small engine
Speaker 1: weed trimmer repaired? If you're an organic gardener, where can
Speaker 1: you go to have more organic choices than anyplace else
Speaker 1: in the Houston area? Where can you go to get
Speaker 1: every product that you hear me talk about on Garden Line.
Speaker 1: Southwest Fertilizer corner Bisnett and Renwick. Southwest Fertilizer's been a
Speaker 1: Houston lawn and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five. I'm
Speaker 1: the fifth host to speak for Southwest Fertilizer, the fifth.
Speaker 1: They've been around a while now. By the way, they're
Speaker 1: celebrating their seventieth anniversary this year, So happy seventieth birthday
Speaker 1: the Southwest Fertilizer. You don't last seventy years if you're
Speaker 1: not taking care of your customers, and they walk in
Speaker 1: and they walk out with what they wanted. Not we
Speaker 1: ain't got any on the shelf. Now they have it.
Speaker 1: They carry everything I talk about on garden Line on
Speaker 1: and on. I mean ninety foot wall of tools, quality
Speaker 1: brands like Falco and Corona. The garden neil seat that
Speaker 1: I keep talking about is there. Do you want to
Speaker 1: do a soil test? Well, go buy Bob's got a
Speaker 1: probe there. You can check out and take a really
Speaker 1: accurate vertical core soil test samples to send in so
Speaker 1: you can find out what's in your lawn. That's a loaner.
Speaker 1: That's not a you know, you got to pay for it.
Speaker 1: You can't walk off with it. He makes youre a
Speaker 1: hold on a deposit. But bottom line is that's just
Speaker 1: typical for the quality products, expert advice, and old fashioned
Speaker 1: service that you get. A Southwest Fertilizer. You can go
Speaker 1: to Southwest Fertilizer dot com or you can give them
Speaker 1: a call seven to one three six nine nine one
Speaker 1: seven four four seven one three six nine nine one
Speaker 1: seven four four. I talking about different things to be
Speaker 1: doing this time of year. We are in the season
Speaker 1: where if you are dealing with weeds. If you if
Speaker 1: you've got a weed problem that you're having to deal
Speaker 1: with in your gardens and your lawn and whatnot, now's
Speaker 1: the time when we get the things that prevent weed
Speaker 1: problems down on the ground to stop the weeds from
Speaker 1: sprouting from seed. Now, that's called a pre emergent. A
Speaker 1: pre emergent means before the plant emerges from seed. Now
Speaker 1: there are perennial plants that pre emergents aren't going to
Speaker 1: control because they're not coming back from seed. Primarily, they're
Speaker 1: coming back from underground storage roots and organs. Now there
Speaker 1: are post emergents to kill weeds that exist. Now is
Speaker 1: the time to do post emergents on cool season weeds.
Speaker 1: So those weeds in your yard right now are cool
Speaker 1: season weeds. They are already growing. You see them. The
Speaker 1: warm season weeds, you're not seeing them yet. The cool
Speaker 1: season weeds. You spray with something for weeds. Controlling weeds
Speaker 1: after I'm mostly hand pull mine because I don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of them. I tend to practice what I
Speaker 1: preach a little bit and do as what they say,
Speaker 1: do as I say, not as I do. Well, I
Speaker 1: try to do as I do. I mean, I try
Speaker 1: to do as I say, but if you need to
Speaker 1: spray weeds, now's the time. And here's why. Those cool
Speaker 1: season weeds, clover, handbit, chick weed, all of those things
Speaker 1: that are in your yard right now, they're about to
Speaker 1: bloom and go to seed. In fact, I saw the
Speaker 1: start of some chickweed or handbit ballooms just the other
Speaker 1: day on some weeds in the yard. And so if
Speaker 1: you wait, the products that kill them effectively don't work
Speaker 1: as well. Once the weed becomes a reproductive it as
Speaker 1: blooms and seeds, it's not going to work as well.
Speaker 1: But if you get ahead of it now and do
Speaker 1: it now, you will get good control. And you can
Speaker 1: do a little spot treatments. You have to nuke the
Speaker 1: whole yard, just little spot treatments to take them out.
Speaker 1: As far as pre emergence, that's things that prevent weeds
Speaker 1: from getting established. They prevent the weeds from even coming up.
Speaker 1: The seeds try to sprout and the pre emergent is
Speaker 1: there and it cannot sprout. It shuts it down before
Speaker 1: it even gets started. That's a pre emergent. And now's
Speaker 1: the time to get those down. For warm season weeds.
Speaker 1: Once we get later into February, and so if you're
Speaker 1: way down in the southern part of the listening area
Speaker 1: or up in March. Typically for a lot of the
Speaker 1: listening area, that's when our warm season weeds like let's
Speaker 1: say crabgrass that's a prime example, and many other warm
Speaker 1: season weeds. That's when their seeds are sprouting. A pre emergent.
Speaker 1: You put down, You've watered into the soil surface. They're
Speaker 1: made to stick to the soil, so they don't wash
Speaker 1: down and they don't wash off, and when that seed
Speaker 1: tries to come through, it's like a little barrier, a
Speaker 1: little force field right there at the surface, and it
Speaker 1: shuts it down. Now, if you wait too long, if
Speaker 1: you wait until late March to do it, you're going
Speaker 1: to already have a bunch of weeds. And that product
Speaker 1: is not going to stop something that's already growing. It's
Speaker 1: a pre emergent. So if you look at my schedule
Speaker 1: on my website Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with
Speaker 1: Skip dot Com, there is a lawn care schedule and
Speaker 1: then a lawn pest disease and weeds management schedule, and
Speaker 1: that goes from January to December. It's like a little
Speaker 1: calendar chart, and one row is insects, one row's diseases,
Speaker 1: one row is preventing weeds pre emergent, one row is
Speaker 1: killing existing weeds post emergent. You go down too the bottom,
Speaker 1: and for each of those rows, you've got your organic
Speaker 1: and your synthetic options for control. It's real handy. And
Speaker 1: guess what, it's free. Can't talk me down on that price.
Speaker 1: It's free to download it and use it, print it out,
Speaker 1: and take it with you when you go shopping. You
Speaker 1: can just point and go, hey, do you got one
Speaker 1: of those? You got one of those? That's what I need.
Speaker 1: And it makes it really, really easy. But we are
Speaker 1: at this unique crossroads in spring where we need to
Speaker 1: be doing both of those things. If you're going to
Speaker 1: do them now. The long term way to control weeds
Speaker 1: in your lawn for the majority of your weed issues
Speaker 1: is to mow, water and fertilize properly all through the
Speaker 1: season so that you make a dense lawn that chokes
Speaker 1: out weeds and blocks out sunlight and prevents weed seeds
Speaker 1: from getting established. To the degree that your lawn is
Speaker 1: struggling and thin, that's the degree to which you will
Speaker 1: have a weed problem because wherever sunlight hits the soil,
Speaker 1: nature plants a weed. All right, there you go download
Speaker 1: those free publications on gardening with skip dot Com. I
Speaker 1: in my yet, you know, I shouldn't have admitted on
Speaker 1: the air that I allow weeds in my yard. But
Speaker 1: I don't allow them. They just they don't listen and
Speaker 1: they tell them not to and they do it anyway.
Speaker 1: But I actually enjoy getting out and doing a little
Speaker 1: weed hand pulling. I know I'm weird like that, but listen,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things in life where you
Speaker 1: can work and work and work to do something. Do
Speaker 1: you have a job where at the end of the
Speaker 1: day you kind of go I know, I worked all day,
Speaker 1: but I have no idea really what I accomplished. I
Speaker 1: pushed papers around and talk to people. And anyway, with
Speaker 1: weed pulling, you sit down. I mean, maybe you got
Speaker 1: a garden bed full of weeds and you just get
Speaker 1: your little garden kneeler bench from Southwest Fertilizer and you
Speaker 1: kneel down there and you just get to pull in.
Speaker 1: And after thirty minutes of that, you look back and
Speaker 1: you see this clean, beautiful bed. And there are a
Speaker 1: few things in life where you just have the satisfaction
Speaker 1: of seeing wonderful results immediately. And so that's one reason
Speaker 1: I like I like to pull weeds. I also like
Speaker 1: to so I don't have to pull weeds. So there
Speaker 1: you go. All right, Well let's see here. I believe
Speaker 1: we're about to run out of time in this hour,
Speaker 1: so I'll be uh, I'll be turning it over to
Speaker 1: the news here in just a minute, and we'll be
Speaker 1: back for our next hour of the show. You might
Speaker 1: want to We've got an open board, so if you
Speaker 1: want to call during the break seven one three two
Speaker 1: one two KTRH, Josh will get you or Josh Jonathan
Speaker 1: will get you up on the Sorry I got that, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: My brain is glitching. Get you on the board so
Speaker 1: we can talk to you one of the first calls
Speaker 1: when we come right back. I want to remind you
Speaker 1: that in two weeks I will be at in Chennick
Speaker 1: Gardens down there in Richmond Rosenberg area, and Chenni Gardens,
Speaker 1: by the way, is north of Richmond, like you're heading
Speaker 1: toward Katie, or if you're Katie, coming down toward Richmond.
Speaker 1: So it serves that whole area really excellent place, easy
Speaker 1: to get to, so I hope you'll make plans to
Speaker 1: come out and see me. We'll look forward. We're gonna
Speaker 1: give a talk. I'm gonna be answering your gardening questions.
Speaker 1: If you want to bring samples in, uh, you know
Speaker 1: your weed sample?
Speaker 4: What is this?
Speaker 1: How do I kill it? A bug? A disease? Or
Speaker 1: maybe take a picture of your landscape and say, this
Speaker 1: area right here is too shady? Everything does? What can
Speaker 1: I plan there? We'll do that, have some fun, love shoulders.
Speaker 1: You can even browbe about the tomatoes you thro one time,
Speaker 1: and I'll pretend to believe you. I'll be right back.
Speaker 6: Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Richard's.
Speaker 3: Crazy trim.
Speaker 7: Just watch him as so many.
Speaker 8: Things to set double again not a sign.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to garden Line. We are rolling this morning
Speaker 1: early on. I hope you got at least one eye open,
Speaker 1: maybe a cup of coffee in your hand. We're here
Speaker 1: to help you have a beautiful garden, a bountiful landscape,
Speaker 1: or actually I usually say it the other way around,
Speaker 1: A bountiful garden a beautiful landscape, but I guess it
Speaker 1: could be a bountiful landscape if you're talking about flowers.
Speaker 1: You want plenty of floral bounty anyway, and more fun
Speaker 1: in the process. That's the last part of that that
Speaker 1: is important. So I was talking earlier about right now
Speaker 1: we are in this huge important time to deal with
Speaker 1: weeds in the yard. The long term weed solution is
Speaker 1: to grow a healthy, dense lawn that chokes out most
Speaker 1: of its weeds. The short term fix is either to
Speaker 1: prevent them or to kill ones that are growing. And
Speaker 1: there's different ways to go about that. But this is
Speaker 1: a crossroads this springtime that I would say probably the
Speaker 1: month of fabrusy. In general, we can do some weed
Speaker 1: prevention back in January even But here's the thing. You
Speaker 1: got to get the with the pre mergent. You're wanting
Speaker 1: to make sure you get there before the weed sprouts,
Speaker 1: and they'll be sprouting over time that warm season. Weeds
Speaker 1: can be sprouting way into the summertime too, but you
Speaker 1: want to get ahead of the sprouting. And secondly, those
Speaker 1: products don't last forever. You know, you put down a
Speaker 1: pre emergent product watered in could be a great product.
Speaker 1: You like barricade from night Fross for example, put that
Speaker 1: down and sixty days ninety days, you know, as you
Speaker 1: get off into the go forward from there into the season.
Speaker 1: At some point just breaking down. You got to get
Speaker 1: another application downe if you want to continue that prevention,
Speaker 1: that force field, if you will, that shell, that barrier
Speaker 1: over the surface of the soil. That's shutting everything down.
Speaker 1: But that's why our timing is important. You know, if
Speaker 1: you put it on January first, well, it's going to
Speaker 1: play out sooner than if you had put it on
Speaker 1: in February, for example. So that's part of that's part
Speaker 1: of the timing. I would like to just mention that
Speaker 1: if you are planning on putting in some sort of
Speaker 1: an herb planting this year, go ahead and get you
Speaker 1: a quality mix, one that is gonna provide drainage provide
Speaker 1: water holding capacity. And that sounds like, isn't that two
Speaker 1: different things? Well, no, it's not. Water holding capacity means
Speaker 1: the soil holds moisture. So compare broken glass to a
Speaker 1: sponge which holds moisture more well, of course, the sponge
Speaker 1: broken glasses sand, This sponge is organic matter. Okay, so
Speaker 1: a highly organic mantrol that holds. But good drainage means
Speaker 1: that the access water runs right out. It doesn't stay
Speaker 1: a soggy, mucky mess, and so drainage is important. Quality
Speaker 1: soil and raised beds are what helps us have or
Speaker 1: create good drainage in the soil. Now, Airloom Soils has
Speaker 1: kind of got you covered on all that. They have
Speaker 1: something called the Veggie and Herb Mix, and I use
Speaker 1: it for a lot of things beyond veggies and herbs,
Speaker 1: by the way, but that is what it's designed for.
Speaker 1: And you can buy it by the bag. It's sold
Speaker 1: all over town. Lots of places carry heirloom soil bags.
Speaker 1: Or you can go out to the Orange Rock and
Speaker 1: maultch In porter and pick it up right there, take
Speaker 1: your truck, take your trailer whatever. They also have it
Speaker 1: by the supersack. A supersack's a cubic yard. And let's
Speaker 1: say you're going to do some significant garden bed preparation,
Speaker 1: putting in some new beds. You may need a supersacker
Speaker 1: too to have enough to fill up what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Or you can have them just deliver it and dump
Speaker 1: it on the driveway if you to go that route.
Speaker 1: They can do it anyway you want. Now, it's not
Speaker 1: just veggie and herb like that. I mean all their products,
Speaker 1: their leaf moll compost. They have a lawn mix, they
Speaker 1: have mulches and gravels and all kinds of things you
Speaker 1: can get from them. But the bottom line is just
Speaker 1: do it. Just go out there and do it. If
Speaker 1: you want to check into having them deliver, go to
Speaker 1: this website rock inmoltz dot com slash delivery. I'll say
Speaker 1: that again, Rock the letter in moltch rock in molts.
Speaker 1: That's one word, dot com, slash delivery. Just go there,
Speaker 1: check it out. You can find out all about it there.
Speaker 1: Find out what they got, what the price is, you
Speaker 1: know what takes to get it here to your yard.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, just do something because whether it's
Speaker 1: vegetables or herbs or flowers or whatever you're going to
Speaker 1: grow fruit trees, getting a good quality mix in is
Speaker 1: really important. And Heirloom Soil has got you covered on
Speaker 1: all those things. I was checking out some of their
Speaker 1: products in a local store the other day, one of
Speaker 1: our garden centers and just looking at the different things
Speaker 1: they were carrying from them, and it's nice stuff. There's
Speaker 1: such a thing as compass and molts that are not quality,
Speaker 1: and there's ones that are quality. And there's a big difference.
Speaker 1: What are some of the differences. Well, cheap stuff typically
Speaker 1: you should be nice fine texture and it's got big
Speaker 1: old chunky wood chips in it. They don't screen it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's one. You rush it through real fast. You don't
Speaker 1: pay attention to the temperatures when you're composting, when you're
Speaker 1: making it. You don't allow it to fully complete the process.
Speaker 1: So what you're getting is we would call it a
Speaker 1: raw material. It hasn't fully cooked and become what it
Speaker 1: can be to become a quality product. And if you
Speaker 1: hear me talk about a soil purveyor provider, it's going
Speaker 1: to be one that takes the time and does that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's very important. Just a tip by
Speaker 1: the way, I have noticed in general that sometimes you
Speaker 1: put a new bed in and you put a good
Speaker 1: fresh load of some type of a growing mix, a
Speaker 1: bed mix in it, and the first time you plant,
Speaker 1: you don't see success with the plants. They kind of
Speaker 1: sit there and powder about things and stuff. And that
Speaker 1: is a that is a natural process. Now bed molts
Speaker 1: can do that, but even with our soil, but even
Speaker 1: with quality soils, sometimes there's a balancing out. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nitrogen and carbon ratio that really affects plants and
Speaker 1: decomposition and everything. And I just be patient with it,
Speaker 1: give it a little time to mellow out. And maybe
Speaker 1: the first time you're using a new bed mix, you're
Speaker 1: putting in your brand new garden, you're all excited. Just
Speaker 1: give it a little extra boost to nitrogen, a little
Speaker 1: extra boost to nitrogen because it's coming in typically with
Speaker 1: a pretty high carbon ratio. And I have found that
Speaker 1: that extra boost to nitrogen early on, until that soil
Speaker 1: has a season or so to mellow out, is helpful.
Speaker 1: So that's just a little tip that you might want
Speaker 1: to think about in order to have success with that.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's see, I am going to take
Speaker 1: a break here in just one second, but I did
Speaker 1: want to give you one more time our phone number
Speaker 1: seven to one three two one two kt r H
Speaker 1: seven to one three two one two kt r H.
Speaker 1: Also check out the website gardening with skip dot com.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good thing to do during break and
Speaker 1: see some of the material that's up there. We set
Speaker 1: it up to be helpful to you. I'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Sure you made my speaker's going boom dots it on
Speaker 1: the tail get in the phone.
Speaker 9: That kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Makes a man.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us.
Speaker 1: What do you want to talk about today? We've got
Speaker 1: lots of things. I mean, I can sit here and
Speaker 1: talk about what's going on in my yard. Things you
Speaker 1: need to know about. Like I was talking about weed
Speaker 1: control stuff. I can do that, that's fine. But what
Speaker 1: are your questions? What's going on that you have questions about?
Speaker 1: Maybe you want to try to grow something you haven't
Speaker 1: tried it before. You want some direction, advice on having success.
Speaker 1: You know, the best thing you can do is to
Speaker 1: ask the question first. Yesterday I I had a number
Speaker 1: of questions, and each time they're asking them, I was
Speaker 1: saying it, thank you so much for calling first, because
Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't just do that because they were
Speaker 1: about to do something that they shouldn't do or they
Speaker 1: were wondering about it. And we can see or save
Speaker 1: you a lot of headaches and pain and suffering gardens,
Speaker 1: horticultural suffering. That's probably a category there. Anyway, that's what
Speaker 1: we're here for.
Speaker 10: I am.
Speaker 1: I've been talking about some different things like lawns and
Speaker 1: the importance right now we're in the crossroads a week
Speaker 1: control fertilizing is coming up not long from now. We've
Speaker 1: got a couple of options on fertilizing. If you go
Speaker 1: to my lawn care schedule, that's one of the two
Speaker 1: January December schedules that I have on the website. The
Speaker 1: lawn care schedule talks about when do you use your
Speaker 1: synthetic fertilizers, when do you use your organic fertilizers, what
Speaker 1: are the ones that you use, What about applying trace
Speaker 1: mineral supplements, what about out doing aeration, correation, and so on. Well,
Speaker 1: it also goes into mowing, the proper way to mow
Speaker 1: and the proper way to water. And what I did
Speaker 1: is I took weather data from the last ten years
Speaker 1: I think it's ten, maybe twenty years, and I looked
Speaker 1: at what is the historical average of rainfall per week
Speaker 1: that a lawn needs in the Houston area if it
Speaker 1: hadn't rained, if it hadn't rain. Okay, so we are
Speaker 1: in February. The average amount of needed rainfall per week
Speaker 1: in February. When you look at what grass uses, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the science of this now, We're not just
Speaker 1: talking about winging it here. What grass uses versus what
Speaker 1: normally falls. It's zero that you do not need to
Speaker 1: be water in your lawn in February. Now these are averages.
Speaker 1: So yes, if we go through a weird year and
Speaker 1: it's eighty degrees in February and hadn't rained in six weeks, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you can sell me. I'm put a little water down,
Speaker 1: but in general you don't. When we get to March,
Speaker 1: it's only a half inch a week, roughly a half
Speaker 1: inch a week, and then April is three quarters. Then
Speaker 1: we go to one inch a week from May through
Speaker 1: September or through August, and then we back down to
Speaker 1: three quarters and we wind down in one half and
Speaker 1: drop off. So it kind of gives you an idea
Speaker 1: what generally we can expect. And I put that in
Speaker 1: there because a lot of people think you got to
Speaker 1: set that thing to come on every week, and some
Speaker 1: people way too many times a week when we get
Speaker 1: hot in summer, and we'll talk about watering and miswatering
Speaker 1: because most lawns are miss watered by applying too little
Speaker 1: too often. But anyway, it's on that schedule. It's right there,
Speaker 1: and all the fertilizers are listed down there in products
Speaker 1: it's easy to it's easy to find what you need
Speaker 1: and just kind of guide you along. So download that again.
Speaker 1: It's another one that's free, help guide you as you're going.
Speaker 1: We are in a great time to be doing vegetable gardening.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know I mentioned that what we control,
Speaker 1: we're at this big intersection where we're killing existing weeds
Speaker 1: or we're preventing soon to come weeds, all in the
Speaker 1: same month. We got all of that happening right now.
Speaker 1: When you look at vegetable gardening, we have a spring
Speaker 1: what should we call it, a traffic jam in the
Speaker 1: vegetable garden. And that is when all our cool season
Speaker 1: vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, carrots, things like
Speaker 1: spinach and lettuce and so on. The cool season vegetables
Speaker 1: they're going to be reaching harvest as we get here,
Speaker 1: whether they already are reaching harvest, but in February and
Speaker 1: March and even a little bit in April, some of
Speaker 1: those are still going and reaching harvest. But our warm
Speaker 1: season vegetables need to go in when the last frostate occurs.
Speaker 1: And the last time I checked did the again research
Speaker 1: over a number of years of weather data. February eighth
Speaker 1: was the last average freeze date at Hobby. March first
Speaker 1: was the last average freeze date at Bush Intercontinental. Did
Speaker 1: you how far apart those are? So to say the
Speaker 1: last freeze date in Houston on average is such and
Speaker 1: such date. What's where in Houston?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: Is it in Sugarland? Is it in Webster? Is it
Speaker 1: up in Gonro. I mean there's a huge difference, but
Speaker 1: just in the just the Houston itself. February the eighth
Speaker 1: at Hobby, March the first at Intercontinental. Now, average average
Speaker 1: is a misleading idea. If you stick one foot in
Speaker 1: boiling water and one foot in ice water on the average,
Speaker 1: you're comfortable. I love saying that. The point is that
Speaker 1: we never have an average year. It's always gonna you know,
Speaker 1: I say February eighth for airport, Well, it's never gonna
Speaker 1: be February eighth, hardly. I mean, it's gonna be the
Speaker 1: last freeze date. Maybe January first at Hobby. Some years
Speaker 1: it may you may have a freeze halfway into March
Speaker 1: at Hobby. Okay, So that the average just gives you
Speaker 1: an idea what to go for. Then you decide how
Speaker 1: conservative do you want to be. You know, if you
Speaker 1: like to run with scissors and live wild, well, then
Speaker 1: plant whenever you want and good luck, and you can
Speaker 1: just replant if it freezes. If you are super conservative,
Speaker 1: the kind of guy who wears a belt and suspenders
Speaker 1: just in case, well then you're gonna want to look
Speaker 1: at those averages and even go a little later than them.
Speaker 1: And when you put things in, but don't wait too long,
Speaker 1: because when it comes to vegetables, we on narrow window
Speaker 1: and spring to make hay. Well the sunshines, as they
Speaker 1: put it, because when it gets too hot, a lot
Speaker 1: of our vegetables play out and don't want to produce.
Speaker 1: Let's head out the phones. We're going to go to
Speaker 1: Deer Park now and we're going to talk to Kim. Hello, Kim,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden Mine.
Speaker 11: Hi, how are you.
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. How can we help you today?
Speaker 11: Well, I just sent you some pictures of what I
Speaker 11: believe to be a fungus that is growing in our grass.
Speaker 11: We used to have three big old oak trees in
Speaker 11: our backyard that we cut down about eight years ago,
Speaker 11: and since then we have these really tough, hard to
Speaker 11: pull out kind of like it almost like a mushroom
Speaker 11: at times.
Speaker 9: But it's hard, and they're they're they.
Speaker 11: Get entwined in the grass and and now they're so
Speaker 11: plentiful that we're kind of tripping over them sometimes when
Speaker 11: we're mowing or walking in the yard. Would love to
Speaker 11: get rid of them.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh, well, uh, the good news is they're not
Speaker 1: they're not a problem to worry about disease wise. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're seeing and for those of you listening who aren't
Speaker 1: looking at the pictures, I see these are These are
Speaker 1: called shelf fungi. And if you were to look at
Speaker 1: a log in the forest laying on the ground, they're
Speaker 1: the kind that grow flat straight out, and they have
Speaker 1: little stripes through them like they're you know how like
Speaker 1: a like a dartboard has consectric circles going out on it.
Speaker 1: They look sort of like that coming out from the wood.
Speaker 1: There's there's those little changes in color going out. That's
Speaker 1: a shelf fungi. It's a decomposer fungi. So its job
Speaker 1: in nature is to turn wood back into great dirt.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And so where there was a little wood, that's why
Speaker 1: you see them sticking up. There's a little wood near
Speaker 1: the surface there. Maybe it was a root from a
Speaker 1: tree that you cut, maybe it's a stump itself, but anyway,
Speaker 1: that's just part of the decomposing process. They will go
Speaker 1: away as that would decomposees. Now, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: go in there, you could take a grubbing hoe and
Speaker 1: just hit kind of come in horizontally like just below them,
Speaker 1: and pop them loose and kind of pull them out.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about digging a hole. We're just talking
Speaker 1: about making a couple of chops not downward, but kind
Speaker 1: of down and mostly inward underneath them to pop them
Speaker 1: out of there and get that chunk of wood out
Speaker 1: of there. That's just part of nature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's kind of what I thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm glad you sent me the pictures
Speaker 1: because if you had tried to describe them, we probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been picturing the same thing.
Speaker 11: Right, So in several years we'll have some really good
Speaker 11: soil after it all decomposed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, nature is constantly building soil. It is. Yes,
Speaker 1: as wood decomposes away, it becomes rich soil. The forest
Speaker 1: floor is the rich soil. And the way it got
Speaker 1: that way wasn't because we went through it with the
Speaker 1: rotor to learn fertilizers and compost bags. It's because it's
Speaker 1: dropping leaves on the ground and they're rotting, and the
Speaker 1: roots live and die and slough off and rot. And
Speaker 1: in your yard, your grass root, each root on your
Speaker 1: grass in your lawn, every single route lives about a
Speaker 1: year and then it dies and all of the organic
Speaker 1: matter of that root decomposes into the soil. So with
Speaker 1: every year that goes by, your soil is getting looser
Speaker 1: and richer if you have a healthy grass stand So yeah,
Speaker 1: nature knows how to build soil.
Speaker 11: All right, Well, I thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the call and for the pictures. Good
Speaker 1: to help. All right, and got there, And now now
Speaker 1: you and I can go and worry about big problems
Speaker 1: like world peace or whatever. We can check us off
Speaker 1: of us to worry about. Thanks Kim, all right, ay bye. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nature knows how to build soil. You know, in the
Speaker 1: spring we see this a lot. But the types of
Speaker 1: decomposers that get on molts are really interesting too. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you have this nice woodchip mults bed or not woodchip,
Speaker 1: bark chip, whatever kind you got, it doesn't matter, and
Speaker 1: you look at it and it looks like scrambled eggs.
Speaker 1: Somebody dumped a plate of scrambled eggs on top. That
Speaker 1: is a decomposer fungi. Isn't that cool? And it goes away.
Speaker 1: It goes away. You got in your yard and you
Speaker 1: look at those rings of mushrooms. Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 1: They call them fairy rings. All of a sudden, here's
Speaker 1: this circle of mushrooms that pops up. Why and why
Speaker 1: are they in a circle? What would cause that? Well,
Speaker 1: here's what causes it. A decomposer fungi starts to send
Speaker 1: it's my celia, that's the fancy word of the day.
Speaker 1: Decomposing through all the thatch of your yard. And it goes.
Speaker 1: It lives for a certain amount of time and then
Speaker 1: it could be a change in the weather or just
Speaker 1: the maturing of it. It sends up its fruiting bodies
Speaker 1: and that's mushrooms. And so you get this circle. Just
Speaker 1: like if you put a match in your if you
Speaker 1: had dragrass and you put a match in it, you
Speaker 1: know how that fire would burn out. That's what that
Speaker 1: fungi is doing, composing that that and then here comes mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Then go up further and do another and do another
Speaker 1: circle of it too. That is some pretty cool stuff
Speaker 1: right there. Anyway, you get the idea, if you live
Speaker 1: in Kingwood, you are a fortunate person because you've got
Speaker 1: both Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Centers right out there.
Speaker 1: So that whole region Kingwood, humbold A Tesca Seed to Porter,
Speaker 1: New Caney Valley Ranch, that that whole area out there
Speaker 1: is served by these two awesome nurseries. Both of them
Speaker 1: are open seven days a week. Warrens is on North
Speaker 1: Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow Drive. And
Speaker 1: when you go there, you're going to find the products
Speaker 1: I recommend on garden Line like microlife and nitrofoss and
Speaker 1: Nelson Turf Star, like heirloom soils, Nelson's plant food canisters
Speaker 1: out there, Mosquito dunks and other products you hear me
Speaker 1: talk about are going to be carried out there. At
Speaker 1: those garden centers. You're always going to find a good
Speaker 1: stock of edgies and herbs. Citrus and fruit are in
Speaker 1: right now, Roses are in right now, beautiful native plants.
Speaker 1: They have nice little greenhouse too where you can see
Speaker 1: some plants. At Warn southern gardens. They can even design
Speaker 1: and make potted containers for you. You pick a container,
Speaker 1: you pick some plants, they put it together. They have
Speaker 1: full landscaping services for that area. Do you need to
Speaker 1: do something in your landscape, we'll talk to them.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: They got the shrubs and trees there on site. They
Speaker 1: can come out and do some of that work for
Speaker 1: you if you want. And when you're at Kingwoich, I
Speaker 1: got that gift shop there. It is absolutely amazing. They
Speaker 1: just revamped it through the cool season and they are
Speaker 1: creating a really nice new revamped gift shop. Clean got
Speaker 1: some of the new products that are coming in. All right,
Speaker 1: what's time for me to take a little break here.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the garden line, folks. We are here
Speaker 1: to help you have success and to enjoy your garden more.
Speaker 1: Gardening is the greatest hop there.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 1: It's one of the number one hobbies and it gives
Speaker 1: you things that very few other hobbies can do. For example,
Speaker 1: health benefits, mental health benefits and physical health benefits both
Speaker 1: come from gardening. They can now it can stress you
Speaker 1: if you if you let it, if you worry about
Speaker 1: it and don't do things right, you know, but we're
Speaker 1: here to help you have success. How can we help
Speaker 1: you take it up a notch or how about take
Speaker 1: it up ten notches because gardening is just too much
Speaker 1: fun to let it slip by and not enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And I know, I know, we got these out there.
Speaker 1: I was talking to by the other day. They've got
Speaker 1: I call it plastic grass. It's we've moved past plastic
Speaker 1: to better material. They are plastic grass in their yard
Speaker 1: and here we are talking about that and whatnot. And
Speaker 1: it makes me want to go out and get a
Speaker 1: bunch of plastic weeds at night and go in like
Speaker 1: a ninja and superglow them into their yard and deal
Speaker 1: with that. But anyway, aside from the horticultural to terrorism,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. You know. Do you realize
Speaker 1: your what your lawn contributes in terms of environmental benefits?
Speaker 1: It number one, it protects the soil and prevents soil erosion.
Speaker 1: That's one thing it does. Now, if it's a healthy
Speaker 1: lin it does. If it's all dirt, you know, then
Speaker 1: it's not doing as good a job at that. It
Speaker 1: moderates soil temperature. They can actually tell you and measure
Speaker 1: the term the number of bt us that a soil
Speaker 1: that a good healthy lawn provides in terms of cooling.
Speaker 1: If you look at a hard scape, even even plastic grass,
Speaker 1: even a sidewalk, or certainly an asphalt members a kid
Speaker 1: running barefoot across an asphalt in the summer not for long. Well,
Speaker 1: lawns cool. They are a plant, so they're releasing water.
Speaker 1: They are transpiring water. That's a cooling thing, okay, and
Speaker 1: so that effect of that loss of water, it cools significantly.
Speaker 1: It makes a much more cooler. Trees do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Of course they shade you, but they're also doing a
Speaker 1: cooling effect in the atmosphere is they release water. And
Speaker 1: there's many benefits that are environmental that plants provide us
Speaker 1: as well. All right, well that's just a little soapbox,
Speaker 1: but yes, that's going on out there. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you haven't joined ACEH Rewards, you really need to.
Speaker 1: ACEH Rewards is a great program. ACEH Rewards. You sign
Speaker 1: up for it. It's painless. You don't even have to
Speaker 1: carry the cart around if you don't want to, but
Speaker 1: you can go in. Just give me a phone number
Speaker 1: and they put it in when you check out, and
Speaker 1: that counts toward your rewards, and it builds up and
Speaker 1: it matters. It also matters in other ways. For example,
Speaker 1: let's see, you buy a barbecue grill at a lot
Speaker 1: of ace hardware stores. If you're an ASH Rewards member,
Speaker 1: they're going to assemble it. They will offer to assemble
Speaker 1: it and deliver it right to your home. Now that
Speaker 1: is amazing. And boy does Acever have barbecue grills. They've
Speaker 1: got Traeger and Rectec and Big Green Egg and Weber
Speaker 1: and those are some Cadillac stuff as well as all
Speaker 1: the supplies you need. Right now, in my garage, I'm
Speaker 1: doing another revamp I've been. I'm always having to clean
Speaker 1: it up. Have you ever noticed how you know, flat
Speaker 1: spaces in your house tend to collect clutter. My garage
Speaker 1: and yours two tends to get full. You get it
Speaker 1: all cleaned out and beautiful and pristine, you want to
Speaker 1: take a picture of it, and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: you're having to turn sideways to get from the car
Speaker 1: to the front door to the garage door to walk out,
Speaker 1: walk in the house because it's so full of stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: you need some bends, you need some shelving. Ace has
Speaker 1: got you covered. Is your outdoor garbage can on wheels.
Speaker 1: Is it looking bade, you know, wearing out? How about
Speaker 1: a new rubber made thirty two gallon garbage can on
Speaker 1: wheels for twenty six ninety nine. That's Ace Hardware. They
Speaker 1: got a still tremor sale going on right now, thirty
Speaker 1: dollars off starting this weekend. They also have garden pruners
Speaker 1: power puners. You know, you buy one and you get
Speaker 1: a free battery for it. And if you you haven't
Speaker 1: seen those, go to as show me show me your
Speaker 1: power garden printers. I want to see that. Let them
Speaker 1: show you that it is really really cool. Now there's
Speaker 1: Ace Hardware All Seasons up in Willis. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be at All Seasons Hardware and Willis
Speaker 1: on February the twenty second. What is that three one two,
Speaker 1: three weekends or three saturdays from yesterday, So put that
Speaker 1: on your calendar. I hope you come see me. Cyprus Hardware,
Speaker 1: Ace Hardware and up in Porter j and r Ace Hardware.
Speaker 1: I'll be there in March and then Kilgore Lumber down
Speaker 1: in clear Lake. Lots of great Ace Hardware stores in
Speaker 1: our area. If you haven't been in one, you need
Speaker 1: to go because this isn't your father's hardware store or
Speaker 1: your grandfather's hardware store like the old o'smobile commercial used
Speaker 1: to say. It has all of that stuff. It still
Speaker 1: has the old time service, and it still has the
Speaker 1: great selection, but it has a whole lot more Ace.
Speaker 1: ACE is a hardware store on steroids. I mean it
Speaker 1: is amazing the kinds of things that they have there now,
Speaker 1: just you know, like power tools, Like I say, you
Speaker 1: have still nuts, I said, still a well ago, what's
Speaker 1: the one I'm trying to think of? Uh, any kind
Speaker 1: of the big categories of power tools. They may have
Speaker 1: a whole section, uh for that particular thing. I have
Speaker 1: d Walt tools. Well, Ace stores that you've got a
Speaker 1: whole section, you know, all the du Wault power tools
Speaker 1: and things.
Speaker 3: Pretty cool stuff. You're listening to Garden Line.
Speaker 1: I phone number here is seven to one three two
Speaker 1: one two k t r H seven one three two
Speaker 1: one two k t r H. Give me a call.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the things that are of interest to you.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 1: If you've got outdoor metal equipment or ornament, you know,
Speaker 1: like those those metal iron fixtures that hang on the
Speaker 1: wall for decoration. Those kinds of things uh. The uh
Speaker 1: the metal chairs that have the cushions in them, but
Speaker 1: basically the chairs metal bit the cushions and in time
Speaker 1: those start to rust, they start to chip and lose
Speaker 1: their coats and things like that. Maybe you've got one
Speaker 1: of those old time remember the old time chairs they
Speaker 1: were they had a metal back and a metal seat
Speaker 1: and then a curved leg that kind of went forward
Speaker 1: down and came underneath you. Those you could sort of
Speaker 1: rock in them because they had a springiness to them.
Speaker 1: How about having one of those that is like brand new.
Speaker 1: Maybe we have a stool in our house that was metal,
Speaker 1: old time metal stool. Uh, and they start to russ,
Speaker 1: they start to have issues. Houston powder Coders one of
Speaker 1: our new sponsor newest sponsors is the biggest powder coder
Speaker 1: in the reason and they, I mean, this is a
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Speaker 1: thirty eight eighty eight. They can do some minor finishing
Speaker 1: and repair. Maybe need a little weld to, you know,
Speaker 1: stick something back together that's come loose. But they'll do
Speaker 1: premium coatings on cast iron on wrought iron on aluminum
Speaker 1: patio furniture. I've got an old bake shelf outdoors that
Speaker 1: is starting to look pretty bad, and we stuck it
Speaker 1: out there to stick plants on. They could do a
Speaker 1: coating on that kind of thing as well. One hundred
Speaker 1: plus colors, I'm telling you, any color. I saw something
Speaker 1: in their shop and I thought, ooh, that's an old
Speaker 1: iron rustic. I like that, has that been coated? You're
Speaker 1: going to coat that? And they go, no, it has
Speaker 1: been coated. I walked up to it and it was
Speaker 1: a coating that looked like the old iron. But do
Speaker 1: you want red or blue or one hundred different colors
Speaker 1: to choose from. They'll do fixing the slings and the
Speaker 1: straps and things. You just need to go go check
Speaker 1: them out at Houston Powder Coats Houston Powdercoats dot com
Speaker 1: two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight.
Speaker 1: And if you live as far as this radio signal
Speaker 1: goes almost to San Antonio and Austin employees wherever you
Speaker 1: live and hear this, they service your area too. They
Speaker 1: just talk to them and they'll tell you about how
Speaker 1: this works, and it is pretty cool. It was time
Speaker 1: for me to take a little break and I'll be
Speaker 1: right back with your phone calls at seven one three
Speaker 1: two one two KTRH. Boy, I haven't heard that in
Speaker 1: a while. All right, folks, we're back on guardline. Good
Speaker 1: have you with us. I was talking about earlier. We're
Speaker 1: going to be fertilizing our lawns soon. That's coming up.
Speaker 1: It's on the schedule. But I want to remind you
Speaker 1: that you can do azmite at any time. Really, I
Speaker 1: mean it. It is not a it's a nutrients. You
Speaker 1: could call it a fertilizer, but it's not the standard nitrogen, phosphorus,
Speaker 1: potassium that we put on it certain amounts of time
Speaker 1: according to plant growth. We're putting azamite down to build
Speaker 1: the soil bank account with trace minerals. There's seventy seven
Speaker 1: known trace elementary micronutrients in azamite. It's a volcanic ash
Speaker 1: and freshwater mineral mind substance down to the ground. Now
Speaker 1: there there's a concept called Lee bigs Baryl Lee bigs barrel.
Speaker 1: It's a law of Minimus. Here's what it means. Imagine
Speaker 1: a barrel with those staves coming up, and you cut
Speaker 1: off different staves at different heights. Right, one is a
Speaker 1: full of top. One's halfway once a quarter of the way.
Speaker 1: How much water can you put in the barrel. You
Speaker 1: can only fill it to the lowest stave and then
Speaker 1: it runs out. That's the concept of Liebig's barrel. That's
Speaker 1: the concept of the law of the minimums. If you've
Speaker 1: got some trace mineral that's limited, even just one little
Speaker 1: tiny trace mineral, it's limited. That limits the production the
Speaker 1: optimum growth of that particular plant, whether it's a lawn
Speaker 1: or whatever. Asmite is a trace mineral supplement. A forty
Speaker 1: forty four pound bag covers six to twelve thousand square feet.
Speaker 1: If you've got a vegetable garden, about ten pounds per
Speaker 1: thousand square feet. You can do it anytime of the
Speaker 1: year you want to do it. If you want more information,
Speaker 1: just go to azimite Texas dot com. I'm going to
Speaker 1: head out now on the phones and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to Jerry and West Houston. Hey Jerry, welcome to
Speaker 1: guard Line.
Speaker 13: Hey Morner, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm well, Thank you well.
Speaker 13: I got a little something here. My daughter got a
Speaker 13: banana plant tree. I supposed to have blue bananas and
Speaker 13: taste like ice.
Speaker 4: Cream.
Speaker 13: She don't have a green thumb, so I put it
Speaker 13: in my yard. She wants to see what the fruit
Speaker 13: looks like. But anyway, because of the freezing temperatures, well,
Speaker 13: the first year that banana plant just skyrocket is probably
Speaker 13: it was about fifteen feet tall with about five little puffs,
Speaker 13: but the freeze took care of that. I was just wondering,
Speaker 13: I know, to cut it back, but how far back
Speaker 13: do I cut it back? Do I leave a four
Speaker 13: foot trunk or do I leave it cut it at
Speaker 13: the base because it's about a ten foot diameter trunk
Speaker 13: at the base and all right, puffs.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. So bananas are technically they're an herbaceous plant as
Speaker 1: opposed to you know, we think of them as a tree.
Speaker 1: We call them trees because they grow up like that.
Speaker 1: They have a trunk. But that stem the degree that
Speaker 1: it freezes down, it tells you whether you're going to
Speaker 1: have a chance to make fruit on it or not.
Speaker 1: So if it goes all the way to the ground,
Speaker 1: the pups just take over. I mean, your banana can
Speaker 1: turn to mush all the way to the ground, and
Speaker 1: it's going to re sprout out at the base with
Speaker 1: little pups. Like you're describing. If you can save some
Speaker 1: of that trunk, what's going to happen is the new
Speaker 1: growth is going to come unfurling out of the center
Speaker 1: of that stumped off trunk at whatever height you cut
Speaker 1: it off if it's alive. So I wouldn't automatically cut
Speaker 1: it to the ground. We need to see how far
Speaker 1: back gets killed, because you don't want to cut it
Speaker 1: further back then you have to because you may still
Speaker 1: get some foliage on it, and by the end of
Speaker 1: the season it takes them a long time, many months
Speaker 1: to be able to set bananas. But I would probably
Speaker 1: just kind of feel it if it's mushy and dark,
Speaker 1: or maybe cut it off a little bit and then
Speaker 1: look at it a little bit more. As much as
Speaker 1: you can leave of that trunk. Leave it.
Speaker 13: Yeah, Okay, well, I know it's warm enough this week,
Speaker 13: but I'm tempted to cut it, but I think my
Speaker 13: better good until they just to leave it alone for
Speaker 13: a little while longer before you cut it back and
Speaker 13: wait till March.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The roll on post freeze damaged decisions is learned to
Speaker 1: live with ugly And I think you got it there,
Speaker 1: so thank you. Jerry I appreciate that call. Good luck,
Speaker 1: good luck with that banana. Appreciate that. Have you been
Speaker 1: to Buchanans Naty Plants in the Heights. That is an
Speaker 1: awesome garden center. There's always something going on at Buchanans.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have educational programs that are outstanding. They
Speaker 1: are like the coming up here well actually today from
Speaker 1: noon to one is something called the Gallantines Flower Workshop.
Speaker 1: Just go to their website and you learn more about it.
Speaker 1: Buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. They have stone fruit
Speaker 1: in lots of cool nectarines and apricots. Well, they have
Speaker 1: everything in you know. The house plant greenhouse is gorgeous, beautiful,
Speaker 1: certainly a well prepared section of native plants, a well
Speaker 1: prepared section of shade tree plants, beautiful vines like the clemitists.
Speaker 1: We don't we don't plant clemitis enough in a nice
Speaker 1: area of the morning sun and afternoon shade ultra roots.
Speaker 1: It does well here. Buganis can tell you all about that.
Speaker 1: They're experts on this. Sign up for the newsletter if
Speaker 1: Buchanan's Plants dot com. We're now going to go to
Speaker 1: Marty in Fairfield. Hey Marty, Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 2: Good morning Skip.
Speaker 14: I have a blueberry, a self pollinating blueberry from arborgate,
Speaker 14: and I've had it in a plot for years. It
Speaker 14: just hadn't done anything since the first year. I was
Speaker 14: going to think about finding somewhere to put it in
Speaker 14: my yard garden, okay, and don't know what exactly, how
Speaker 14: or when or what I need ye to do to
Speaker 14: do that.
Speaker 9: Can you help me?
Speaker 1: Okay? Is it not growing or is it just not producing?
Speaker 1: Or what is the symptom you're seeing on the thing?
Speaker 14: Well, I think it's been water logged basically. Okay, I
Speaker 14: haven't been I haven't been able to switch out the soil, Okay, So.
Speaker 1: What you want to do is you want to create
Speaker 1: an acidic soil for it. Now, there are soil mixes.
Speaker 1: You know, you're probably going to be looking at a
Speaker 1: bulk delivery, a supersac or something you go to. Heirloom
Speaker 1: soils go up to Nature's way resources. Both of them
Speaker 1: have a soil blend for acidic loving plants. In the
Speaker 1: old days, we just took sand and peat moss and
Speaker 1: mixed them together to create a blueberry bed. But you
Speaker 1: know for your area that just get one of these
Speaker 1: quality soils. Always use an acidic plant food, something for
Speaker 1: acid living plants. And again most of our fertilizer people
Speaker 1: can provide you with that. I know Microlife has one
Speaker 1: in kind of a pink bag that's for acid loving plant.
Speaker 1: Just always keep it on the acidic side. As much
Speaker 1: as you can use rain water. If you've got a barrel,
Speaker 1: use it. It's better than tapwater, especially for blueberries. They
Speaker 1: don't like high pH water and they don't like buy
Speaker 1: carbonates in the water, which some of our water supplies have,
Speaker 1: So that would be the secret, along with a lot
Speaker 1: of sunshine. Blueberries will take some shade. But the more
Speaker 1: shade you get, the less blueberries you're going to get
Speaker 1: to eat.
Speaker 14: And how tall if I I hate to take up
Speaker 14: my veggie garden, but how how tall and how wide
Speaker 14: would they actually get? Should I put it in my
Speaker 14: veggie garden?
Speaker 1: Do you know if it's a southern high bush or
Speaker 1: a rabbit eye by chance?
Speaker 14: Yeah, it's the pollinating one she has.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think it's well, uh, Southern high rabitie rabbit eye.
Speaker 1: They get pretty large. I've seen rabbit eyes important many
Speaker 1: years ago. They were probably ten foot tall. Now, I
Speaker 1: had rabbit eyes adam and a container, and I kept
Speaker 1: kept them at about five feet tall, you know, so
Speaker 1: that that can be done, But they do get larger
Speaker 1: in time. What with a blueberry, you always want you
Speaker 1: want to prune every year, removing the oldest canes, so
Speaker 1: you're kind of on a five year renovation of the
Speaker 1: whole bush schedule. And that also avoids getting really big. So,
Speaker 1: you know, a cane after it's about five years, it's
Speaker 1: not very productive. It's woody, it's a trunk, it's got
Speaker 1: growth way up high. Cut it off at the ground
Speaker 1: to get fresh new canes coming out, and I think
Speaker 1: you'll keep the height a lot lower that way as well.
Speaker 14: Oh okay, that may be the problem then, because I
Speaker 14: don't I haven't been prune yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the oldest canes the fun all right, Marty,
Speaker 1: thank you?
Speaker 9: Wait, okay, takes a lot skip all right, bye bye.
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Speaker 1: All right, it is time for me take a little
Speaker 1: break here top of the hour news. Let's see here
Speaker 1: we've got Doug and Seabrook and Jim in spring. You
Speaker 1: are our first two up when we come back. If
Speaker 1: you can hang around, thank you for your call and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back in just a bit with your
Speaker 1: calls in the meantime, got a top of er break
Speaker 1: unless you will listen to the news. Go check out
Speaker 1: gardening with skip dot com and all the stuff up
Speaker 1: there that I tell you I keep putting up very
Speaker 1: helpful things for you. Also a good time to go.
Speaker 4: Go.
Speaker 15: This is Michael Berry, And in almost twenty years of
Speaker 15: being on the radio, I have had companies who support
Speaker 15: and sponsor our show. I don't use the term advertising
Speaker 15: because it's a partnership. Say to me, I know when
Speaker 15: your listeners come in the door to my company because
Speaker 15: they're the best customers I could ever have. If you
Speaker 15: want to support our show, sponsor our show, be a
Speaker 15: partner and have me endorse you and what you do
Speaker 15: well to our listeners, email me through our website Michael
Speaker 15: Berryshow dot com. Michael Berryshow dot com.
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Speaker 6: Welcome to kat r h Garden Line with skimp Rickard's.
Speaker 7: Shoes trim just watch him as well.
Speaker 8: Thanks to Sun.
Speaker 1: Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back to guard Line. If
Speaker 1: you've been with us this morning. We have got two
Speaker 1: more hours. Let's see one two Yeah, two more hours
Speaker 1: a show this morning. It's flying by as usually does.
Speaker 1: But if you've got a question you'd like to ask
Speaker 1: seven one three two one two k t RH, we'll
Speaker 1: be happy to visit with you about that.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 1: Let's head on out to Spring, Texas and we are
Speaker 1: going to visit with Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 18: Hi Skip, thanks for having me on your on your show.
Speaker 3: Listen to you all the time, appreciate us to work.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: So he can help well, I.
Speaker 18: Sent you a couple photos on Friday. One was my
Speaker 18: front yard looking for some advice to replace some box
Speaker 18: woods with something that would give us a nice little
Speaker 18: head along our sidewalk leading.
Speaker 3: Out to the street.
Speaker 18: I'm trying to grow some box woods there for two
Speaker 18: years now, and I've replaced them a number of times.
Speaker 18: I don't know, you know, I've done everything I can
Speaker 18: think and listen to you a lot. Anyway, they just
Speaker 18: keep dying and they're not growing worth a corn. So
Speaker 18: I'm looking for something else that I can put out
Speaker 18: there that's kind of fast growing, grow up to maybe
Speaker 18: you know around thirty thirty six inches high, and I
Speaker 18: can keep it trimmed like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you had that height, and when I looked
Speaker 1: at it, my first thought was, that's pretty tall for
Speaker 1: an area like that, because you as you're coming up
Speaker 1: and you're seeing the yard and the beds and everything
Speaker 1: around the house, you have a nice place. I seemed
Speaker 1: a little on the high side. But the first thing
Speaker 1: that came to mind was was dwarf yopon. And now
Speaker 1: dwarfy opon generally doesn't get that tall. In time. It can,
Speaker 1: but we usually keep it at about a two foot
Speaker 1: a height somewhere and around two foot. It could be
Speaker 1: a little higher than that though it will get up,
Speaker 1: but that would be a good one. It's a native plan.
Speaker 1: It does well here, you know, not hard to grow,
Speaker 1: easy to do. Then the other things, there are some
Speaker 1: very dwarf types of hollies. Yes, why a you.
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 1: Why a you p o n hy au p o n.
Speaker 1: You have seen them a lot as you driven around,
Speaker 1: maybe not even thought about what they are. But yopan
Speaker 1: it's a pronounced jopon uh. It's compact. There's some different
Speaker 1: varieties of it. You know, you're down there, or just
Speaker 1: you throw a rock from where you live to Ma's nursery,
Speaker 1: so they they're going to have dorothyopon there when you're
Speaker 1: when you're at Moss, though, ask them, ask them what
Speaker 1: else they carry. You know, all our garden centers carry
Speaker 1: a variety of different things, and I can't keep up
Speaker 1: with every plant and every one of them. But they
Speaker 1: may have another suggestion that is in their group of plants.
Speaker 1: But that would be the one that I would say
Speaker 1: would be dependable. Simple. If you want to share it
Speaker 1: and make a box out of it, you can. If
Speaker 1: you want to let it grow into a natural mound,
Speaker 1: you can do that too.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty versatile.
Speaker 3: Plant, okay. And two foot would be okay.
Speaker 18: I recognize that thirty thirty six inches is kind of
Speaker 18: high for that for that area.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that that'd be that'd be great. I'll check
Speaker 3: out my local nursery. Good stuff.
Speaker 18: The other one was I sent you with some follow
Speaker 18: up pictures of some grasses that I have grown in
Speaker 18: my backyard. They came last year and I seem to
Speaker 18: manage to get rid of them, I don't know, by
Speaker 18: luck more than by skill, and now they're back with
Speaker 18: a vengees this year. So there are these tufts of
Speaker 18: grass and they're very shadow They come up very easily.
Speaker 18: When you pull one up, you pull up a mount
Speaker 18: of dirt with them. I sent you too far off
Speaker 18: the photo, and I hope.
Speaker 3: Might give you a better idea of what it is.
Speaker 3: But they're right.
Speaker 18: They're just kind of popping up everywhere in my backyard.
Speaker 1: Okay, looking at the photos, it looks to me like
Speaker 1: that's called dove weed. Dove Weed is a it's a
Speaker 1: shiny leaf, I don't want to say rubbery, but it's
Speaker 1: a thick, thicker leaf than normal grass. Normal grass almost
Speaker 1: has a dryish feel to it. Doveweed you feel like,
Speaker 1: probably if you pulled it open, it has some juice
Speaker 1: inside or something like that. I think you've got doveweed there,
Speaker 1: and doveweed is You got different options. It's not easy
Speaker 1: to kill. It likes warm weather. Typically it doesn't want
Speaker 1: to start growing a lot until we get into May.
Speaker 1: But it seems to be hanging around now. If it
Speaker 1: is doveweed, a product called Celsius would be one of
Speaker 1: your best bets. Celsius like the temperature. It's not cheap.
Speaker 1: You buy little packets of it. Makes a gallon and
Speaker 1: that'll go a long way and spray in the doveweed.
Speaker 1: So that's one another option for doveweed if you don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of it is a cinnamon based product
Speaker 1: called Agralon, and it literally it's ground up cinnamon. When
Speaker 1: the doveweed is wet, you sprinkle that powder on there
Speaker 1: and it will just turn it black. Now, we comes
Speaker 1: from seed, it can bounce back out of the base
Speaker 1: of the plant, so the sentiment approach may not be
Speaker 1: as long lasting as you want, and if it's a
Speaker 1: large area, can get a little pricey to do it
Speaker 1: that way. But the other option would be there. Nelson
Speaker 1: has a Nelson Plant Food has a fertilizer called we Donator,
Speaker 1: and we Donator has an ingredient in it that is
Speaker 1: a post emergent herbicide that is effective to some degree,
Speaker 1: pretty decent against doveweed. Okay, uh, not not as good
Speaker 1: as celsius, but but but it's pretty good. And it's
Speaker 1: if you got any other broad leaf weeds in your grass,
Speaker 1: it'll control those two. You just want to follow a
Speaker 1: volabel very carefully. You want to make sure your weeds
Speaker 1: are wet so when you put it out the granules
Speaker 1: you're putting out stick to those weeds. It won't this
Speaker 1: stuff won't hurt your grass, but you want it to
Speaker 1: stick to the weed leaves and start there. It's gonna
Speaker 1: some's going to fall onto the ground. That's fine. But
Speaker 1: a turf star we donator and it'll last. It'll feed
Speaker 1: for about six months. It's a little early now to
Speaker 1: be fertilizing. So if you don't do that a little
Speaker 1: bit later, or maybe you try something now and you
Speaker 1: still got some dove weed, then just try that weedonator
Speaker 1: is an option. See how that works for you. It
Speaker 1: from what I've seen in research, that ingredient in there
Speaker 1: should do.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, and that dove d ov dove weed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, d o v E. Yeah, it's it's not a
Speaker 1: grass really, it's more kin to wandering jew than it
Speaker 1: is to grass.
Speaker 3: Oh I got that all righty, Well, thank you very much. Skip.
Speaker 3: I'll look into this and and.
Speaker 18: Get out my dove weed back here, because it came
Speaker 18: last year and it just seemed to kind of go
Speaker 18: away with the heat maybe in the in the later spring.
Speaker 3: But this year it's it's back early with a vengeance.
Speaker 3: It's I got it.
Speaker 1: Everywhere, all right, all right, so we'll just check that out.
Speaker 1: You bet you now that? Yeah, that's a turf star
Speaker 1: weedon eator that I was talking about there. It also
Speaker 1: does a really good job of it has an effect
Speaker 1: on your grass where you gress didn't grow up straight
Speaker 1: up as much, or you're not mowing as much, but
Speaker 1: it still spreads. Well. That's a growth regulator type of
Speaker 1: effect in the weed nator. Kind of interesting the way
Speaker 1: that works. All right, I got to run to a break.
Speaker 1: Doug and Seabrook, you are first. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Mike in the Heights you will be next. Alrighty, let's
Speaker 1: get this going again here on garden Line. We're going
Speaker 1: to run straight out here and talk to Doug in sky. Doug,
Speaker 1: welcome to guarden Line, and thanks for hanging on.
Speaker 4: Good morning, Skip.
Speaker 10: I really appreciate your program.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I had a question.
Speaker 19: I recently moved from the Dallas area and up there.
Speaker 10: I would put potatoes in the ground on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 10: That was kind of my marker to do it. I
Speaker 10: was wondering when is the best time to do it
Speaker 10: in this area?
Speaker 1: Right now? Right now?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: Any you could do it on Valentine's Day here too
Speaker 1: as well, if you like. But really the primetime in
Speaker 1: general for this region is going to be the first
Speaker 1: three weeks of February. That's the prime time. If you're
Speaker 1: further Let's see, you were in Seabrooks, so yeah, you could.
Speaker 1: You could go a little earlier even than now and
Speaker 1: be fine, But that right now is the fast answer.
Speaker 4: That's what I figured.
Speaker 10: Just love being in this area and learning the new
Speaker 10: ropes of the horticulture world here.
Speaker 3: My second time, you grow a lot of.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you can grow a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff down here you couldn't grow in Dallas.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 19: Yes, I'm really looking forward to redoing some of the
Speaker 19: flower beds and growing some new stuff down here.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 19: My second question is has to do with the lawn fungus.
Speaker 19: That's new to me as well, and didn't have to
Speaker 19: deal with that before. I treated it in the fall
Speaker 19: and that worked, but it came back right before the
Speaker 19: big freeze with the snow, and I was wondering when
Speaker 19: should I put down that another treatment to deal with
Speaker 19: those few places that it came back.
Speaker 1: Describe to me the symptoms you were seeing on the lawn.
Speaker 19: It's kind of a round area the size of a
Speaker 19: small car.
Speaker 4: In the big areas, are.
Speaker 10: Are smaller like a little tabletop in other areas.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Okay, So that is called large patch or brown patch.
Speaker 1: Brown patches the old name for it. We still use that,
Speaker 1: but it's also called large patch. Now now that you're
Speaker 1: in the area, what you need to do is bookmark
Speaker 1: my website gardening with skip dot com, Gardening with skip
Speaker 1: dot com on there. I've got two lawn schedules. One
Speaker 1: is the lawn care schedule, mowing, watering, fertilizing, things like that.
Speaker 1: The other is the lawn pest disease and weed management schedule.
Speaker 1: So if you go to the pest disease and we'd management,
Speaker 1: you will see on there that in October you were
Speaker 1: and first three weeks in November you're treating for brown
Speaker 1: patch because that's when it typically would arrive. So had
Speaker 1: you treated in October, the circles that you saw would
Speaker 1: not have been able to develop. We also start treating
Speaker 1: again in late January, and we can go all the
Speaker 1: way through mid March if we want to. But that
Speaker 1: is that this whole time is when we would see
Speaker 1: the reappearance of the of the brown patch circles now
Speaker 1: because our weather is so irregular. I mean we can
Speaker 1: have warm days in January and whenever you have mild
Speaker 1: temperatures and moisture, brown patch is going to pop up
Speaker 1: the circles or potential going to pop up. So the
Speaker 1: other things you want to do, Doug, is avoid overfertilizing,
Speaker 1: especially late in the season. The fall fertilizing does not
Speaker 1: need to be as much nitrogen compared to like some
Speaker 1: of the other numbers as we do during the growing season,
Speaker 1: So hold off on the nitrogen. Avoid wetting the grass
Speaker 1: more than you have to, and you shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: water much in the cool season here, but wet conditions
Speaker 1: continually wet high nitrogen that all predisposes your lawn to
Speaker 1: that infection. So the combination of those cultural advice along
Speaker 1: with the schedule that I have it's right there on
Speaker 1: gardening with skip dot comics pre to download, print out
Speaker 1: and everything.
Speaker 4: Thanks for the helping.
Speaker 10: Right now, I can treat for fungus, is what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You can. You can just follow that schedule on what
Speaker 1: to use. Okay, all right, thank you, Sar, appreciate your call.
Speaker 1: Let's see here We're going to go now to Mike
Speaker 1: in the high Hello, Mike, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 5: Good morning. It's my first call. I wanted to call
Speaker 5: and asked Yeah, I listened to you as I can.
Speaker 5: I wanted to call and ask you about my desert rose.
Speaker 5: It's a potted plant. I've had it about ten years,
Speaker 5: so it's very durable, it seems in spite of me,
Speaker 5: and it's it's really took that that storm hard and
Speaker 5: the leaves became really wilted and yellow and brown, not
Speaker 5: all of them, you know, sixty And I wonder do
Speaker 5: I cut it back?
Speaker 4: Do I?
Speaker 5: You know, it's like I say, it's ten years old.
Speaker 5: It's it's had vibrant colors for months on end much
Speaker 5: of the year, it seems, and really pretty. And I
Speaker 5: don't want to lose it. I don't want to do
Speaker 5: the wrong thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, if anywhere you like, if you had stem damage
Speaker 1: and it's mushy or anything like that, that's not going
Speaker 1: to come back alive again, So I could be removed.
Speaker 1: I would wait and kind of let's see what it's
Speaker 1: gonna do.
Speaker 16: Uh.
Speaker 1: I like to be patient with plants and let them
Speaker 1: tell me where to prone you know, we can scratch
Speaker 1: them around and feel this stuff and try to decide
Speaker 1: where to cut out. Or you could just wait and
Speaker 1: when you see new growth, then something that's dead is dead,
Speaker 1: and go ahead and remove it out of it. But
Speaker 1: who knows, we'll see maybe that maybe that's going to
Speaker 1: bounce right back and put new foliage on it.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, and maybe water it once a week
Speaker 5: or so or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it needs water, but it doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: wet all the time. It doesn't like poor drainage. Definitely
Speaker 1: not poor drainage. So you shouldn't have to water it
Speaker 1: a lot until the weather gets warmer than you're watering
Speaker 1: a little bit more. But you know, right now, the
Speaker 1: demands are almost nothing on that plant, right and so
Speaker 1: so just just be careful that the worst thing you
Speaker 1: can do is overwater.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm trying to about that. Well, Thank you, Skip,
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, thanks for the call. I appreciate your call.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. Are you inserted in
Speaker 1: planning a rose this spring? This late winter and spring,
Speaker 1: now's a great time to plant roses. What if I
Speaker 1: told you you could go someplace and there are one
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety three roughly different varieties to choose from.
Speaker 1: That's RCW Nursery. That is the length of their rose
Speaker 1: list of what they get in. Now, every day you wait,
Speaker 1: there's roses going and varieties disappearing because they got bought out.
Speaker 1: And so that you know that not one hundred and
Speaker 1: three to pick from in March, I can guarantee you
Speaker 1: that because they sell people go nuts on these roses.
Speaker 1: But RCW is the garden center where about Way eight
Speaker 1: comes together with Tomball Parkway, which is Highway two forty
Speaker 1: nine northwest Houston, easy to get to. When you get
Speaker 1: in there, you're have everything else. You know, they grow
Speaker 1: their own trees and shrubs up in Plantersville, so they've
Speaker 1: got one of the best selection of the trees and
Speaker 1: shrubs that want to be here in our area. They
Speaker 1: know what grows here. That's what they grow and that's
Speaker 1: what they sell. You can buy smaller ones and planting yourself.
Speaker 1: You can have RCW come out and plant them. So
Speaker 1: they got some big ones. Unless you want to put
Speaker 1: your chiropractice kids through college, you need you need to
Speaker 1: let them do that. But they've got it all. R
Speaker 1: cwnurseries dot com. Right now rows amazing. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: a place that orders in I need three different varieties
Speaker 1: of roses? That's RCW. Let's go out. Uh here, what
Speaker 1: are we looking at on tower? We're good on time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to Tomball and talk to John. Hey, John,
Speaker 1: welcome to guard Line.
Speaker 20: Want to skip right. A quick, easy question for you.
Speaker 20: My daughter's planning some Sant Augustine grass because she's moving.
Speaker 20: She wants to get things fixed up a little bit.
Speaker 20: When's the best time to plant Saint Augustine?
Speaker 1: Well, Saint Augustine. Really, all of our warm season grasses,
Speaker 1: they're not really wanting to put out roots right now
Speaker 1: much a little bit, but not much. But once it
Speaker 1: starts to warm up a little bit, all the fresh
Speaker 1: new roots system goes in. So when you're putting sawed out,
Speaker 1: getting fresh roots in the ground. You can put sod
Speaker 1: out every month of the year technically, but my least
Speaker 1: favorite time is in the winter to put sod out,
Speaker 1: just it's just not going to get the roots down
Speaker 1: very fast. So if we can, if we can start
Speaker 1: doing that in March, that would be okay. Starting doing
Speaker 1: it in March April's even better. But if you you know,
Speaker 1: like she's got to be out of there at the
Speaker 1: end of February, we'll put something down on the ground,
Speaker 1: get it watered in as best you can. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna have to water as much or as often at
Speaker 1: this time of year because the demands are so low.
Speaker 1: But if you want the best looking lawn, wait a
Speaker 1: little bit longer.
Speaker 4: All right, thank you, Chip.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, thank you, appreciate that call. All right, folks,
Speaker 1: we've got an open line here at Garden Line. It
Speaker 1: cleaned it all out seven to one three two one
Speaker 1: two kt RH seven one three two one two kt RH.
Speaker 1: We love our feed stores here on Garden Line and
Speaker 1: Spring Creek Feed up in Magnolia area. It's on twenty
Speaker 1: nine seventy eight FM twenty nine seventy eight up in
Speaker 1: the Magnoia area. It's just a few minutes away from
Speaker 1: the Grand Parkway and Highway two forty nine, you know
Speaker 1: that area. They carry the full line of the turf Star,
Speaker 1: the Microlife, the nitroposs products for fertilizing your lawn. They
Speaker 1: also have the products you need for controlling weeds or
Speaker 1: dealing with diseases, or dealing with pests. They've got all
Speaker 1: that excellent lawn, garden and even pond supplies for that matter.
Speaker 1: Of course, they're a feed store, so livestock feed, pet
Speaker 1: food like Victor by Victor and Purinea purina purina. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I used to raise my livestock animals for the show
Speaker 1: on Purina food. They got that there, and they also
Speaker 1: perhaps most importantly of all, it is a wonderful You
Speaker 1: walk in and you go, wait a minute, is this
Speaker 1: a feed store, because there's all kinds of cool stuff
Speaker 1: for the home and whatnot. But yes, it is absolutely
Speaker 1: a feed store, and it's absolutely a garden supply store.
Speaker 1: The friendly, courteous staff that greet you, that is it
Speaker 1: just makes it a pleasure to go in there and
Speaker 1: top if you're FFA or four h or military or
Speaker 1: a senior citizen, there's discounts for you there. They will
Speaker 1: special order products for you there, and they have a
Speaker 1: delivery service at Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM
Speaker 1: twenty nine seventy eight twenty nine seventy eight. I love
Speaker 1: going in there. I always I am amazed at the
Speaker 1: various kinds of things that Boy, if you're into backyard chickens, too.
Speaker 1: They've got you know, you can get everything from the
Speaker 1: little feeders and the lights and waters and all the
Speaker 1: supplies you need to have those backyard chickens. Backyard chickens
Speaker 1: are cool. My daughter, I've got one of my daughters.
Speaker 1: It has backyard chickens. And you go to our house
Speaker 1: and look out the living it's actually kitchen slash dining
Speaker 1: room door, and there's a bunch of chicken faces looking inside.
Speaker 1: There are the nosiest little things you've ever seen in
Speaker 1: your life, but they're cool. People that are into chickens
Speaker 1: are into chickens, that's for sure. Well, you're listening to
Speaker 1: garden Line. If you want to give us a call,
Speaker 1: I'm abou to take a little quick break, But if
Speaker 1: you'd like to be first up or one of the
Speaker 1: first ones up, depending on how fast you don't, you
Speaker 1: can give me a call at seven one three two
Speaker 1: one two kt r H and we'll be back and
Speaker 1: enter your calls as well as I've got things I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, things that you might want to
Speaker 1: be considering right now that are very timely in the
Speaker 1: garden and the landscape. We're about to enter spring and
Speaker 1: that is our crazy busy season. So let's get ahead
Speaker 1: of it. Let's be ready to go so that you
Speaker 1: can have success with what you're about to grow. All right,
Speaker 1: welcome by, I got I got a lot of garden
Speaker 1: talk left in me. I give me a all we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it. Seven one three two one two ktr h.
Speaker 1: Good to have you with us. By the way, I
Speaker 1: love products that Medina carries. They have so many good products.
Speaker 1: You know, Medina has been around since I don't know,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and their products are beloved by gardeners. Many
Speaker 1: different options. You know, I've talked about over and over
Speaker 1: the has to grow six twelve six. The fact that
Speaker 1: it's got so many things in it. It's got the
Speaker 1: course of the nutrients, the nitrogen phosphores, it's got Medina soil activator,
Speaker 1: it's got hemic acid, it's got seaweed extracts. I mean,
Speaker 1: you use it for drenching new transplants. You can use
Speaker 1: it for folier feeding if you want. There's another product
Speaker 1: that I like a lot too. It's called Medina Plus.
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of micronutrients in it, fortified with
Speaker 1: micro nutrients. It's got seaweed extract in it as well,
Speaker 1: and it's a good all through the year folier feed
Speaker 1: for plants, you know, trees, shrubs, lawns, vegetable gardens, flower gardens.
Speaker 1: Over four different trace elements. Got some natural growth hormones
Speaker 1: in it. That's Medina Plus. And the Medina Plus gives
Speaker 1: you lots of benefits that Medina Soil Activator has plus.
Speaker 1: They increased bloom and leaf growth support, increased fruits, set again.
Speaker 1: Transplanting seed treatments. You got some seeds you want to transplant,
Speaker 1: gets you Medina plus water. Mix it up, three seeds
Speaker 1: in it, let them soak overnight and in the morning
Speaker 1: when they're swollen up, or the next day, go out
Speaker 1: there and plant them and look at the difference you're
Speaker 1: going to see from that. That's from the folks at Medina.
Speaker 1: They're widely available products, easy to find everywhere, and they work.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the phones now. We're going to
Speaker 1: head to Houston and talk to Cheryl. Hey, Cheryl, welcome
Speaker 1: to garden Line.
Speaker 21: Hey, Hello, Skip, thanks for taking me call. I have
Speaker 21: I have a question about mapcone trees. I have probably
Speaker 21: ten to twelve trees and they're all full grown and
Speaker 21: they all produce.
Speaker 3: Pecans.
Speaker 22: But I never get pecans, even if they turn black
Speaker 22: and they're no good, or the squirrels get them, or
Speaker 22: if they get ripe and they open and fall on
Speaker 22: the ground and I crack them, they're dry and bitter.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take that and backwards order squirrels. Pecan
Speaker 1: fed squirrel is some You can make some of the
Speaker 1: best dumplings you've ever had in your life with a
Speaker 1: good pecan fed squirrel. So that's not a problem, that's
Speaker 1: an opportunity. Seriously, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, seriously that
Speaker 1: you know. The only way you can keep pecans squirrel
Speaker 1: free is to have on the pecan trunk one of
Speaker 1: those pieces of metal flashing that's up off the ground
Speaker 1: so that the pecans cannot jump above it and they
Speaker 1: can't climb through it because that flashing, they can't get
Speaker 1: a little claws in that. So you just kind of
Speaker 1: have to get at the right height, and then you
Speaker 1: have have to trim all the lower limbs so they
Speaker 1: can't jump from the ground. And then you got to
Speaker 1: make sure there's not like a power line going through
Speaker 1: or some other tree that they just jump into the
Speaker 1: top of. And if you can have all of that,
Speaker 1: you can keep squirrels out of a pecan. Otherwise we're
Speaker 1: up a creek. The squirrels just love those things. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as the what we call pops, that's the
Speaker 1: pecan kernels that are pecan shells that are just empty,
Speaker 1: called those pops, that's caused by one of two things.
Speaker 1: If you have significant disease damage by the end of
Speaker 1: the season when pecans are filling and finishing their kernels,
Speaker 1: you will get hollow shells. Pecans up until about August
Speaker 1: first grow the shell size and harden the shell and
Speaker 1: inside their liquid. After August, first that liquid begins to
Speaker 1: turn into dowe, and then even the hard then finally
Speaker 1: the hard kernel. So that late season problems. Maybe webworms
Speaker 1: defoliate the tree, maybe diseases decimate the leaves that affects spilling.
Speaker 1: The other thing that affects spilling or diseases of the shuck.
Speaker 1: And this isn't a disease, it's the thing on the
Speaker 1: outside of the pecan, believe it or not. The nutrients
Speaker 1: from the tree go through the shuck and then enter
Speaker 1: the nut and fill the kernel. So if you kill
Speaker 1: the shuck with diseases that turn it black before it's time,
Speaker 1: then you're not going to get filling of the pecans,
Speaker 1: so it's going to be Those are the two main
Speaker 1: things that we run into, is the foliage disease and
Speaker 1: the shuck diseases. As far as causing those pops, those hollow.
Speaker 22: Kernels, Okay, I've never had a hollow kernel. Oh okay,
Speaker 22: I've had them look like they're two years old whenever
Speaker 22: I crack them, and they're dry and a bitter.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, if a pecan gets old, it does get bitter.
Speaker 1: It's an oil, and oils go rancid, So if it's
Speaker 1: not stored at a cool temperature, that will happen. But
Speaker 1: anything that causes you know, a lack of that proper
Speaker 1: filling process, you may it may go as far as
Speaker 1: you have a kernel, but it's kind of shrivelly and black,
Speaker 1: dark in its color and bitter. That that I still
Speaker 1: think is the causes that I was describing.
Speaker 22: Okay, But the biggest you know, the squirrels.
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 22: I have so many trees that the squirrels could probably
Speaker 22: have a heyday, and I could deal with that.
Speaker 3: But the.
Speaker 22: Kernel on the outside turns black.
Speaker 1: What is that is? It? Is it? Healthy looking? Dense
Speaker 1: nut meat? Underneath that black skin of the kernel.
Speaker 22: Yes, if you crack it open, it's just not right.
Speaker 22: But it's black and it looks pretty.
Speaker 1: And we're not talking about little round black spots. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the whole kernel skin in as black. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've had both.
Speaker 22: I've had both. I've had it for the whole shell
Speaker 22: turns black on the outside, okay, and then i've had
Speaker 22: it where it has.
Speaker 1: Spot all right, well, shell black on the outside. That
Speaker 1: is that is a shock disease. And you have the
Speaker 1: spray for those, just like you have to spray for
Speaker 1: leaf diseases. And in your situation that's probably not practical,
Speaker 1: you know, to get a sprayer that can cover those
Speaker 1: trees and do that. If it's little round spots, that's
Speaker 1: stink bug damage or leaf footed bug damage. They stick
Speaker 1: their little beak down there through the shock, through the
Speaker 1: shell and they they cause those little black spots by
Speaker 1: their feeding on the kernel. So it's gonna be one
Speaker 1: of those. Hey, I tell you what this year, next
Speaker 1: time you see that happen, take some pictures. Crack them open,
Speaker 1: break a kernel open, show me the inside, let me
Speaker 1: see the outside, and some photos. Let me take a
Speaker 1: look at them. And maybe I'm seeing something that I'm
Speaker 1: not picturing right now with your description. Okay, I think
Speaker 1: I've given I've told you what. Go ahead.
Speaker 22: If I sprayed momp this tree, they give me the most,
Speaker 22: what do I spray them with?
Speaker 3: For that part? All right?
Speaker 1: There is I tell you what will you? I'm going
Speaker 1: to put you on hold and my producer I will
Speaker 1: give you an email. I want you to email this
Speaker 1: question and I'm going to send you more information. I
Speaker 1: got to run to a break. I'm over time here,
Speaker 1: but I'll point you to the information you're asking for. Okay,
Speaker 1: wonderful things and you're you're in Houston. Just run over
Speaker 1: to Southwest Fertilizer. They have a wide variety of products
Speaker 1: for spray pecans that you're not going to find most
Speaker 1: other places. All right, Cheryl, here you go. I'm putting
Speaker 1: on hold, folks. I'll be right back. All right, Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today.
Speaker 1: We're here to answer your gardening questions. Looking forward to
Speaker 1: doing that. Hey, when was the last time you're out
Speaker 1: at Enchanted Forest? Enchanted Forest? They have got all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff going on this spring. They got a good
Speaker 1: lineup of different talks coming in different events. You just
Speaker 1: got to go to their website and check that out.
Speaker 1: It's an easy one. Just remember this, write this down.
Speaker 1: Enchanted Forest, Enchanted Forests. I'm trying to. I just went
Speaker 1: blank on the website. It was okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX
Speaker 1: dot com. They got good stuff going on all the time.
Speaker 1: You need to go check it out. By the way,
Speaker 1: they've got their potatoes. And we've been talking about potatoes today.
Speaker 1: When do you plant potatoes? Now? Now, now, now, now,
Speaker 1: now's the time. They got red milesoda. They got Yukon gold.
Speaker 1: That one's cool. It looks like it's already been buttered.
Speaker 1: It's golden inside. I red Pontiac and you know, they
Speaker 1: just have a wide variety of Kennebec. They carry the
Speaker 1: Kennebec variety two all great potatoes. Now's the time to
Speaker 1: plant them. You haven't done it. You need to do it.
Speaker 1: They've gotten so many plans on I don't even know
Speaker 1: where to begin, but gorgeous foliage plants for sun and
Speaker 1: for shade, beautiful flowering plants. You know it's the season.
Speaker 1: Have you ever planted dahlias? Before you know. They have
Speaker 1: their their little Personnicoty about going year round for us,
Speaker 1: although that can be done, but they have got dalias
Speaker 1: that you look at them and you're just going, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that color existed in nature. It is so beautiful,
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful, and do real well for you too. By
Speaker 1: the way, but in Chenny Forest Garden Center. It's the
Speaker 1: garden center that is out there on FM twenty seven
Speaker 1: to fifty nine. So if you're in Richmond Rosenberg, you're
Speaker 1: heading towards sugar Land. It's off to the right down
Speaker 1: south of fifty nine on twenty seven fifty nine. You
Speaker 1: need to check it out. Let them help you create
Speaker 1: a beautiful paradise at your place. By the way, they
Speaker 1: have low chill varieties of apples and peaches and plums.
Speaker 1: They even have some tree fruit trees that are three
Speaker 1: and one. There are three grafted varieties on one tree.
Speaker 1: So if you don't have room for like three trees,
Speaker 1: and you want one tree, but you want three kinds
Speaker 1: of three varieties on that tree, go by. I say,
Speaker 1: I want to see your three in one tree. Skip
Speaker 1: was talking about on garden Line. They have citrus that
Speaker 1: is an outstanding selection especially those satsumas that and I
Speaker 1: like to promote those in our area because they were
Speaker 1: We are a great place for satsumas. We're fully winter
Speaker 1: hardy plants for our area. Now, if we have seven degrees,
Speaker 1: how often does that occur? Almost never. Yeah, you got
Speaker 1: to cover them up, but heat under them and all that.
Speaker 1: But satsumas are good, tough, hardy trees. Once they're established,
Speaker 1: they're gonna go down in the middle teens. Once they've
Speaker 1: had a couple of two three years in the ground,
Speaker 1: they're established and ready to go. But they're a great plant,
Speaker 1: and they got all the tools and fertilizers and soils
Speaker 1: you need for your little fruit orchard. Let them help
Speaker 1: you create your own fruitful paradise right there to the chanted forest.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to Sugarland now and talk to Pat. Hey, Pat,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 9: Thank you. I appreciate you're taking my call. I have
Speaker 9: the issues with our grass and we've been having issues
Speaker 9: since the end of August, and we were thinking it
Speaker 9: was chinch sprug and so we've been putting this micro
Speaker 9: grow bio inoculant, which a local true Value person totis
Speaker 9: to use but anyway, it started out like in the
Speaker 9: circle and just grew and we can see new grass
Speaker 9: coming where it originally started. But it just keeps spreading,
Speaker 9: so we think it's changing. Bugs do have something, you think?
Speaker 9: It's kind of hard to tell now with all the
Speaker 9: frozen grass from the freeze and the snow, but it's
Speaker 9: still there. We don't know if we should treat it
Speaker 9: now or wait till springtime.
Speaker 1: Okay, don't treat now, not right now. I don't know
Speaker 1: what did it. If it's happening back, you know, in
Speaker 1: August time, it could be chinchbugs.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Biinoculant. Micro Biinoculant is a quality product from the folks
Speaker 1: at Microlife, but it's design to enhance the microbial activity
Speaker 1: in the soil, which helps the plants in many many
Speaker 1: ways and can help with some disease issues. But it
Speaker 1: is not going to do anything for chinchbugs. It's not
Speaker 1: designed or made for that. If it was chinchbugs, you're
Speaker 1: not going to see them again until the weather really
Speaker 1: heats up in summer. So let's see what's going on
Speaker 1: with your grass going out of the winter time. If
Speaker 1: you want to be extra careful, just you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a just in case thing. I normally don't like
Speaker 1: to send people out to spray if we don't know
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with. But there is a product that
Speaker 1: works pretty good on the brown patch also called large
Speaker 1: patch and take all root rot, which is what you
Speaker 1: may have been seeing when that lawn was not looking good.
Speaker 1: And so if you're dealing with the take all, there
Speaker 1: is a product in green called a zoxy stroban. Do
Speaker 1: you have a pin or pencil handy?
Speaker 9: Yes, my husband's right here. How do you spell that?
Speaker 1: I will spell it azo x y A zoxy and
Speaker 1: the second half is stroo b I N A stroban
Speaker 1: A zoxy stroban. That's the ingredient. You're going to find
Speaker 1: it in different products. But you go to a quality
Speaker 1: you go to an ACE hardware store. Where are you located?
Speaker 1: You're down and oh you're done. Surely you're just right
Speaker 1: next to Southwest Fertilizer Bob. I know Bob has this too,
Speaker 1: But tell them you need that ingredient and a long
Speaker 1: product and what that will do. It works well against
Speaker 1: a number of different diseases, but they take all especially
Speaker 1: and I'm leaning toward my best guess being that probably
Speaker 1: you were seeing take all based on what you said.
Speaker 1: But if it's if it's, if you do that now,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a preventative. And then let's watch your
Speaker 1: lawn as you get in the season to start to
Speaker 1: see issues. Take good pictures of it up close and
Speaker 1: from a distance and email them to me, and we
Speaker 1: will then give me a call on guardline and we
Speaker 1: will have a more intelligent answer because we'll be able
Speaker 1: to see what's going on.
Speaker 9: So how often should we put this stuff on the lawn?
Speaker 1: Just once? Now? If it turns out that take all
Speaker 1: is the problem, you will do it again in the fall.
Speaker 1: But let's not jump ahead to that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of other possibilities out there.
Speaker 9: Oh, lots of different bugs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned ginger bugs. You know, there's there's other
Speaker 1: diseases and the sideweb worms, and there's other things that
Speaker 1: it could be.
Speaker 9: So the take all actually the name of the product.
Speaker 3: Take all is the name of the disease.
Speaker 1: Take all is the name of the fungus, and the
Speaker 1: fungus kills grass. So in spring, if you have areas
Speaker 1: that are graining up and areas that are dead, that
Speaker 1: probably was take All. It could have been chinchbugs, too,
Speaker 1: but chinchbugs are not going to attack until next summer. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Write something else down Gardening with
Speaker 1: Skip Gardening with Skip dot com. That's my website. On
Speaker 1: there you'll find both my launch schedules and everything I'm
Speaker 1: telling you in a calendar form from January to December.
Speaker 1: You can see exactly the diseases the insects when they attack,
Speaker 1: what you use for them both and organically.
Speaker 9: Okay, all right, okay, all right, thank you so much.
Speaker 9: You have a wonderful day. God bless you boy.
Speaker 1: You as well take care bye bye. All right, folks, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to wait until the music stops and
Speaker 1: we come back for our final hour of garden Line
Speaker 1: to continue our discussions here. If you'd like to give
Speaker 1: us a call and the waiting online. When you come back,
Speaker 1: you'll be one of the first up that way. Seven
Speaker 1: one three two one two k t r H seven
Speaker 1: one three two one two k t r H.
Speaker 3: Well we'll get a coffee.
Speaker 6: Welcome to k t r H. Guarden Line with Skip Rictor.
Speaker 23: It's crazy Trim, just watch m as so many.
Speaker 8: Good things to set crazy.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do this. We got an hour left,
Speaker 1: one hour of garden Line left until next weekend. So
Speaker 1: if you got a burning question, that's the time to
Speaker 1: ask it. Seven one three two one two k t R.
Speaker 4: Eight.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to George in clear Lake. Hey, George,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 24: Hey, good morning, Thank you for kicking a call. So
Speaker 24: I'm in a garden dude. I just hang out with
Speaker 24: you guys on the weekends because my wife listens to
Speaker 24: you all all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, so where do you start?
Speaker 24: Because I definitely after this freeze and everything got.
Speaker 3: One that zone.
Speaker 24: Man, it's like everything he's wiped out. Like we're gonna
Speaker 24: start from the bathroom. Man, where do you start?
Speaker 1: Good question? So tell me what you're seeing and what
Speaker 1: you want to change. Why don't you what are you
Speaker 1: seeing me? You don't like?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 24: So everything's in pots. I got a pool, I got
Speaker 24: a level grass area. We're trying to to level out
Speaker 24: the back because there's a lot of mounds and different
Speaker 24: things going on.
Speaker 3: Not not a lot.
Speaker 24: Of grass area, but the pool takes up most of
Speaker 24: the backyard, and so I want to take it out
Speaker 24: of the pots and put it in the ground. But yet,
Speaker 24: you know, we have a lot of fence problems in
Speaker 24: Houston because hurricanes and stuff. So your fen's gonna come
Speaker 24: down at some point. You're going to have to dig
Speaker 24: that stuff out. And we just went through that. And
Speaker 24: if there's a bunch of plants planted close to the fence,
Speaker 24: you know how far away, you know, so just kind
Speaker 24: of make it look like a I don't know, for me,
Speaker 24: it's tropical. For her, it might be a different type
Speaker 24: of setting. But I guess trying to identify the culture
Speaker 24: that you want, I guess would be a start. I
Speaker 24: don't know, you know, I think the thing to do.
Speaker 24: What I would start this is kind of the big picture.
Speaker 24: I would As you drive around town and see things
Speaker 24: you like, take a picture of them. Just pull over
Speaker 24: the curtain, snap a shot. Say I like the way
Speaker 24: that bed looks, or I like I like that planner,
Speaker 24: I like the way they did that there. Take some
Speaker 24: pictures and get some inspiration from that. You can certainly
Speaker 24: send me photos like that and say, hey, I like
Speaker 24: this about it, any any thoughts, and maybe I could say, yeah,
Speaker 24: that plant doesn't normally do well here, or yeah that's
Speaker 24: a great one. Or one common thing is making beds
Speaker 24: in a curve so that as you mow, it's easier
Speaker 24: to mow. When you got a bunch of right angles,
Speaker 24: it's it's a.
Speaker 1: Pain to mow, and weedyed in there and everything. So
Speaker 1: I would I would, you know, kind of consider aesthetically
Speaker 1: how you want to design it. Getting the right plants
Speaker 1: is important, you know. Now down in the area, you
Speaker 1: don't live too far away from Moss Nursery and Seabrook.
Speaker 1: That's an excellent option down there, and they can help
Speaker 1: you with that. They look at photos and designs and
Speaker 1: stuff and see the most important thing, George is getting
Speaker 1: the soil right first, and that means buying a quality bed.
Speaker 1: We call them bed mixes because they may have some
Speaker 1: soil in them, or they may be just primarily organic materials.
Speaker 1: Getting that build up so when it rains too much,
Speaker 1: their plant roots aren't soggy, saturated, submerged kind of thing.
Speaker 1: That's important. And then when you put plants in, they're
Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna do better for you. Now you're containers.
Speaker 1: If they were tropical, they're probably gone if they were
Speaker 1: not protected, but give them a little bit, just wait
Speaker 1: and watch and see how they're gonna do. In general,
Speaker 1: larger containers rather than smaller and the reason that it
Speaker 1: is so blazing hot here day and night in the
Speaker 1: summertime that it's hard to keep them watered. And the
Speaker 1: more soil volume you have, the easier it is to
Speaker 1: keep them. And every time the plant gets drought stressed,
Speaker 1: you know, let's say every day, it just it just
Speaker 1: kind of shuts down for a little bit because it
Speaker 1: gets too dry. That's going to affect their growth and
Speaker 1: they're blooming or if they fruit, they're fruiting, and so
Speaker 1: a larger container is always a good idea. And those
Speaker 1: are a few of the things. Bookmark my website gardening
Speaker 1: with skip dot com. There's helpful stuff on there, from
Speaker 1: getting your soil tested to protecting plants against a freeze.
Speaker 1: And then just keep listening to the guard line and
Speaker 1: you can chime in anytime. If you got a something
Speaker 1: in your yard, you know, you say there's a spot
Speaker 1: in my yard, Well take a picture of it, show
Speaker 1: me what that looks like, email it to me and
Speaker 1: then call it and we'll discuss it. Photos are really
Speaker 1: helpful because you know, right now I can't picture your
Speaker 1: landscape or the issues that a kind of roamed how
Speaker 1: far in the ground.
Speaker 24: Do you go like to prepare your soil, you go
Speaker 24: six inches and you do that all across where you're
Speaker 24: going to plant your Yeah, you're your flower bend.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It kind of depends on what you want to grow.
Speaker 1: If it's a if it's a shallow rooted plant like
Speaker 1: an annual flower or a most vegetables beds are not
Speaker 1: eating to be that deep. You don't have to dig
Speaker 1: very deep. If you're going to do something that's very
Speaker 1: particular about drainage and stuff, I would go a lot
Speaker 1: deeper and improving it, But mainly it's going up upward,
Speaker 1: because surface drainage is important. So if you had a spot,
Speaker 1: let's say it was saturated, like you go to the
Speaker 1: beach and you dig into the sand and there's a
Speaker 1: water table a few inches below the surface. If that
Speaker 1: that happens in our yards, and let's say you're going
Speaker 1: planet a plant that that would kill. Well, you can
Speaker 1: make a bed a foot high and it'll settle down
Speaker 1: in time. But now your roots are primarily up in
Speaker 1: well drained soil. So I would say going up more
Speaker 1: than going down. Because if you picture a massive clay
Speaker 1: soil and you dig a hole in that clay, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna exaggerate fill it full of potting soil. Well,
Speaker 1: now you just have an underground bathtub, and when it
Speaker 1: rains that potting soil, the water level is gonna come
Speaker 1: up and it's not going to drain out of there
Speaker 1: because there's clay all around it. You know, you've created
Speaker 1: a clay bathtub underground. So that's why coming up helps
Speaker 1: a lot on plants that are like that.
Speaker 24: Yeah, and I have nothing but clay because we just
Speaker 24: dug up our electrical line about twenty four inches.
Speaker 1: Man, it's nothing but clay down there. Yeah, well that's normal,
Speaker 1: normal in our area. Not a problem. If you have
Speaker 1: clay soils and you have somewhat of a lift to
Speaker 1: the clay where you know, you've gotten got to raise
Speaker 1: bed a little bit to it. Adding expanded shale in
Speaker 1: helps and you can do this a little at a time,
Speaker 1: but it's going to take about three inches of expanded
Speaker 1: shale to make a difference. You would mix it into
Speaker 1: the top four to six inches of soil. Three or
Speaker 1: four inches of expandede that's a lot, But that is
Speaker 1: like LoVa rock. It's tiny, kitty letter sized particles that
Speaker 1: are porous and they open the swell. They hold it open.
Speaker 1: Compost breaks down over time, you have to add more.
Speaker 1: Expanded shale tends to hold it open really well. So
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with a yard full of clays, expanded
Speaker 1: shale as your friend, and just use it profusely as
Speaker 1: you're getting those beds right. Especially George, when you have something,
Speaker 1: let's say like a rose bush that you can't just
Speaker 1: dig up and redo the soil every year, you want
Speaker 1: to get that right to begin with, because you're going
Speaker 1: to have to live with what you've done for the
Speaker 1: life of that plant.
Speaker 24: Gotcha, all right, Well, thanks for your hall, appreciate it,
Speaker 24: and I'll bookmark your website.
Speaker 1: There you go. Call back anytime and if I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put you on hold, and my producer will give you
Speaker 1: an email that you can send photos to, but just
Speaker 1: have to follow up with a call on those and okay,
Speaker 1: talk about all right, folks, it is it is time
Speaker 1: for me to take a break here and I'll be
Speaker 1: right back with your questions, and Carolyn, you'll be our
Speaker 1: first up.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back in this here. We are moving
Speaker 1: from a trot to a gallup here on garden line
Speaker 1: as we as we finish out the show this hour.
Speaker 1: If you are someone who has not had your trees
Speaker 1: looked at now, you can't even remember when the last
Speaker 1: time someone came out and took a good look at him,
Speaker 1: someone who knows what they're talking about. Now's the time
Speaker 1: to get that done, and you need to call Martin
Speaker 1: Spoon Moore an affordable tree. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: Martin knows what he's doing. He does good work. Tell
Speaker 1: him you've heard about him on garden Line, and but
Speaker 1: do it now because you wait a week or two.
Speaker 1: Our prime time for pruning is now and you need
Speaker 1: to get that done. You can print any time of
Speaker 1: the year, but have him come out of value your trees,
Speaker 1: and if something needs to be done, give you an
Speaker 1: estimate that would include printing, that would include things like
Speaker 1: deeproot beating and other stuff. He does it all. If
Speaker 1: it's a tree, he takes care of it. Martin spoon
Speaker 1: More Affordable Tree seven one three, six nine nine two
Speaker 1: six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two
Speaker 1: six six three. If you want to go to the website,
Speaker 1: it's Afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service dot Com.
Speaker 1: We're going to head out here now and talk to
Speaker 1: Carolyn in southwest Houston. Hey, Carolyn, welcome to Guardline.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 9: I have been successful in receding okra and basel, but
Speaker 9: I'm curious about eggplant. The seeds are on the inside.
Speaker 9: Is there any way to receive your egg plants?
Speaker 1: Well, the okra you have to break pod open to
Speaker 1: get to the seed and egg plants. What you do
Speaker 1: is if your egg plant is not a hybrid variety,
Speaker 1: it's just what we call open pollinated. And I'll come
Speaker 1: back to that in just a moment. You can just
Speaker 1: clear out the seeds. What I would do just kind
Speaker 1: of smash them up as best you can and put
Speaker 1: them in water. Sometimes I'll put them in like a
Speaker 1: quart jar with some water in it, screw the top
Speaker 1: down and just shake it really hard and try to
Speaker 1: get all the try to separate the seeds from the
Speaker 1: pulpy debris that's inside. It takes a little bit, but
Speaker 1: you can do that and then spread those seeds out
Speaker 1: to dry on a counter. And once they dry, you
Speaker 1: can pick those little seeds up, let them fully dry,
Speaker 1: separate them. There'll still be debris and them separate them
Speaker 1: out and once they fully dry, store them in the
Speaker 1: refrigerator in a sealed, air tight container like a jar,
Speaker 1: one of those little plastic or glass containers with pop
Speaker 1: down sealed lids, and you ready to go. Then you
Speaker 1: can plan them. Now the difference between open pollinated and hybrid.
Speaker 1: It'll tell you on the name of the variety the
Speaker 1: seed packet, or if you go online to look at it,
Speaker 1: whether it's hybrid or not. If it's hybrid, that means
Speaker 1: it use two different parents to create this unique variety.
Speaker 1: And if you take the seeds out of that variety,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have children that are Duke's miss mixtures of
Speaker 1: all kinds of variety characteristics. So hybrids don't come back
Speaker 1: true to seed. They won't be like the mama plant
Speaker 1: she took them off of. They may be very similar,
Speaker 1: but they won't be identical. Seeds that are not hybrids,
Speaker 1: you can save the seed and they'll be pretty much
Speaker 1: just like the mama plant.
Speaker 9: Wonderful.
Speaker 1: I'll try it all right, and if it has success,
Speaker 1: send me a picture of your eggplants. I'd like to
Speaker 1: see that. Thank you, Carolyn, appreciate that. I appreciate your
Speaker 1: call very much. I was talking about micro life products
Speaker 1: earlier and I I wanted to mention we're getting close
Speaker 1: to that spring fertilization season. But something you can do
Speaker 1: then or now is Microlife hum mates plus. That's a
Speaker 1: zero zero four. So although it has a little potassium
Speaker 1: in it, don't think of it as a fertilizer. Think
Speaker 1: of it as a soil condition or a soil amendment
Speaker 1: because you put it down and that humus, the humate's
Speaker 1: in it. That is part of what helps take a
Speaker 1: clay soil and break it up so where it has
Speaker 1: a better structure, it's looser. Think of a bul of
Speaker 1: popcorn where air can get in and water can move
Speaker 1: through between the particles. That's what we're trying to do
Speaker 1: with those massive clays out there. And as you do
Speaker 1: that year after year, adding that to you can do
Speaker 1: it two times a year if you like, or more.
Speaker 1: I guess it won't hurt anything. Microlifehu makes plus in
Speaker 1: the purple bag is a product that is going to
Speaker 1: improve your show. And you can do that and launch.
Speaker 1: You can do that in flour bed, you can do
Speaker 1: that any vegetable garden. Anywhere you got soil, you can
Speaker 1: add Microlife hum mats plus and have success. It is
Speaker 1: it comes in a jar, one of those plastic jars
Speaker 1: of the screw top lids, and it also for larger
Speaker 1: quantities comes in the bag, like if you wanted to
Speaker 1: do your lawn for example. All right, now we're going
Speaker 1: to go out to spring and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike,
Speaker 1: welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 4: Good morning, Thank you for taking my call. Is it
Speaker 4: too late to pre emerge?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, No, not at all. No, we are in
Speaker 1: the big middle prime time for pre emerging. Now is
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: Well, hardware I have or anything I can use.
Speaker 1: Absolutely Ace Hardware are going to carry barricade by Nitrofoss
Speaker 1: and that's the one you need to get. Barricade by Nitrofoss.
Speaker 1: They're going to have it. Follow the label carefully. It
Speaker 1: is important anytime you apply something to control anything, weeds, diseases, insects,
Speaker 1: to follow the label. Don't double the label it. The
Speaker 1: amount on the label is the perfect amount for controlling
Speaker 1: those weeds. Don't don't underdo it. Don't overdo it. You're
Speaker 1: you're in the you're in the spring area. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: you're in the spring area, right, Okay, uh so yeah,
Speaker 1: there's spring branch and their spring and so I always
Speaker 1: kind of have to figure out which one you're in.
Speaker 1: All right, So if you're up in spring, like you're
Speaker 1: close to ninety nine.
Speaker 4: Right at night and forty five.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, good, all right, Well you've got some
Speaker 1: you've got some close to.
Speaker 4: You old spring cypress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there's a spring cypress, not unless they
Speaker 1: have a wound on them. But they're not a typical
Speaker 1: sap producing you know, like some trees have sap on
Speaker 1: the outside rolling down. They're not that.
Speaker 4: O good. I appreciate your help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you're right, like I said, you're down
Speaker 1: the hall, all right, you're just down from spring Ace Hardware.
Speaker 1: So that's good. All right, Well, thank you very much, Mike.
Speaker 1: Get that down, get it done. You have to water
Speaker 1: it in with about a half inch of water because
Speaker 1: you've got to move those particles, the stuff on the
Speaker 1: particles that you put out. You want to move it
Speaker 1: into the soil surface where it can do its work.
Speaker 1: So don't forget to water it in, or if you
Speaker 1: have a little bit of rain, that'll do it for
Speaker 1: you too. You take care and thank you for your
Speaker 1: call to garden Line. I appreciate that very much. Nature's
Speaker 1: Way resources is up in the Conro area. In fact,
Speaker 1: if you're heading up forty five, right where fourteen eighty
Speaker 1: eight comes in from Magnolia, you turn right, the railroad
Speaker 1: tracks are right there. Cross over the railroad tracks, turn
Speaker 1: right on Sherbrooke Circle and you're there at Nature's Way.
Speaker 1: Now you can call them and have them bring you stuff.
Speaker 1: They'll dump it in the driveway if you want. You
Speaker 1: can go around. Some places carry their bags around all
Speaker 1: through the Greater Houston area. You can buy their stuff
Speaker 1: by the bag. But the main thing is know this.
Speaker 1: When you get something from Nature's Way, you're getting a
Speaker 1: product that has been made right, whether it's one of
Speaker 1: the products that was born at Nature's Way that's now
Speaker 1: sold all over the place. Like did you know ross
Speaker 1: soil was born there that leifmore compost was born there. Well,
Speaker 1: it's one of those, or any of the other products
Speaker 1: they have, they know how to make them right. John
Speaker 1: Ferguson long ago became a student of the soil and
Speaker 1: spent his life learning and learning and learning with experience
Speaker 1: and with watching research and stuff. He knows how to
Speaker 1: make soil. So now his son Ian is carrying the
Speaker 1: same tradition on. They know what they're doing there. And
Speaker 1: you go out to Nature's Way, you can take your
Speaker 1: truck or pick up and they'll put some in the back.
Speaker 1: They'll sell you some bags if you want to go
Speaker 1: that route. While you're out there, check out their plant nursery.
Speaker 1: They've got a lot of native plants and other types
Speaker 1: of plants as well. But Nature's Sources is where you
Speaker 1: get good stuff that you can depend on. I would
Speaker 1: highly recommend that you go visit them just to see
Speaker 1: what's out there and take part in that. Bring some
Speaker 1: plants home, but also just call around. If you go
Speaker 1: to the website, they will tell you you know where
Speaker 1: their products are sold. Nature's Way is a one of
Speaker 1: those companies that sells by the bag all through the
Speaker 1: Greater Houston area, and that kind of makes it nice.
Speaker 1: For example, if you if you go to the website,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of information on all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff like that, including the where to buy from their
Speaker 1: products all through the Houston area. All right, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take a little quick break. No, I got time.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I thought I was out of time.
Speaker 1: That's like saying I thought I was wrong. Once, but
Speaker 1: I was mistaken. Debbie and Northwest Houston, welcome to garden line.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 22: Hey.
Speaker 3: I have a couple of questions.
Speaker 5: Are is winter over with forests?
Speaker 20: Uh?
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, let me get my crystal? Oh dead,
Speaker 1: gumm it it cracked. I can't read it.
Speaker 9: Sorry, Fox and County feel saw his shadows, so they
Speaker 9: said six more weeks of winter.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, but that's a dad gum. That's a yankee.
Speaker 1: That's a Yankee hedgehog. Debbie, we got to dig an
Speaker 1: armadilla up around here to find out what's going to
Speaker 1: happen here. All rights joking aside.
Speaker 9: A couple of questions.
Speaker 11: I'm trimming my crpe myrtles, and do I need to
Speaker 11: wait till the end of February to do that?
Speaker 9: Number one?
Speaker 1: I need to wait.
Speaker 3: You can do it right now, now, okay, it right now?
Speaker 9: And then you put down the pre emergent Armyston. What's
Speaker 9: the best time to air rate the yard?
Speaker 1: I like to wait a little bit to air rate.
Speaker 1: In the spring, our grass is waking up. It's putting
Speaker 1: down some fresh new roots, and the aeration process, you know,
Speaker 1: just in punching all those holes in the swat you're
Speaker 1: gonna hit some grass runners and stuff. It's a little
Speaker 1: and you don't want to catch your grass at a
Speaker 1: time where it's trying to get going and do that.
Speaker 1: Just let it get go on a little bit and
Speaker 1: then you can technically narrate it in time of the year.
Speaker 1: But it's better, it's it just works better. Just make
Speaker 1: sure you get a good errator and up in your area.
Speaker 1: Greenpro is the one you need to call. They service
Speaker 1: your area.
Speaker 9: Okay, all right, okay, well great, thank you so much.
Speaker 9: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right, Debbi, you bet, thank you very much. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Let's see here, we're going to go talk
Speaker 1: to Rooster and Brenham. Rooster, I got about a minute left.
Speaker 1: Let's see if we can get you taken care of
Speaker 1: before we have to go to break.
Speaker 25: All right, good morning. You had some time back by
Speaker 25: Probly a month ago recommended door you found replacing Japanese
Speaker 25: box woods that I had purchased twenty five of them
Speaker 25: and planted. They lasted about eight months and died, and
Speaker 25: you said that the door would work. To put in those,
Speaker 25: increase the size bed, put malt on it, and they
Speaker 25: look really nice. I'm hoping they will suc it's in
Speaker 25: a sarebus shaded area. I got to think and I said, well,
Speaker 25: this this mault that I put on top of my beds.
Speaker 25: And I also did two really featured trees out in
Speaker 25: my front yard, put a big bed around and brick
Speaker 25: them in. Hang and it's, like I said, two to
Speaker 25: three inches thick. And I got to worry about this
Speaker 25: nipage under They say that Mike deplete the soil hub.
Speaker 3: What can I put?
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, rooster, I'm sorry, I might have to cut in. Uh,
Speaker 1: I got to go to break. Hang on, we're going
Speaker 1: to continue this. I want to help you with this,
Speaker 1: but I just hitting a hard break right now. I
Speaker 1: just want don't be back in just a bit, all right, folks,
Speaker 1: we're back. We are back. Hey. By the way, have
Speaker 1: you been to arbor Gate Nursery yet? If you want
Speaker 1: to grow potatoes, you don't to swing by there. They've
Speaker 1: got all the potatoes ready to go. You just take
Speaker 1: them home, cut them open. They've got the wettable sulfur.
Speaker 1: And what's that for. Well, when you cut a potato,
Speaker 1: if you stick it right in the ground, it's gonna rot.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're putting a fresh cut piece of vegetable
Speaker 1: in the ground. If you will dust those fresh cut
Speaker 1: surfaces with sulfur dust to stick to them, and sulfur
Speaker 1: itself helps bend against some types of diseases. It's very acidic,
Speaker 1: of course, and so that that is helping. Let those
Speaker 1: cut pieces dry and then put them in the ground,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do well. And Arbigate's got both of those.
Speaker 1: They also have a little bag called a potato plant
Speaker 1: or bag. So if you live and let's say you
Speaker 1: live in a high rise in Houston, you got a
Speaker 1: little patio outside hanging out over the over things, you
Speaker 1: can get one of those bags, put it up there
Speaker 1: full of soil and grow potatoes on the twenty ninth
Speaker 1: floor of someplace downtown in Houston. Yes, those bags are cool.
Speaker 1: So if you just have a patio in the yard
Speaker 1: around you, you have to try one of those. They've
Speaker 1: got some types of lavender. They do pretty good here.
Speaker 1: As long as you get them in a good, well
Speaker 1: drained bed, they will do well for you. Arbrogates got that.
Speaker 1: And you know they always have a wide variety of everything.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about fruit trees. You won't believe how long
Speaker 1: their list of the fruit species and varieties they have
Speaker 1: is it is outstanding. They also have shrubs and trees.
Speaker 1: You know, someone wanted to door Field pH go to Arburgate.
Speaker 1: They got door fieldpont. All you have to do is
Speaker 1: swing by there. They are on twenty nine to twenty
Speaker 1: west of Tomball, just outside of town on the left
Speaker 1: hand side. Park in the back. There's a little road
Speaker 1: called Trishel Road that takes you around to the back
Speaker 1: of Arbigate. That's the best place to park when you
Speaker 1: go visit there and allow some time. That place is
Speaker 1: a wandering wonderland and you're going to want to spend
Speaker 1: some time. Take someone with you so you both can
Speaker 1: enjoy the trip. Let's go to Branham. Now we're going
Speaker 1: to continue on with Rooster Rooster. Let's let's I don't
Speaker 1: know where we stopped, but let's just pick it up
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 25: I put down i'll thick layer of malt around my
Speaker 25: oak trees. Two oak trees in my front yard is
Speaker 25: my feature trees. Also, you had advised me to get
Speaker 25: the dwarf you find, which I'm real happy with right now,
Speaker 25: and I put the vault around it. And I got
Speaker 25: concerned about this mulch being maybe too sick or maybe
Speaker 25: depleting the nitrogen and the soil which I read up
Speaker 25: on said that might do that. So what can I
Speaker 25: put maybe the like a spray on that would filter
Speaker 25: down through the month the mulch and feed the trees
Speaker 25: and the shrubs that I just planted.
Speaker 1: Okay, so about a fertilizer for the trees and shrubs?
Speaker 3: All right? Yeah, yeah, Well that's.
Speaker 1: A lot of questions, and let's hit on them.
Speaker 25: Here is really bad in this area. I don't know
Speaker 25: if you're bad in Houston or not, but liking gets
Speaker 25: these oak trees here over a period of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. But liking didn't hurting anything. So ignore
Speaker 1: the lichen. It's not. It's not a parasite. Lichen grows
Speaker 1: on fence posts and rocks, and so it doesn't need
Speaker 1: plant juice to live. So back to the moults and
Speaker 1: questions you had. It's good to melt your plants like
Speaker 1: you did. I wouldn't pile the mulch up against the stems,
Speaker 1: like to put three or four inches of mult up
Speaker 1: against the base of those iopon stems. Pull it back
Speaker 1: just a bit, but have good mulch around them and
Speaker 1: that works really well. Now there are ten million things
Speaker 1: out there when people say, you know, give you gardening
Speaker 1: advice that are wrong, that are based on truth. And
Speaker 1: the idea that multch ties up nitrogen is based on truth,
Speaker 1: but it's absolutely wrong from a practical standpoint. Here's why.
Speaker 1: If you put a high carbon material into the soil
Speaker 1: for the microbes to break it down, they need to
Speaker 1: take nitrogen out of the soil to help break down
Speaker 1: that carbon. That's how that works. But that would be
Speaker 1: true if you rototilled sawdust or wood chips done in
Speaker 1: your soil. But when you put a mulch on top,
Speaker 1: there's this little line of interface where the soil and
Speaker 1: malts come together and they'll be a little tie up
Speaker 1: right there. But as those microbes do their work and die,
Speaker 1: they release their nitrogen back in the soil, and so
Speaker 1: you have a little circulating nitrogen pool up there at
Speaker 1: the top and it's not affecting the phr your soil
Speaker 1: down below where the roots are at all. So don't
Speaker 1: worry about the malt and nitrogen. Yes, wood can do that,
Speaker 1: but not sitting up on top of your soil. So
Speaker 1: as far as fertilizers, you have some options. You know,
Speaker 1: some people just use a turf type fertilizer around their
Speaker 1: trees because turf types have more nitrogen in them, and
Speaker 1: that works just fine. You certainly do that. The folks
Speaker 1: at Nelson Plant Food if you go to the Nelson
Speaker 1: Plant Food a story that carries the Nelson Plant Food
Speaker 1: types of things, they've got a lot of really great
Speaker 1: products that can be used for that, and specifically some
Speaker 1: that work really well for your trees and shrubs. So
Speaker 1: that's what I would suggest. The line is called Nutristar.
Speaker 1: It comes in jars, so you're just doing a few
Speaker 1: trees and shrubs. You can do Nutristar tree and shrub
Speaker 1: and just sprinkle it around according to the label. That
Speaker 1: would be a good one to use. There are other
Speaker 1: brands that have tree and shrub fertilizers and they work well,
Speaker 1: but typically they're going to look like a lawn fertilizer rester.
Speaker 1: So the Nutristar, for example, is a twenty one six
Speaker 1: eight that sounds like a lawn ratio to me, you know,
Speaker 1: and so that would be a good one for use
Speaker 1: on that tree or shrub.
Speaker 25: What about Madina, When I put in those yo ponds
Speaker 25: I had killed up the soil, dug theholes. I think
Speaker 25: I put a little, but Medina it's not the has
Speaker 25: to grow. It's the one that supposed to do something
Speaker 25: to your soil and make it. I call it a
Speaker 25: B twelve shot or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, all those.
Speaker 4: Go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the timing of things makes me talk over you,
Speaker 1: but sorry about that. But yeah, Medina products are great.
Speaker 1: It could be Medina Soil Activator, it could be Medina Plus,
Speaker 1: and it could you know, there's also the Medina has
Speaker 1: to Grow six twelve six that's good to put in
Speaker 1: the soil itself, and then afterwards, if you're going Medina,
Speaker 1: they have one called growing Green that's typically used for
Speaker 1: lawns that would be fine for trees and shrubs. They
Speaker 1: have a couple of versions of the growing green, two
Speaker 1: different ratios that would both be okay, any of those
Speaker 1: would be fined as well.
Speaker 25: Okay, well, I'm trying to do my best and give
Speaker 25: life to my tree that really valuable and really start
Speaker 25: taking care of these new points that I just put in,
Speaker 25: and I really appreciate your help on get me started
Speaker 25: on that.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, you bet. Let me give you one little
Speaker 1: quick tip as we close down here. And that is
Speaker 1: if you if you go up to a tree, look
Speaker 1: at how wide, how thick the trunk is. Let's say
Speaker 1: you had a tree the size of a Coca Cola
Speaker 1: can that's about three inches. For every thumb with or
Speaker 1: for every inch of tree diameter, give it one or
Speaker 1: two cups of a synthetic fertilizer, or give it two
Speaker 1: to four cups of an organic fertilizer, and you'll be
Speaker 1: in the ballpark.
Speaker 3: All right, sir, fantastic, Thank you, all right.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. You bet all right. Guys,
Speaker 1: We got to run to a quick break here, and
Speaker 1: I'll be back for the last segment of Garden Line.
Speaker 1: We're bout with you. We're back for our last little segment.
Speaker 1: I've you got time for a call, maybe two if
Speaker 1: somebody wants to call in, but we are running short here,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to talk about sianamultch again. You know,
Speaker 1: they're the play I say, is the one stop shop
Speaker 1: for the brown stuff, because my mantra is brown stuff
Speaker 1: before green stuff. Get the soil, right. That means compost,
Speaker 1: that means fertilizers, that means any kind of amendment that
Speaker 1: improves the soil structure and drainage and nutrients and microbial
Speaker 1: activity the animals.
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 1: So if you've got a plant, that plant's gonna come
Speaker 1: home and you're going to pick it up, you know,
Speaker 1: about to plant, it's going to look at you and said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, have you put the animals in the
Speaker 1: ground here yet? Because I'm not going in there. I
Speaker 1: will kick and fight and throw up a fit if
Speaker 1: you stick me in there, I'm going to report you
Speaker 1: to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Plants if
Speaker 1: there is one of those. All Right, I'm caricaturing a
Speaker 1: little bit, but I'm serious about the about the fact
Speaker 1: that soil. First, you go to see animalts. They're down
Speaker 1: near Highway six and two eighty eight on FM two
Speaker 1: or five point twenty one down south of Houston, and
Speaker 1: they're open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five, Saturday
Speaker 1: seven thirty to two clothes on Sunday. Close today. But
Speaker 1: go by there, get a good bed mix, get if
Speaker 1: you need compost, if you need you know, they carry
Speaker 1: bulk of like landscapers, pride back, velvet, maltz. They carry
Speaker 1: rose soil from airloom soils. They carry the the veggiean
Speaker 1: herb mix from airloom soils they've got. They also, by
Speaker 1: the way, have stone and sand and gravel and if
Speaker 1: you know, I made a beautiful patio and those flat
Speaker 1: stones are just gorgeous. They deliver about twenty miles for
Speaker 1: a fee in their area. But also part of the
Speaker 1: brown stuff. They've got microlife. They have azamite, they have
Speaker 1: Nelson turf Star, they have airlooms soils products by the bag.
Speaker 1: They've got nitrofoss products. They have Landscapers Pride, they have
Speaker 1: the jars of Nelson plant food. They've got products from Medina.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you you want to get the foundation set
Speaker 1: for plant success. Ciena Moltch. Here's the website, Ciena Maltz
Speaker 1: dot com. Simple as that.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: You can find a phone number there, you can on
Speaker 1: a map how to get there. Everything you need to know.
Speaker 1: You just need to know that it's time to get
Speaker 1: that stuff, get it home, get it ready to go,
Speaker 1: because it is time to beat planting, and we got
Speaker 1: to get soiled right first. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: make it any clearer than that. I have to work
Speaker 1: on that thing about the plant. Arguing with you if
Speaker 1: you're going to stick it and ground they haven't prepared first.
Speaker 1: There's potential in that I had talking about Ace Hardware earlier,
Speaker 1: in the fact that they got the great barbecue pits
Speaker 1: of all kinds of brands, you know, all the top ones.
Speaker 1: I had a friend that a while back, he was
Speaker 1: into Big Green Egg, and oh my gosh, it's like
Speaker 1: you couldn't cook, you couldn't eat food if it didn't
Speaker 1: come off a Big Green Egg, and it Big Green
Speaker 1: Egg is the best thing since sliced bread. And they are.
Speaker 1: They're wonderful. I mean, they have a fuck cult following.
Speaker 1: They got those days you can get a trigger at
Speaker 1: a same thing quality Weber. I've got a Weber growing myself.
Speaker 1: They got w rec tech and then all the debris
Speaker 1: you need to cut with barbecue, and you know whether
Speaker 1: you're gonna start charcoal and a little canister and get
Speaker 1: it fired up for you put it in there, the spatulas,
Speaker 1: the grow cleaners, the grow covers, the you know, little
Speaker 1: baskets to put veggies in the end for if you're
Speaker 1: gonna grill some veggies, which you ought to do too.
Speaker 1: That that is a great way to go. They got
Speaker 1: all that stuff. They also have really quality garden tools.
Speaker 1: You know, you go in there and you're gonna find
Speaker 1: skilled trimmers, for example, right now thirty percent off. They
Speaker 1: even have a power garden pruner, where you buy one,
Speaker 1: you get the battery for free. They've got fiberglass handled
Speaker 1: yard and garden tools, and I've got some of that.
Speaker 1: That is really good stuff. I love those fiberglass handles.
Speaker 1: They're on sale for twenty one ninety nine at Ace Hardware,
Speaker 1: and that's a good deal. Now, Where's Ace everywhere? Go
Speaker 1: to Acehardware dot com, find the store locator, find the
Speaker 1: ones plural near you. You can go to Paco Ace
Speaker 1: up in Alvin. You can go to Brennam Ace Hardware.
Speaker 1: You can go to Katie Ace Hardware. You can go
Speaker 1: to League City Ace Hardware. You can go to Child's
Speaker 1: Building Supply in Orange, Texas. All examples of the many
Speaker 1: Ace Hardware stores that are around our area that have
Speaker 1: everything you need to have a beautiful outdoor space and
Speaker 1: a gorgeous lawn, a gorgeous landscape. Yeah. Ace is the place, easy,
Speaker 1: easy to do, all right. I got time for one call.
Speaker 1: If you can dialve fast, I got time for a call. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: call it a day here on the garden line and
Speaker 1: get ready for next year. I hope you have a
Speaker 1: great week too. By the way, I always forget to
Speaker 1: talk about that, but I hope you have a great
Speaker 1: week out there in the garden. This is a time
Speaker 1: to be doing a lot of things. But I would
Speaker 1: say the front burner of the front burners right now
Speaker 1: is if you've got a weed issue in your lawn
Speaker 1: or you have had every year and you want to
Speaker 1: prevent it. Now is the prime time to do that.
Speaker 1: A post emergent killing an existing weed. That's the one
Speaker 1: that you see if you look outside and you see
Speaker 1: a weed that's a cool season weed. Now's the time
Speaker 1: to do it. Once they start blooming and setting seed.
Speaker 1: Even the good products at work don't work as well
Speaker 1: on them, so you got to get it done now.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind hand pulling, hand pull them now.
Speaker 1: But now's the time now. As far as preventing weeds,
Speaker 1: the best thing to do is to mow, water, fertilize,
Speaker 1: and grow a dense, healthy lawn. When you don't have
Speaker 1: a dense healthy lawn, you can put a pre emergent
Speaker 1: herbicide down and that will when you watered in with
Speaker 1: a half inch of water. When you watered in, it
Speaker 1: goes to the soal surface and it's its own weights
Speaker 1: for at least sixty days until a weeds he tries
Speaker 1: to sprout and it says no, and it shuts them down.
Speaker 1: You never see the weed in the first place because
Speaker 1: it shut it down. But that has to happen before
Speaker 1: the weed sprouts, which is why we're doing it now
Speaker 1: as things warm up. In fact, you know you go
Speaker 1: down south far enough right now, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have a warm week. There're gonna be weeds sprouting this
Speaker 1: week due to the temperatures we're going to be having,
Speaker 1: So don't delay. Like crackgrass sprouts at about fifty five
Speaker 1: degrees the soil temperature fifty five degrees, it starts to sprout.
Speaker 1: So we're getting ahead of them by doing an early
Speaker 1: primarily early to mid February application. You can do it later,
Speaker 1: but again, the longer you wait, the more weeds are
Speaker 1: already going to be up, and you're going to have missed.
Speaker 1: The analogy I like to use that is baseball. If
Speaker 1: you're standing of the plate with a bat in your hand,
Speaker 1: you need to get ready to start that swing. After
Speaker 1: that pitch first comes out of the pitcher's mound and
Speaker 1: the ball's on its way, you better start swinging. Or
Speaker 1: if you wait until it's in the catcher's mound, you
Speaker 1: can swing all you want. You're not going to hit
Speaker 1: the ball right. Well that's a silly analogy, but it
Speaker 1: makes a point. If you wait until the weeds are sprouting,
Speaker 1: the baseball's and the catcher's mint too late for a
Speaker 1: pre emergent herbicide for most of them. And so get
Speaker 1: ahead of time. Get it done. Go online to gardening
Speaker 1: with skip dot com. Download those schedules. I say that
Speaker 1: so many times ever showed that I think people have
Speaker 1: got to. I don't need to tell you anymore, but
Speaker 1: constantly talk to people who listen to garden Line that
Speaker 1: haven't downloaded the schedules. Well, you know, I can't come
Speaker 1: to your house and click on the computer for you,
Speaker 1: But would you do that lawn care schedule and lawn
Speaker 1: weed disease and pest management schedule, they're there. I spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time researching those, putting those together. They're
Speaker 1: very extensive, full color. They're even pretty, I think because
Speaker 1: of colors. Download them, pin them to the refrigerator door.
Speaker 1: You can take your kid's artwork down. That's not as
Speaker 1: important as this schedule. Oh my gosh, I can't believe
Speaker 1: that came out of my mouth. Put them on the frigerator,
Speaker 1: or put them in the garage, stick them on top
Speaker 1: of your fertilizerspread or in the garage. Where have you
Speaker 1: got to put them? Have them ready to go because
Speaker 1: timing is everything very important, and as you go through
Speaker 1: these schedules, you're going to see the right time to
Speaker 1: do it. Also, on the website Gardening withtheskip dot com,
Speaker 1: you're going to find a lot of other helpful information.
Speaker 1: So take a look at it. I see how it does.
Speaker 1: See what you find up there that's helpful for you.
Speaker 1: I've got plans for several of the things that I'm
Speaker 1: working on, hoping to get on there really soon, so
Speaker 1: check it out. It will definitely be helpful for you.
Speaker 1: So as we get the music in here, I just
Speaker 1: want to remind you that gardening is supposed to be
Speaker 1: fun and it's supposed to be healthy exercise, Get out,
Speaker 1: walk around and enjoy yourself. If you're not having fun,
Speaker 1: you're not doing it right. I mean that you don't
Speaker 1: panic over whether you can make a plant grow or not,
Speaker 1: or if you're going to kill it or whatever. J. C. Ralston,
Speaker 1: one of the best horticulturists in the recent history of
Speaker 1: our country out in North Carolina, says, to be a
Speaker 1: good horticulturist, you got to kill a lot of plants.
Speaker 1: And he is right, absolutely right. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you have permission to not do things perfectly. To lose
Speaker 1: a plant, do is get another one. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like etches, sketches or the use that example before turn
Speaker 1: it upside down and shake it and you get to
Speaker 1: start all over. That's what a road tells. Have fun
Speaker 1: out there, good healthy fun. Go visit that garden center
Speaker 1: this afternoon and all week