Timing the color of your mums; questions on ground moles and squirrels

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, everybody, Welcome back. I'm Ron Wilson, and you
are in the garden here on news radio six '
ten wtvn A two to one WTV in eight hundred
and six to ten WTV and talking about yarding, taking
your calls, no guests on this this hour. We're gonna
leave it open so we can take lots of calls
and share lots of tips for you as well. As
we start to get into the fall season. Can you

(00:22):
believe that tomorrow, September the first the official start, you know,
Labor Day weekend is like the unofficial beginning of the
fall season, but the end of the summer fall season.
But you know, tomorrow is actually the official start of
the meteorological fall. And I like going by the meteorological
seasons because it really does make more sense than the

(00:43):
other one. So I say, tomorrow the fall season begins.
It's gonna be a little hopefully we get some showers
moving through, maybe a little dry, but hopefully we get
some showers to move through and help us out there too.
But anyway, if we don't have to have to do
a little do a little bit of watering, because we
all know falls such a great time for planting, and

(01:03):
I think that you know, last week and the last
couple weeks been talking about lawn renovation, and you know
whether or not you need to clean out the lawn
and start all over again. You've got some patches of
the lawn that's just taken over by oddball grasses and
crab grass and all kinds of weeds. You just want
to clear it out and start all over again, or

(01:24):
maybe you're just looking to do some overseating. Timing wise,
we're right there the middle of August through the end
of September for cool season grasses, including blue grass, perfect timing.
Once we get to the end of September, I would
probably not do blue grass at that point. You can
still look at the fescues after that in the perennial rise.

(01:46):
They'll still probably be in good shape for another couple
of weeks, but try to get it done in those
six that's six week period. But the kickers then comes in. Okay,
so what about you know what, if it's hot and
it's dry and we don't have a lot of moisture
in the ground, what are we gonna do. Well, we've
got time to write it out, We've got time to
wait and see what's going to happen. So we can

(02:07):
wait till next week, see what the weather's going to do.
I think it's supposed to cool down a little bit,
whether or not we good moisture back in the ground.
If it doesn't look like we're going to and you
need to do what we were just talking about, then
you know you're gonna have to, you know, keep pull
out the hoses or get the irrigation system going, because
moisture in the soil is going to be the key

(02:27):
to your success of any kind of lawn renovation that
you want to do over the next several weeks. If
you're gonna you know, core air rape, got to have
moisture in the ground. If you're gonna slice seed, you
got to have moisture in the ground. If you're gonna
seed put down fertilizer and get that up and growing,
you got to have moisture in the ground for to
do that. So you know, we moisture is going to
be the key here, and you've got to commit to again,

(02:51):
we're not keeping it soaking well. We just need to
keep good even moisture to it as we're going through
these processes. So again, you've got a couple of weeks
here to take a look at it, try to get
to gauge it as far as what the weather's going
to do. Are we going to get cooler temperatures? Are
we going to get some rainfall over the next three
four weeks as we go through September. And you can

(03:12):
ride it and wait it out. But the sooner you
can get that seed in and root, you know, up
germinated and growing, the better off you're going to be.
But as long as you can stick with it with watering,
that's going to be the important thing. And if you're
doing total renovation, you know you want everything actively growing.
Believe it or not. When you spray the weed killer

(03:32):
the vegetation killer, you want everything actively growing. Kill it out,
mow it down low, and then you can come back
and actually do some core air rating if you wish.
And a lot of times in areas where the lawn's
not doing so well is because it's usually compacted soils
or other reasons. So it's good to core air rates.
So you need moisten in the ground for that, and

(03:53):
then you need moisten in the ground too, and hopefully
you're going to rake in a little compost. Then you
need moisten the ground for light eating and get the
seed down the starter fertilizer and a little moisture from
that and carry that on to get it up and growing.
If you can get by without using straw, do it,
get buy without it. If you can promise yourself you'll

(04:14):
keep even moisture, they're great. If you need a coverage
to help maintain that moisture. Look at those grass seat accelerators.
It's the paper product, that fiber product that is in
the little pellets. You spread it out over the area,
water it in, they swell up cover over the area
and that becomes your insulation to protect that those grass

(04:37):
seeds until they're able to germany and start to grow
up through it. It's a little more going to be
a little bit more expensive than the straw, but that's
the best way to go because an you don't put
up with wheat or weed seeds that you may be
getting from that straw bale. But again, moisture is going
to be the key here. Timing is very important. If
you're gonna wait a little bit, don't wait too long.

(04:58):
It's it's important to get that taken care of all right,
and so let's take a look out and see what
we're gonna do. Away everything out and go from there.
If your lawn's looking pretty good and you've got a
few weeds here and there in otherwise you're just going
to be feeding it all. Remember, we're going to go
after we can spot treat those weeds in October, because
that's when that's really weed killers are most effective in October,

(05:21):
rather than doing it now. You can do it now,
but in October we'll look to do that. So right
now we be looking at possibly core aer rating. I
don't care. How will the lawnl looks you can still
core air rate. We'd be looking at feeding the lawn
in September for the first feeding, and then don't forget
that second feeding that we would have sometime in early November.
All right, So keep all of that in mind, all right,

(05:45):
before we take a break, a couple quick benches. We'll
take an early break. We'll come back and jump into
the guarding phone lines. One is, we had a question
to call in about banana plants. When to separate. The
best time to separate those pups out is as early
as you can to get those separated from the plant.
So in the springtime, if you see a lot of
pups coming, that's a great time to break them apart.

(06:07):
If you do it now, I'd get on it right away,
get those potted up so they can start to root in.
And I'm assuming you would go to overwinter those in
a you know where they don't freeze or whatever. But
you could get on it now, But usually earlier in
the season is much better than waiting too late if
you're looking to separate those pups away from the from
the parent plant. And again in the springtime when they

(06:29):
start to come up, you all the pups around here,
that's a great time to go and just kind of
break those off, replant if needed, kind of digging and
dividing perennials, replant a couple in the middle if you
need to, and then take those pups and put them
somewhere else. But you could pull that off this time
of the year, pot them up and overwinter them wherever
you're going to overwhinter them, you know, so they don't
stay cold but are freeze. But I would rather do

(06:53):
that in the springtime. As we see them coming up
all right, very quickly. Dallya show going on today and tomorrow,
Union County and Marysville, Columbus dalues dot com to learn
more about it today and tomorrow one to five today,
one to four tomorrow, and then of course the Columbus
Garden Railway Society has there tour coming up on Sunday,
September the eighth. That's next Sunday from one until five.

(07:15):
For more information, their website is the CGRs dot org
the cg RS dot org. Little break, we come back.
We'll be back into the gardening phone lines at eight
two to one WTVN. Here on news Radio six to
ten WTVN, it's Buckeye Football kickoff day. I can't wait
three point thirty this afternoon. Of course, you got the

(07:36):
best Buckeye coverage coming up after us here on news
radio six to ten wtv and Matt McCoy and the team.
They always do such a wonderful job, so be sure
and stay tuned for that. Appreciate you listening to our
show as well. As we get ready, and of course
you can go out work in the yard and garden.
I like these afternoon and evening starts for the Bucks
because it gives us a pretty much all day to
get outside and get our chores done and then come

(07:57):
in shower, get little bite, a little something to drinks.
I don't watch those Buckeyes play. And that's what we
got again today, some blow through showers here and there.
Hopefully we get some rainfall. We can certainly use it.
I was somewhere where was I yesterday? I forget, but anyway,
there was a little bit of a showers. I heard
somebody say, oh, I'm glad it's raining because I now
I don't have to water well. Wrong that. Remember, the

(08:20):
rain showers that come through are strictly bonuses. Don't count
on those. What you're going to do as far as
watering is what is right now is what's going to count.
And again, if we've got showers coming through, try to
get the irrigation systems going, trying to get the sprinklers going,
to get pre moistened soil so it can soak in
more of the rainfall that would happen to come through

(08:42):
your area. A two to one WTVN Debbie, good morning,
are you How are you today?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
I'm just doing real well. I have a two far questions,
so please don't hang up after the first one. All righty, Yes,
I did a major paw, and I was trying to
get you know, those weed trees that grow up in
between your like rose bushes and stuff. And I was
trying to cut it, and I thought that I had it,

(09:13):
and I used my lapper. Well, I whacked it off,
and then I discovered I had taken a stalk of
roses out. I totally missed that weed tree. I was
so mad, and anyway, so I want to know if
there's any way that I can save it. I stuck
it out in the garden in the dirt, put all
kinds of dirt around it, and then I watered it

(09:36):
in real good. But I want to know, is there
anything that I can do for that stock? It was
probably about a five foot stocks.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Here's what happens there. Here's what Grandma used to do
many years ago. If she wanted to start new roses.
She would take cuttings from the ends. Now she'd only
take six to eight inch cuttings, all right, and the
long stalks like that a lot of times won't work.
But she would take six to eight inch cuttings and stick,
you know, and find a real good spot in the
garden that had very good soil. Stick those in the ground.

(10:09):
About two inches deep, and maybe put a little bit
of rooting home or hormone on there, or make your
own using willows or ivy water and put that in
the ground, and sometimes put like a glass jar over
the top to create a mini greenhouse to help you
keep the moisture around the cane and around the leaves
that were on there, and those things would root. And

(10:31):
roses are pretty pretty good about rooting in for you,
But typically it's the shorter pieces that work better for
you than the real long piece. And as a matter
of fact, you could even just to have leaves pretty
much down to the bottom.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well, no, the leaves were all up at the top,
but there's no reason why I couldn't cut six shad
up until I get all that short enough, I'll just
have a whole bunch of roses.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, do several pieces, and that way you stick several
of them. Make sure you put the bottom part of
the stem into the ground and see what happens, and
and and then the jar part was strictly to hold
moisture around those plants until they started to leaf back
out again. And then of course you'd have to put
it somewhere where it only got a little morning sun
afternoon shade, because otherwise they'd cook inside that jar, so

(11:21):
you'd have to you have to be very careful about that.
But I'm just using that as an example. That's that's
the way it used to be done, uh, in the gardens.
So yeah, you can give it a shot. It's late
in the season. Hopefully they will develop enough of a
root system to carry them through the winter, and maybe
even a situation where you would see you could even

(11:42):
do it in a container. In a container and in others
put a pot down in the ground with potting soil
or whatever. Do them in that, so it's in a
container that you could actually pull up, take them in
the garage over the winter, just to protect them a
little bit, bring them back out in the springtime, and
that way you get protected from the winter winter conditions
and critters eating on them over the winter time as well.
But I give it a shot, no doubt. But yeah,

(12:04):
cut it up. Chances are the end piece will be
the best piece. But I'd give it a shot and
give yourself four or five chances and see what happens.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Sounds good. Next question is okay, now those weed trees,
I know, if you drill a hole in them and
you put uh that stuff like stump killer in there.
I know that's still the weed, the stump little thing,

(12:35):
but I want to know if I drill the hole
in because that's like some of those little weed trees
have gotten in the middle of some of my good
plants and they're really hard to get out. Like I said,
I took that rose bush bush accidentally. Can I do
that and like say in the roast thing, will it

(12:56):
kill the whole rose bush that way? Or we'll just
kill the roots that I have put that stump killer
in on.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
And here's what I would do. You know how bigger
in diameter are these that you're cutting? I mean, are
they like a size of your finger?

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Okay, what I'd be doing is I take your lopper,
using loppers right to cut those off pruners with the
long handles. Yeah, stick that right down in the ground.
I know it's not the best thing in the world
to do, but if you cut that and take it
off right, take it down in the ground into the soil.
A lot of times they won't even come back up
from that. But do that all right, and then right

(13:32):
after you make that fresh cut, don't worry about making
any drill, drilling any holes. Have yourself a small container
of a vegetation killer, whether it's you know, the old
fashioned round up formula kills all or even a broad
leaf weed killer, and take a little brush or a
little cloth, dab it in that and then dab that

(13:54):
right on top of the fresh cut. That's all you
have to do. And dab it right off the top
of the fresh cut. You're good to go. And what
that does is I'll absorb right in the top of
that cut and keep that from suckering back up again.
That's like when they're clearing out wild honeysuckle. You can't
go in and grub it all out. So what they'll
do is they'll take it to saw and cut it
right off at the ground level and immediately come back

(14:14):
and paint a vegetation killer right on top of it
with a brush and be done with it. And that
works quite nicely to keep those from coming back up again.
So you don't have to go through all that. Just
painted on the top of the fresh cut, you should
be good to go that way. There's not a lot
there to travel to get into your roses. Just be
careful you put it right on top of that and

(14:35):
should be good to go.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Wonderful. Thank you so very much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Hey, my pleasure. Good luck with everything. Let me know
how those roses turn out, all right, Jay, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Good morning? How a yes, sir, the old saying goes.
Longtime listener, first time caller.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Well, welcome aboard, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
I want to talk about ground moles. I live in
my grandparents parents' house just northwest of Cyrus. I can
remember as a kid my dad playing my grandfather playing
whack them all, stick the garden hose in the tunnel
and wait for them to pop up. I've never been
able to get a ground mole to pop up doing that,
but I've had ground moles just about every summer in

(15:19):
the time i've since I've been a kid and at
this place. But this year, in particular, everywhere I'm mow
this summer, the ground moles have infested my yard and
I'm just I'm just at a loss, and I'm wondering
if it's the dry weather or I and I'm I
have a second part of the question. Is it the
dry weather that brings them on like this?

Speaker 1 (15:41):
No? No, no, I mean you know when they're searching
like that when you see those tunnels up at the
top that make it really soft and you twist your
ankle and all that, those are feeder or search tunnels.
So when they go up there, they're looking for any
insects that are just below sod level or soil level
whether and of course earthworms is their number one, that's
the number one source of food, but they're looking for

(16:02):
anything that happens to be right in that level. And
there's always insects right in that thatch and the root
system and all. So that's why they go through searching
for whatever happens to be there for them to feed on.
And again I push earthworms being their number one source
of food, but you don't want to do anything about
getting into the earthworms, so so you know, and if

(16:24):
you have a lot of earthworms, good for you, and
you just have to deal with the moles a little bit.
But so that's what they're doing. The thing that your
grandfather and my mother who is ninety one years old
are going to be ninety one and has always been
a very effective mole killer, is that the secret to
that was going out in the morning, first thing sun

(16:45):
comes up, go out and look and finding the freshest
dug or freshest used tunnels that were out there. And
she would walk out, and she's very good at the still,
and she could tell what you know, if you look, look,
you could tell which one was freshly used that morning,
and that would be the one that she would take
the garden nose and pop a hole in the end

(17:07):
of it, stick the hose in there, give it about
five minutes, and sure enough a mole would pop up somewhere.
She'd get it with a pitchfork and be done with it.
And she's still very good at that. I always kid
about it. I'd written my mom out if you guys
are interested, But that's what they did. So the secret
to that, or trapping them, because physical removal is the
only sure cure for moles, is knowing where the active

(17:32):
tunnels are and the inactive tunnels are, because you can
do all you want on those inactive tunnels. You could
put all the repellents and all of the poisons down
there or the traps in there, and if they don't
aren't using the tunnel, does you know? Good? So she knew,
and you could you can actually walk those down a
little bit foot you know, foot in front of foot,
sometimes actually feel them underneath the ground and go after

(17:54):
them that way too. But that's what she would do,
and I'm sure that's what your grandfather would do as well.
They knew where to look for that fresh tunnel and
that's where they were and then they would pop out.
So what do you do? Well, if you can do that,
that's great. If you can determine which one of the freshmenes,
give it another shot, and first time, first thing in
the mornings usually the best time.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Okay. So then the other thing is, I've heard you.
I know you're running short on time. So I've heard
you say, don't put out grub killer to get rid
of moles. And I'm wondering why you say that, because.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Grubs are just a minor part of what they feed on,
earthworms again being their number one source of food. Grubs
aren't always in the soil, and if they are, there's
one or two here and there, unless you have an
infestation of grubs that's so bad it actually causes problems
in your turf. If you have grub infestations that really
causes problems in the turf, then you want to treat

(18:48):
for the grubs because you're getting rid of the grubs
to save your turf. Otherwise, if anything, the moles are
kind of helping you out with a onesie and twosies
that they find in there. But otherwise it's just a
seasonal appetizer for them. That's not that's not long term
food sources for for moles, So it's not worth spreading,
you know, treating for the grubs if anything at all.

(19:09):
If you put a grub killer down and all of
a sudden you don't see any mole activity, probably the
reason that you don't is they don't like the smell,
so it acted as a repellent than anything else.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Okay, well I had that has happened. I put down
grub killer and then they're gone.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
So yeah, the smell, it's that smell. And you know how,
if you remember this right, the old time, old timy
thing used to be juicy fruit gum. Oh gosh, I
remember when that was such a big thing. Roll up
juicy food grum, put it down in there. Well, they
don't chew or eat juicy food grum gum. But what
they don't like was the smell would act as a
natural repellent like castor oil, and they all don't like

(19:47):
the smell of castor oil, which is the base of
all mole repellents.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
I'll be darned. Okay, all right, all hey, you've got
a big help.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Thanks right, John, Good good talking to you, quick break,
John Jay, John you up next. Phone lines are open
for you at a two to one WTV in here
on news radio six ' ten WTVN. So you got
any plans to get out there and work in the
yard and garden today, I would hope. So if you
don't have some showers coming down and your particular area,
and even if you do, they're probably going to be blowthroughs,

(20:16):
and get right back out there and get on it
because fall season is starts sufficially tomorrow, the meteorological fall.
Get out there. I'll tell you what I'm looking at
some of the garden centers right now. They're really getting
stocked up nicely with mums and cabbage and kale and
pansies and cold hardy annuals, ornamental peppers, all kinds of
great things to put in your containers to switch over

(20:37):
to our fall plantings. It just it boggles my mind
all the different things that are available in colors. I
think the one thing I want to remind everybody is
that if you're buying garden mums to give yourself some
color on your patio or whatever it may be, remember
if you go out there today and you buy a
mum that's half showing colors, that's only going to last

(20:58):
for you another three weeks or so. So you know,
if you have a party going on, or you have
several parties over the next two or three weeks that
you want to have good color, that's what you need
to do. But those are going to be done by
the end of September and probably not have much color
for you at that point. If you're looking for colors
a little bit later on in the season, you'll be
looking at moms that have just started to barely crack

(21:20):
with a little bit of color those buds or just
green green, nice green moms with nice green buds all
over top of them, and that way you get them planted.
Now in another couple three weeks, then all of a sudden,
they start to crack colors, and they'll carry you through
the end of September and into October, sometimes even into
the beginning of November as the temperatures cool down. So

(21:42):
you know again, if you need color for the next
couple three weeks, buy those moms that are showing colors now,
but don't expect them to give you anything afterwards. Dead
Heading moms does not encourage more flowers. What you see
and the buds that are on there now is what
you're going to get, So keep that in mind. I
quit the back to the guarding fillings we go. John,

(22:03):
Good morning.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
Hey Ron. Hope we get you too, John.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
There we go, John, good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
Hey Ron. I've got two questions for if you don't mind. Hey,
We've got five squirrels in our yard and they are
driving us completely nuts. They're eating the tomatoes, our green
peppers are hot peppers, and I think they ate all
the cluds off of them earlier in the spring. And
and rondy're getting in my wife's pots she's made of.

(22:37):
She got pots of begunias mostly, and they are getting
them and digging. I do know whether they think they remember,
you know, I know they're stressed because you know it's
been so dry that it hasn't much food. You know,
I used to throw corn out for him. First thing
he did was uh to dig up the the begunias

(22:58):
and plant them. So I quit now corn form. But Ron,
I you know, I went to Straighters and got repels
all about bonn Eyed, right, But this is what worries me. Ron.
It doesn't say one thing about bees. You know, I
got the bees come into these flowers on these begunias

(23:19):
and that Bonne Eyed. I mean, I've read it and
re read it, you know, and it says not to
spray on on it. You don't know anything you're going
to eat. But the bees is what really concerns me
about spraying the plants. What what do you suggest?

Speaker 1 (23:39):
I don't think that. I don't think it's any problem.
As a matter of fact, I'm trying to think of
what's on the label, and I think most of that
is would be oils of some type. I'm not mistaken,
So it should not be an issue. And what I
would you know, what I would do is when I
spray those it's not an insecticide, right, So what I
would do is look to spray them late in the
evening when the bee the activity has slowed down or stopped,

(24:02):
and get it sprayed on there so by in the
morning it'll be dry. Said that, and the way repels
All works is both the combination of smell and taste.
So if anything, they may be turned off a little
bit by the smell, but it won't kill the bees.
So the safest thing to do is just spray in
the evening, let it dry by in morning, and you're

(24:23):
good to go. There's no insecticide or fungicide in there,
so should not be an issue for the bees if
you take it that route. I tell you that the
repels all. I think Messina has a squirrel away. There's
three or four repellents out there for squirrels. It's tough.
And the reason it's tough is that they jump and

(24:44):
they fly and they skip and they go around and
it's so hard to repel them with repellents it's crazy.
Now in the containers you'll probably have a little bit
more success because what I would do with that repels
all is actually spray the p so you can go
around the outside and just spray the lip of the pot.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
All right, oh, dis covered with flowers, you know the
flowers are over lifting the kind.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Of lifted up a little bit, and do some spraying
there as well as the flowers. And I'll tell you
another one that we've had pretty good success with and
that's the smell of cinnamon, and I've had folks going by.
You go get small pine cones and then that are
already cinnamon coat, you know, with the odor like at
the hobby lobby, and put those in those containers, and

(25:34):
cinnamon coated pine cones has really been fairly affective with
the squirrels trying to keep them away. Putting out even
water sometimes can help because they are thirsty and they're
looking to get, you know, whatever they can to get
that moisture. Other than that, I'm telling you, squirrels are
still one of the toughest I don't have. I don't

(25:56):
have major answers besides physical barriers where you actually cover
everything over. Other than that, you try all of the
above and see if anything works to try to repel
them away. But it's it's a tough one, there's no
doubt about it. But try the repels all. Try this cinnamon.
If you can get hold of some of that, and uh,

(26:16):
just keep using it, keep freshening it up. That's the
important thing. Keep that smell, a fresh smell going, and
hopefully you'll you'll start to cut back on the damages
that they're causing.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
Yeah, oh we got we got a burd bat. They
drink out of that.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
So so water's not a issues.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
No.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
But Ron, my other question is, if you don't mind,
I got one more question. If you don't mind, sure, Ron,
My lawn is super dry, and I have a mode
for a couple of weeks. I don't have a real
good lawn, you know, Kentucky bluegrass, and I think it's
mostly just weeds. But I keep the mode nice, you know,

(26:55):
And I have a mode in a couple of weeks.
But there's this tall stuff, this wild stuff, and I
don't know what it is, but it's at least it's Greeniche.
Should I go ahead and mow that? Can I mow
without damage and the whole on? Or should I just wait?

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (27:15):
That's that's a great question. The stuff that's growing up?
Is it? Is it a grass?

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (27:21):
Grassy looking?

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (27:24):
If you can, if you can try to concentrate your
mowing just on that or a weed whip it. And
your point being is and and this is a great
that's a great question. Is the fact that if it's
dry and under stress, whatever crowns that are down there,
if you start walking on those or riding or putting
a more across the top, there's a real good chance
you get damn zose and not have much of it
come back up again. And that's why we're trying to

(27:45):
stay off of it when it's stressed. So you know,
you know, let's give it another give it another four
or five days to see what happens as far as
rainfall and moisture. Maybe that'll be enough that you can
get back out there and do it. If not, and
it starting to get really tall, and I'd probably say, yep,
either get the string termer out or get the mower out,
set it up and do a light mowing where it's needed,

(28:07):
but try to stay off the rest of it as
much as you can because we're trying to protect those
crowns at this stage.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
Hey, Ron, how long after a good rain is the
grass using that poristure? And how long can I after
a good rain?

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Mo I'd give it at least a couple of days. Yeah,
a couple of days, just to make sure that, and
then all of a sudden you'll see things start to
green up a little bit. You'll have good moisture back
in those crowns. You'll have good moisture in the soil.
You give it a couple of days, and I wouldn't
hesitate to be back on. If you've gotten a real
good soaking rain, then I wouldn't hesitate to get back
out there.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
We are so dry here, believable.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, it's it's bad. It's it's I I I shudder
at the fact that it's so dry, what it's doing
to the bigger trees and shrubs and evergreens and spoke
so hey, John, we got to go. Appreciate the call.
Good luck with everything. Quick break, we come back. We'll
jump right back into the gardening phone lines at a
two to one wtv in here on news radio six
ten WTVN. We're talking your ardening here on news radio

(29:13):
six ten WTVN. Real quick, before we go back to
the gardening phone lines. Been out to a couple homes
and this happens all the time, and I see it
especially in some of the island plantings, in parking lots.
You get out, you know the multit's there using that
trip like a triple shredded hardwood mulch, which is a
really fine stuff, easy to work with, there's no doubt

(29:35):
about it. And it looks good. I like to really
fine look. But what we see in this stuff and
it's it's just more and more. When you get into
a long stretch of sunny, hot days, a little bit
of moisture in that mulch and it starts to bake
from the sun and from the heat. The next thing
you know, that turns into a pie crust and it's
like a roof of a house and you go put

(29:57):
water on that and it just runs right off the top.
I have stepped into several landscape beds that had the
really fine shredded hardwood in there, and it just crunched
like I was walking on leaves. It crunched because it
was all baked together. And like I said, I know
a couple of parking lots that have island plantings are

(30:18):
the exact same way you step on them. It's like
because it's so dry and so hard, so that when
you do try to water or the rainfall comes down,
it runs right off the outside of it, so it
becomes impermeable to moisture. If you have those really fine mulches,
get out the old garden weasel and do a little
get rid of the crusties I call it. The krusties

(30:39):
go through there and loosen that thing up so that
when showers come through or we're trying to water, it'll
penetrate down through that finer mulch. That is one of
those things you might want to consider changing over time
and using a more coarse shredded hardwood or other types
of mulch. They're finding research is showing it more and
more that they more course the mulch, the better air

(31:02):
flows through, the better it is for the plants, the
more moisture flows through, et cetera, et cetera. It'll still
help to keep the weeds down, it still helps to
moderate the soil temperatures, but it allows air to come
through and it allows water to penetrate as well, And
so you might want to keep that in mind in
the future. But right now, if you have that triple

(31:22):
shredded stuff, check it and see because it could be
hard as a rock, and if it is, water trust me,
runs right off the top like it's like a shingles
or the top of a pie crust, right off the side.
So get the garden weeze lap one time. You can
use it and it's very effective and break up those crusties.
Back to the gardening phone lines we go, Dana, good morning.

Speaker 5 (31:43):
Yeah, I heard John talking about trouble with the squirrel
as well. They're nothing but a freaking road and to
begin with. So I'm telling John, get yourself some a
good old fashion, the old fashioned dcon and put it
out and get rid of them, because they are very destructive.
I think many cases were they have tuned into people's attics,
chewed into the wiriors and cause fires. So Jo, if

(32:05):
you want to avoid something like this and the other
destruction that they cause on the get the decon quickly on,
storry for them, and kill all.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Right, Dana, I appreciate it. That's one thing about data
always gives us an honest opinion. I appreciate that. But
you know one thing I did learn, and I learned
this like you probably heard a story several years ago
we had squirrels get in our attic and they got
in through an opening by the fireplace and the whole
nine yards Anyway, I learned from a critter getter that
one of the best things to do is that if

(32:34):
you trap those and you have to have a professional
do this because there's a gray area there as far
as taking them and doing something, taking them to another
property or whatever, but you know, you could take all
the ones off your property. Next thing you know, there's
that many of the show back up again. But trapping
the original ones that know that they have that hole
in your house that you can get in there. You

(32:56):
have to get rid of that, like that family, that group,
and they'll actually trap them first to make sure they
get rid of all of those and then seal it
back over again so that they're out of there. And
he was saying, you know that by getting rid of
that family, they the other squirrels that have no idea
that that's going on there. But he's right, you get
him in your house. They destroyed some of our plumbing.

(33:17):
He went right through some of the piping that went
through the plastic pipes and just did a number on us.
Point being is this We went to our insurance company,
and I might want to check with your insurance company.
Not all insurance policies cover squirrel damages in your attache
or wherever when they get into your home. It may
cover critter, but most of the time the critter does

(33:39):
not include squirrel. And we didn't know that, and we
didn't have that in our coverage and it costs us
a lot of money. So check your insurance policy to
see if it actually covers all critters that could cause
those problems, including raccoons. There are always the ones that
get up there, but squirrels as well, because a lot
of insurance policies do not unless you specifically say you

(34:02):
need squrel coverage. So please keep that in mind. As
I'm looking at the clock here, we got about a
minute to go, and as soon as I jump in
there start answering questions, we run out of time. So
if you're on hold right now to answer a question,
let me ask you this. Just email me if you can,
and I will get back to you as quickly as
I can with your answer. You can go to six

(34:23):
' ten WTVN find it there, or go to our
website at Ron Wilson at iHeartMedia dot com and email me,
and I promise you I will try to get back
to you as fast as I can with an answer,
because I get started in the next thing, you know,
we run out of time. By the way, the Buckeyes
kick off today. Pregame coverage coming up after the top
of the hour. Matt McCoy on his team of experts,

(34:45):
always doing a great job, and they're chomping at the bit.
I know they get started with his Buckeye season. They
do such a great job, so make sure you stay
tuned for that. And of course, in the honor of
the Buckeyes kicking off, Buckeye trees are our tree of
the week this week, so plenty. I'm for you to
play in your yard and arden as well, thanks to
our callers, our sponsors, thanks to l our producer. Without
La and none of this stuff would happened. Now do

(35:05):
yourself a favor. Just make sure you watch the Bucks
root them onto a victory and have it the best
weekend of your labor Day weekend of your life.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
See