KTRH GardenLine | 5-14-23

Skip takes your calls all morning long!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarilyendorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRHGarden Line with scarre rictor so just watching

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as wooing, not a SiO.Good morning. It's a good morning to

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be inside. You're gardening, amountingto taking care of house plants. I've
just got a container the other dayand I was on a pot up one
of my house plants. Have severalthat kind of outgrew their their potner a
little stress. Every time I neglectto adam, they pout about it for
a while. So I'm trying toget a little more soil in there.

(01:03):
I'm going to bump them up toa larger size. Good activity for indoors
on a day like today, it'salso a good time to if you want
to start some cuttings or seeds orthings like that inside. It's a great
time for that. If you haven'tever purchased a little light for seeds starting,
you want to consider doing that.And I realize this isn't the big

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big seeds starting season. We thinkof that in late winter, but it's
still something you can do all yearround, starting new plants, getting them
a go in to move them outside. If you have a really bright window,
that's good. But you may noticeyour your plants all lean in or
lean out toward towards the sunlight,and with a good quality light above them,

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they just do a whole lot better. Maybe I can talk a little
bit more about that in a bit. Our phone number if you'd like to
give us a call seven one threetwo one two fifty eight seventy four,
and we're going to go to LeagueCity and I believe we're going to talk
to John V. Hello John V. Good morning, having another's day,
Rick and all of you. Myquestion this morning is on the ivy that

(02:08):
hanks. Let's trying to have atwo story house, and so I'd like
to hank the ivy and grow theivy seven different species, but you know,
just start out some with flowering,some not. I just asked my
questions. Yes, sorry, I'msorry you're kind of cutting out on me.

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The base base of your question.What do you ask? What do
you guys vines that we can growto cover two story house on the brick
side, Oh I see, okay, on the outside, okay, Um,
you know the fig ivy has useda lot it's the vine. You'll

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see it on overpasses, you know, sixteen gallery area. They sometimes will
grow that. The problem with itis it's not fully winter hardy, and
we do get some seasons where itcomes in and it's just a little too
cold for it. But it's beautifulif you have it and a nice low
you know, hugs a brick realtightly and attaches to brick real well.

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I wouldn't use it on on paintedwood type surfaces and things, but I'm
good for attaching to the brick.There are you know that that's probably the
most common one that you see aroundhere. The other kinds of ivy that
climb or a bit on the vigorousside, but you could use them.
You just have to, you know, trem them a lot. The English
ivy. There's several versions of that, and they they can get kind of

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invasive. You know, they're hardto keep track of if you don't keep
an eye on them. So I'mnot as I'm not as big about those.
Well, thank you so much.You'll have a wonderful day. Well
you too. Thank you appreciate thecall. Take care, okay, you
know, the the indoor indoor ivys, that's where my brain went first.

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But the indoor ivys, there's somany kinds of them, and they're so
easy to grow. I've been talkingabout houseplants this morning. I'm shifted over
back inside beautiful cut leaves, differentyou know, you go buy the little
plants are typically salty and a littlehanging basket. Sometimes you can buy them
in smaller four inch pots or something. I like those because when you're creating

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your own little dish garden, itallows you to get a little bit more
creative. But they're beautiful and theywork really well in a basket. Inside.
Just have to turn it around becausethey're constantly want to point toward the
sun. But those are really beautiful. Probably one of the most common,
if not the most common houseplant.It's just the plain pathos that you see

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everywhere, with the green leaves withkind of yellow streaking in them. Those
are super, super easy to grow. And there's a lot of new types
of it of the pathos, somewith white splotched leaves and other versions.
It's kind of cool, kind ofcool to try out some different things.
And I always when I see anew plant I haven't tried before, well,

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when whatever possible, I grab oneto add it to collection and learn
about it. Sometimes I learn thatI don't care for it. But that's
okay. Hey, let's go phonenumber by the way seven one three two
one two five eight seven four.We're gonna go to Jersey Village now and
talk to Marigold. Wello Marigold,good morning, Hello there. How are

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you? I'm well? Thank you? Yes, um, I have a
bit of an unusual problem. Duringthe winter, I cut back my lawn
service and but the guy sold ryegrass the all over my front yard.

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So now it's grown up and Ihad to go all your grass there before.
Oh yeah, and I've been inthis house for like twenty years and
I've never had this. It's notin the backyard. It is only in
the front. And the reason whyI know he did it is because right
along the property line there's a straightand on all sides. It's not in

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my neighbor's yard. It's just inmy yard. But it's really full,
and I don't know what to do. I mean, like since it's been
raining, it's up to my kneesbecause because the grass grows like it's two
check about an inch to two inchesa week, and god, so well,
someone mowing it and keeping it moweddown. Yeah he does. I

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gotta love the yard guys. Andhe mows it, he comes to.
He mows it every two weeks.Okay, but it's like now it needs
to be once a week yea.And yeah, it's so the homeowners Association
is on their course. Well,I tell you I that is gonna die

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down. It's gonna go away.Uh. They It depends on exactly what
they used to oversee. There's anannual rye and a perennial rye and off,
and people will oversee the blend ofthe two because each has its advantages.
And if it's an annual, rightfor sure, I mean the heat
is going to take it out andyou may have a few seeds that are
left over to sprout next year,but probably not much. But the perennial

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rye can be a little more persistent. But even that does not like our
blazing summer heat. So I thinktime is going to be your friend.
There's not a there's not a magicbullet that kills rye grass, but not
your sosia grass. And so okay, yeah that's what I was like,

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Oh my god, if I putit so someone had suggested use it round
up on it? Are we killer? Well, don't don't up? Yeah
youki your will Zosia grass with roundup? Yeah yeah? And so waited
out yeah out doing anything? Cutlow, yeah yeah. Cut more often

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than the schedule you've been on,probably would be helpful, because the Zoysie
is a good tough competitor, andit's better mode lower than Saint Augustine,
and it is better mode very regularlywith a good sharp mower. Now,
if you're long, if you're long, care guy has a propeller blade mower,
like a probably the standard kind ofa mower. Um, you can't

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get too low because those end upgouging the grass and they're just not made
to cut real low. As youget shorter heights, the little spiral barber
pole type called a real mower RE E L. And those types give
the best cut when you get onreally short. But then the shorter you
mow, the more often you're havingto mow to keep to keep it,

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you know, from getting range looking. Okay, yeah, it's interesting right
now, all right, thank youvery much. Well, thanks for the
call. I hope that helps.Let's head out now to spring. Oh
mo I'm pulling you up, butI'm gonna put you on hold. I'm
just seeing it is break time andso we'll be right back with you.

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Just hang on our phone number sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. R CW Nurseries. That'sthat's the one up there where tom Ball
Parkway comes into Beltway eight. Goonline RCW Nurseries dot com. You can
find all the information on them there. Boy, the Williamson family has had

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RCW since nineteen seventy nine, andthey know plants. They really specialize.
One of their specialties is in trees. They grow their own trees up to
I think maybe fifteen maybe up totwo hundred gallons, so pretty much any
size you would want. They're goingto have available unbelievable selection of roses.
That alone is just worth a visit. But they go away beyond that,

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Herb's perennials, annual shrubs. OurCW Nurseries. Check them out. I
think that you will be very pleased. Our CW Nurseries dot com. The

(10:26):
good morning. It's a good Sundaymorning to be inside, listening to the
radio and taking care of your houseplants. Got a little rain coming today,
and it just reminds us we dolive in southeast Texas area where it does
rain. There are people a lotfurther west that wish they could have just
a little bit of what well weget here every year. But you know,
they say, when it rains,it pours, and when it rains

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too much, we end up dealingwith poor drainage issues are standing water,
soggy soil, and that's one ofthe key steps to success with many of
our garden beds is to get themup into a raised bed where the soiled
drains a little better, get thoseroots out of submerged conditions so your plant
does a little better, and everytime it rains a good amount, it

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reminds us of that. Well,we're gonna now head out to talk to
Mo in Spring. Good morning,Mo, Good morning. My grandmother loved
talking to you yesterday. Well,good all, I'm talking to her too.
She just forgot to give you whatyou wanted to give you, was
her homemade jam. Homemade jam.Well, maybe next trip she won't forget.

(11:35):
That's good. We had a greattime out of Arbigate yesterday. A
lot of folks came by and gotto meet a lot of new folks and
people that hadn't even been there before. They were amazed at the place.
Well, what I want to know, I'm planning two new pecanches. What
should us get around of mulch aroundit on the roots? Well, so

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you don't need to do anything inthe soil for the pecanjo. You're going
to have a huge, extensive rootsystem and the little bit you do doesn't
accomplish much if you try to amendthe so much for a pecan, But
you do want to make sure thesurface is mulched to keep all the weeds
away and to create that kind offorest floor environment for the pecan tree.

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So you can use I mean,you could use just compost for malt.
You could use you know, woodchips, I mean, whatever kind of
multi want. Shred your own leavesand put them in there if you like.
But just the bigger area. Thebigger the area is the less competition
for weeds and grass that that tree'sgoing to deal with, and you're going
to see a lot faster growth asa result. Yeah, and put tree

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huggers on them. Yeah. Water. You shouldn't plant a woody ornamental or
tree or something like that without atree hugger, because the first year that
pecan goes into summer, that's thetouching go a year, that's where you
may lose it or not. That'swhere you may get good growth or at
base basickly leafs out and just sitsthere. And accurate watering to that root

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ball and as the pecan slowly putsnew roots out, that is very important.
And yeah, you're right, thetree hugger can certainly do that.
Okay, thank you very much.All right, mo, thank you very
much for the call. You're listeningto Garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter and our phone number sevenone three two one two five eight seven

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four seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. Yeah, we
had we really had a great timeout there at Arburgate yesterday. I've everlely
had the Bellini machine going, andI tell you we had folks. We
had folks coming by to take advantageof that is wonderful, a really good
time. I would like to meetmeet folks. And I saw bags of

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plant material and photos on phones andall kinds of things as we as we
identified, diagnosed and recommended our wayto hopefully a beautiful garden at a bountiful
lens Gape for some of the folksthat came by. Thank you all for
hostingess out there arbor Gape. Thethe plants that we plant in our gardens

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are either going to be well adaptedor not. And a lot of times
we see things we want, butthat doesn't mean they're happy to be where
we live. You know what I'msaying, You on a vacation to Colorado
and bring home a little blue spruce. Well, the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Plants will pull upwith syrenes to your landscape and they will

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cuffe you for such a crime,a horticultural crime. Now, seriously,
we want things that do well.And one of the one of the best
things here in Texas is called theTexas Superstar Program. So Texas Superstars are
plants that have been tested by AgrilifeExtension Agrilife research all across the state and

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to see how they do, andthe one that rise to the top are
given a Superstar status. Now,there's not every good plant in the world
in the Superstar program, but allthose that are there have their features and
have their reason to belong there.And you can go online. You can
check out Texas Superstar dot com andthere'll be a list of the plants that

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have been recommended over the years.You find everything from shrubs, two trees,
perennials, not a lot of annuals. Well, actually there are quite
a few annuals on there, andthen some that they call per annuals,
as in perennial annuals, meaning ifyou go farther south, they're a perennial,
if you go farther north, they'reprobably an annual. We have a

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number of plants like that, likeDurronta, the Brazilian skyflower, beautiful plant
as has the golden berries on itin the following the flowers, and that's
one of its names. It pointsto that that's a tough one. But
you take that up to way andit's not a perennial, that's for sure,

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but it is down here. Infact, you have it living the
above ground parks, living through thewinter many times. That's just an example
of what I'm talking about. Wehave many other good Superstar plants, you
know. The one of the onesthat I like. Of course, I'm
I'm kind of perennial. I'm perennialI'm kind of partial to salvias. I

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just I love those a lot.And Mexican bush sades, the one that
blooms in late summer and fall withthe purple and purple and white or all
purple blooms, that's on the list. That is just a good one,
and I like it because it givesus color at a time of year when
there isn't as much color as thereis in the spring, for example,
So don't ever forget those fall bloomingplants. They also have on their Henry

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Duelberg salvia, which is a Salviafarrenasia or a cross of it, and
it is native here in Texas,Salvia farnasias. They have a mystic spires
salvia, which is beautiful little compactversion of a salvia that we used to
grow called indigo spires. So thoseare all good salvia's for example. Well,

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let's let's go to the phones.Our number, well, our number
if you'd like to give us acall seven one three two one two five
eight seven four, And Doug,I'm about to take a little break here,
so to give you a little moretime, I am going, I
am going, okay, I'm gonnacome back to that let me continue on
just for a moment, though.A couple more of the superstars that I

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did want to mention, and anew group of those are the hibiscus that
are perennial. These are different thanthe multicolored, beautiful tropical hibiscus either a
dinner plate sized blooms. There's onecalled Flare Flair hibiscus. There's one call
Lord Lord Baltimore. There's one calledMoi Grande. Moi Grande is especially a

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unique one in that it has theprobably the biggest of the blooms of all
of these. The blooms don't forma complete circle. They're more like remember
the old time desk fans that hadthe blades four blades or whatever, and
there was there was space between theblades. That's kind of how a more
grande hibiscus bloom is. They're absolutelybeautiful, absolutely beautiful. And there are

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many other varieties of these that haven'tbeen you know, haven't been tested to
reach the superstar status, but theyare they're very good plants for those perennial
hibiscus just give you that color thatis just gaudy. I mean, it's
if you want, uh, youknow, vehicle going down the road stop
traffic beauty in your yard. Thisis going to be the kind of plant

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to do it. And I wasvisiting somebody Arbigate yesterday just about that thing.
But these big bold colors are justbeautiful and their perennial. They come
back a year after year. TexasStar, by the way, is another
good one. It's a native tothe to the Gulf Coast's actually, despite
being called Texas Star, it's notnative to Texas. But we'll call it
happy anyway. Well day, whatour phone number seven one three two one

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two fifty eight seventy four. We'regonna turn it over to the news and
Nikki shake shake your good morning ona good morning to be inside listening to

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the radio, doing your gardening withyour house plants. The craze of house
plants over the years is just kindof surprised me these last couple of years,
you know, with with COVID andpeople being cooped up, well,
it's kind of makes sense at houseplants would get a surge in popularity,
but oh my gosh, what asurge. The thing now is to find

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something nobody else has. It's neverbeen soldier before. Some new variety or
variant or or even species I'm seeing. You know, I've been in horticulture
thirty five years and pretty familiar witha lot of plants, but I am
seeing houseplants that, Okay, whatis that? You know, I've never
seen that one before, and peopleare really excited about it. And it's

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fun. It's a good it's agood indoor release. It provides that setting
house plants do for a room thatI don't know. It just gives it
a more natural feel, less sterile, more more natural feel. They have
many benefits to house plants, whenone of the one of the benefits is

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often touted, Oh, by theway, I should give you our phone
number seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. That way you
can put an end to me droningon which I love to do. So.
One of the things that attributed tohouse plants is improving air quality.
And while I am one thousand percentin favor of people putting more plants in
their home, I think that itis basically oversold. I'm surprised to hear

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me say that. Well, therewas a study done it NASSA years ago
that looked at air quality and itwould say, well, this plant pulls
formaldehyde out of the air, orthis plant, you know, helps take
benzine out of the air. Andthese tests were done in little chambers where
they could do air quality sampling.Well, when you try to take that

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and put it in the size ofyour indoors scale, you would basically have
to create a jungle to achieve thosesame benefits. And then you add to
the fact that we've got doors openingand closing and air blown through, we've
got air conditioners circling the air around. That's not the reason to do it.
In fact, you know, aninteresting thing of some follow up studies,

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they found that the soil, actuallythe soil, the microbes in the
soil were accomplishing even more than theplants that were growing in it. So,
I guess if you want to dosomething I don't know, bringing a
good quality layer of some of thesols we talk about, put it about
two inches deep across all the floorsin your house and run around barefoot,
that would accomplish it. But yeah, houseplants are a wonderful thing. Let's

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go out to Liberty and talk toTracy. Good morning, Tracy, Good
morning, skimp. I got aquestion about a myer limon. It's a
three year old tree that's just transplantedfrom a pot into the ground. It's
got fruit forming. But the questionI have I've noticed they're about the size

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of a very small marble, butthey're turning yellow already and dropping off.
Well, the citrius will abort likethat, and it can be due to
different things. You know that ifpollination is required for the kind of citrius,
then that could be an issue.But stresses they set a little extra
fruit all the time, so it'snot unusual to see some of that aboarding.

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When it's more it's probably due toI'm sort of a stress in this
case. Maybe the planting process andgetting ready to get established there could be
part of it. But it's goingto be some type of a stress if
it's more than the normal amount ofa boarding. Is there anything special?

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Do you think I need to doto it? Or no? Let nature
take its course pretty much. Letnature tickets course. How long ago did
you plant? It's been in theground about a month? About a month?
Okay, Well, I would sayanytime now you could begin to give
it small doses a fertilizer. Youknow, don't overdo it, but provide

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a sprinkling of fertilizer around it,kind of scratch it into the soil surface
and water. The bigger the mulchis around it, you know the words.
The wider the mult circle, thebetter off it'll be too. And
just kind of create that setting workand you know, get its feet under
it if you will, and reallystart to thrive. Okay, And one
other question, the black mail mulch, would that be good to put around

(24:02):
citrus tree? Yeah, that'd befine. It's a natural mult product that's
not dyed mulch. For those folkslistening, you know, we're not fans
of dyed mults. But the blackvelvet is a naturally dark mulch and it
would be just fine. You justwant to create, create a good mult
surface and then always add mulch tothe surface as the old mulch kind of
breaks down. Don't take the oldmulch away because that's a good stuff.

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And think about the forest floor leavesyear after year after year, the leaves
rotting at the bottom. That's thegood stuff. All right, we'll do
that, all right, for theinformation you two. Thank you for the
call. By the way, Iwant to wish everyone that's a mom out
there, A happy Mother's Day.This is a special day of the year

(24:48):
and many many lives that you knowjust impacted in ways that no one else
in your life can buy. Yourmom. We'll take a break right now,
our phone number seven one three twoone two five eight seven four.
You know jungle Land, I've talkedabout it before, but it is a

(25:10):
soil for containers. It's a pottingtype mix, so this would be something
that would provide that color on yourpatio, the opportunity to really thrive.
And it's because it's got a blendof Canadian peat four sources of decomposement,
decomposing organic matter, and then microrizal fungi. There's the kick. If

(25:30):
you have indoor plants, they havea version with crystals that help hold moisture,
so if you forget to water,it helps the plant keep going until
you get around to remembering it.Jungle Land is sold everywhere that other nitro
FoST products are sold. So atask aseda Ace Lake Hardware in Angleton or
Gem's Hardware in Montgomery. Looking forwell, good morning, Well, a

(26:06):
good morning to be inside listening tothe radio and maybe doing some house plant
gardening. I am working with mythroat this morning to see how long it's
going to allow me to keep talking, So kind of bear with me.
We're gonna head out our phone orby the way seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Nowlet's head out to Montgomery and we're going

(26:26):
to talk to carry on. HelloCarrie in good morning, Skip. I
am calling up a question about myyard. My husband I moved into our
house a year ago. We laideighty palettes of sod and we worked hard
to take good care of it.We did aisamite, we did the Medina
soil activator, we watered, butultimately ended up with brown patch pretty severely

(26:52):
at the end of summer, andwith all this rain, I'm just really
worried about the emergence of another fungusand wondered if there's anything that I could
do, you know, proactively,or if I see patches start to come
up, what I could do,well, if if we could identify what
fungus may be out there affecting yourlawn, the brown pat it may have

(27:14):
been brown pat, was it circlesor was it irregular in the die back?
This at the end of the summer, Yeah, it was, it
was circles. Okay, well,then that is the what we've always called
brown patch. I think the turffolks call it a large patch now.
But the that doesn't kill your grass. It rots the leaves off the grass,
and then the runners are alive andthey've grown new leaves on them in

(27:37):
time when the weather's right. Soif you have a fall of attack from
it, then you're going to havethose circles all winter because the grass isn't
growing to come back in yet.But I think you know, in terms
of what you've done for your lawn, it sounds like you're you're doing a
lot of things right. The onlything if compaction were an issue, doing
a core aeration pulling the little coresout of the ground, a little compost

(28:02):
top dressing just to kind of coverthe soil surface in any areas where the
sunlight might hit the soil. Alsoprovide that that nutrient as it decomposes.
Those would be helpful, But Ithink the main thing would be just just
watch it close. If you seethat it's there's color issues, you know
it's not as green even though you'refertilized, or you're getting yellow splotches through

(28:23):
it or you seeing any of thatright now, there's one area that I'm
worried about that's not growing and itshould be growing, okay, And it's
definitely in circular yeah nature, Andyou said it was Saint Augustine, right,
that's correct. Yes, So youknow that's going to do really well
in the sun and the shade andsun because it's more shade tolerant, not

(28:45):
too much shade, but a littlebit. But just watch that whenever we
hit the heat of summer, thatyou're providing supplemental water as needed and really
watering once a week in the absenceof rainfall. Is is plenty twice at
the most, but we try towean our lawns back to once a week
because that allows the soil to dryout a little bit and brings oxygen back

(29:08):
into the root system in that process. I don't know any magic potions to
put on it at this point,just fertilizing. When was the last time
you fertilized? So April tenth andI use this sweet green And that kind
of leads me to speaking questions Skip. I have all kinds of stripes in
my yard, and so if Iwas to fertilize again, it's six weeks.

(29:34):
Should I just go in and fertilizethe areas that I missed or just
do a criss cross type of patternand try to even that out. Well,
if you if you criss cross,you may end up with a checkerboard
instead of stripes. You might dothe areas that you missed. Do you
have a drop spreader, yes,sir? Okay, well that's one of
the reasons I kind of like thelittle whirlybird spreaders. That's you know,

(29:56):
push to put it out everywhere becauseit's easier to get a kind of an
even blend with just a little overlapand avoid the stripes. But yeah,
normally criss crossing is something we doand that helps us to get it down
at the right rate. That way, you don't get halfway through the yard
and you've run out of what shouldhave been a whole yards worth of fertilizer.
But right, the drop spreaders aregood for applying certain kinds of things,

(30:19):
especially when you're looking at weed issuesand stuff like that. Okay,
so wordy bird is what you say, Well, I call him morty bird.
It's a little spinning you know.It's a kind you've probably seen it
in pictures or TV where like thefertilizer is just being spun out everywhere.
There's a little whirling plate underneath thatslings it everywhere. That's opposed to the

(30:41):
drop spread They each have their place, but it's a little easier to avoid
the striping with the spinning type spreader. Okay, okay, yeah, Well,
if you fertilize that recently, thenyou don't need to fertilize again.
That sweet green's gonna last you awhile. You might, you might put
on a light summer fertilization if you'rejust lack in color, but I think

(31:03):
probably your next one is probably goingto be in the fall, especially if
you return your clippings. Okay,all right, all right, thank you
so much. Well, good luckwith your long you are listening to garden
Line. I'm your host, SkipRichter, and our phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eightseventy four. We're gonna be heading to
break here in just a bit.But if you will give Josh a call,

(31:26):
he'll get you on the boards andwe can talk about whatever you are
interested in. And again, wishingall the moms out there a happy,
happy Mother's Day. What you've pouredinto lives, your children, your family.
The sacrifice is made, the kindnessis the comfort that the list could

(31:48):
go on and on, and weare very appreciative to you. As the
son of a mom, I cantell you that it is just I don't
know, It's just one of thoseholidays of the year that is unique in
many ways and special in its ownway. And I hope you're doing something
for your mom this Mother's Day.Maybe a card, a phone call,

(32:13):
best you, a visit, perhapsa gift. But we are very appreciative
moms, thank you so much.Or as the way you poured out your
life for us. Ana plants upin Montgomery. They're on the east side
of Montgomery. That garden center isjust amazing. I mean the color,

(32:35):
the color that they have right nowis just jaw dropping. If you go
by Ana check out. Also someof their other materials are I call it
blain, but Mexican talavera, theterracotta, the chimineas you know, topiaries
or arches or gazebos, all ofthat other stuff. In addition to having
all the plants and all the productsthat we talk about here on Garden Line,

(33:00):
the fertilizers and the soil soob lendsand whatnot, A and a plants
just on the east side of Montgomery. Let's see we need to I believe,
Josh. Let's go ahead and takeus to a break. I'll tell

(33:20):
you what. Let me. Letme do this. I've talked about Vigo
garden beds before. Vigo garden bedsor modular metal garden beds that will provide
the perfect environment for your plant roots, whether you're growing flowers or vegetables,
or a mix of the two.Vego is a Houston company. A Houston

(33:42):
company, the original metal garden bedhere in the United States. It's treated
with material with a material to preventrusting and to prevent corrosion, and then
it's painted with the USDA certified VerySafe paint, so excellent for again at
gardeners too. There are impostors outthere, but the original is Vego v

(34:02):
Ego garden dot Com. KTRH GardenLine does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip
Rictord. Just watching well, goodSunday morning, Good morning to be inside,

(34:40):
that's for sure, But It doesn'tstop us from gardening, does it.
There's these things called houseplant. Yougot an ivy apothos or something that's
just getting too long and lanky.Cut some of those things off and one
node for each little section that wouldbe a node is where a leaf attaches
to the vine and put them insome Well, let's get them rooted.

(35:00):
Start your whole new ivy basket andenjoy it yourself or give it away to
somebody if you'd like to do that. You're listening to Guardenline and I'm your
host. Skip Ricter our phone number. Write this one down. It's seven
one three two one two fifty eightseventy four seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. I wantto I want to talk about some myths.

(35:25):
I in fact, I think fromtime to time we gotta have a
myth Gardening myths segment. Need alittle intro of someone shouting that out.
Gardening myths. Well, here's mythnumber one. We're gonna talk about it
today. We'll include some of themyths as we go through. Putting star
foam, peanuts or gravel or brokenpotshards in the bottom of a container to

(35:46):
improve drainage. Now, It makestotal sense logically, right, I mean,
you pour water onto gravel and thewater just goes straight through. Nothing
could drain better than gravel, right, that's true. But the physics a
little nerd warning here. The physicsof water is that it moves from broader

(36:07):
spaces into smaller spaces by capillary action. That's why if you have a drop
of water in your counter and youput the corner of a paper towel right
down and touch the drop of water, where does that water go? It
goes up into the paper towel becausethat draws the water more, you know,

(36:29):
than just the air of the waterflattening out in the air on the
counter. So when we have soil, a soil volume, and it's sitting
over gravel, then what the waterliterally that soil literally has to get so
oversaturated that it drips out of thesoil into the gravel. And yes,

(36:49):
then it moves on out very easily. But it two bad things happen when
you do this. Number One,you lose volume of your soil. In
other words, let's say you hada container, oh, I don't know
however high it is. If it'sfull of soil, that whole area is
for plant roots to get water andnutrients from. If you put a bunch

(37:10):
of gravel in the bottom of yourpot, then you just shrunk the area
of soil that your plants can getwater and nutrients out of. And here
in Texas when we hit summer especially, we need all the soil we can
get. We need to. Youwatch TV and see little potted plants and
stuff being talked about on some gardenshow somewhere, just look at the pot

(37:30):
and say, well, I'm gonnahave to do about fifty percent or one
hundred percent bigger than that for itto survive well here in Texas. So
that that is one of the thingsthat happens. The other thing that's not
good is you just moved the oversaturatedsection up. You didn't get rid of
it. So fill the soil withfill the pot with soil. If you

(37:52):
have drainage holes, sometimes I'll throwlike a coffee filter over them or even
a paper towel just to kind ofhole the soil initially from just washing out
of that hole. Now they're goingto rot away and be gone. And
some people use window screening a littlecircle cut out of that. Well,
you can do that if you wantbut anyway that what's going to happen.

(38:13):
Then your whole volume of soil isgonna drain downward with gravity. It's gonna
lose the water, and then itgets to the bottom, it's gonna be
wet right there at the bottom.That's just how it is, and it
will dry out. But don't putthings in the pot like that. The
only time where I would recommend fillingpart of a container would be if you
have a really really tall planter andyou don't want to put that much soil

(38:37):
in it, you don't want tobuy that much soil, then you can
fill it up. And what somepeople do is they take like the little
you know, a little water bottlesthat we use for drinking water. Remember
we didn't have to buy water,there was just water fountains. And anyway,
the those things with the lid onthem are are a nice little air

(38:58):
pillow if you will, and youcan throw a bunch of those into the
bottom of a very tall container.One time I was gardening out of the
tile that lines a chimney. There'sthese long sections of basically squared a rectangle
terra cotta, and I didn't wantto fill all that, so I threw
a bunch of those in the bottomand then I don't know what. I

(39:19):
may have used a board, orI may used a metal screen or something
like that to sit on top ofthem to kind of hold the soil from
not just falling all in there.And I use much less soil. I
still have plenty of soil, butit was that excessively tall container that I
was trying to deal with, sothat would be the only time I would
do it. But even though it'seven though it is logical to think that

(39:40):
gravel helps drainage, it only helpsdrainage, and gravel the soil is going
to be as wet as it's goingto be. Let's head out to Fairfield
and we are going to talk toMarty. Hello Marty, good morning,
Skip. How are you. I'mwell, thank you good. Yesterday you

(40:00):
were talking about the nuts edge andone area is just inundated with it and
I just can't seem to get itunder control. Okay, you said to
make sure that the blades were goneand not get let the sun get to

(40:21):
them. So if I went outand we eatd wet ate whatever, right,
If I put the weed eater onit and cut them all back and
then dug up the soil kind oftill it. Would that do something to
help it? The rain's not helpingany that's obvious. It's making it very
happy. Yes it is, andtruly it truly is a yellow nuts edge,

(40:45):
which is more common when we havein our yard. Yellow nuts edge
has a chemical inhibitor on the nutto keep other buds from sprouting. At
the same time. It has likeI don't know, seven or eight buds
on that nut. That's why everytime you chop it said off, a
new one comes up, and wetsoil washes the inhibitor off, and you

(41:05):
get increased sprouting and proliferation in wetconditions. So don't over water. That
would be one help. And Iassume this is a flowerbed, not a
yard a lawn, yes, correct. So what I was saying yesterday was
you need to treat it right away, But if you are not going to
spray it, at least cut thetop off and prevent it from getting stronger

(41:28):
and making more daughter nutlets from thatplant underground. Chopping the top off is
not at all. Here's how youcontrol nuts edge. It just it was
My comment was more just at leastdon't let it have leaves. You know,
once it has three to five leaves, it is now replenishing the bulb.
And that bulb is sending out daughterplants. And I think it one

(41:52):
time I talked to some weed specialistsand they said, bye, about the
first of May, it has alreadyestablished daughter plants that are that are able
to survive themselves without being connected tomom. And there's like eight or nine
daughter plants on there. Well,I have a tribe of daughters all over
my hard Yeah, I know,well I would. I would get a

(42:13):
product that is labeled for nuts edgecontrol in the area that you're using it.
And some products that kill nutsedge mayhurt some other plants. You have
to be real careful. I usea wiper applicator for mine, and it's
it's a homemade one. And youmay have too much nuts edge for this.
But you know the little tools thatyou grab a jar off a shelf,

(42:35):
it's a little you squeeze a trigger, all right. Well, if
you on the end of those insteadof suction cups or whatever they have,
put two halves of a kitchen sponge, cut one in half and just attach
with a bolt. I have toeach side and then you can squirch your
nuts edge control on there and justreach down without even stooping and pull squeeze
the bottom of a of a plantand pull it all the way up to

(42:58):
get that whole thing wet. Soif you'd like to let's continue this after
break, can you hang on justa minute? Sure? All right?
Thank you? You're listening to gardenlines the number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four Nelson PlantFood. Their turf Star line is.

(43:20):
It is an amazing series of products. They have a number of different lines.
I mean they've got the Color Star, Nutril Star, a Nature Star,
and the Turf Star turf Star numberof different quality lawn fertilizers for summer.
I like to recommend Slow and Easytwenty two to ten. It gradually
releases the nutrients to prevent increased thatchingand increasing of thatch, having to mow

(43:43):
more often and developing a better rootsystem for less water consumption. Slow and
Easy by Nitro by Nelson's Plant Foodtwenty two two ten and well. Good

(44:19):
Sunday morning for a good Sunday tobe indoors this morning early, you know,
kind of watching the weather out thereand taking care of your indoor plants.
Let's go back. I was havinga conversation with Marty up in Fairfield
and I wanted to continue that.Marty, I'm back, and I just
want to add to it that youprobably need to get something either that you
can spray in on the plants,try to keep it off other things.

(44:42):
Just follow the label, or youcan wipe on the sedge itself, whichever
kind of way you want to applywhatever you've designed, you know, to
to create a wiper or purchase one. But there's a product called nutgrass Killer
two. It's by Monterey. Ibelieve it's a manufact true, but Nutgrass
Killer two has an ingredient that isvery good against nutgrass, and its label

(45:06):
is not just lawns. Some ofthe nutgrass killers are only label for lawns.
This one you can use it inlandscape beds as well and it won't
kill the flowers. Uh, Imean, is its selective on the nut
set only? Yes? You know, I need to check and see.

(45:27):
I don't know that I would bevery careful in using it, and I
would have to read the label,which I don't have just sitting in front
of me. Um. I don'tknow that. It's we call those over
the top, you know, thelike you grass killers. You just spray
over everything and it only kills thegrass. I don't know if it's going
to be like that. So I'mgonna I'm gonna suggest you look. Take
a close look at the label onit, okay, and who made it?

(45:51):
Monterey Monterey. Yeah, they havea nutgrass killer two. It's the
name of it, I believe numbertwo. Okay, Well, I can
probably pull up the nutgrass. It'saround the plants that I have. I
have liked lantana and esmonds and stufflike that. But um, okay,
I will give that a shot.The alternative would be to get a long

(46:13):
weeding fork that you can push downin the soil and you're as I'm pulling
on an I've done these before,but as I pull on a nuts edge
plant, and I use that umweeding fork kind of a seesaw lever,
a lever or whatever, you cantell if the nutgrass is coming up,
if you need to push the forkdown a little lore to get underneath it.

(46:34):
But I tell you a hand diggingnutgrass nuts. Um you anny kids,
if they ever misbehaved, you cansend them out to put the nutgrass.
I'm trying to come up with astrategy here for you, Marty.
Thank you for the call. Iappreciate thank you. Bye bye. Now
we are going to go talk toour pod in spring. Hello our pod,

(47:00):
good morning, thank you. I'vegot two Asian pair full of fruit.
And just recently I noticed that somelimbs at the top begin to brown
and then the whole limb goes brown, and I'm concerned about that. Okay,
So what that probably is a diseasecalled fireblight. It's a bacterial disease,

(47:22):
and it off, it hits.It typically hits primarily the end of
shoots, and then but it kills. It kills its way back down,
sometimes pretty far. You want toprune those out below the dead, like
cut into livingwood below the dead,and then you want to have some something
like lysol disinfectant. Spray lysol andyou spray your pruners and then you make

(47:45):
your next cut. Because because it'sa backtar, it's really easy to spread
it from one tree to another,from one branch to another. So do
that little sterile spray and just takeit all out of there. In the
springtime is when it's worse, butI would You know, there are some
sprays that can prevent it, butmost people don't. Don't bother with that.

(48:07):
So spray at the cut after Icut it, spray there, Spray
the prunters. Oh oh, afterfirst time, having you cut into the
healthy, not into the dead,because there we know we're picking up bacteria
on our prunters, all just lowbelow that cut it off. But then
spray the prunters. So if youdid get someone, when you go print

(48:29):
another branch or something, you're notjust reintroducing it to that fresh cut wound.
You're making I understand. I understand. And then I had had a
second question. If I made sureI had to cut down. I had
to cut down two big pine treesin the back, and once they were
down, we saw that they wereinvested with termites. I didn't know that
termites can kill a huge pine tree. So the gentleman did the work,

(48:52):
pointed to a third pine into thatthat one's probably going to die next year.
So is there a way to savethat tree? My knowledge are termites
don't kill pine trees. They termiteswork on deadwood. They're interested in like
a two by four. That's whatthat's what they want to eat. They
don't go into my knowledge, intothe living tissues, the xylum and flowum

(49:15):
that's alive, active material, andso they will hollow out a tree.
And we have some pretty horrendous typesof termites here. You might want to
call a good pest control company tocome out and take a look. They
could put some baits out or baitsnation or whatever. I'm not a termite
specialist, but to try to controlthem because as they do all that interior

(49:37):
damage, then the tree becomes morelikely to snap off in a storm.
So the trees that are probably adrought or something and then the termites came
in, you know, could itcould have been a number of different things.
But yeah, and I if we'vegot a arborious listening, they can
make change that. I'm open tohear that, but I'm ninety eight percent

(49:57):
sure termites don't eat living tissues trees. Okay, Well, thanks so much,
all right, pot thank you forthe call. You were listening to
garden Line. Our phone number isseven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. And now we're goingto go to Northwest Houston and talk to
Debbie. Well while we figure outhow to work our way around the emergency

(50:19):
alerts and everything. Debbie, ifyou want to hang on, we'll try
to get this fixed and I'll behappy to answer your questions. I just
a while ago, I was talkingto somebody about nuts edge, and just
remember when nuts edge, the mostimportant thing is whatever you're gonna do to
it, dig it, spray atwhatever, do it. In the spring
when those nuts edge plants have likethree leaves, start in on it.

(50:40):
And every time you take one ofthose nuts out in the spring, you
prevent having ten nuts by the timewe get to May and so early.
This is he who hesitates is definitelylost when it comes to nuts edge control.
It is a pernicious weed and it'sa problem to deal with, but
it can be. It's not immortal. We can control it well. Good

(51:20):
Sunday morning, on a good morningto be indoors listening to a radio show
about gardening. We are now goingto head back out and Debbie, do
I have you live now? Hello? Hello Debbie. All right, I'll
tell you what, Debbie, ifyou would just go ahead and recall call
back into the station the number sevenone three two one two five eight seven

(51:44):
four we'll see if we can getthis resolved. I'll tell you that our
emergency alert just kind of sent everythinginto a sideways direction. But we're happy
to wait if you'd like to giveus a call back. Visit with you
about that. You know, whenit when it comes to gardening, there
they're so many types of gardening,so many ways to go about gardening that

(52:06):
just keep it very very interesting.Uh. You know, like you do
you like herbs? Do you likeherb gardens? Do you like potted plants
and hanging baskets? Do you doyou love flowers and flower beds? Aren't
Maybe you're a lawn ranger and yourweekend is spent creating the perfect carpet for
your landscape, and you love thatflowering trees, fruit trees. It just

(52:28):
doesn't stop. There's so many aspectsof horticulture, of gardening, and they're
all they're all therapeutic, they're allvaluable. Some even adds significant interest in
terms of price to your home whenyou go to sell it. Well,
we're gonna give Debbie another try.Debbie is eighth time the charm? Oh

(52:49):
my gosh, I guess eighth timeis not the charm. I am not
able to hear, Debbie, SoI'm will stick you back on hole,
will eventually get that solved. Allright, one more try Hello, Hello,
Hello, Yeah, Ray you're here. Sorry, Okay, I guess
the gremlins have left the wires.Okay, great, Hey, I have

(53:12):
a couple of questions. The firstone is I'm overrun with this. I
guess it's a mulberry weed. Yes, there is um yes, Oh it's
awful and it's all over my flowerbed, and so I guess I just
need to go pull it up.Is there anything that I can put on
it too? Yeah? Okay,Well you mentioned flower bed, so the
broad leaf we control products that wouldkill it after it's up. I would

(53:37):
be very hesitant to use those arounda flower bed just because you Okay,
it'll kill your flowers as well.You're broad leaf flowers. So hand pulling
is probably your best bet. Andthe sooner the sooner, the better.
I know you don't want to hearhand pulling, but okay, because it
produces a seed at all those littlenodes going up the stem, and you

(53:58):
don't want to give it time tocreate another two hundred thousand additional problems per
plant that you have right now,so okay, all right, I would
pull sooner rather than later, ifokay after the rain, sure, yeah,
yeah, okay. Second question,I have a joey avocada tree,
and before the huge trees, andit's last freeze, it yielded about one

(54:22):
hundred and twenty avocadas, loved it. I have compost back there, but
now this last freeze got it,and so we cut it back as much
as we can. So do Ijust make sure there's only one trunk coming
up or several limbs or yeah,I would, and I'd get the others
off there. Cut them as closeto what they're coming off of, whether

(54:43):
it's a trunk or the base,you know, the base where root attaches.
Cut them as close as you canto that to not encourage a lot
of sucker sprouting from the base.But pick the one that looks best and
then cut cut the stem off justabove that. Give it a little more
time to grow, because right nowthe attachment of those new shoots is a
little weak. They're pretty easily brokenoff probably, So give it a little

(55:07):
more time to grow. Maybe alittle later in this and as we get
into summer, then go ahead andmake a nice cut maybe a quarter inch
above where that current attachment is onthe trunk. Do you know what I'm
saying? Yes? And okay,yeah, so you don't want to leave
a trunk stub there. That'll justbe a rotting, hollowed out area that

(55:30):
long term is not good. Okay, Well, thank you so much,
and we really enjoy you. It'sa bitter so very easy to listen to
and so full of information and anyway, we're so glad to have you now.
Well, thank you. And bythe way, you're the you're the
winning caller today when it comes topatients. So thank you for hanging around.

(55:51):
I hope that. Okay, great, thank you, you're beat well,
you're listening to Guardline and we arehere to answer your question. That's
why we're here, and we encourageyou to call. I you know I
talk to I can't tell you howmany people I talk to that they listen
to Gardenline, but they never calledin before. And I can just tell
by looking at their face. There'slike this little mini terror at the thought

(56:15):
of being live on the air.It's only you and me. I think
there may be one or two peoplelistening. So take the pressure off yourself
and just call. I promised tobe kind and gentle and helpful. And
there's no such thing as a stupidquestion. Just I know what you're thinking.
Yeah, there are, but no, they're stupid answers. And so
the problem and the pressure is onme. If you've got a question,

(56:37):
somebody else is going to have thatquestion. We have people listening that are
veteran gardeners. I've been doing thisprobably longer than I have. That's a
long time. We have people thatare brand new, they haven't even tried
gardening yet, and they they justwant some help and advice. So do
give us a call. We'd loveto answer your questions and try to help

(56:58):
you in a way. We're gonnatake a right now. But the number
is seven one three, two onetwo five eight seven four. Enchanted Gardens
and Enchanted Forests done in Richmond.I hope you've been there. If you
haven't, you need to check themout. Amazing places, mystical enchanting places.
If you will both of them.You know I was looking. I

(57:21):
was actually at both of them withinthe past two weeks and just just looking
at the supply and what they have. Now you can you can find out
more about them by going to theirFacebook and Instagram pages. Each nursery has
their own Facebook page and their ownInstagram page. So Enchanted Forest, that
would be the one from Richmond inthe Sugarland direction. Enchanted Gardens from Richmond

(57:44):
toward Katie directions both well worth goingto unique garden centers, excellent plants,
excellent gifts, and lots of inspirationfrom well trained, very educated staff.

(58:07):
Well, good morning on a goodSunday morning, or being inside listening to
and talking on the radio, theyhead out to Katie. Our number is
seven one three two one two fiveeight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Let'shead out to Katie and talk to John.

(58:31):
Hello, John, Hello, Goodgood morning, good morning. Question
for you. My daughter, shelives in Katie. Also, her backyard
is being overgrown with mint. Theneighbor was growing some mint and it has
spread and it's a fast grower andit's about taking over half of her yard.

(58:53):
Smells good when you moy, oh, doesn't it? Ever? I
was just gonna say that, yeah, Well, you know, we have
a we have a fertilizer called sweetgreen, and this would be like a
sweet green lawn, right, youplace and this wonderful sweet smell come up.
Oh gosh. You know, there'snot a great answer to that.

(59:14):
It's a broad leaf. It's gotunderground rhizomes that are there's helping it spread,
just getting it out of all.The only thing I can think of
is it seems like it might comeup faster and higher than the lawn.
And if if you could go withthat molent for long enough and then use
sort of a wiper type applicator onthe mint that would be applying a product.

(59:37):
These these things often look like ahockey stick or something there there are
a smartings on the end, andyou would just wipe the mint with this
product and the lawn below wouldn't getany of the product on it, you
know, at least not much.Uh. And that's the only thing I
can think of, John h tokill mint in a lawn without killing the

(59:58):
lawn. Yeah, it's just Imean, you could use a broad leaf,
you could use a broad leaf product. Uh, just don't delay.
I mean, actually, I guessyou probably the weed beater weed Beater Ultra
product would probably be a good onethat that ought to work. I can
tell you it's not going to havemental on the label though, so I

(01:00:20):
can't I can't guarantee you that thatit would work, but it kills over
two hundred broad leaf weeds, soit probably probably would work just fine.
Another one you might want to tryis Fertilum has one called weed free Zone.
The same kind of product or samekind of action, a little bit
a little bit different chemistry, butbasically very similar. And if you try

(01:00:42):
those and you do it before thetemperature gets up the upper eighties, mid
upper eighties, so that means getit done pretty quick here you may see
a response from it on that.I don't know. But with mint,
my gut is that you're probably gonnahave to treat him again a little bit
later, just because there's so muchmaterial underground to be able to weather that

(01:01:05):
storm and have a little bit oflife left to come back. Okay,
all right, well, thank you, all right, good luck. We
Yeah, I remember we had mintthat escaped into the yard and know it's
growing up, and I always lookforward to mowing over that area because the
fragrant, fragrant smell of it.But we lived in a more arid climate

(01:01:27):
where the mint was not as likelyto just proliferate it. Mint doesn't like
to get too dry, that's forsure. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter.Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We're talking about myths earlierwith the putting gravel in the bottom of

(01:01:52):
a pot. Don't put gravel inthe bottom pot does no good at all,
no matter what to think. Trustme, this is a physics problem.
So there's a a horticulture problem.The physics of water moving in the
soil is that you have to oversaturatethe soil above the gravel before the water
drips out, but with a capillaryaction that pulls water to smaller spaces and

(01:02:15):
that's called your potting soil in therecompared to the gravel smaller spaces. So
anyway, believe me or not believing, that's true. By the way,
we're getting a lot of rain.So after this rain you need to do
a little quick perusal through the yard. Find out where you might have standing
water. That could be a sagginggutter, that could be a could be

(01:02:37):
bird bath, it could be thecatch basins underneath your plants, any little
spot where you have still stagnant water, the mosquitoes will drop their eggs in
there and in a very short timethey go through their life cycle and now
your little outdoor patio enjoyment area becomesa battle zone, right, So we
want to avoid that everywhere you canget rid of standing water and get your

(01:02:59):
neighbors to do it, is away to cut down on the number of
mosquito problems. Now, if you'vegot stagnant water that you know you can't
just get rid of, maybe it'sa little pond or something like that.
A mosquito dunk works. Mosquito dunks, you throw them in, They last
about a month. They controlled mosquitoes. Naturally, that's just another option for
controlling mosquitoes. But the dunks arereally they're really cool product and easy and

(01:03:22):
especially the fact that they're so safe. They won't harm pets, they warn't
harm you know, people, theydon't harm birds or fish or whatever,
because they're a disease of mosquitoes.To be nerdy about it, it's a
specific kind of BT. You know, have a BT for caterpillars, the
well, mosquito dunks are a differentversion of BT that works on mosquito larvae

(01:03:45):
work really well. Very effective,very effective product. Well, let's see,
we're getting kind of close to timeto head out of here. We're
gonna take a break and we'll beback for the next hour. I'm gonna
make a few more comments before wedo go to break, though. We
were discussing mosquito dunks, and we'rediscussing nuts edge and some other things earlier.

(01:04:09):
Nuts edge being one of those weedsthat it's just so difficult to control.
And another one would be the bermudagrass. It's it's one reason why
I'm hesitant about a bermuda grass lawnbecause it just loves to invade flower bedge.
It doesn't understand where we want itto stop growing. But when you
have those kind of problems, youneed something. You either need to dig
out those rhizomes or nuts or runnerswhatever underneath the surface, or you need

(01:04:32):
to spray a product that will godown in there and kill those kill those
runners, and don't delay. Imean, so many people, if you
put a garden bed out on yourlawn, maybe you want to get one
of these vego beds and set itup out there on the lawn. If
you have nuts, if you havebermuda grass in the lawn. It's going
to come up in the bed becausethere's no bottom on the bed, I

(01:04:54):
mean, which is the way itshould be a connect to the soil directly.
Well, if you got to getrid of that first, I mean,
go to great links to get ridof it before you create a garden
bed in that area, because itwhen it gets into beds now we're trying
to control it around our vegetables oraround our flowers, and it just becomes

(01:05:14):
much more tedious to do. Sowe want to avoid that weed at all
costs. I used to work inAustin and we had an organic farm,
old organic farm in the city ofAustin, which was kind of cool,
several acres and they you know,when you're organic, you can't just grab

(01:05:35):
the round up to kill the nutsedge. I mean you can't grab the
the grass only killers, excuse me, the bermuda grass. You can't grab
the grass only killers either, becauseyour organic can't use those things. And
so they called it. Their namefor it was Lamalamu head or a bad
woman. That was their name forbermuda grass in the beds. We did

(01:05:56):
some experiments on their farm where wespread out groundcover cloth, a large like
fifty foot across groundcover cloth through thewhole section of the farm. Left it
on for several months, and itdid an awesome job of taking that bermuda
grass down to just a very minortype of problem. Because it grows underneath
there. It doesn't get light.It's moist and warm, so here it's

(01:06:17):
growing. You pick up the cloth, it looks like spaghetti. Underneath there
it's about the same color as spaghettibecause it can't get any light, and
that was one way that we foundto try to overcome that. But anyway,
just some thoughts. I've done numberof experiments with the cloth for bermuda
grass control, and I also didone once for nuts edge control. So

(01:06:41):
I hope you are getting a fewgood tips today. This is garden Line.
I'll be back after the break.Our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. That's seven one three two one two
kt r H. We We haveso many ACE Hardware's here in the Greater

(01:07:04):
Houston area that is just it's justconvenient to find one. And if you
want to find one ACE Hardware dotcom, you can find the one nearest
you. ACE hardware is it's thathardware store you grew up knowing about,
you know, where they knew whatthey were talking about. They greeted you,
they knew you, and they directedyou right to what they need.

(01:07:25):
Well, that's true of ACE hardwarees, but so much more is true their
garden sections, the products they carry. It's everything we talk about here on
the show. They've got it andthen some. I mean I've spent thirty
minutes just going down the line ofproducts, noticing what they have, reading
about them, and learning about them. Pretty cool stuff. Ace Hardware dot
Com. Check them out. KTRHGarden Line does not necessarily endorse any of

(01:08:09):
the products or services advertised on thisprogram. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with
Scared Rictor Just watching. Were goodSunday morning, on a good morning to

(01:08:33):
be inside, looking out inside watchingright. I actually see a lot of
break in the clouds, but Iknow that's not going to hold up.
But anyway, we appreciate rain.We just wish we could divvy it out
a little more evenly through the year, don't we. About the time we
start complaining about rain. We werereminded of the fact that sometimes in summer
it gets a little bit dicey wherewe're trying to keep the plants alive with

(01:08:57):
water and just no rainfall. Sowe're gonna say thank you that it's raining
today and be glad for that.I um. I was out working in
my lawn this past week doing someI've got cypress trees, and they send
those knees up. I wish theywere the type of cypress that don't send
knees by the way, we dohave those. A Montezuma cypress is one,

(01:09:19):
but boy, I've got a heavyglay soil and in that lack of
oxygen, soil conditions are popping kneesup everywhere. So I hadn't just a
grubbing hoe out there. There's alittle trip to it, by the way,
older gentleman told me about that.You know, pop hit it on
one side with a grubbinhoe on oneside of the knee, and then go
to the other side, so you'rekind of cutting the route going into the

(01:09:41):
knee and coming out of the knee, and it pops out pretty easy,
but it's not fun to do that. I was out doing that in my
yard and I just noticed I havea section of yard where i'd i'd put
down some Microlife fertilizer and it wasa six two four. That's the green
bag. And also, by theway, when you do the green bag,
you also do the Humates plus,which is the purple bag. We

(01:10:01):
call that composted or concentrated compost ina bag. But the lawn, it's
kicking in, it's greening up,it's beautiful, and I'm going to get
that gradual release from that over time. Now, if you if you're looking
for nitro foss, you're going tofind it. If you go online,
go to Microlife or Fertilizer dot comMicrolife Fertilizer dot com to find your Microlife

(01:10:27):
fertilizer. They have all the differentproducts. They've got not just lawn fertilizers,
but a one hundred other things.But right now, let's focus on
the lawn and make sure we getit up and growing in green. And
I was really pleased with the waymine has been greening up. We are
let's see, we are available byphone. Guess what this is? A
callin Joe seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four seven one three

(01:10:53):
two one two five eight seven fourone. Thing I didn't mention this morning
talking to anything much about vegetables,and it is a great time to be
out in the vegetable garden. Allthose things we planted, you know,
when we got past the danger offrosts, things like green beans and tomatoes

(01:11:14):
and cucumbers and summer squash and thosethings, they're all being harvested now.
I've noticed on the summer squash,and you will see this, like the
yellow squash crook neck or straight neck, for example, You'll see little whiskers
growing on a fruit and then thefruit just collapses and rots away, and
that is a fungal disease on thefruit. And you want to pick those

(01:11:36):
off and get them out of thegarden because those whiskers are going to prove
spores that will reinfect. Avoid overheadwatering too, by the way, that
we're not able to avoid overhead wateringtoday, are we, But where it's
in your control, eavesdrop or somethingelse, because every time you get fruit
wet, squash fruit wet, youincrease the chance of different kinds of diseases.

(01:11:57):
It might affect the plant, soyou don't avoid that. But I
was noticing some of that on theplants, and it's it's easy to deal
with. But the thing I likeabout this part of the season is we
also are putting in our warm season, our hot season gardening, if you
will, And we have a lotof vegetables that do well here, and
if you think about it, itmakes sense. The problem. I don't

(01:12:18):
know if it's a problem, butthe issue with these vegetables is we don't
know about them. You know,I grew up in our gardens or squash,
cucumbers, tomatoes, you know,just the standard Texas garden vegetables.
We have a lot of vegetables fromparts of the world that have a somewhat
similar climate, hot and humid,and those kind of vegetables they're very happy

(01:12:42):
to be in the Houston summer ifyou just give them a little bit of
water. And we have a numberof greens. Malabar green grows and very
well in hot weather. The Molecchiais a green that does very well here.
In fact, you only need abouttwo plants because it makes a little
bush. It's an annual that isback in the winter, but you just
trim the little tip side of theshoots for use as you would a green.

(01:13:05):
Let's see another one. There's onecall. It's a summer type of
spinach. New Zealand spinach does prettygood here in the warm season. Amaranth,
they're vegetable amorants. They have big, bold leaves that we would use
as a summer vegetable. Anyway,the list, the list just goes on

(01:13:26):
and on. There's a lot ofoptions included with our summer vegetables, like
okra and southern peas, which isblack eyed peas, purple hull peas,
cream peas, for example, allof those summer vegetables, sweet potatoes.
You know, they take a longtime to produce their potatoes, but you
need to get them in now ifyou haven't done so already, to give

(01:13:47):
them that time to be able todo that. And don't forget the cool
season squash, the winter squash theycall it, I shouldn't say cool season
winter squash, And it's named thatnot as it grows in winter, but
because it's stores into winter. Soyou take something like a pumpkin, a
spaghetti squash, a butternut squash,an acorn squash. We let those go

(01:14:12):
all the way to maturity before weharvest them. That's different than our summer
squash. And then we can bringthem in, put them on the counter,
and they'll sit there for several months, depending on which kind of squash
it is and the condition of itwhen you bring it in. But those
are planted in the summer also atthis time of the year, because we
need to give them ninety days.Some pumpkins maybe one hundred and twenty days

(01:14:35):
into harvest. But just remember onthose watch the foliage for diseases. Number
one reason we have problems growing somethinglike a pumpkin or these squashes here is
because the diseases get to their foliage. Powdery milder is one of the worst,
and it just it'll essentially take outalmost all the foliage and so you

(01:15:00):
can't the plant can't make carbohydrates tomake those fruit that we want to store
and enjoy for months to come.And so you need to spray the foliage,
whether you use organic products or synthetic, you need to protect that foliage
from the diseases. And again,powdery mildew is a prime example. On

(01:15:20):
those where you're listening to garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and our number is seven one three, two one two fifty eight seventy four.
A little bit ago I was talkingabout microlife and you know, putting
a fertilizer like that down on yourlawn. And when it comes to finding

(01:15:41):
products like that, number one oursponsor. Products are available all over the
place, but if you look ata one place that has the best selection
of everything, that would be SouthwestFertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer has been a Garden
Line sponsor since the Dewey Compton days. In fact, I'm the fifth guard
Line host to speak for Southwest Fertilizer. But by tell Bob and his team

(01:16:05):
they are they're excellent. If youbring a sample in there, they're going
to identify it for you, andthey're going to take you right to the
product that works, and and they'renot going to tell you something that doesn't
work that you don't need. They'rethe number of different herbicides and sexicides and
fungicides including organic products is like noneother. It's amazing. Southwest Fertilizer dot

(01:16:29):
com. Check them out and whenyou go in there, you're gonna come
home with soils, fertilizers, anykind of pest control you need to do.
And by the way, you caneven get your lawn moore blades sharpened
and you can get get some ofthe small engine repairs done in the shop
that they have in the back.Yeah, it's really interesting when you when
you go to a place has awide variety of products because a lot of

(01:16:51):
the a lot of those stores thatare let's say, big boxesh kind of
things, the ones that are youknow, big company, multiple store,
you'll find products in there, buta lot of times the special products you're
looking for you may not be ableto find in there, and of course
you're not going to get any helpin there and directing you from a horticulturally

(01:17:14):
educated perspective on which product you mightneed to use. And that's that's really
important. You know, we're alwaystalking about our our mom and pop nurseries,
are independent garden centers and places youknow like uh, Southwest Fertilizer.
There. In those kinds of places, you get people that take you to
what you need and that that's importantand by the way they carry the things

(01:17:38):
that you need to Well, thisis a call in show seven one three,
two, one two, five eightseven four. So let's go and
we're gonna go to Pallasha and talkto Greg are Craig. Hello, Craig,
were Hey good morning, Yes,good morning, I'm along time listen.
Never called because might normally get myanswers answers before my question, before

(01:18:02):
I've even asked them. So Iwas listening. But I've got a new
one I've never had before. Um. In November, I planted some oak
trees, some big ones, thefour inches across at the base. I
don't know what gallon size of it, but it's big. Um. And
I did what the nursery recommended forme to do. They asked. They

(01:18:26):
told me, if dig a holethe size of your root ball, put
it in the hole and pack itin real tight. Saw up on doing
so. I'm kind of in awindy wind throne area, but I figured
that the size of the root balland such that the trees were gonna be
good to go. Nope, umbye. Week ago a storm came through
and blew the oaks over to aboutthirty degrees off ninety quite a bit.

(01:18:49):
So when I and they and sothe whole fill up with water and pulled
the pulled the trees up straight verticaland this time staked them off. But
in doing so it raised the treesprobably to some two inches some three inches.
Yep. It raised them up becauseof the sentiment. I suppose that
I un'erneath the tree. That's right, that's what happens. Yeah. I

(01:19:13):
dug a hole adjacent to the rootball bigger, put a coffican in it,
and drained all the water out fora couple left the water seep into
that hole for a couple of days, and got as much water by natural
drainage as I could out. Butnow I'm worried that of course I've got
I've got an air pocket in therebecause of the one side that was touching
the ground that got raised up.And I'm so and I've got a so

(01:19:36):
I've got air pocket. I know, I've got saturated roots that and it's
a real, real dense clay.I mean, this is like concrete clay.
Yeah, what when I make sureI do to I don't lose these
trees? Yeah, Well what asituation. And not an unusual one though,
Craig. So when a tree blowsover, it's always a good idea

(01:19:56):
to get in the hole and digout what is probably washed first, as
you as you were describing you knowthis, uh, and and get it
staked upright. And I'm gonna talkabout staking in just a moment. But
I wouldn't worry at this point aboutlike an air pocket under it. I
think that with the root ball fromthe container and everything, you're probably going

(01:20:17):
to be okay, and you knowit. You don't need to go to
the great lengths of essentially almost diggingit up and replanting it. But I
would I would make sure that it'sstaked from three directions would be best.
Make sure that one steak is pointingtoward the southwest, especially because that's the

(01:20:39):
prevailing wind and so you've got areal direct line holding it. Make sure
the lines you use number one arenot stuff that like a wire that would
cut into the branches or cut intothe trunk something us, something that's designed
to go around a tree, astrap, or there's other plastic gadgets.
But leave the wires slightly loose,just a little bit, because you want

(01:21:01):
that trunk to move. You don'twant the tree to blow over, but
you want to allow it to movejust a little bit and that will help
strengthen the trunk. And you shouldnot leave need to leave those steaks on
past oh, let's say six monthsto definitely not past a year from now.
That tree will be well rooted in. And the issue with your soil,

(01:21:21):
you know, it is what itis, and we can't fix that.
All we can do is try topick species that are going to do
well in that soil. And youknow, the live oaks are good a
good species. I mean, Houstonis basically a live oak forest. It's
really there are a lot of liveoaks around here. So I think do
you have a follow up on thator does that kind of answer your question?

(01:21:44):
Well, I'm cool. Worried aboutyou would some sort of any black
root rot or something setting in,something that's going to kill it from below
that that I can't see. Well, it won't kill it, but it
will kill some roots down there.And I you know, again, are
there live oaks in your neighbor?Do you see live oaks around? Actually?

(01:22:04):
Yes, but very few. I'mright on the bait, right on
the right on mya goor to bait. You know, I've seen a couple
of us are Yeah. Well,I think it's gonna be fine. I
would straighten it up and just youknow, take good care of it,
give a little fertilizer, make sureyou keep it mulch, keep the lawnmown,
weedier away, and I think that'sthe best you can do, and
that I think is gonna do good. Craig, Hey, I'm gonna have

(01:22:26):
to run. I'm pushing up againsta break here. Our phone number seven
one three two one two five eightseven four. Well, you're listening to
garden Line on a nice Sunday morning. To be inside listening to the radio

(01:22:47):
and maybe call on the radio.Our number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. You. We were just talking with Craig about
the uprooted tree and it just remindedme when when you plant a tree,
and I just am so happy tosee this new product out that that they
have called tree Hugger sprinklers. Whenyou plant a tree, you need to

(01:23:09):
invest the small amount of money inthat little sprinkler to take care of the
large amount of money you put inthat tree. And so they have them
in seven inch, they have themeleven and fifteen and it goes around the
tree and when you turn the wateron, you can turn it on,
you know, with a lot ofpressure and make in water a big area,
or you can have it just youknow, come up where it's just
spouting a couple inches above the sprinklerif you want to water that root ball.

(01:23:31):
And we're going into summer, sotrees that you've been planting, you
know, let's say since January especially, they're not getting that root system fully
established out into the lawn around them. And so that root cylinder that came
out of the pot is where allthe roots are. And that's why the
tree hugger works so well and helpingprotect that investment. You can find out

(01:23:55):
more about them at TreeHugger Sprinklers dotCom. I find them in independent nurse
centers. Certainly hardware stores like AceHardware is going to have them. Tree
Hugger Sprinklers dot Com is well worthit, and so I would encourage you
to just protect that investment that youput in a really nice tree or shrub
or rosebush. They weren't great onroses, to protect them with a tree
Hugger sprinkler and you have a lotbetter results. The trees are one of

(01:24:20):
the things that make the phone ring. You know, we say we got
trees, turf, and tomatoes,Well, the three tees trees are definitely
one of them. We get alot of calls on trees and questions about
trees. I've talked to you beforeabout Affordable Tree Service, but we only
we only have one tree service thatwe really advocate for here on garden Line,

(01:24:41):
and that is Affordable Tree Service.You can go to aff Tree Service
dot com or just call call Martinand Joe. Just call them seven one
three six nine nine two six sixthree seven one three six nine two six
sixty three. Make sure you tellthem that you're a garden Line customer.
Martin. By the way, ifMartin or Joe don't answer, hang up,
You've called the wrong place with Affordablein the name. Unfortunately, there's

(01:25:03):
more than one Affordable Tree Service.Martin and Joe, that's who you want
to talk to. They do everythingyour tree needs, from planting, deep
roof, feeding, pest control,pruning on the tree. They come out
and do bids for free. Andthe experience that they have, they know
what they're doing, and that's whywe are so fond of their service and

(01:25:25):
we can depend on them because everytime I've talked to several garden Line listeners
who've had Affordable Tree Service work done, and you know, I mean,
it's like they feel like a friendjust showed up and someone they can trust
someone that doesn't oversell, that takescare of them, and boy, that's
the kind of stuff I like tohear. Well our phone number seven one

(01:25:46):
three two one two five eight sevenfour. I'm going to head out to
Lake Livingston and we're going to talkto Bob. Hello Bob, Good morning,
Skip. How are we doing today? We're doing well. Good good.
Hey, you were talking about theknees on your cypress tree. I've
got property at Lake Livingston. I'vegot a beautiful cypress that is probably about

(01:26:09):
thirty feets on the bulkhead, andyou know, of course on a ride
and mower man, I feel likeI'm just getting bounced all around because of
these knees. Yeah, tell meagain, how to can I Can I
brain those down? You were talkingearlier about your issues. Yeah, yeah,
first of all, there's not gonnabe a good answer. But here's

(01:26:29):
here's some answers. I used touse like a reciprocating saw and just cut
them off at the surface. AndI don't know that that's a hard cut.
Even putting a printing blade into aciprocating saw still didn't make it that
workable. But you got a routethat's running along not far underneath the surface,
and then a knee pops up somewhereon the route, and so you

(01:26:51):
can kind of Usually if you lookat the tree and hitch your grubbing hoe
on that side of the knee,you're gonna be catching the root coming from
the tree. Something. They don'talways run just directly out from the tree,
but that's always a good guest.But one good hard chop on the
both tree side and they away fromthe tree side on each side usually pops

(01:27:14):
those things right out. Sometimes yougot knees that are already big, you
know, maybe you have sought themoff so many times that now they're six
inches across. Well that's gonna takea little more work. But I'm telling
you I understand the pain with mowingover them. You can't run barefoot hit
yard because oh my gosh, youeven get your your feet and ankles.
Yeah, yeah, that was mything. I thought, you know,
bringing some grinding guy. But yeah, I didn't want to affect the tree

(01:27:39):
because it's probably got a thirty sixinch diameter trunk on it, and you
know, we don't really go overin that area. But yeah, just
you know, my fillings fall outof my mouth when I'm running over those
things with the mowery. Well,I thank you for your time, sir.

(01:28:00):
All right, thank you very much, Bob, appreciate that call.
Yeah, I wish I could goback forty years in time and get people
to plant Montezuma cypress or another strainthat doesn't have the knees, because oh
my gosh, once you got them, you got them, and it's kind
of a pain, very much apain in the neck to deal with.

(01:28:21):
You know, I've got a billon the line. Bill. We're going
to come back to you after break. I want to give time for us
to be able to talk. Butright now I'm just gonna just gonna talk
for a minute about a couple ofthings. We talked about fertilizing, and
when you fertilize your lawn, youneed to put down azamite after your fertilization.
And that's because azamite is a productthat has all the trace elements you

(01:28:43):
need for your lawn. So youfertilize and then you add the asamite.
Now, I use it in myvegetable gardens because asamite has nutrients that plants
don't need, but my body needs, and I want those nutrients to be
in the produce that I eat fromthe vegetable garden Asamite Texas dot com if
you'd like more information as and WhiteTexas dot com. Well, good morning

(01:29:14):
on a good morning to be insidelistening to a gardening show. This weather
is coming in bands, as Nikkisaid, and so it's a good time
to be inside. Hey, Iwanted to mention on next Saturday, Saturday
the twentieth, I'll be at theSugarland Home and Outdoor Living Show. It's
at the Stafford Center in Stafford.The Times or eleven thirty to one thirty.

(01:29:36):
So I hope all of you liveout west, Southwest, even south
come on over there and let's meet. I'd love to meet you. Sugarland
Home an Outdoor Living Show next Saturdayat the Stafford Center in Stafford from eleven
thirty to one thirty. Right nowwe're going to head out and talk to
Bill in the Woodlands. Good morning, Bill, and thanks for hanging on.

(01:29:58):
You're welcome. I never realized ittook so long for all the news
and ads. Well, how canwe help? Well, I've always wanted
to have an avocado tree, andI had a beautiful one in California,
and it's very disappointing here in thewoodlands. I haven't had anybody give me
any encouragement on how I might beable to raise an outdoor avocado tree.

(01:30:18):
Okay, what are your thoughts onthat? Well, here's the first thing
I would do. Because it'll callon the radio, I can't give you
the whole nine yards on raising anavocado. But if you will, go
to Agge hyphen Horticulture at dot TAMUdot edu, or you could just Google
search whatever for Aggy Horticulture. There'sa web page and on that page is

(01:30:41):
a fruit and nut resources and thereis a fact free fact sheet you can
look at online or download for everyfuture you can imagine, including avocados.
So you can get a multi page, full color fact sheet that goes through
the whole nine yards on what youneed to know about avocados. And I
would definitely start there. And ifyou have any follow up questions, feel
free, you know, to giveus a call back. But that's the

(01:31:02):
most likely to survive? Uh,what is the most likely avocado variety?
Or what? What are you askingme to survive our cold weather here?
Yeah, so the Mexican avocado isprobably the one that we use most here.
There's a Guatemalan and Mexican hybrids thatare used. All that's in the

(01:31:26):
publication. You know the varieties.You'll see varieties like like lu lower wilma
for example. Uh. They they'veproven to be hardy in places like San
Antonio, which is actually colder thanhere. Uh, that's where they originally
found some of these varieties that arenow being spread around. Oh okay,
yeah, well, thank you.Yeah. The avocado in the store,

(01:31:47):
the black bumpy one is not hardyat all. And so if you plant.
Some people like to plant those seeds, stick toothpicks in them and put
them on a glass of water.That's fine, just for fun. But
don't grow that one and don't graftonto it, because then your rootstock isn't
hardy. But go by the kindthat our quality quality. And when you

(01:32:08):
go to a good garden center,you know they're going to have the ones
that you need and they'll point youto them. Okay, thank you,
Emma. All right, Bill,thank you for that call. Let's head
out and out to League City.We're going to talk to Jason. Good
morning, Jason, A good morning, Skip. I've got some peach trees
that I've raised from seeds or I'vegot a couple of them are about a

(01:32:30):
year and a half old and somethat are just about six months. Okay,
And and I'm getting some flies onthe leaves, and I've also found
some ants in the pots that they'regrowing in right now, How can I
take care of this? Well,the flies, I know of no pest
of peaches that is anything like afly on a leaf, so I think

(01:32:53):
those are incidental. There are differentreasons that insects will go around to peach.
Peach have what peaches have what's calledextra floral nectares. That means little
spots where the it's at the baseof the leaves that secrete a sweet substance,
a nectar type substance, and you'llhave insects that go to that,
especially wasps like it. But Idon't know why the flies are there or

(01:33:14):
what they are, but they're nota pest of the tree itself. You
mentioned the ants and the pots,Those again are not going to be ants
that attack the tree or hurt thetree. If they're fire ants and you
don't want them, just get some, get a product called come and Get
It. I believe it's still madeby Fertile Home, but come and get

(01:33:34):
it. Fire ant killer. It'san organic fireant killer. It's labeled to
be used in like vegetable gardens,food production. And you just put that
bet around and let them find it. Don't disturb them, mound and that
should take them out. If it'sother kinds of ants, I wouldn't worry
at all. Okay, very good, all right, all right, thank
you very much. All right,thank you for the call, Jason.

(01:33:55):
I appreciate that call. You know, this is this is a season when
birds out in the landscape are raisingtheir nests of young. In fact,
they're they're well into that process bynow. And if you've never been into
a Wahbird's Unlimited store, I wasin one the other day, and in
fact, I'm going to be atthe new clear Lake store coming off.

(01:34:15):
I'll talk about that more later.It's like Saturday, May twenty seventh,
two saturdays from now. But wildbirds, they just have everything you could
need, and they have the knowledge. You know, it's not just somebody
selling you, oh, here's abag of quote bird feed. During the
nesting time, they'll sell you driedmealworms, which is exactly what birds need
that protein to be able to raisea nest. Of Young's bird seed is

(01:34:40):
not that helpful as the protein sources, but they know that kind of thing.
They can set you up with feederswith. By the way, it's
a good good Mother's Day gift theretoo. Maybe a hummingbird feeder would work
out. Check out Wallburg done.Let me go to the website here it
yes w BU dot Come and youwill find the wild birds in your area

(01:35:09):
on these now well good Sunday morning, on a good morning to be inside
listening to a garden show. Nikkiwas talking about we had some clearing and
here comes the next band, justlike she predicted coming over us. By
the way, I am going tobe out at the Sugarland Home and Garden
Show next Saturday. Now I mentionedthat come by and see me, you

(01:35:30):
know, at the booth. Andit's always always the same instructions. Bring
me some plants, bring to identify, or bugs to identify or or diagnose
a problem. Bring me pictures onyour phone. I'll be happy to look.
I'm moving there for an hour atthe booth, just at the booth,
but the first hour I'm going tobe doing a seminar in the classroom
to give you success tips for gardening. That starts at eleven thirty, So

(01:35:53):
I'll be there from eleven thirty toone thirty Sugarland Home and Garden Show,
Stafford's Center in Stafford. I hopeyou can get out. I always love
to meet meet listeners and help youwork through some of the issues that you
might have with your plans. Wellright now, our first of all,
not just right now. Our phonenumber is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. Right nowwe're going to go to Southwest Houston and

(01:36:15):
talk to B. Good morning B, Good morning Skip U. I got
to ask about my parsley plan.I've never grown parsley before, and I
followed Randy's instructions and it was doingvery well. And now it's got this
big stock in the middle of it, and it doesn't seem to be as
bushy. Should I cut the stalkoff? You can do that. What

(01:36:40):
the parsley is doing is blooming.And this happens with cilantro, it happens
with parsley, It happens with ourspinach, it happens with our lettuce.
As the days start to get longer, it signals the plant to bloom,
set seed, you know, andpropagate itself if you will, so you
can cut that off. You mayfind that the bush doesn't do a whole

(01:37:01):
lot more past that, but Iwould give it time and see keep giving
it good care. But yeah,that's what's happening. By the way,
if you want to leave it.The blooms of parsley are very attractive to
some of the little beneficial insects,like the tiny wasps that attack aphids.
So sometimes I'll leave a few thingsin my garden to just bloom for that
purpose. What do the balloon looklike? Uh, they're kind of umbrella

(01:37:26):
like covered like yarrow, I guessin a little bit or Queen annelais similar
somewhat similar to that, different intheir own way, but they're they're that
umbelifery family, if you will.And it reminds the word reminds me of
umbrella because that's what the bloom lookslike. But we'll still put out parsley
shoots. Uh, it may producesome more. I you know, in

(01:37:48):
the past, I've had my partiallyhang around for a while and I've also
had to die back. Oh youcould, yeah, there's oh, okay,
woman, I'll do that. Goodreason to do that. But again
that blooming is you know, fornature, it's a good thing. Oh
okay, well then I'll watch itbloom and then I'll buy a new partley

(01:38:10):
plant. There you go, thereyou go. Sounds like you've got a
plan. B. Thank you,Thank you so much for the call.
Appreciate that. Yeah, you knowherbs and I don't. Sometimes I don't
know whether it calls some of thevegetable or a herb. But the herbs
just enhanced gardening in so many ways. They season our food and it's so
easy to grow erbs. You cangrow partially in your vegetable garden, but

(01:38:31):
at the end of a row,I will grow a number of different herbs
at bloom in my vegetable garden,just to attract beneficials because you want them
to be hanging around and if youwant success with gardens. Okay, this
is a garden line quiz. Whatis the most important thing you do if
you want to have a successful,a beautiful flower bed or a bountiful gart

(01:38:53):
vegetable garden. Well, I hopeyou said start with a soil, And
that's right. You do. Startwith a soil. When you get the
soil right, everything thrives and HeirloomSoils is out in the porter. They
will deliver some of the products theyhave to you, but they can deliver
also in what's called a super sack, think of a big, old giant

(01:39:15):
grocery sack, but full of onecubic yard of the product that you bought.
Go to Heirlooms Soils of Texas dotcom and when you're there, click
on their soil cubic yard calculator.And if you've got a little box that
you want to fill up with soiland you don't know how much to buy,
that will tell you exactly how muchto buy. And the quality soils

(01:39:36):
they have will really make your gardendo well. I've used them myself,
found them to be very very good. We're gonna stop talking about soil for
a saying. I want to goover and talk to Steve out in Tomball.
Good morning, Steve, good morning. I need a little advice.
This morning. I kind of madea bonehead mistake and I spray some image

(01:40:00):
lawn weed and crab grass killer onmy Saint Augustine grass. And as it
turns out, it wasn't wasn't madefor Saint Augustine and it's it's starting to
yellow, Okay, dying off obviously. Is there any remedy to that?
Not at this point. Just wait, It'll probably come out of it.

(01:40:21):
Yellowing is not unusual for even theregular image on grass. But I would
I would just give it time.There's no thing to make the herbicide go
away. You know that that's goingto really help. It just needs a
little bit more time. Okay.Hopefully the damage isn't too severe and it
will bounce right back. Okay,okay, very good, appreciate it.

(01:40:44):
Thank you very much, Steve.Appreciate that, Carl very much. We're
gonna go to Rosenberg and talk toRob. Good morning, Rob, Hey,
how you doing. Um? Ihave a question. I wanted to
plant some HMOs the trees out inmy backyard for the shade, but I
don't see them around. I mean, I think is it pretty much?

(01:41:05):
Is it kind of a nuisance treebecause of how fast it grows? Yeah?
I was one to wonder how howwell it would do out here.
You know, people have mixed feelingsabout mimosas they don't live long. They
have the number of issues that cantake them out eventually, but almost the
blooms are unbelievable, and the formof the tree is really attractive too.

(01:41:29):
So normally we don't consider trees tobe like a perennial or something that we'd
have for a while and then getrid of. But that's that's the future.
If you plant a mimosa, I'mnot sure where you would find mimosa.
You're out in the Rosenberg area.I would call the two enchanteds out
there first of all and see ifthey carry them. That'd be my first
stop. But yeah, they're they'regood trees. But just know that this

(01:41:51):
is not a typical tree in thelandscape. This is something you're planting for
ten maybe years of enjoyment. Whatabout what about that is opposed to um
like a crape myrtle? I knowthose don't live very long either, but
they live longer, ye mimosa.Yeah, crapes live a lot longer,
in fact, a very bad time. Yeah, that would be another good

(01:42:15):
traice. Just make sure you getone that's resistant to powdery mildew to save
you the headache of that particular problem. Okay, well I haven't I haven't
really seen so I'm from Lake Charles. I haven't really seen mimosas out here,
and I know obviously, I guesspeople don't really plan them because they
don't live that long. But wouldit would it grow with like proper feeding

(01:42:35):
and watering? Oh? Absolutely,they grow like a weed and then exactly
that's why people do. Yeah,if you can find one that's a what
do you weed? Yeah, they'lldo fine. Hey, I'm gonna head
off to another call. Rob.We're gonna go to Tiki Island and talk
to Jeff. Hello, Jeff,good morning, sir. How are you
doing. I'm doing well, excellent. So I've got questions. Uh,

(01:42:57):
the mango tree didn't flower this year, but it's a expanding very rapidly,
so I'm I'm assuming I'm gonna haveto like cut it back because it's quite
large. Okay. Last year,what I did, I made some cuttings
out of it, and they seemto be doing okay, but they're not
getting any larger faster. So Iwant to rack your brain on how you
would go about doing it. Goodsunlight, good drainage in the container,

(01:43:19):
and just regular gradual fertilizer is thebest thing that ought to they eventually ought
to get going for you. Whatabout a dragon fruit, dragon fruit,
A good care. They do wellhere. I know Vego Beds makes a
special little bed with us a rackon it for growing your dragon fruit,
and that's a cool one. It'sjust you know, with the things you're

(01:43:40):
talking about, they're not totally coldhearty, but with a little care you
can you can get them through.Jeff. Thank you very much, sir.
I appreciate your call. Thank youvery much. Hey, if you've
not been out to Arburgate, Iwas just out there yesterday. We had
a great time. But you cango to online to Arburgate dot com.
I'll tell you that place looks allright now. And the number of products

(01:44:01):
not just plants, but all kindsof products for your gardening and for your
home. They also have to Arburgateone two three, completely easy system that
would be a food to feed yourplants, a soil for any application,
and a compost to improve your soil, all completely organic and you find them
at arburgate dot com. I'm goingto head over to the New Vienna,

(01:44:24):
Ohio and we're going to talk toJim. Jim, is that really the
state of Ohio? Yes, sir, New Vienna, Yes, sir.
That's all grandy years ago. Okay, first time calling year. So how
are you. I'm well, thankyou and I appreciate you calling back.
How can we help? Yeah,well, we had pretty bad winter this

(01:44:45):
uh this past season here got downto minus nine with a windfil of minus
thirty nine, and I had,I guess it's a rose tree, all
kind of backpots here. I protectedthe upper part of it. I built
a wall with the landscaping fabric.Yeah, We're nearing the end of the

(01:45:06):
of the hour, and so I'mgoing to try to help pantr for you.
We may have to hold you overto the next hour, just kind
of letting you know. Okay,I'll wait. Okay, well, I
mean, you know, you know, start talking just this moment. But
if you okay, I protected itwith landscaping fabric about what are they about?

(01:45:27):
Two three feet tall? Yes,and the field up with leaves to
take the upper part. Okay,But did that told kill the plant because
it was in It wasn't in theground. It was in a big part
all right, So let me letme come back to that afterbreak. Just
hang on and I'll address that issue. You're listening to the garden line,
give us a call. Seven onethree, two one two fifty eight seventy

(01:45:48):
four. KTRH Garden Line does notnecessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome toKTRH Guarden Life with Skip Rictord. Well,

(01:46:09):
a good Sunday morning to you ona good day to be inside listening
to gardening radio right and by theway, Happy Mother's Day to all the
moms out there. We know whatall you did for us, and we
know the sacrifices that were made,we know the love that was given,
and we're just very appreciative of allyou did for us many beginning with giving

(01:46:30):
us life itself. Thank you somuch, appreciate that. Well, we're
gonna go back. We're talking toJim up in New Vienna, Ohio,
and we're talking about rose roses thatfroze and so, Jim, are you
looking for ways to protect them inthe future. Yeah, it's a rose
tree. I guess you might callit on a three long Yeah. Yeah,

(01:46:54):
yeah, that's going to be that'sa challenge, you know, normally
with the roses and the climate likeyou've got up in the Midwest there,
if you've got a variety. Firstof all, some varieties are hardier than
others, which is a good thing. But if you've got a variety that's
going to be a little coal tenderfor your area, people will they'll wrap
the stems all up together kind ofwith twine, you know, creating a

(01:47:16):
little upright stems on the bush andthen mound up a lot. You can
use soil, or you can usemulch, but I'm trying like a foot
deep or more, and just toprotect that base that way, if the
top freeze is back, maybe youget some sprouting from the base. That's
very helpful. But with your treerows, you got a long stalk of
a trunk with your variety grafted wayup there in the air, that stalk

(01:47:41):
is a different probably a different species. I could be wrong on your particular
rows, but those are hard toprotect and you just almost have to have
some sort of a mounded cover overthem with some source of heat underneath to
just bring the severe cold down tojust a hard freeze and the road we'll
get through that, but that's alot of trouble to go through, and

(01:48:02):
probably you have to leave it onfor long periods of time. When you
have one of the kinds of winnersyou can have up there. Can I
just bring it into garage on areally I don't know, maybe below thirty
two degree days or oh my gosh, it's in a container. I missed
that. I'm sorry. Yes,oh, absolutely, yeah. Get if

(01:48:23):
it's not on on wheels, youcan slide a little dolly or hend truck
underneath the edge of the pot,put a strap around it to hold it
onto the dolly and it makes itso easy to move it in. And
absolutely, yes, you can leaveit in there for long periods of time
if you need to. It's reallyyeah, still be okay with no sunlight.
Yeah, well, when I shouldn'tsay. When I say long periods

(01:48:45):
of time, I'm talking about twoor three days getting through a freeze,
you know, a real bad badspell. Even a week could be okay.
But yeah, you do want toto be able to have sunlight.
Usually, you know, the daytemperature warms up enough, it could it
could be run outside to catch allsun and then put back in if you're
going to have a number of nightsof hard freezing. And how about watering?
Do you still need to water ata lot or no? Keep the

(01:49:08):
roots adequately moist. That's all,it's not using hardly any water at all,
but you don't want them to completelydry out. When the plant is
stressed, it's cold heartiness is decreased, and so you don't want to create
a drought stress in that container.Awesome news. Thank you so much.
I love yourself and be leek outthere. Well. Thank you. Tell
everybody in Ohio to listen to GardenLife. I appreciate the caldail. Let's

(01:49:32):
head up to or down to sugarLand. We're going to talk to Fred.
Good morning, Fred, I skiphey, listen. We're really enjoying
your show, clarity you bring toit and the advice you give. Thank
you, Thank you. My questionhas to do with knock out roses on
the east side of our home frontyard. We'll get a little too much

(01:49:53):
shade. Now. We just knowthat the fungus is going to come.
I'm wondering, is there something weshould start doing earlier. You're on maybe
as a preventative. They're just beautifulnow, all the leaves and yeah,
in the plants, but we knowwhat's coming. You know, if you
have a susceptible rose that that canget the black spot or powdery mildew,

(01:50:13):
then then you do just need tospray, and those those products are better
used as a preventative. We havesome that are systemic and some that just
coat the surface of the leaf.What I would recommend that you do is,
uh find you're in Sugarlander. You'vegot a number of good ACE hardwares
that are out in your area.You know there's plantation ace in your general

(01:50:35):
area out there in Sugarland. You'vegot uh, let's see, we're gonna
go in a south east. I'vetrying to direct you to some places that
are going to have that kind ofprotection. Oh, there's an M and
D supply right there in u inRosenberg also that you can use. But
this I've been in there and theselection of the of the fungicides is great

(01:50:58):
and a qualify. You know,a person that works there can direct you
to your options. We have anumber of things we can use on roses
to fight different kinds of diseases,and it would be good to go with
one of those products and they candirect you to the ones they carry that
are going to work the best.So are we talking sprays rather than drenches,
Yes, we are talking for sprayingthe foliage. You know, if

(01:51:20):
it's a systemic that'll move in andgive you a longer period of protection.
If it's just a surface fungicide.A lot of the organics or surface fungicides,
those you're going to have to repeatperiodically because they're not moving into the
tissue to kill the diseases. Theyare just on the surface and so therefore
they wash off. Great, thankyou, You have time for another real

(01:51:43):
quick one, Yes, sir.We're nine years into a new yard,
a new home, and we've donelots of things through the years, all
the products added to it, andall I'm wondering, do we ever reach
a point where a NUS is kindof NFS in terms of of all these
additional products we add to the yard. Yeah? Yeah, the brown patch

(01:52:05):
question brought that to my mind.Yeah, you know, you could.
I mean you could, but itdepends on what your yard needs. And
for a lot of folks, uh, there are there are things that are
add ons that are really important andthat they really help without. And so
I don't think we're there yet.But it may be that your yard needs

(01:52:29):
a different mix of things, andsome of the add ons you don't need,
and someone else it would be adifferent mix of things. So it
just kind of depends on the situationwhen we're talking about those kind of products.
Now we've used a lot of composts, we use the microlife products.
Oh, that's good. Next andwe and we had it ierated this year,
but we've always had a big brownpatch problem and we'd problem. Well.

(01:52:53):
I hope that gets you off toa good start at hand. I
appreciate the call out there, andI'm going to be out in sugar Land
again next Saturday from am to one. Fred. I hope you could stop
by. We'd love to meet youif you live up in let's say Magnolia
area. FM twenty nine, seventyeight. You know what I'm talking about.
This is just minutes away from GrahamParkway in Highway two forty nine.

(01:53:15):
Spring Creek Feed. Spring Creek Feedcarries all these fertilizers that we talk about.
Really friendly, courteous staff. Bythe way, if you are a
kiddo in FA for h if youare military or senior citizens, there's discounts
for you and they'll special order.If they don't have it, they'll order
it for you. Spring Creek CreekFeed. It is a pleasure to walk
through. I'm always amazed when Igo in there. The next caller I

(01:53:44):
want to go to this morning isJim out in Cypress. Good morning,
Jim, Good morning Rec. Let'stalk to you again. Good talk to
you. How can I help myI had I called yesterday. I'm trying
to get some confirmation that the weedI'm fighting in my lawn is sandber okay,

(01:54:05):
And I was hoping that a pictureI sent you yesterday might help you
to help me determine that and thentreating it. I bought some image at
at ace as Image Kills Night andmuch said, yeah, but it does
the same thing about applying it beforeor after rain. I thought you might

(01:54:27):
be able to Jim based on yeahs. Based on your picture, it looks
like what you're dealing with is dollarweed, So check for that on the
label of the products that contain morethan just a regular image. Make sure
that it is the weed on thelabel. You want to get it down
and have at least for three orfour hours before you get a rain on

(01:54:47):
it. But if I'm seeing raincoming later in the day, I would
not apply it. And if I'dalready applied it and it got rained on,
I'd watch it for a week afterthat and probably need to go back
and apply it again. Okay,so it looks like you say, dollar
weed. It looks like dollar weed, but the photo it's it's not up
close and real sharp, crisp roI can see for sure, but I
think that's what you're dealing with.This dollar weed have little spikes on it.

(01:55:12):
No, I'll tell you what this, Jim. This is pretty start.
Yeah, take take another picture upclose, check it and make sure
it's in good focus, and I'llgive it another shot. I'll be happy
to do that. Thank you verymuch. We're gonna have to run to
break seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. And just like

(01:55:35):
the guy big Well, nice choiceof music, Ryan, it's appropriate for
today. Oh gosh, Hey,I want to tell you about a product.
If you have a small acreage,you know, and you just want
to take care of that acreage,you need to consider a Caboda tractor from
Lansdowne Moody. Now. Capoda hastheir Texas edition right now and it's the

(01:55:58):
Caboda L twenty five one. Yougot that hydrostatic transmission, you can trick
it out with, you know,at a friend endloader at a box blade
or a rotary cutter and do asmuch as you want. It is a
blast to drive one of those things, and it is a great way to
take care of your property. Goto l M tractor dot com. But
don't delay on this because listen tothis deal, zero down, zero interest

(01:56:21):
for eighty four months, seven years. The Lansdown and Caboda are a great
combination. Just do it before Junethirtieth. That's when this deal is over.
And you can't beat a deal likethis. I want to want it
to head out and talk to We'vegot a lot of calls on the board
right now, but I'm gonna startby heading up to Willis and we're gonna

(01:56:42):
talk to Mike. A good day, Mike, how are you? Good
day? I'm heading to the arborGate right now. I got about fifth
ye or so muscadine graves, andI was told that she's got some I
was there about the David. She'sgot some seaglists muscadine grapes. Oh wow,
cool, So I'm gonna put anotherrow in. But my question on

(01:57:06):
the grapes was summer pruning. Youknow, I've got three varieties of muscadine
grapes so pretty aggressive. So hesaid, okay, and they're about seven
years old and they're all trolls outfor picking. It's for pruning the vines

(01:57:30):
that are really aggressive, thinning themout. Is okay to do that?
Or how aggressive can you during thesummertime? You can do some of that?
Well, here's what here's what Iwant to do. Just to help
you more than I can in theshort call time on the radio. Go
to Aggy Horticulture dot Tammo Dodds.That's actually Aggie hyphen Horticulture dot tammu dot

(01:57:50):
edu. There's a button there forfruit nut information. Their fact sheets and
there is a sheet just on muscadinesand it goes through everything some of the
varieties. They are a little bitolder varieties on the list because new ones
keep coming out, but they haveinformation on planting, trellising, pruning,
fertilizing. We control all that isright there on the list, and I

(01:58:11):
think that would be the most fruitfulthing that you can do for you know,
figuring out how to handle that.Yeah, I've done a ton of
research and stuff, but I couldn'treally get anybody, you know. They
had some videos of summer pruning butokay, well, if that's I'll go

(01:58:32):
ahead and look at it well.To me, yeah, to just simplify
though, Mike, just you canremove the twiggy stuff that you know,
what you feel like is in theway or whatever. You can do some
of that. It's just most ofour prunting we do in the wintertime.
But with Muscadine's air so darn vigorousthat I think you have to stay on
it a little bit. What wasyour next question? Um? You know,

(01:58:55):
actually I called you a couple ofweeks ago about this black leaves coming
on my charach. You said,cut cut the limbs off. I have
cut them off, and I've noticedthat some of the trees are getting that
black leaves again. Is there anythingI can spray on it to prevent that
or what's causing you know, I'dI'd have to see it to know exactly.

(01:59:17):
If the black is on the tipsand margins of the leaf, then
it's it's a flow of water throughthe plant problem. It could be dry
soil, it could be rotting roots, it could be a lot of things.
But if it's in the tips andmargins, if the whole leaf is
turning black, that really does stillsound like fireblight. And there are sprays
for fireblight. They're not easy tofind, they're not cheap, and you

(01:59:40):
may, you know, you haveto reapply them, but basically they're sprays
that contain an antibiotic type material inthem. You might want to give those
a try, you know, whenyou're go to Arbigrate, when you're there
today, and just ask them therewhat they carry for fireblight. They may
have something that is just the perfectthing for that. Because I do some

(02:00:01):
heavy water. This shirt that Idid last years. All right, well,
I'm gonna run to another call,but thank you very much for the
call. Mike. Good luck withthat. Let's see, we're gonna go
to Southeast Sistern and talk to James. Hello, James by, good morning,
Good morning. My question is becauseI listened to the show the last

(02:00:23):
two years, I have had excellentcrop of tomatoes, but word has spread
and I am getting already stink bugsokay, and how can I control them?
They are just terrible? Yeah,well, stink bugs are definitely a
problem. The first thing I woulddo is go online and look look at
what their eggs look like. Stinkbugs and leafooted bugs. They're very distinct,

(02:00:45):
and if you know what you're lookingfor, you have a bunch of
tomatoes or just a few, quitea few, quite a few. Okay,
well this it may be hard toyou know, comb over your plants
looking for eggs, but if youcan find them at that stage, you
can wipe out a whole bunch ofthem before they do anything. Check your
tomatoes every few days. And whenyou see the little herds of stink bugs

(02:01:09):
or herds of leafooted bugs, theydon't have wings yet, just put a
pale of soapy water under them andswap the branch with your hand and knock
them into the soapy water. Oncethey get wings and they're flying all around,
that's a problem. I mean,we have some You have to use
a pretty stout insecticide to try tokill them, and you're spraying it all
over all your plants when there mayjust be a stink bug here or there,

(02:01:30):
and then another one comes flying infrom somewhere else. So that early
monitoring is really important. Okay,I have never I've looked on the internet
and stuff and got all kind ofideals, but never heard of that.
So I will try it and seewhat happens. Because it's really disappointing.
Yeah, it's very disappointing. Andstink bugs and leafooted bugs, they're rude

(02:01:51):
creatures, vandals out there, tomatogarden. I understand your pain on that,
but yeah, it just makes senseto get a whole bunch of them
when it's you know, let's sprayanything. You got them all collected together.
They tend to kind of stay ina herd a little bit when they
first hatch out. So you seea bunch of these little things crawling around
there, you go. They're prettytricky. I mean, they see you,

(02:02:13):
they see you coming, and theyrun over to the other side of
the tomato. Really, that's that'swhy. You know, the earlier you
catch them, the off you're goingto be. Plus the products you would
spray are less toxic early on.When you get adult stink bugs and leadfoot
of bugs, you're having to goto a more toxic con sect decide.
But I appreciate that call very much. Thank you. Let's head out to

(02:02:34):
Spring and we're going to talk toAlex. Hello, Alex, Hey,
good morning, how you doing well? Thank you? Good hey. I
got a couple of questions for you. The wife and I are bridges in
the new house. You're in acouple of months and they're putting a Saint
Augustine grass into the yard. Now, I really want to get into real

(02:02:58):
mowing, and I know you can'tget short with that. Is it reasonable
to oversee and go to a bermuda? It's going to coexist with your Saint
Augustine. If it's a shady area, Saint Augustine has the edge. If
it's a sunny area and you're mowinghigh, the Saint Augustine will hang on

(02:03:20):
much better. When you mow reallow, it's a little bit better for
the bermuda. So once you havea mixed if I would not intentionally mix
them, Saint Augustine is easy tokill. It just lives on top of
the ground, and I would ifyou want bermuda, I would get rid
of Saint Augustine and then plant thebermuda. It's not Saint Augustine's not going

(02:03:41):
to pop back up in your bermudalike bermuda will pop back up in your
Saint Augustine. Okay, well,cool man, Well, I appreciate you.
Tom, all right, thank youvery much. I appreciate that call.
Let's head to let's see we've gottime yet just a little bit.
Let's head to sugar Land and we'regoing to talk to Fred. Good morning,
Fred, Hey, how you doing. I'm doing well. How can

(02:04:03):
we help the day? Yeah?I used to have a really nice looking
patch of zucchini and yellow squash,and probably every year I get attacked by
the squash squash mine bars. Doyou have any good ideas to bull bin
or kill them? Ideas? Butno magic magic bullets. Here's the thing.

(02:04:24):
You need bees on those squash flowers, taking the pollen back and forth,
and so anything that's going to bea real good insect aside in other
words, real good meaning it workswell, it's going to kill your bees
and you absolutely can't let that happen. So what I do on the vine
board Number one, Their eggs arevery distinct, little tiny pinhead sized amber
eggs, typically laid on either thevine or the stalk. So if you

(02:04:47):
know what they look like and you'regoing through your squashing, find them and
just rub the egg out and avoidthat altogether. When you start to see
the little ooze come out of thevine where the vine boar is in there
tunneling pushing out like wet sawdust.You can split the vine lengthwise and kill
the worm that's in there, andthen covered up a little bit. One
other thing, start with a rowcover or a netting over your squash that

(02:05:11):
excludes insects. They are insect excludingmesh materials. And when it comes time
for pollination, you either do ityourself or you pull the netting off.
Then and your plants are big enoughto produce a decent crop for you.
I'm gonna have to run now,Fred. There are some insecticides, but
you just want to be real carefulwith you using them. We're gonna go

(02:05:31):
ahead and take a break pretty quickhere. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Now we tryall kinds of things. I've done several
experiments on squash using foil mulches totry to deter them. Nothing works really

(02:05:53):
good. Just need to from thetime their eggs on, just get after
them and do the best you can. I believe it's time for some news.
Do you remember yesterday at nine o'clockwe're going is it time to leave
yet? And here it is ninethirty. Boy, this morning's gone by
fast. I know, okay,let's jump it in the news. Well,

(02:06:27):
good morning on a good morning tobe indoors listening to a garden and
show are calling into a gardening show. I was just talking about the barricade,
you know, the preventing weeds andthings. I was out in the
yard the other day and doing somefertilization and I used the has to Grow
twelve for eight liquid lawn food plus. That's a long name, has to
Grow twelve or eight liquid lawn foodplus. It's from Medina Products. It's

(02:06:51):
in a Hosen sprayer. Now youcan get into a quart, in a
gallon, larger sizes, but basicallyyou buy the Hosen sprayer about a quart
size and it takes about ten minutesto fertilize your lawn. It gives a
very fast response. You got liquidfood on there giving a fast response.
It stimulates the natural soul organisms andif you if you return your clippings to

(02:07:12):
your lawn, they're going to helpfeed. So only about four times per
growing season would you use this hasto Grow with the clippings removed. You
need to do it every month becauseyou're taking a lot of the nutrients out
of there has to Grow twelve fora liquid lawn food. Plus you're going
to find it at all of theplaces we talk about, our garden centers,
our sponsors, ace hardware, placeslike that. You check out the

(02:07:34):
has to Grow, see how itworks for you. I am going to
head to the phones, because wegot folks here on the phones have been
waiting a little ball. We're goingto go to Jersey Village now and talk
to Joe. Good morning, Joe, Satty. I'm calling from Kate may
a correction, Kate Charles of Virginia. Okay, okay, how can I'll

(02:07:59):
still help you? Know you listeningonline out there? Uh yeah, it's
on the on my iHeart radio.Good, good, wonderful. Well,
thanks for being a listener. Howcan I help? But don't get too
excited. I live in Jersey Village, okay, But I mean you're you're,

(02:08:22):
you're, you're getting all the wayout here to Cape Charles. It's
beautiful out here right now, butit's raining back home. And two weeks
ago I put out Pete to uhdeal with my take all patch right as
a suppressant hunt and so, andI haven't and I then I had that
was put down before Thursday. It'snow raining. It's you no better than

(02:08:46):
I do because I'm not there.We'll let have diminished the value of the
of the pete. I need toreapply more pete. Well, a little
rain is helpful because you want tokind of wash it down in and around
the runners of Saint Augustine. Ifyou have a gully washer and you got
erosion just sheeting across your lawn,then that's probably going to dislodge that peat

(02:09:07):
and move it out, but hopefullysome of it will still be helpful.
You may want to follow up withlike an iron sulfates, something a little
acidifying, and something with iron init, because that helps the grass get
by when it's already dealing with alimited root system, and that acidifying.
The organism that causes take all rotdoesn't like acidic conditions. It likes high

(02:09:28):
pH conditions. So if all thisis not working for you, you may
have the switch and use a systemictype pungicide to shut things down. But
I'd give it a watch. Justmake sure, and then anything stretching your
grass show It could be compaction,it could be too much shade, it
could be use of certain herbicides.That weaken the grass, that is just

(02:09:50):
going to predispose it to the take. Also, we try to avoid all
of those things as best it's inour control and minimize the pressure on the
plant. Okay. I plugged withsome palmetto Saint Augustine in the bar areas.
Okay, in the shade areas,and that's stressing out of the shade.

(02:10:11):
Okay, Well, it does prettygood. The most light you can
give it, even though it's quiteshade, tallerant. The more light you
give it, the more energy theplant can have, and the thicker and
healthier it'll be. Okay, thenI need to get your tree term wrapped
in. Okay, I appreciate thanksso much. In the from Cape Charles,
the Virginia's gorgeous sun up here.I'm good and I got some I

(02:10:33):
got some kids and Durham, NorthCarolina, so i'd say stop buy and
say hi to inform me. ButI think that's a little bit of a
drive. Thanks for the call,Joe. I appreciate that. Okay.
Oh gosh, I'll tell you what. Let's go to Spring Branch. Hey,
we're gonna talk to David in SpringBranch. Good morning, David.
How can we help. Good morning, good morning, thank you for taking

(02:10:54):
my phone call. I just hada question about the expanded shell. I
have about four bags in them thatI never used. They're probably like about
five years old. It is ittoo late to use them? To put
them on my plant bed next tomy front yaw to my front of my
home. I have clay era andI have a waxy murder there. Okay,

(02:11:16):
Well, the expanded shail we putdown prior to planting, you can't
get it evenly all through a soilonce you have plants in the way,
so that that's probably not going tobe super helpful unless it's a ser enough,
serious enough condition that in maybe thisfall, you know, to pull
some plants out, move them overon a tarp, and redo the whole

(02:11:37):
bed and then put the plants backin. I know that's a lot of
work, but that would be theonly way that I would see expanded shaw
coming into this situation you described.Okay, within that's helpful. Yeah,
I will do some transplanting maybe thisfall or maybe within a week. So
I appreciate that very much. Okay, just one quick tip, David,

(02:11:58):
with expanded shawl, you need toput it down about three inches. Agrilife
extension from A and M did studiesup in Dallas, and they would mix.
They found that when you don't mixenough, it's just some shale particles
here and there in the clay.When you put about three inches down and
mix it in, well that's enoughvolume of the shale where it really gives
you the aeration benefit, the waterinfiltration benefit, and all those kinds of

(02:12:22):
things. Okay, all right,well, I appreciate very much. All
Right, you take care. Iappreciate your call. Thank you very much.
We're gonna head to a break here. I see you out there,
Craig and Base City. You willbe first when we come back up.

(02:12:50):
Well, good Sunday morning. Youwere listening to garden Line and I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and weare here to talk about things that are
interest to you. At Boy's grewlit up the boards here since we got
into this last couple of segments.Let's head out to Base City. We're
gonna talk to Craig. Good morning, Craig, Good morning to Skip doing
a great job. The question Ihave is is I had the opportunity to

(02:13:15):
be in a new subdivision this pastweek and they were planning trees in the
esplague. I noticed that they're puttingit. They were putting a PBC pipe.
Oh, I guess half inch downright going right to the root ball
coming back up and they cut itoff and I asked him, I said,
why are you doing that? Andthey said, well, that's we

(02:13:37):
could deep deep root water and deeproot feed from there. I said,
how do you keep bugs from growingin since it's got a cap? I
just want to get true take onit. Well, I'm not worried about
the bugs, but listen, atree has roots going in all directions.
Initially we have to water the cylinderthat went into the ground. That's where
all the roots are. That's whyI like tree hugg sprinklers. And I

(02:13:58):
know the city's not going to justbuy bunch of treehars. I wish they
would, but because it water,you can make them water in that area,
or a berm of soil that youfill up with water is also helpful.
But those roots are going everywhere,and I mean, if you put
in twenty little pipes to water throughthat, it just it's not worth the
trouble and it's not going to wetthe soil volume that we need to wet,

(02:14:20):
so when we fertilize, we fertilizethe whole area. If we need
to errate, we can errate.But basically, don't worry about doing those
little pipes. That is just notthat helpful. I mean, if somebody
wanted to go in with a deeproot water or feeder, you know,
like a tree company can do.I mean that when when you when you
do something like that, you're doingit all over the place, you know

(02:14:41):
when I mean we're talking about treewatering and feeding in a lot of places,
all around the trunk. That's whatAffordable does, by the way,
when they do that, but don'tat home, don't do the pipes.
Not worth it. Okay, allright, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that. Let's head outto Danbury and we're gonna talk to Ronnie.
Hello, Ronnie, good morning.Hey, Skip appreciates taking the call.

(02:15:05):
And agree with the gentleman the callbefore. You're doing a great job.
Listen, I've got a question.What I've got is out in the
garden this morning, in between rainstorts, and there are literally thousand,
over the exact hundreds of gnats onmy tomato plants. A little white looking
nat flies. Do I need tobe worried? Well, that sounds a

(02:15:28):
little bit like it could be whiteflies. They if you can see this,
if when they land, if they'reholding their wings kind of like a
rooftop, you know that angle ofyour rooftop. If they're holding their wings
down alongside their body, but inthat shape, you might be dealing with
somewhat of a like a white flyproblem getting started. There are so many

(02:15:50):
insects out there though that without agood identification, I don't know. I
hate to send people out with insecticideto treat white flies. And here's why.
They have a lot in that trialenemies. And when you treat for
the white flies, you may killwhite flies, but you kill the natural
enemies. And then the white fliescome in, you know, in a
wave, and there's nothing there toeven slow them down. So you might

(02:16:13):
want to use something if you feellike you have them. When you turn
over your leaves, you're gonna seethese little tiny, smaller than a typed
zerbo, but a little tiny fishscale looking things on the bottom of the
leaf. That's their pupa. Andif you if beyond the adults, if
you're seeing a lot of that underthe leaves. I would get an insecticidal
soap, or better yet, ahorticultural oil, summer oil like a kneem

(02:16:35):
oil that would be an example,and spray upward and coat those things,
coat the undicides of the leaves.That would be the best way to manage
them, because when we start pullingout the insecticides, they're just a bootmerang.
I hear you odds if I appreciatethanks sir, Thank you. I
appreciate that call running. Thank youvery much. Wow, we this time

(02:16:58):
flu this morning really moving kind offast on us. So I'm going to
talk about a couple of things I'vebeen wanting to talk about for a while.
First of all, I've been mentioningtoday this is lawn fertilizing season,
and if you want a good qualitylawn fertilizer, you need to look at
the Turf Star line by Nelson.The Turf Star line has a number of

(02:17:20):
different things in it. You know, it's got the Bruce's Brew, the
eighteen four nine that you just useit year round. In fact, I
would use products like that in flowerbeds and vegetable beds. I mean it's
a slow you know it's going togive you a faster release, so when
you know you put it down,you get the release right. Then if
you want to slow things down alittle bit, I would go to slow
and easy. That's a twenty twoto ten and that's going to give you

(02:17:43):
feeding that will last you through therest of the summer. You don't worry
about fertilizing your lawn again until fallwhen you put down a slow and easy
type product. You know Dan Nelson, the folks Nelson's Fertilizers. Over twenty
years have they been making fertilizer.They have followed carefully research on turf at
A and M and to how theyformulate their their fertilizers. And that Turf

(02:18:05):
Star line is just a good one. Nay, a lot of other good
lines too, but I really Ireally like the Turf Star line a lot
for the summer. One. Anotherone though, like a lot, by
the way, is a color Star. Color Star products for your plants that
have color right flower bed. Theywork really well for that, and uh,
you know, it's just a qualityproduct, and so I encourage you

(02:18:26):
to check that out. Whenever thisrain is done and we get a little
bit drier, I'm gonna need tohead back out and do some more lawn
care. And this is when lawnstend to kind of get away from you.
You know what I'm talking about.You know, you can't get out
and mow, and next time youget out there, if you know it's
going to look like a hay field, well I always tell you to multure

(02:18:48):
clippings back in the lawn. Thatis. I'll just say that's the best
lawn fertilizer and the cheapest because it'sfree, it's your lawn. You're recycling
the clippings that's not in and ofit's enough to keep a law dense and
healthy. You know, we stillfertilize, but if you get rid of
those clippings, you're just renting thefertilizer that you're putting down because you're growing
grass clippings with it and paying somebodyto haul it away. But after a

(02:19:11):
rain, that would be a timewhere you could When it's grown too much
to where I'm we like to justcut off like a third of the grass
blade height each mowing. That's ideal, but maybe it's grown to where when
you mow it it's going to beyou're cutting off over half the height of
it. Well, in that case, yeah, you could gather the clippings,

(02:19:33):
use them as a mulch in flowerbus. It's not too deep. They'll
dry out and work well. Usethem in your compost pile. What I
do, because I just love havingthe clippings there is I'll mow high and
then I'll come in and I'll mowagain lower, and that just better chops
up all those clippings and so itdoesn't look like a hay field when you're
done. So that's another strategy forit. But the secret to a good

(02:19:56):
healthy lawn, one of the keysecrets is regular mowing, frequent mowing.
The more often you mow, thedenser of a lawn you're gonna be able
to have. Now, it's importantto have water, it's important to have
fertilizer, of course in your lawn, but dense mowing or frequent mowing creates
that density. And I'll prove itthis way. The most mode turf on

(02:20:18):
the planet is a golf course green. I mean they are mowing those things
every day, like an eighth ofan inch cut out. You just barely
mow it a little off And howcould you get denser than a golf course
green? Right now. If theymowed a golf course screen once a week
when they mowed, it will bean ugly mess and it wouldn't be a
good surface for playing golf on forsure. Well, in our home lawns,

(02:20:39):
we're not going for that low ofa mowing unless you just have a
little backyard putting area. But justmowing once a week is enough cutting off
a third of the blade. That'sgood. It's just when we get stretched
out by extended periods of rain.I don't think this one will be quite
that extended, but that's when wekind of get into a problem with things

(02:21:00):
stretching, stretching out and just gettinga little bit long and lanky. Honest
Hey, I want to remind youguys that on this coming Saturday, that's
the twentieth, I'm going to beat the Sugarland Home and Garden Outliving Show
Outdoor Living show that's in Stafford Centerin Stafford. I'll be there eleven thirty.
I'm gonna give a seminar and helpyou have success with your garden,

(02:21:22):
and then I'm going to spend anhour outside at a booth answering garden questions.
This is where you bring me ina ziplock bag, bugs, disease
examples, you know, other issueswith the lawn. What is this plan?
Bring it in a bag or takepictures with your phone, take pictures
of a problem area, or takepictures of an area where you're kind of

(02:21:43):
thinking what would be some good colorto put into that area of the landscape.
We'll help you with all that.On garden Line. We have a
short time to visit with you ona question, But when you come to
one of these places that I appearat, like Sugarland Home and Outdoor Living
Show, we can spend some timeeye to eye and kind of work through

(02:22:03):
some of the bigger questions that youmight have. I hope you'll be able
to come out and see us thiscoming Saturday, and by the way,
just stretching things out a bit further. The following Saturday, I'm gonna be
at wall Bird's Unlimited at clear Lake, and I'm gonna tell you a whole
lot about that next week.