Great Valentine's gifts; plus man-made bee houses

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good morning everybody. Welcome back. I'm Ron Wilson and you
are in the garden here on this radio six '
ten WTVN. Like to join us, Love to have you
a two to one WTVN eight hundred and six to
ten WTVN talking about yardening. Valentine's Day coming up on Friday.
Are you all ready for that? You know my spiel
about Valentine's Day. Nothing better than giving those living plants,

(00:26):
the ones that keep on giving, miniature roses orchids, you know,
things like that. You can find spring flowering bulbs in
the available now for you, in flower that can be
planted in the garden. A little bit later on, did
I mention African violence? Things like that? You know, cut
flowers are great, there's nothing wrong with that. I like
cut flowers and that that works too, Candies and all that,
diamonds and all of those things. Whatever your sweetheart makes

(00:50):
them happy. That's what you need to do. But also
add into that mix something that's alive and growing and
you know it's easy to take care of, and that
way you get something in the house that will continue
to grow and you can continue to see it. Etherium.
Etherium is probably one of the coolest plants for Valentine's
Day because the flower, it's not really flower, but the

(01:13):
this bracket this comes up and it looks like the flower.
The flower is a kind of a yellow stem that
comes out out of it, but it's a heart shaped
red bract that's underneath that. And it's pretty cool. And
you'll see a lot of them for Valentine's Day. And
I like that one. That's a pretty nice one. But
again for Valentine's Day, get whatever your sweet tart, whatever

(01:33):
your sweetheart likes, obviously you want to get, but throw
something in there that's living, that keeps on giving. Now,
before we went into the break, we're talking with I
believe was Sherry about where they had had a pool
up above ground. Pool had just put it on top
of the ground, on top of the grass, sat there
for a year or so, then decided they took it down,

(01:54):
decided to put it back up, then they didn't, and
then they had this bear area obviously where it killed
out all the grass and it compacted the soil as well.
So they went in and tilled that area and then
went back in and seated and wound up getting a
combination of some grass and a lot of weeds, and
you know, what do we do at this stage to
make this work better so we don't reinvest and have

(02:14):
all this mess on our hands. And what are the
options is looking at dormance seating. So going out there
this month soon and getting rid of any weeds that
still may be growing in that area. If there's some
grass in there, leave it alone, but getting rid of
any of the weeds that are still there, get physically
get them out of the area. Do not retill the area. Okay,

(02:38):
I'll explain why in a second, But don't retill the area.
Take a rake, hard rake or a stiff leaf rake
and rake that area even around them where the grass
is may be grown in there as well. Rake it
and that kind of looses the top of that soil up.
So you've created a nice little seed bed. Come back
in and put your grass seed down as you would
normally in that area, all right, and maybe use a

(03:00):
turf type tall fisk us. They're tough, durable, you know,
do a nice job, very very tough. And we'll handle
that situation and throw some seed out into the existing
lawn to kind of feather it out into the existing lawn.
Why would I do that in February because I dormant
seeding the best time I like. Dormant seating is the
best second best time to seed. Dormant seating whenever you

(03:21):
put the grass seed down, but it doesn't germinate until
the weather gets nice, and then it starts to grow
grow at that point, and I like doing it mid
to late February, and we're there because of the freezing
and thawing of the ground, So you get the seed in.
The seed works its way into the soil, so it's
ready to go. As soon as the soil and air
temperatures warm up enough for that seed to start to

(03:41):
germinate and grow, it's in place, ready to go, comes up,
starts to root in, starts to grow outstanding at that stage.
Do remember pre emerging herbicides will stop weed seeds from growing.
It'll stop your grass seeds from growing as well. So
you can't put a pre emergent down in an area
unless you use Scott's step one. For newly seeded lawns.

(04:07):
It has a pre emergent that will doesn't last very long,
but it lasts long enough to get the grass seed
germinated and growing. It's a starter fertilizer as well helps
to keep the weed seeds from coming up, and if
one or two pop up, just hand weed them for
the time being and just hand me they stand out
like a sore thumb with the grass blades to kind

(04:29):
of pull out what you can, and then you start
to get that grass established. Now it's thin, it's open.
Weeds just salivate to get started in an area like that.
They love going in the open areas because there's no competition.
The pre emergent will help you out to get the
grass seed growing. Then you're gonna have to just watch.

(04:49):
After you mow that area three times. You can start
spot treating weeds that come up in there with a
broad leaf weed killer, but you got to get about
three times to harden novel a little bit so it
can withstand the weak hiller and then you can take
it from there, and that should work for you. The
other option for right now for doing that is to
just clear it out and then when they start cutting

(05:14):
sad at the sod farms, literally lay sod in the
area and you've got instant grass, right, instant grass. The
only obligation not about this ever since we've been doing
this show, because this is a really important but that
is option number two that you can use for that area,

(05:35):
and it does work, so please keep that in mind,
all right. And then of course, that's why we talk
about fall being such a great time for planting seed,
is that fall is the best time. Dormance seating is
the second best time. Spring seeding anytime during the spring
season third worst time, and summer seating in cobbae see

(05:56):
the absolute worst. But fall you don't put up with that,
put up with the with the weed seeds coming up,
and that's a good thing about doing in the fall,
but that's not what we're dealing with right now. So
those are your two options as far as I'm concerned.
That's the way you can take a look at it,
and you should be able to get that up and going.
But don't retill the area. Now, when you till the area,

(06:17):
and I get it, because you till the area, try
to loosen up it was compacted. Makes a nicer seed bed,
but it also turns up a lot of weed seeds,
and unless you do the pre emersion or whatever to
stop those from coming up, that's what you deal with.
So that's that's what's happens in many cases when you till,
so I hope that helps you out. So you either
dormant seed scott Step one for newly seeded lawns, starter fertilizer,

(06:42):
hand pool weeds until you've mowed at about three times
and then you can start to spot treat or clear
the area out and put down put down sod, So
keep that in mind. And again, if you do the sod,
if it's a circle, that's a bare area, you're probably
gonna have to square up, straighten up some of those
lines on the edge so that you know, obviously saw
it's cut in a rectangle or a square so that

(07:05):
you can fit that in perfectly. You don't want any
open seams. And then watering is going to be the
real key, so keep that in mind please and hopefully
that'll work for you. And again, dormant seating second best
time to do it, and anytime this month would be
an excellent time for doing it. And by the way,
when you're doing that, get out to your local independent
garden center. Hopefully you'll remember what kind of grass you

(07:25):
have or what kind of seed you've used in the past,
so you can match that up or do something as
compatible that will grow with the grass that's existing in
there right now. And if you don't remember, you can
even take a little sample, like a twelve inch square
of your existing grass and maybe they can identify. It's
hard to do. I'm not sure I could even do

(07:46):
it for you very well, but stee, if they can
identify it. If not, you know, just you go to
take your chances. But then save that bag or that label,
so then you know what you used down the road.
And one last thing, when you do that seating, it's
not going to be the same color as the rest
of your lawn for a little while. You're still going
to see that circle until that starts to get settled

(08:09):
in more mature and then starting to blend in with
your other grass, so you're still going to see it
a bit. Give it time. I'm talking time and talking
to season or two and adventually they start to fill
in and go from there. All right, take a quick break.
Phone lines are open for you at eight two to
one WTVN eight hundred six to ten WTVN. Here on
news radio six y ten wtv Yes, we are talking

(08:34):
your dning on news radio six y ten WTVN. While
we were talking during the first segment there talking about
the adormance, seating and all of that, which is very important,
and it's a good time time for you to get
out and do that. Unless the lawn is really soggy,
stay off of it, but otherwise sometime this month would
be a great time for you to do that. Get
everything in place, and usually grass seat starts to germinate

(08:56):
about the same time as crabgrass, yeah, temperature wise, so
but again that Scott's step one for newly seated lawnch
a little bit more expensive, but that particular pre emersion
will let the grass seeds start to grow, germinate and
grow while it holds the other weed seeds at bay

(09:17):
for about forty five fifty maybe sixty days and then
it's done. And then you go from there. And some
folks will come back after that and apply a regular
pre emergent orverside to carry you through late springing through
the summer if you wanted to do that, or just
spot treat weeds as needed. But anyway, someone had called
in didn't want to talk to us, but that's okay,

(09:38):
said they were at a meeting recently. Denise the be
expert was talking to them about we were talking earlier
about the woody stems and leaving the debris in net
for overwintering insects, about using some of those woody hollow
stems when you're like cutting perennials and things like that,
and actually, if they don't already have orchard bees or

(10:00):
other beneficial insects, using them to overwinter that, you know,
cutting them in sections. I think that he had mentioned
eighteen inch sections, putting them in like a coffee cup
or whatever, hanging on its side so they stick out,
hanging it up in a tree or mounting it on
a fence post or something like that, and letting the
orchard bees or mason bees use those to lay their eggs.

(10:21):
They take their eggs and stuff it right back inside
there with a little pollen ball along with them, and
that's how they reproduce. And then they stay in there
and then over the winter they come back out in
the springtime. And when you go to your local independent
garden centers and you see those b houses, not bee hives,
but be houses, and they've got the holes in the
wood or they've got the tubes in the chambers, that's

(10:44):
what that's all about. That's so that would be a
man made but basically that's one of the ways we're
doing this with the hollow stems of perennials and woody
shrubs at me die back over the wintertimes. That's what
they would do naturally is use those. But then we've
got where we use the tubes, the orchard bee tubes

(11:05):
or drilling holes in the wood for them to get in.
And about I don't know, three or four weeks ago,
I had the folks on from bee cups where they've
got the small cups that you put water in to
help keep water in your garden and containers and that
for bees, and obviously the native bees will use it
as well. But they also design those tubes out of

(11:26):
porcelain so that it's easy to clean, so you can
actually do the same thing as with these stems. Again
it's man made, but you know, and let them overwinter
in that and some folks will actually even collect those up,
put them in a zip lock bag, keep them in
the refrigerator so they stay dormant over the winter, and
then bring them back out in the springtime and then

(11:46):
hatch out and re release the native bees that way.
But it's pretty cool. Learn more about that but yeah,
that is one of the reasons why you're seeing this
trend more and more of clean leaving the debris, especially
you know, hollow stemmed flower stems and things like that.
So these insects, these beneficial insects like the native bees,
and that can overwinter in those stems. So yeah, great, great,

(12:10):
I appreciate the call, appreciate the tip, and don'tally afraid
to just hang on. We get to you as fast
as we can and you can share that information with
us as well. As a matter of fact, when Barbie
and I Blecher the Queen Bee started talking about colony
collapse disorder many many, many many many years ago, that's
when we started talk bringing up the thing about native

(12:32):
bees because there wasn't a lot of a lot of
people talking about natives. And of course native bees have
been here forever. They were here before the European honey
bee was here. They were brought over from Europe or
were they. Barb sent me an article somebody doing some
research about bees, honey bees, and you know, were they

(12:54):
here at one time and maybe disappeared or something. I
don't know, I forget exactly what it said, but you
know the possibility of some of the jeans and some
of these, you know, were they actually here at one time,
but they are still called European honeybees brought over from
the with the Pilgrims and all the Europeans. Uh. And
the reason they brought them to the United States was

(13:14):
for making honey because our native bees basically are tremendous,
tremendous pollinators because all they do is reproduce. They go
out and obviously the I like kidding about this, but
the male doesn't do anything besides read with the with
the females. But they go out collect the pole and

(13:34):
come back find these holes and these hollow tubes and
places on trees and all that kind of stuff and
lay the eggs and the process starts over. But they're
tremendous pollinators. And that's why you see those cocoons, those
eggs being sold, bought purchased, those tubes being put out
in orchards and things like that in the springtime because

(13:57):
they're such great pollinators and they work along with honey
bees as well. And I even saw some resource search
showing where they put orchard bees out in an orchard,
and they said they thought that the honey bee pollinators
kind of stepped up the pace a little bit having
these other ones around as well. But that's what the
native bees are all about. And there's like thousands of

(14:17):
species of native bees out there that are always in
your yard, not all of those, but there are many
species that are in your own yard have been there forever.
And so by doing these tubes, by doing these Mason
bee homes Mason Bee tubes, we are creating more again
our backyards as a bed and breakfast for not only

(14:38):
the honey bees and the other pollinators, but for the
native bees namely like the mason or orchard bees as well.
And it's just a great way to increase the populations
in your backyard or front yard or whatever and increase
the pollinators. And it's a lot of fun as well.
So thanks for sharing a tip, appreciate you can learn

(15:01):
more about it well, I'm sure we'll have as we
always do, someone on through our spring season here talking
about the Mason bees and how you can help to
do this. Those are fun with the kids too. Kids
love those because you can buy the cocoons, they get
them shipped to you, put them in your little in
your tubes or whatever your bee houses and then watch
them hatch out from there. As a matter of fact,

(15:23):
I've seen Justin Block, who owns Osme a bee company,
do that. As a matter of fact, I met her
at the Columbus Home of Garden Show about six or
seven years ago. We're sure'll have the cocoons, So go
to a garden center. Have the cocoons so the kids
could have them where they're just starting to hatch out,
put them in their hands, and actually hatch out right
in front of them. And it's pretty cool for the
kids to get involved as well. So appreciate that input.

(15:46):
Input about the Mason bees. We'll talk more about that
as we get into the season. Also, before we take
a break, one last comment. Lots of emails this week,
and I appreciate that, and I try to get back
to you as fast as I can. If I haven't
answered it yet, I'll get it to you. Somebody said
send me an email, said, hey, run, how many bags
of fertilizer do I need to treat an acre of lawn?

(16:10):
How many bags of fertilizer do I need to treat
one acre of lawn? Well, the answer is very simple.
It depends on the fertilizer that you're using, what's in it,
what the carrying agent is, et cetera, et cetera. And
that's why every bag of for the most part, every
bag of fertilizer will have its own rate of how

(16:32):
it's applied, depending on the percentages of nitrogen, the carrying agent,
all of that. Well, it just depends on that particular
fertilizer as far as what the rate would be by weight.
So there's no way to tell someone you need five
bags of fertilizer or five bags of lawn food to

(16:55):
put out on your lawn. It depends on which lawn
food you're using. For instance, hear me talk a lot
about Fertilome, Furlome lawn food plus iron Furnlome all seasons,
which has the pre emergent and the lawn food with it.
If you look at that the bags and those are
twenty pound bags, and I think the nitrogen is about

(17:16):
twenty it's the twenty four zero eight, if I'm not mistaken,
covers five thousand square feet. There are other ones that'll
be right next to it, could be from Scott's or
Greenview or whatever. The kind of the same formula but
a different carrying agent. Blah blah blah. And it could
be that they're thirty pound bag covers five thousand square feet,

(17:37):
all right, So you can't just buy. Where we get
into trouble sometimes is like if you buy like a
generic ten ten ten or twelve twelve twelve fertilizer, just
an all across the board, all purpose, so many times
they don't have a lawn rate on there, and so
you have to figure out what kind of grash you have,
what percentage of nighters you want for thousand square feet,

(17:57):
et cetera, et cetera. You don't want to go through
all that stuff, all right, Buy a lawn food that's
labeled for a lawn food, whether it's natural or a synthetic,
and look at the rate that's on the bag, and
that's the rate that you want to follow, is what's
on the bag. And they should have spreader settings on
there for you as well, for most of the common
spreader settings that are out there. But again, like the

(18:18):
Fertile Home lawn food, it covers five thousand square feet
and an acre which is around forty four thousand square feet.
You need approximately nine bags of that. But the other
fertilizer that you know was thirty pound bag that covered
you know, six thousand square feet or whatever it would
be less. So read the bag, read the label. It'll

(18:40):
tell you what it covers depending on each specific variety,
and then you determine how many bags you need to
cover that acre area. All right, quick break, we come back.
Phone lines are open for you at eight two to
one WTVN eight hundred and sixty ten WTVN here on
news radio six ' ten WTVN about the bees and

(19:01):
the colony collaps disorder and all of that. And I
can feel my phone buzzing off to the side here
and it buzzing literally because it was Barbie Bletcher, the
Queen Bee, talking about, well, guess what, there are some
major losses now out in California and the almond orchards
and that where they're not sure what happened to the bees,
you know, the colony collapses order. When that all started

(19:22):
was you know what happened at these colonies had just disappeared.
And obviously over time and research, we found out there's
a combination of all kinds of things, lack of habitat viruses,
obviously the roid might that's been the major issue of
the loss of these of our honey bees with the
rod might and then the lack of habitat, and you know,

(19:42):
misuse of insecticides. Obviously pesticides fall into play there, but
a lot of different things that come together. So it's
a cocktail, a mix of all kinds of things. And
now they're seeing that happening again where they're not sure
exactly what happened about it and the almond orchest. So
she'll keep us updated on that, I'm sure, and and
then we'll find out what is happening out there. So well,

(20:03):
we will find out as time goes along. By the way,
I do want to remind you that starting next Friday,
which is the which is Valentine's Day, right next Friday. Yeah,
so starting and they do the bird count in their
particular areas, but it's done all around and then they

(20:23):
can put all this information together and they see what
populations are up and down and all that kind of stuff.
So you know, again this is really really important and
the thing of it is to remember is to do
this great backyard bird count, you don't have to be
a bird aficionado. It doesn't take a lot of time.
You're not doing it all four days. As a matter

(20:46):
of fact, the minimum amount of amount of time that
you need to spend doing this is fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes,
that's it. Now, if you want to do it every
day for longer periods of time and get different reports,
that would be outstanding. They would love you for it.
But if you only want to spend fifteen minutes and
get a report on what birds you're seeing in your

(21:06):
backyard for those fifteen minutes, that's great. That works for them.
And you can just if you just google great bird
Great Backyard Bird count, it'll take you to all the
different websites they're doing it, that are sponsoring it. Wild
Birds Unlimited are part of the sponsors. Cornell Lab of
Orthonologies or Mythology is sponsoring obviously a whole bunch of

(21:31):
the Autobahn Society. But you can find links all the
way around and it tells you when you go to
all of those, it'll take you back to the Great
Bird Counts website and then it'll show you all the
different things that you can do. They have apps that
you can download. It has charts of all the birds
you find in your particular zoning, so they'll show you
this so you can figure out what bird it is.

(21:52):
These apps that you can download are absolutely free and
you can take a picture of the bird through the
window and they'll tell you what kind of bird it is.
That's amazing, just cracks me up. They can do that plants,
including now. But anyway, that's going on starting next Friday,
Valentine's Day, running through Monday the seventeenth. It's the Great
Backyard Bird Count. I'll remind you of it again next Saturday.

(22:14):
Fifteen minutes minimum. Get your partner, get your spouse, get
the grandkids, get your kids, whatever involved, you know, get
three or four sets eyes there, keep watching the backyard.
Pointing out all the different birds. Helps you out. It's
a lot of fun. Helps you out learn them, the birds,
the kids, the grandkids, whatever, and just see what you're
seeing in your backyard and then report it. But again,

(22:37):
this is worldwide, is very very important. It's part of
the you know, trying to figure out where our birds
are today. And you know, we talk about the pollinators
being in trouble, We talk about the bees being in trouble,
we talk about the bats being in trouble, and that
birds are in trouble too. There are so many species
of birds that have gone extinct. There are many that
are on the verge of going extinct. We're losing you know,

(23:00):
different ones every year, and you know what, they're faced
with pretty much the same issues as the pollinators. And
like you know, talking about gardening for wildlife and getting
all of these back into your yard and guard how
important it is. But again, lack of habitat continues to
be at the top of their list too. But anyway,
good reminder. Starting next Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, February fourteenth

(23:23):
through the seventeenth, it is the Great Backyard Bird Count.
Be a part of it. Turn in your numbers. Fifteen
minutes is all it takes and then you're good to go.
Before we take a break, let's go to Dayton and
talk to my good friend Pick from Dayton.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Good morning, sir, Good morning. How are you?

Speaker 1 (23:42):
I am great? How are you?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh? I'm better? Guess what, buddy, what I have to
tell Danny and your friend there, Bob picked me up
in his Ford truck.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, and guess what what?

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Guess what? We had about twenty two people in the audience.
Let me tell you something I didn't forget these people.
We did a tribute to Buck Owens and Hank Williams Junior.
It was so good. I got to sing Love's going
to Live Here? And then guy did what is it?

(24:17):
The Long Gone? I've never heard anybody could yojo like
cam Ron. It was great.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
It was great. Did you do Tiger by the Tail?

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Oh? Yeah, we we were going to do that, but
I'll tell you the one that Bob likes is called
Love's going to Live Here?

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Oh yeah, going to live here again?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Oh? And the other one. I can't believe this guy Chris,
he did honky Tonk Woman and then stagger Lee. Could
you imagine everybody was dancing?

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (24:47):
And you know that it was good. You know, it
was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Will you playing the ukulele or the banjo?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
How'd you guess?

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Do you play the mandolin anymore?

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Just a little bit? Yeah, I switched over. Yeah, I
take both of them.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
You know. Yeah. Well, now when you're doing the country,
let me know Ella, our producer, she loves country music,
and oh yeah, she would love to hear you doing
the bucko and stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Oh you know something, it's great to be back in music.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
You know, it's great. Well, you didn't get away from it.
You just took a little break.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, you know what though, what you know what?

Speaker 1 (25:27):
What Lowe's called me.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
It's been a while. They want me to come back
to work.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well, of course they do. Their sales are the same
since you left.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, yeah, and uh, I'll thought, well, you know, next week,
I gotta buy my friends up. Mo. I'll let you
and Danny and sixteen know me be I'll sing on
the air next week.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Well, if you do, you'll surprise the heck out of
me because we've been asking you to do that for
a long time. By the way, got the big game
tomorrow night. What's your prediction.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Oh, I'll go back twenty four seven, Like I said,
I'll keeps take the chiefs. I'll take the chiefs.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
No, you're taking the chiefs at twenty seven to twenty four,
he says, all right, we got.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Thirty four to twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Oh, forty four, twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Thirty four, thirty thirty four.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
All right, thirty four to twenty seven chiefs, Yes, got it, Dick,
always a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yeah, have a great day.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Hey you too, take care all right? Bye? Bye? And
Ella does she loves that country music, So maybe you'll
play a little buck Owens for us next week. Quick break,
we come back, we'll finish up. We got phone lines
open for you. Got a tip you want to share,
question you might have, give us a call eight two
to one WTVN eight hundred and six to ten WTVN.
Here on news radio six to ten WTVN. I love

(26:45):
it talking to Yarding here on news radio six to
ten WTVN. Quick reminder. The Central Ohiohoman Guarden Show kicks
off next Saturday, February the fifteenth. The Guess is going
to be there. We are be doing our show from
ten until noon. We're at the Columbus Tree Both Columbus
Trees dot com is their website. I think is Booth
twenty six nineteen. It's on the south side of the gardens.

(27:09):
I believe I'm not mistaken. But we will be there
doing the show. So stop if you have to be
the home of Garden Show next Saturday from ten until noon,
stop in and say hi. I love to talk to
you and I love seeing everybody there. And it is
the official kickoff for the spring season, so I'm excited.
Can't wait to do it. To the gardening phone lines,
we shall go. Jean, good morning, Hey.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Good morning, Ron this question for you. I'm want to
do some lawn aeration. I kind of want to do
it now and put a good just a good fertilizer
without the pre emergence. And I'm wondering if that's a good,
good idea to do it this early. I know that
you can't use pre emergence when you do an aeration,
at least that's what I've been told because you break

(27:52):
the barrier. So I was wondering if I could do
that now and get off to.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
A good start. I think it's too early. I don't
think I get involved with it right now. I think
that we start to get into March and the lawns
start the green back up again. Yeah, I have no
problem there, but I personally would not do it. I'd
just say February in general, But because of the way
the weather typically is, I think it's just a bit
too early. So, you know, And the thing about it is,

(28:17):
when you talk about the pre emergent, you can also
core air rate, do all that stuff, then come back
down and put the pre emergent down and you're not
poking holes through it anymore, so you know, you know,
and again we're not putting pre emergent down. Typically, if
you put a pre emerging down, try to wait it
out as long as you can. You may be able
to wait out till late March early April before we

(28:39):
have to put it down, depending on the weather. So
you could have all the other stuff, the core air rating,
you could do a little top dressing, do whatever before
we get to that point of putting down the pre
emerged herbicide. So that's a possibility. Or if you just
go with fertilizer either, you know, the fertilizer doesn't matter.
You can do that anytime. I say anytime around their rating.

(29:00):
I think it's too early to do that as well,
So I personally wouldn't do anything until we at least
got to the first of March, and then take it
to look at the weather, look at the moisture in
the ground, put all those factors together, and then make
a decision when you want to get started. But again,
poking the holes in there, Yeah, if you came in
after the premergon was down, you would poke holes in
and break the barrier a little bit, no doubt about it.

(29:22):
But cor Ay first post a merger or a pre
emerging afterwards.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Perfect, Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Are Jane good talking with you and Ron? Good morning,
Good morning.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
At Christmas time, I got a red lion Amerilla's plant. Yes,
during January I had several beautiful red blooms on it,
probably four or five, and now there's just stems on it.
I guess my question is that just bloom for a
short period of time and then when the planet the springtime,

(30:00):
do you recommend?

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, so you still have that old flower stock still there,
but the flowers you're done. Yeah, all right, and you
probably have some green leaves that are starting to come
out from the bottom. Yes, Okay, go down as far
down as close to that ball as you can get
and cut off the flower stem and get rid of that.

(30:23):
And when you cut it off, it'll be a little
hollow area there. But all next thing, you know, it
takes four or five days, it just seals itself back
over and you're good to go. So now you're going
to grow that thing as a houseplant in a nice
bright area, sunny window about every two or three weeks,
you know, put a little water soluble fertilizer in with it,
but grow it in that pot as a houseplant until

(30:45):
we get to our past. Our frost free date sometime
in May at that's at that stage. Most folks leave
them in the container. You could upgrade it, put it
into a little larger container like a If it's in
a six inch pot, put it in an eight inch pot,
and then take it outside. You know where it's going
to get a half a day of sun or so.

(31:05):
Let it grow. It'll grow it great outside. They love it.
Feed it about every two or three weeks. That's really important.
They're a high feeder. And you just grow it in
the pot and then come mid August or so if
you want it to flower around December, you'll actually stop
watering it. It'll turn yellow. You cut the foliage off,
you put it away. You store it away where it's

(31:27):
dark and cool for about eight weeks, bring it back out,
start it all over again. Now that's a lot of information, Ron,
So I have a tip sheet on how to get
that thing to reflour. If you email me Ron Wilson
at iHeartMedia dot com, I'll send you the tip sheet
and it'll walk you through this entire process all right.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
Well during the summer though, when you put it.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Out, no, it's strictly foliage and so what you're doing
is when you cut, when you cut it all off
and you make it go dormant, you trick it into flowering,
is what you're doing. So it comes back out, it
flowers right away. That's how they get them to do that,
so they flower for you during the holidays or you know.
The thing of it is if you bring it out
even later, it'll flower for you later into the winter season.

(32:09):
And a lot of folks will do that, stagger the
planting so they flower have one flowering off and on
throughout the whole winter. If you never let it go
dormant and you just kept growing it, so at the
end of the summer you brought it back in the
house and you just keep growing it like a houseplant.
It'll flower whenever it feels like flowering, and all of
a sudden it'll set a flower up. It could do

(32:29):
it in the summer, it could do it in the spring,
it could do it at the holidays. But we are
tricking at the flower during the winter or holidays by
making it go dormant. So that's kind of up to you.
And again that tips she tells you about that as well,
So email me, let me get that to you and.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
That is Rod Wilson at did you say.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
At iHeart iHeartMedia dot com, iHeartMedia yep dot com.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
All right, I appreciate your health there, thank.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
You my pleasure. And you know those things are great,
there's no doubt about it. What great color. And again
you know pretty fairly. They're easy to grow. Sometimes you're
very successful get them to rebloom. Sometimes they aren't. Like
I said, my mom had I think she still has
one that she just lets it grow and every now
and then intet of stock up, intill flower just out

(33:20):
of nowhere.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
And that's just what they do. You know, if you
if you would do that, but otherwise putting making it
go dormant actually is tricking it into flowering after you
bring it out a dormancy after about the six to
eight weeks or so. Every week we pick a plant
of the week. I've been doing a lot of trees,
a lot of unusual trees that you may not have
seen out that they're available but may not have seen
in the landscapes.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
And trying to find some native trees for you cet
et cetera. As we get into the spring season, of
course being a great time for planting trees. Well, the
tree of the pick, my pick of the week this
week is a native tree. It's way in or using
the landscape. Reason being is when they're small, uh, they
don't have a lot to them. There's several, you know,
a few branches on it. You look at and you go, wow,

(34:05):
that's one hundred and fifty bucks, and then there's nothing
to it. It's one of those trees that there isn't
anything to it when they're younger, but as they continue
to grow, it's really nice, beautiful tree. Check this out.
Pretty much insect and disease free. Small flower in the springtime,
not that noticeable, but it does have a small flower.
It has a compound leaves, double compound leaf that is

(34:29):
really cool. It's like a locus on steroids with all
the small leaves on it. It's called gym noclattus, which
stands for naked limb tree. So then the limbs. They
don't have a lot of small branches. It's just the
limbs going out and then these leaves. But it's Kentucky
coffee tree and it's a really cool tree. I love

(34:50):
the leaves. Good filtered shade underneath it. Tough, durable, forty
five to fifty feet high, thirty feet wide, kind of
an oval to a vase, kind of matures out. But
those doubly compound leaves are really cool. Dull yellow fall color,
but a really nice insect and disease free tree for
planting in your yard. Kentucky Coffee Tree our tree of

(35:13):
the week. Be sure and check it out at ron
Wilson online dot com. Thanks to our colors, thanks to
our sponsors, thanks of course to Ella, our producer. Without La,
none of the stuff would happen. Now to yourself a favor.
Get your plans in place. Where are you gonna plant
these trees? Where you're gonna plant native plants? Where you're
gonna plant pollinator plants? Are you gonna pamper your worms
a little bit more this year? A more organic matter
of the soil.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Get the kids involved with dogs and dogs with gardening,
and by all means, make this the absolute best weekend
of your life. See you