KTRH GardenLine | 5-28-23

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 ktrH Garden Line with Skip Richter, So
just watch him as Woody Well,good morning on a good Sunday morning,

(00:36):
looking at darkness outside, by thelights coming. It's going to be a
beautiful day and a good day toget outside for gardening. You're listening to
garden Line. I'm your host,Skip Richter, and our phone number you
want to write this down seven onethree two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. I'm was trying to

(01:02):
get some houseplant care done yesterday afterthe show, trying to do some you
know, general kind of trimming upon some things and watering. Notice that
I've got a couple of containers.You know, we always tell you make
sure a container has drainage holes sothat you don't over water it well and

(01:22):
very inevitable. I fall in lovewith a container that doesn't have drainage holes.
So you can do that. Youjust have to be real careful that
you don't keep it too wet.I usually throw a little bit of charcoal
in the bottom of a container becauseit sort of they say, sweetens the
water. It helps a little bitwith the souring of the soil and things
like that from saggy wet conditions.You still overwater, for sure, But

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I always have to stick a fingerdown in a poddlettle bit or a pencil.
I don't know if you've ever heardabout that, but you can check
the moisture down in your soil bytaking a sharpened pencil. And it's important
that it is freshly sharpened, notyou know, the oil your hands getting
on that sharpened wood surface, butit needs to be freshly sharpened, and

(02:05):
stick it down in the soil andpull it out. And number one,
if it's really wet, you cansee the fact that the wood has gotten
wet. But even if not thatwet, you see soil sticking to the
sides of the pencil. It's kindof like those of you who know how
to bake a cake know that youcan stick a toothpick down and some types
of cakes and pull it out andsee if it's ready or not by whether

(02:25):
you know, batter or whatever fromthe cake is coming out of there.
But you can do the same thingwith a pencil. It's just another other
little tip, I guess. ButI do have some containers that don't have
good drainage, and so I alwayshave to do that. But man,
I love those containers. But anyway, it was just kind of grimming and
checking on them, make sure everything'sdoing good. I have some ivy that

(02:51):
is is trailing very long. It'sactually a pothos ivy, real standard basic
plant, but a good one forgood reasons. There's a reason you see
it everywhere. And so as itgets along, I'll just take the vines
and kind of lay them back overthe hanging basket and let them drape back
down again. It creates this reallylarge clump a ball of leaves up at

(03:13):
the hanging basket, and then youhave a few few trailing down. So
it just just general messing around,you know. That's that's why I always
say it's a good day for gardening, because even if it were raining outside
today, I've got plenty of thehouse to do. In fact, I've
got some seeds I need to startto that I want to plan out in
the garden, and so it'd bea good time to get out and do
that. But on a day thisnice, we just need to get out

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and get going. In fact,I'm going to jump out to the calls
a little early today. I havesome of the comments as we go along,
but let's start by going out toCyprus and we're going to talk to
Joyce. A good morning, Joyce, Yeah, good morning. I thought
I have three gallon high discus plantsthat I got from Mother's day, okay,
and I was going to lead themin the containers that they come in.

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But will they get root bones?Should I be replanting them? You
don't need to worry about that fora good while. Okay, they'll be
fine. You know if they asthey grow, I mean if they double
in size or something from what youpurchased, then just you can pull them
out of the container, kind oftease away the roots that are packed around
the sides of the pot and putthem in some fresh soil and a bigger

(04:17):
container. But I don't think thisquick after buying them. You need to
do that. Now the container yougot them in, was it the old
black nursery pot or what was?Yes, sir, okay, that's what
you And they're probably maybe three feettall, and I think I think plants
fall seasons, says they were threegallon containers. Three gallons. Oh yeah,

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good, Well, by the way, that's a that's a great place
to get to get plants. WouldI would do one or two things if
you don't like the look of theblack pot, which I don't either,
but then you could move them intoa prettier container if you want to do
that. But something that I'll dois, if you can find a container
you like the way it looks,just slip the black pot down in that

(05:02):
container. In other words, don'tadd soil and replant it that way.
When you're ready to bump it up, you can pull the black pot out
and then you don't have to digit out or try to get it out
of the container. You know,some container sort of curve in at the
top instead of being unless say somewhatV shaped, or the top is whiter

(05:23):
than the bottom, and it's hardto get a plant out of that because
it doesn't slip out because you've gotthat curved in lid at the top,
so or edge at the top.So that's what I'll often do, And
then I'll throw some moss or somethingaround the top, just so no one
knows it's not planted in that pot. I do that with house plants and
with other things too. And Iwas talking earlier about if you overwater,

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well, if you have a containerthat's like that doesn't have a hole in
it, that's another advantage because youcan just lift the pot up and see
is there too much water in there, and set it back down again.
But just a few tis. There'sno one way. I'm sorry, and
go ahead. I was going tosay. What I did is we just
had you know, some of theturk are quite looking pots, and set

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them inside that. But when Ido transplant them, then what size container
would I go to? You wantto go up one size, so whatever
sizer, and now you know,if you can get a two inches maybe
three inches at the most up atthe top, if it's a three gallon
already, then you know you're you'regoing to get a much larger container than

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if it was just like a littlesix inch pot. But I would move
up kind of one size, giveyourself a little bit hand to grow.
They're going to always be a littleroute bound, and that's okay. You
just want to watch because those thingswant to be in the sun and when
it gets hot, they're pumping alot of water, So having a little
more volume is probably better for them. So you're saying, so I should

(06:55):
put them in a bigger pot whenit gets one, Well you can,
you can as it warms up,but I would you know, there's not
a This isn't a black and whiteissue at all. I mean, if
you want to just set them insomething for now, they're going to be
fine the pot they came in.They are not overgrown in that pot yet.
They will be okay within a fewmonths, but for right now,

(07:18):
you can just go with that.I feel like you're going to be making
that bump soon. That's why Iwas saying, set them down in another
kind of pot for now, justso you have something pretty around them rather
than the black pot. Yeah exactly, Yeah, all right, well,
thank you so much. Oh andthen the potting soul should I use it?
But I think you talked about halfwas it happy frog? It kind

(07:41):
of helps contain water they have inthe past here I've talked about jungle Land
recently is from nitrofoss and it's it'sgot a it's got a blend of Canadian
blonde peete with four different ages offour different types of decomposed organic matter in
it and then it has a microrhizalfungine. I really like that about it.

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And so when you put that,when you put that in your container,
uh, it's gonna drain well,but it's also going to hold moisture
adequately, and that's important. Soyou can get jungle land all over the
place. I mean, you knoweverywhere nitrofoss is sold. I think you
said that you you were at plantsfor all seasons. Well, they'll they'll
have jungle land, I'm sure there. And if they don't, they'll have

(08:24):
they'll they'll have an aquioma for you. But I would I would just if
that's where you shop, then justgo back there and talk to them.
But jungle lands in a lot ofdifferent places. One last thought is make
sure that is if the drainage holefor the pot is on the bottom and
it's sitting on concrete or something that'sfine, or a deck, if it's
sitting just on a clay soil,you might want to get those little things

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that lift the pot up a littlebit, because it you don't get good
drainage when the pot essentially is sealingitself to the surface of a clay soil.
Do you know what I'm saying?Yes I do, and yes that
he is sitting on a place alittle That's something I would have never thought
of. Yeah, give it alittle, give it a little bit of
boost, not much, just alittle bit. All right, Well,
thank you, thank you for thatcall, Joyce, appreciate thank you.

(09:09):
We're going to take a break,Harry. We'll come back to you as
soon as we get back from break. And if you'd like to call in
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four, let's go. Let's
go way, good morning on agood Sunday morning for gardening. We are

(09:39):
dark outside now, but it won'tbe that way long. In fact,
if you want, if he looksover at the neighbor's house and the light
troff, go ahead and bang onthe door and tell them they're missing garden
line. They will. They willthank you later, not today for sure,
but maybe later. We're going tohead out to the Galleria area now
and talk to Harry. Good morning, Harry, good morning. I'll enjoy
your show. You're doing a greatjob. And by the way, five

(10:01):
h seven four is ktrh ktrh verygood right, that's what it stands for
KTRH five H seven four. Allright, I was wondering about potting soil
for herbs like regano and time andthings like that. Yeah. We you
know, we are fortunate here tobe blessed with a lot of different,

(10:24):
good quality kinds of potting soil.And you're not going to go wrong,
you know, with any of thegroup. I was talking about jungle land
from night frosts a minute ago.Uh. The Heirloom Soils has an urban
veggie mix, by the way,that would be excellent for that, and
I would also consider that one.Uh. And then the Nature's Way provides
a very quality potting soil as well. But I think you're going to find

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that that Airline soil um veggie andherb mix is it's going to be widely
available for you. And that's that'sone thing to consider. If you go
to h You see you're in agalleria area right. Uh, there's an
there go ahead, which which whichnurse ree do you recommend? Police?
Well, if close to you,there's an Al's Handy Hardware. It's an

(11:09):
ACE hardware store. It's on AldenMail Route just a little south of you.
Uh, and uh, just ifyou go on and do um Ace
Hardware dot com. You can doa store locator and ACE Hardware carries all
the products that we talk about here. They carry the soils, they carry
the fertilizers, a wide variety ofof stuff. When you go in there,
you're gonna you're gonna see what I'mtalking about. But Al's Handy Hardware

(11:33):
is on Alden mail route and that'sprobably the closest one to you. But
just just go to Ace Hardware dotCom. They're gonna have the heirloom soils
there. How do you spell thatagain, please airloom or yeah, it's
yeah, it's it's spelled like familyheirlooms, like h E I R l
O okla. And but ask themfor the Magian Herb mix in the Ace

(11:58):
Hardware. Yeah, and the AceHardware is Ace Hardware dot Com. And
you just look for the store locator. And this store is just south of
greens Point on that that's a littlefar away, but that's that's one closer.
Yeah, there's a lot of color. By the ways, this is
a tax free weekend for trees orsomething. Somebody said, yes, it's

(12:20):
tax free weekend for trees, anyany plants. And also for anything that's
think of as water savings. Sofor example, mulch or putting compost in
your soil, you know, toincrease the rooting zone and therefore it can
get the more water, uh dripirrigation. Go ahead, Yeah, I

(12:41):
keep up the good work. Reallyenjoy listening to your show. All right,
well, thank you appreciate that call, Harry. You take care,
Yes, sir, Now you knowyou're gonna find You're gonna find ACE Hardware's
wherever you live, and that thatemail Ace hardware dot Com is really the
easiest way to get down to it. I mean, you got friends and

(13:01):
wherever, they just tell them goto ACE hardware dot com. They can
find it there and they're going tocarry all the It's nice to be able
to recommend places where you know they'regoing to have it. And that's that's
been the challenge, because you know, for me to send you out on
while goose Chase is trying to findsomething, well, that's not fun for
you and not something I certainly wantto do to you. So that's why

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we love to have a sponsor thatI'll say we'll carry all those things and
just make it kind of fast,simple and easy, but they sure can
get that job done. You probablyheard about Dell Web Communities. Dell Webb
has been building communities for active adultsage fifty five and better for over seventy
years. And I was excited whenthey contacted me because they're putting a new
community out in Full Shure. Infact, it's less than two miles from

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downtown Full Shure on FM three fiftynine. The reason I was one reason
I was excited is because I'm goingto work with them to create a community.
I am working with them to createa community garden on that site for
the residents. So if you're agardener and looking for the quality community that
Dellweb has been doing for a verylong time that inspired designs and the lifestyle

(14:07):
programs that go along with that,you need to check out dellweb dot com
slash Houston. Dellweb dot com slashHouston. By the way, Webb has
two bees in it and you canalso call them to eight one four five
nine zero six zero nine. I'mreally looking forward to that community garden,
you know, coming together out there. That is going to be cool.

(14:28):
A good community garden makes for awonderful community. And if you're a gardener,
you know how much fun it isto get out and hang out with
other gardeners and talk at Gardeners arethe nicest, friendliest people you could meet.
We're listening to garden Line. I'myour host, Skip Richter and our
phone number seven one three two onetwo five eight seven four seven one three

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two one two fifty eight seventy fourif you are interested in doing some vegetable
gardening this week. We're in thehot summer weather, on the verge of
the hot summer weather, and soit's time to be planning things like okra
and let's see sweet potatoes, blackeyed peas, all the southern peas,

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Southern peas like black eyed peas,purple holes, crowder peas, zipper cream
peas, all of those kinds ofthings. Lots of greens. I was
talking about some greens yesterday that aresummer greens are from parts of the world
that are hot, sultry, andhumid in the summer. Welcome to Southeast
Texas, and so they do reallywell here. And so those are all
things we can be planning now.We still got stuff going on in the

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garden from the spring garden. Ifyou've never gardened before. I would encourage
you to try gardening this year,and you can start this summer if you
want, but sometime this year getout there and try planting something. Now.
You could do it in a raisedbed that you build, a create,
or buy. You could do itin a big container. I would

(15:56):
suggest let's start with a container andjust try your hand at it and see
how things go. With a verylarge container for the plant size that you're
going to grow, you can takeit through summer without having to water it
twice a day. And so fortomatoes that would be at least ten gallons
for tomatoes to do well. Ifyou're looking at peppers and eggplant at least

(16:17):
five, preferably about ten for thosealso just to give them. And the
reason is they need a large volumeof soil to draw water from. And
the more soil you have, themore water that can hold, and the
more water will be available to theroots of the plant that are confined to
that container. That goes true forornamentals as well as vegetables. But you
should, you should give it atry. There's a lot of help online

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and for crying out loud, we'rehere eight hours a week on garden Line.
You can give us a call andwe'll walk you through it step by
step. More more than happy todo that for sure. If you have
been considering growing herbs, I knowwe were just talking about herbs a moment
ago with Harry. You really oughtto give those a try. They are

(17:02):
super easy, and they too cango in a container. In fact,
there's nothing wrong with combining ornamentals withedibles, and so why not have a
tall ornamental grass coming out of acontainer with some oregano or time spilling over
the sides. Just an idea somethingto think about. Let's head out to
Lamark and we're going to talk toBeverley this morning. Hello Beverly, right,

(17:25):
yes, I'm sorry to Boddy thatI have a question on dollar weed
grass. All right, I don'tknow the best thing to get rid of
it. Okay, Well, firstof all, Beverley, there is no
bother at all. That's why we'rehere, So thank you for calling.
Dollar weed can be controlled with broadleaf weed killers. That are we call

(17:45):
them post emergent because we spray themon weeds that are already there, as
opposed to things we put down toprevent the seeds from germinating and coming up,
so you can find there's a numberof different ones out there. I'll
try I'll just try to make itsimple instead of sending you to seven hundred
different products. The Bonide has aweed beater Ultra that's pretty good. There's

(18:07):
also a product called Celsius, likeFahrenheit and Celsius. It's Celsius that weed
beater ultra. When it gets upin the upper eighties, at some point
there, you're going to start tostress your Saint Augustine. So if you
can find a little bit milder daywould I would use that. The Celsius

(18:29):
you can go a little bit warmer, probably up to about ninety two.
It may go higher, but that'sas high as I'm comfortable with it.
And both of those will do areally good job on your dollar weed.
Okay, So Celsius it's a meanbuy from Helle. Where do you get
back? Yes, you're gonna findCelsius in a good quality independent garden center.

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You're going to find it in feedstores too. And you're down you're
down south in the Lamarck area.You got two options. One is to
find an Ace Hardware near you.They do a really good job of carrying
a lot of products and down inthe Lamarck area. Just just go online
if you still got your pin out, go online to acet Hardware dot com

(19:11):
and then you have to select dothe store locate or click on that and
it'll it'll take you right to thenearest one too. I think that's the
easiest way that I can get you. Thank you, sir, you have
a good day, you too.Thank you so much for the call.
I appreciate that. Well we are. We're rolling here this morning. The
first hour is halfway done, andthese mornings sometimes go so fast. That's

(19:33):
a good thing at least. Ithink they say time flies when you're having
fun. Hermit's Rock says time it'sfun when you're having flies. And with
that dad joke, I will turnit over to Nikki. My apologies.
Alright, we've still got some amberalerts to be aware of. I've got
to details coming up. Well,good morning on a good Sunday morning for

(20:08):
gardening. We are going to betalking with you about your questions until ten
am this morning, so we inviteyou to give us a call at seven
one three two one two fifty eightseventy four two one two KTRH two ways
to go about dialing that you know. This weekend, the Memorial Day weekend
is the Lawn and Garden tax holidaywhere water saving products are exempt from taxes.

(20:33):
So this is a good time toget out there and buy plants,
to buy compost, to buy soil, to buy a tree hugger sprinkler for
planting your new tree. It's agood time to get out and do all
of those kinds of things. Andmore drip irrigation, This would be a
great time to do that. Maybeyou need a hose end timer so that
you don't forget and let the waterrun all night. And the kids have
a little river going down the curbto play in at your expense, this

(20:59):
is a good weekend for in that. And I was at Buchanans yesterday and
was looking at the native plants thatthey carry, and they have a lot
of native plants, and of coursethis is a great time to buy native
plants. They have a good selection. They even have a table that's devoted
to plants just here in Harris Countythat are native here, not only here,

(21:21):
but plants that you will find intheir native habitat here in Harris County.
And then have a wide variety ofother natives, just all kinds,
lots of really good options. Ifyou want a little butterfly garden on some
milkweed, make your little monarchs happy. It's a it's a great time to
be out at Buchanans and Native plantsif you want to find them there on
East eleventh Street and the Heights.And if you want to just go online,

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it's buchanan Plants dot com. They'vegot a great newsletter. They've got
a good presence on Facebook and Instagramif you want to kind of keep up
with them, see see what's goingon and he's sales coming up or anything
like that and just get some inspiration. Always love visiting out at Buchanans.
You know the fertilizing for summer,now is the time to get that done.

(22:07):
And when you fertilize, you shouldfollow that with an application of azamite.
Azamite is a mineral source for traceelements. Now, the nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium on the fertilizerbag, the big three, they're important
in large numbers. That's why they'rethe three numbers on every fertilizer bag.
The micronutrients, the trace minerals ormany of those are also essential for plant

(22:33):
growth. They're just needed in smallamounts. That's why we call them micros
or trace. Not less important,just less volume. So azamite puts those
out. When you put that onyour lawn, you are going to be
adding that kind of mineral to yourlawn. And it's just it's good for
your lawn. Your trees has rootsunderneath there and they're going to benefit from
it as well. I use azomitein the garden ten pounds per thousand square

(22:56):
feet. And here's why. Iwant my vegetables to have every nutrient that
my body could possibly need, whichmay be nutrients that a plant doesn't necessarily
need. That's why I love touse asamite. So when you think fertilizing,
also think about putting out that thatasamite. And for those of you
who live in the southwest part oftown, I need to get back there.

(23:17):
It's been a it's been a justa bit since I've been out a
Southwest fertilizer. But they're a Houstonlawn and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five.
I go in there, you know, as a horticulture educator if you
will, just to see what arethe newest products, because they're going to
have them there. They have widevariety of products, probably the greatest selection
of products here in the city.They have all the fertilizers we talk about,

(23:38):
you know, the soils and mulchasand things like that. They're going
to have an organic selection like noother. So if you're an organic gardener,
just because we say they have allthese chemicals, well the organic products
can be chemicals too. That includesa large a large volume, but they
have those there. You'll find whatyou need to have your organic garden there.
They have their own Southwest Gold Afifteen five ten slow release fertilizer would

(24:03):
be a good time to apply somethinglike that. But if you have any
questions, bring Maybe you're at thehouse and you got a weed or a
bug or something going on, justput it in a bag and take it
in. When you go, Boband his team will diagnose it and they
will give you the right product.They will they know what they're talking about.
They'll give you the right product andtake you to it. They're in
the corner of Bissonette and Renwick inSouthwest Houston. You can go to Southwest

(24:26):
Fertilizer dot Com to find out moreinformation. Such a good day to get
outside with the weather we're having,it's it's just pleasant. And I always
say frontload your gardening work into thespring and maybe backloaded into the fall.
Summer is a tough time. Now, I still love guardening in the summer.
I just go out early in themorning. You know, you can

(24:48):
break a sweat in the summer goingout early in the morning walking across your
yard. But that's the time toget the work done in the summertime.
So now you know you need tobuild soil, you need to plant grass,
you need to fill in the blank. Now's the time to get those
big projects done, because of coursehere comes the summer won't be that far

(25:08):
away. And if you have beenlooking at your landscape and it just you
know, it's you like it.You've gone and bought the most wonderful plants
and all these great nurseries and broughtthem home and you planted them, and
but you look at it and it'sjust like you know that I don't know,
that's just not I'm not a designer. What you need to go to
Peerscapes call the folks at peer Escapes, Jason Garritty and his team will come

(25:30):
in. They will do a designfor you. It can be something small,
it could be something large. Imean it could include hardscapes, walkways,
drainage, irrigation and on and ondown the line. Or just be
a redesign maybe of those beds infront of the house. They are professional
at designing and they're professional at installation. Their employees are trained, they're certified,

(25:51):
they have their licenses. I dowhat to find out more, just
go to piercescapes dot com, pea, r ce sca pees, spell
that one out peerscapes dot com orgive him a call to eight one three
seven zero five zero six zero.You want to get your lawn and your
garden, your landscape and everything's setup to be a show place. Another

(26:14):
idea, and I need this.My back patio has been neglected. They
say the cobbler's kids go barefoot.Well, I need a good design for
something like that, you know,for some beds around it. Reconsidering some
of the arrangements of things I haveand changing the pots up, putting in
an irrigation system for my containers.If you have container plants and I love

(26:37):
containers. You need an irrigation systemto go with them, because to go
out every day, in some casestwice a day if it's a smaller container
in the sun and water them,it just well in my house is not
going to happen. It just won'thappen if there are too many days where
I'm just not even there to doit. And so a drip irrigation system,
which would be a good thing tobuy this weekend, by the way,

(26:57):
a drip irrigation system with a hoseend timer. It comes on when
you tell it to. I wantto water Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
and I want to water at sevenin the morning or six in the morning
or whatever. It'll come on anddo that. Of course, with containers
you need to water every day prettymuch, but this is a good weekend
to buy that too, by theway. That is water saving. But

(27:19):
you can take an area that's apatio, for example, and really beautify
it with containers. One of thethings I like about containers is they make
you look good. And here's whatI mean. If I have a container
that is started, maybe the plantsare kind of wimping out like a petunia
heading into the heat of summer.Maybe you can just pick it up,

(27:40):
move it around the side of thegarage. I call that the plant hospital,
and bring another one in with freshlyplanted plants and instantly it looks good
while you take the old one andkind of rework it and get it going
to come back out again. Containersare easy and they're fun to work with,
and for folks that don't have alot of space, containers allow you
to grow things in a sunny spot. Maybe you don't have a sunny spot

(28:03):
for a garden bed, but witha container, you can go put it
on a sunny spot and look looksreally really good. So consider containers.
And there's so many beautiful ones.I mean, there's everything from I mean,
if you just want to grow somevegetables out in the back forty and
not worry about them, and youcan get a big old black pot and
put it out there, nurse yourpot and grow in them. And then
if you want something nice, youcan have the most beautiful vase or urn

(28:26):
type container that it is a showstopper. And I would encourage you to
consider this summer when you're planting,especially this week now as we're getting ready
to head into the heat, andmost importantly to day because it's the last
day of the Memorial Weekend tax holiday. Adding a container. Hey, you're

(28:48):
listening to garden Line. Give usa call seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four and Josh willget you on the board. Sweet pea,
pablum, I don't know what anddon Louisa, can I keep bump
coming? Is he singing to hisvegetables? At least that's how the way

(29:14):
I'd like to look at it.You're listening to garden Line our phone number
seven one three two two fifty eightseventy four. We're going to head straight
out to Richmond now and talk toMarcy. Good morning Marcy, Good morning,
Skip, Thanks for taking my call. You back, Um. You
were just talking about containers and growingvegetables and plants and containers. I have

(29:38):
several containers that basically are from lastyear that have soil, and I mean
they were it was good soil whenI planted in them, but they're empty
right now. Would that be asituation where I would use aisamite or would
I just use something my micro lifeto kind of re energize the soil before
I plant well, okay, both, we'll do something. Aismite is is

(30:00):
purely the trace minerals, okay,and so that is why you would use
that. I might use them both. Actually, microlife is an organic product,
meaning the material in that fertilizer wasonce alive and is now available to
spread as a fertilizer. They they'vegotten, they've made it into a fertilizer,
and so when you put it out, microbes release it. But because

(30:22):
it was once alive, all themicros that a plant had to have to
be alive are now in that fertilizer. Also, you know, it's like
you walk out and pick a leafoff your tree. When you look at
that leaf, if it didn't haveall the micros that needed it wouldn't have
successfully made that leaf. And ifit's low, may be the like with
pecans, for example, if theydon't have zinc, the leaves are small

(30:45):
and kind of rounded, and soplants have to have all the micros as
well. So I would probably dothem both in a container if you got
them that. There's certainly nothing wrongwith that, Okay. I just kind
of scatter it around and mix itin the soil little bit. Yeah,
I would mix it in the soil. I think that they do a little
bit better when you mix them in. I mean you can throw stuff like

(31:06):
that on the surface, that's fine, but get it down and get it
down in the root zone and inthe container. You have that that privilege
to do that. On a lawn. You can't really roto tail the lawn
to get things down underneath. Ijust don't want to waste the soil.
I don't know what else to dowith it really, well, no,
you can. You can reuse it. The only time we don't reuse it
is when it maybe you've got anematodes in it by coming in with a

(31:29):
plant or something, or if adisease, a root rot disease killed the
plant. They're actually they're actually waysto past your eyes. Potting soil probably
more trouble than anybody wants to gothrough. But that that kind of soil
I would throw away. But justthe whole soil, I just add to
it, freshen it up, putsome good quality soil in there, and
you can just keep going. Andyou can also throw it in your garden

(31:52):
and road or till it end ifyou want. I mean, it's it's
it was potting mix. By theway, you're fortunate to be out in
Richmond and be near the Enchanted Forestand Enchanted Gardens. If I were you,
I would if I'm going, Ohare you which one are you going
to today? I'm going to GardensGardens. Yeah. Oh, they're they're
They're both amazing. I love,love, love to go out to those

(32:16):
places and just see. I don'tknow, just when you walk out,
isn't it inspiring? Both of them. You walk out and you're just look
and it's like, oh my gosh, so many plants, so little time.
I know. I'm so lucky becauseI do live in between both of
them, so I can go toeither one. Yeah, and they each
had their own unique uniqueness. Uh. Yeah, I was. Chanted Gardens

(32:38):
had a display of bougainville Is thatjust looked like a million bucks and that
would be a good one to bringhome for now that we're going into hot
weather. Yeah, good for you. You're a fortunate lady to live so
close to two great garden centers.I am, well, thank you so
much. Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Yeah, the

(33:01):
Enchanted Forest has a lot of theSalvia nemerosa and it's a it's a Salvia
nemerosa. It's a type of salviawhich is in the mid family. The
stays really low and the foliage isI don't know, maybe six inches or
so high. It could be alittle higher than that, and then the
bloom stalks come above it, soit's kind of it. It is just

(33:22):
stunning in the colors. Oh mygosh, purple and pink and blue,
light, sky blue and white andeverything. You use that as a border
plant in a sunny area and itwill it'll be amazing in many ways.
It kind of reminds me of theangelonia or summer they call it summer snap
dragon in that it has a littlespiky flowers and is down low. But

(33:44):
number one plant group for me isSalvia's. I just love salvias and got
a lot of plants. I lovethat. I really love the salvias.
Pretty cool, pretty cool stuff.Salvia nemerosa. So we're when you're out
shopping, I know they having achanted forest. I'm sure they having a
chanted gardens. And I would suspecta lot of our our garden centers in
different parts of town where you aregoing to have that. Just ask them

(34:05):
for the salvia and nemorosa. It'sa really beautiful little little sage. You
know, Salvia's are there's such awide genera of plants. We have salvias
a get really tall, like theSalvia garonitica, dark dark purple, dark
blue, light blue, comes ina light blue form. Argentine skies.

(34:27):
We've got the salvia's like mystic spiresthat generally speaking are about waiste high.
They can get a little larger inthat in time, but in general they're
pretty compact. Actually you'll notice themfrom kneehigh to waiste high a lot just
just beautiful. Then, you know, Salvia's are one of those plants at
bloom on the new growth, theends of the new growth. So nice
to do when you're when you're outshopping. This weekend for garden centers are

(34:52):
at garden centers. When I saythis weekend, I guess I mean today.
It is the tax free weekend.So all of our major garden centers
are Ace hardware stores. Of thefeed stores we talk about, they all
carry the tree hugger sprinkler. Andif you have any plans to plant any
plant, or if you have atree that maybe was planted a few months

(35:13):
ago, or a couple of yearsago. Tree Hugger sprinklers water right where
they need the water and so you'renot wasting water. It is a water
saving device and it would be anotherexample of a tax free device. You
can go to tree Hugger Sprinklers dotcom if you want to learn more about
them. They come in three sizes, the seven inch, the eleven inch,
and the fifteen inch. I haveall three. Actually I like the

(35:37):
seven inch when it's a small treeand I'm just planting it, maybe a
rosebush. It's awesome for rosebushes too. You could put them around them,
turn on the water just a littlebit because you just want to wet that
area, and then as plants getbigger, you can turn it on higher
and higher and it'll wet a largecircular area. I love those things.
Yesterday I was out at Wildbirds outat clear Lake. Had a great time

(35:58):
out there. By the way,Wilbirds at clear Lake that's there. This
is still part of their grand openingand today they're going to do the drawing
for the advanced pole system for theeasy squirrelproofing devices that they have. There's
advanced pole system and a couple ofothers. The eliminator eliminator bird feeder.
That is another good one. Andsomebody's going to win a twenty pound bag

(36:22):
of their no Mess bird seed blendeach month for the next twelve months.
So if you haven't, the drawingis on Monday. It's tomorrow, So
get in there, get your namein the pot. Who knows you might
get lucky and win this one.And in the meantime, going to wahbirds
is cool no matter where you live. And now I was out at at

(36:43):
the one at good night. Ican't even say clear Lake, clear Lake
yesterday, but they're wahbirds all overtown, seven of them. As a
matter of fact. Just go toWBU dot com. That's wu BU dot
com and if you would put aforward slash after that and then the word

(37:04):
Houston WBU dot com forward slash Houston. And by the way, this is
a little bit far ahead announced,but hey, we plan our schedules ahead.
On Saturday, June tenth, twosaturdays from yesterday, I'm going to
be at the wild Birds in Kingwood. I'll be out there for a couple
of hours. I'll talk a lotabout that next weekend. But if you
would live in the Kingwood area,Porter, New Caney, Humble anywhere,

(37:28):
Humble, anywhere up there. Justto consider Saturday, the tenth of June
as a day to come out.Let's meet, let's talk, and let's
let you see some really cool stuffthat the wild birds folks have on there.
I really really was inspired. Yesterdaythey had a this is funny,
but they had a little cork thingthat you put in your wine bottle and

(37:49):
it looks like a bird and whenyou pour wine, at chirps at you.
So that's a conversation piece. Idon't know why I picked that out
of all the things they have atthe store, I guess that was the
one amused me, amused me themost. And if you're not, if
you're not into birds, you needto think about it. Do you know
that gardening is a number one hobbyand guess what's number two? Bird watching?

(38:13):
Bird feeding? You know, justthe whole bird world. And when
you purchase quality products bird houses,bird feeders, and especially quality bird feed
not the cheap stuff that half ofit gets kicked on the ground and not
eating because the birds don't like thoseround, red baby looking seeds. But
the quality stuff that is a nomess. It just the birds number one,

(38:36):
get the exact kinds of seeds thatthey like. Each one has a
different type. But it's just it'sa blessing to watch. Time about sitting
on our patio, you know,I just sit out there, just watch
the feeder and see what's going on. My kids bought me a little bird
feeder with a camera and gave itto me for Christmas, and so I
get a little email every time abird comes to the feeder. I can

(38:57):
set it up that way. It'show I have set it up, and
it's kind of cool just be ableto watch it takes pictures and know this
is a little video of it aswell. But birdwatching is something that's grown
on me the over the past fewyears. And I just think consider combining
the two biggest hobbies in America,uh, the gardening and bird watching,

(39:19):
and put them together and one siton on a patio and just really enjoy
the beautiful birds and the antics thatare for birds on them. We'll be
back in a little bit seven onethree, two, one, two fifty
eight seventy four. Get on theboard. We'll talk to you first.
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorseany of the products or services advertised on

(39:43):
this program. Welcome to KTRH GardenLine with Skip Ricord. Just watching as

(40:08):
well. Good Sunday morning, ona good day to talk about gardening.
Good day this afternoon. Get outthere and do a little bit of gardening
out in the yard. Maybe thelandscape needs a little sprucing up. Get
that lawn mode for the weekends overif you need to do that. You
know, the more often you mowthe lawn, the prettier it is.
If you let it get tall,cut it way back, it's stressful to

(40:30):
the grass and you lack the density. And when you lack density, sunlight
hits the soil, and when sunlighthits the soil, nature plants of weed.
That's just kind of hot works outthere, unfortunately. So we try
to keep our lawns as dense aswe can, keep our flower beds mulched.
By the way, this is thetax free weekend for water conserving products

(40:50):
that that and plants. You plantstax free, the anything that helps conserve
water like compost and mulch, likedrip irrigation, tree hugger, sprinklers,
those are all on a tax freestatus for this weekend which ends today of
course, so if you if youhaven't been out and you know, tried
to chop for some of those thingsbefore, I think you should at the

(41:12):
very least get a hose end timerthat would you know, allow you to
set it and forget it, checkon it periodically. But it just it
just makes sense, you know,when to waste drinking water is a shame.
And I mean you pay for water, you say, many of the
water systems you pay for it asa water and that's what helps set the
sewer rate too. Even though it'snot going through the sewer, it's going

(41:35):
on your lawn. Still you usethe water, so it's it affects your
sewer cost rate in many communities aswell. So just another reason not to
waste the water that's out there.We're going to go out now and talk
to Elizabeth in Westbury. Hello,Elizabeth, good morning morning, Thank you,

(41:57):
Thank you so much. Um Yarddeveloped that black fungus grass on it.
Yes, and unfortunately I did sprayit with some fungicide, which I
found out you probably shouldn't. Yes, But my question is they everything said

(42:20):
you just leave it alone. Butmy big question is I have a dog.
What if she gets it on her? Paws. It won't hurt her
at all, not one bit.The black stuff is just some spores from
the fungus that are up there.It's producing those. And you're right,
it's not it's not a disease ofthe grass. What you're looking at is

(42:43):
something that lives on the grass.And it'll go away. You can take,
you know, Elizabeth, if youdon't like the looks of it,
or you don't want your dog havingit on the pause, just get a
water hose and set it to blastand just blast it right off. You
can wash it right off there.It tends to won't that spread the spores?

(43:05):
Well, here's the thing, it'snot gonna It's not gonna matter because
the the spores are already out there. A lot of our fungal problems are
to be used to the fancy wordubiquitous. They're everywhere, and so it's
kind of like, can think aboutit this way, Elizabeth, if you
were to take a little spray ofwater, a little mist of water,

(43:27):
and let's say the side of yourhouse you just constantly were missing it with
water, suddenly algae would appear,right uh. And it's not like the
algae where did the algae come from. Well, it's everywhere. It's just
you created conditions for it to grow. And that's what happens with these things
that pop up and go away,and especially the things that are sacrifices.
They are not parasites of the plant. I just don't worry about them.

(43:50):
It's just part of nature. Soit's it's not going to hurt the dog.
It is not going to hurt yourdog. It's not going to hurt
anything. But if you if youwant just take a water hole and blasted
off, you can do that anddog won't track it around. My second
question is that I have a pecantree. It's an old tree. It's
probably been years long as this house. And last year it did not produce

(44:16):
one single nut. Okay? Didit produce in other year's they had?
Yes, okay. So pecans areone of the plants that can do what's
called alternate bearing, and it becausethey ripen so late in the year,

(44:37):
you know they're a fall harvest.They're putting all their carbohydrates into making those
pecan kernels and they don't have enoughcarbohydrates to set a bunch of buds for
the following year. And so whenyou have a heavy crop year, it's
almost always followed by a very lightcrop year. There are other things that

(44:57):
can cause them to not produce wellin a particular year. But if you're
looking on the tree and you're justnot seeing pecans anywhere, it's some sort
of an alternate bearing thing going on, most likely because you know, the
neighborhood didn't change overnight where there's nowno longer other trees to send pollen through
the air to your pecon. It'sjust a matter of that's the nature of
the beast. Now. I nevergave it any fertilizer or anything, and

(45:24):
probably the only water it kits iswhen we get rain, and I don't
water the tree. Okay, somebodysaid maybe it needed some zinc if pecans
generally need zinc on high pH soils. But you can tell because instead of
normal shaped leaves, as the leavesare coming out, they'll be they call

(45:44):
a mouse eared, but kind ofpicture a mouse's ear and then picture a
pecan leaf and it looks more likea mouse's ear than a normal pecan leaf.
That's a zinc deficiency symptom. Idon't know. There's not a real
great practical way to put a zincon your tree. In this situation,
we can we can go deeper intoit, but just for the sake of
simplicity, you just need to giveit a good soaking when when we go

(46:07):
into hot, dry weather like wehad last summer, a good soaking every
couple of weeks, every couple ofweeks only, and not every day,
not every you know, just everycouple of weeks a good soaking. And
then if you're fertilizing your lawn,that's probably going to be enough for that
large it's a large pecondry. Yes, yeah, I think that would be

(46:27):
enough. You can give a littleextra for the tree if you want.
You can have somebody come in anddo a deep root feeding and put some
nutrient down in the soil too,But I think for now I would focus
on taking care of the lawn withfertilizer that'll help the pecan, and then
watering as a rescue, watering duringhot, dry summer conditions. I do
you there's a green probe people tofertilize and treat my yard. Oh well,

(46:53):
then you're you're set up. Andactually what had happen with the squirrels
last year did not get the consso we're not the nit tree. And
thank you so much, Skip.I really appreciate it, and I was
so concerned about that black grass andmy dog. All right, well you

(47:15):
can you can rest well, thanksfor the call. You know, it
is lawn fertilizing season, and nitrofossIn eighteen four ten is a good one
to apply. I mean it's afertilizer that releases slowly, so gradually,
over time you get the nutrients thatyour lawn needs released, so you're not
gonna have to fertilize again until fallif you use nitro foss Super Turf nineteen

(47:37):
four ten. That's in the silverbags, by the way. And where
do you find nitro foss Well,pretty much ever where you live. Kan
Emma, Ace Hardware and Kingwood hasit a task of seed as all the
Ace Hardwares are going to have it. You're gonna find it in places like
Shades of Texas up in the woodlands. You're going to find it at enchanted
gardens and chanted forest under Richmond Rosenbergnitro Foss Super Turf nineteen four ten.

(48:04):
Tell us why you had to padaway for so long? Tell us why
you had to p Well, goodmorning on a good Sunday morning. Oh
the sun is out, it's comingup. Got a little sunshine on the
on the skyscrapers of Houston. Seeit beautiful, beautiful day coming. You're

(48:30):
listening to garden Line. I'm yourhost, Skip Richter, and we are
here to answer your gardening questions.Our phone number seven one three, two
and two fifty eight seventy four ortwo and two kat r eight if you'd
rather spell it out. We're goingto head out to Spring Branch now and
talk to Judy. Well, goodmorning, Judy. Hi there, um.

(48:50):
I bought a peach tree yesterday andI know they are better planet in
the spring, but I want todo it now. What advice can you
give me? So slip it outof the hot Make sure the hole is
as deep as the soil and thecontainer, so like if you were to
pull it out of the pot andset it on the sidewalk or whatever.
And how tall is that column cylinderof soil. Make the hole about that

(49:13):
deep. You don't want to diga lot deeper because then it'll it'll settle.
And we want to plant at theexact same level that the soil is
on the trunk. So when youfinish planting. There shouldn't be more soil
around the trunk than there was whenit was in the container. Okay,
okay, Well, initially you knowyou're gonna you're gonna dig your hole and

(49:37):
use the soil from the hole togo back in the hole. If your
soil is a heavy clay, itactually would be good to bring in some
quality mix to create a little bitof a raised bed for it. But
it needs good drainage, it needsgood sunlight. If you want to have
peaches, I want to have aliving tree that's productive for you. So
those are probably the two most importantthings, as good sunlight and good good

(50:00):
drainage. How much should I watera new tree every week? So that
tree in the garden center is probablygetting watered every day, right, and
sometimes more than that depending on howbig it is. But so when you
put it in the hole, itall the roots are in that cylinder still,
and it can pump that dry ina day, and you may have

(50:21):
moist soil around it, but it'snot wicking in to the old to that
container soil fast enough, so youhave to do small waterings. That's why
I like that tree hunter sprinkler,because you can get the little seven inch
one, put it on there andturn it on a little bit, and
you just wet that area and helpit get roots into the soil around it.
And then gradually you're wetting a largerand larger area. But if you

(50:44):
can give it about a month ofmaking sure that that area at least stays
wet, then you'll be helping itget some roots in it so it's a
little more resilient. This first summeris the critical one for your new tree.
Okay, well that's good advice.Thank you so much. All right,
thank you. I appreciate that verymuch. If you're looking for a

(51:05):
quality soil mix, Nature's Way Resourcesis that if you're fortunate enough to live
up north forty five up toward Conroaddirection, just south of Conro is Nature's
Way Resources right where fourteen eighty eightcomes in, just across on the east
side of forty five. Now,they have every kind of soil mix you
can talk about. I mean thatthey have roast soil, leafmol composts,

(51:28):
and so on. They also havea two acre nursery and garden center.
One of the largest varieties of nativeplants in the Houston area. You can
buy fruit, trees, native perennials, houseplants, even seasonal vegetables. There
at nature's way. So don't justthink soil, think soil and native plants
and other non native plants as well. When you're talking about the opportunity to,

(51:50):
you know, look at a historicalleader in this industry. That would
be nature's way when we think aboutyou know, the original rad of the
rose soil here approved by the HoustonRose Society, the leaf mold compost leader.
That's nature's way. And so Ihope you will give them a call,
check them out, and while you'rethere, get some plants too.

(52:14):
I'm going to go out to theguard let's say it's going to League City
and talk to John V. Goodmorning, John V. Good Morrie Skip,
Good morning everybody. Yes, myquestion is on basket flower. I
received the seeds closed and closed atan Earth Day event? What city of
Lake City? Okay, and soit says plant from August November. And

(52:36):
my mother also got the seeds thatshe was very eager, so she actually
already planted hers. And I cansee the little bit of a greener you've
coming up already in the pot waitingto plant. Blind to August. Yeah,
I would. I think I'd wait. I'm what I'm wondering is if
we're truly talking about something called basketflower, or if you're talking about something

(52:58):
called love in a mist. That'salso it's the label on there. It
says basket flower. It looks asa picture on the lay on the envelope,
and it's purple, like a bloomlike purple, kind of white in
the center. Um a little bit, but it's all like a purple looks
like am okay, Yeah, that'sprobably a basket flower. That's an American

(53:21):
native wildflower. I would I wouldwait, and I would do it in
the fall. It would come upnow. But it really, like like
all of our fall biennials, theysprout in the fall and they go through
winter and then they come up andreally do their show, and you just
have a better result overall than tryingto plan them in the spring. Yes,

(53:44):
sir, And so I'm going toput them in a correct because I
saw them. They're like a light, very like onion peels. They're very
large and delicate. Yeah, well, yeah, you want to you want
to make sure that they have plentyof soil if you put them in a
pot because this plant can get fivefeet high, you know if you look

(54:06):
at and going in the bar ditchesand stuff. So they don't expect yours
to get that high in a container. I'm just saying the potential for the
plant is there. Sometimes you'll seethem and they're only a foot and a
half high, but in general,just make sure it's a sizeable enough container.
Okay, how exciting. Thank youso much, Skid, have a
wonderful Sunday, you do. Thankyou for the copy. I've been talking

(54:31):
about Dell Webb this morning and yesterdayas well. I don't know if you
know this, but they contact meabout helping them with their new Fullshire community.
They're putting in a community garden onthe site for residents. I mean
it's an awesome idea. You know. Dell Webb has been building these communities
for active adults age fifty five andbetter for over seventy years. They know
what they're doing. The new communityis less than two miles from downtown Fullshire

(54:54):
on three fifty nine. I thinkyou ought to check it out. Go
to Dell Webb with two bees,dellweb dot com, forward slash Houston for
more information or just call them twoeight, one four five nine zero six
zero nine. Let's go out toLakeside of States and we're going to talk

(55:14):
to Maureene this morning. Good morning, Marine, Good morning. I've moved
forward with planting my ocra, doingnice leats about two foot high. Some
of the plants the seeds, andso my question is, because I started
from seed, and I also startedmy watermelon from seed, I want to

(55:34):
get them off to a good start. Now. Already I have the microoft
which but they're in pellets. Yeah, Microsoft, I know what you're talking
about. Yeah, that's okay,Yes, I just couldn't get it out,
okay. So what I also haveis liquid kelp or seaweeds. So

(55:55):
because they started from just the seed, I want to make sure then I'm
fertilizing them the appropriate So I wasthinking of using the kelp because into a
liquid form and the plants could gettheir nourishment quickly. Yes, what I
would do is I would put downthe microlife kind of scratch it into the
sole surface around your ochra plants,just follow the label, and then I

(56:19):
would do the kelp as a sprayon top. The Microlife's gonna take a
little while to kick in. It'sa slow release, but with the warming
soil, that's going to start movingpretty fast. But right now, the
seaweed as just a or the kelpas a top spray would benefit the plant.
You could also drench it on theroots for a little faster results.

(56:42):
But that way you're taking care ofthem today for the next few days,
you know, and you're also gettingsomething in the soil that's on its way
to really giving them a boost afertilizer. Okay, and a part two,
so to speak. On the watermelon, I did get very good results
in one pot, in yucky resultsin a second pot. So I looked

(57:04):
at the soil and I think thatbecause they were pots, I might have
put ozma coat on one and nothingon the other. So it's kind of
a two part question, meaning Iwill do the same thing you just told
me to the oprah. If thatis correct from my watermelon seeds, Yeah,
but they are in pots and theyare so I'm going to let them

(57:25):
trail over the pot. I've runout of garden rooms so that the landscape
when he mows my lawn will nothave a problem. I have a very
large patio and I was going tolet them trail and run. Is that
okay? Yes, that's okay.You need a really big pot for watermelon.
It does not need to go througha drought for half a day.

(57:50):
Even so, when you water itit's pump. They use a lot of
water when they grow them in thefields. And when you're watering it in
the morning, you may water itagain in the afternoon. Just make sure
that pot never dries out because it'llabort flowers. You'll have something called blossom
end rot on the which rots theend of your watermelon fruit. So just
that's number one thing to keep inmind about. I have an automatic system.

(58:16):
It's not a drip, it's anactual I have lots of pots um
so I should be letting it runfor about how many minutes to watch some
of it drain out? Will thatbe a good indicator? Watching watching some
drain out is fine as long asit's not running. Like the soil gets

(58:37):
a little dry and pulls away fromthe side of a pot, and will
you water and it just runs aroundthe side, do you know what I'm
talking about? And runs off thetop down the side. Yes, that
would be water coming out of thepot, but that soiled and wet yet,
so with drip, that's probably notgoing to happen. But just you
know, dig down with your fingersa couple inches and make sure the soil
is moist. Okay, okay,thank you so much. Appreciate right,

(59:00):
Maureen, thank you. I appreciatethat call. I don't know if you
guys have heard of Star of Hope, but if you haven't, you need
to. I think we all considerourselves compassionate people. And you've probably been
in that situation where you pull upto a street corner someone's asking for money,
and you know you want to help, but you got some questions about
how that money might be used.If you want to get the most from

(59:21):
your dollar, give it to Starof Hope. You can go to Star
of Hope Mission dot org. It'sactually shmission dot org shmission dot org.
They feed more than six thousand mealsa week. They have a men's center
downtown. They have a Cornerstone Communityfor women and family development. They can

(59:42):
hold one hundred and eighty single womenin one hundred and thirty families. See
here's what's happens. People say Iwant to turn my life around, they
go to Star of Hope. They'vegot the training they need. They have
food, they have access to clothing, they have training for getting a job,
and even the clothing to look goodand be able to go get a
job to get back on their feet. Money well spent. Put your compassion

(01:00:02):
to action by giving to Star ofHope. Were good morning and a good
Sunday morning. You're talking about guardinggetting ready to go. I tell you
this afternoon, take advantage of it. We got a long week coming up

(01:00:27):
ahead, and you get to getout there and get ahead of things by
just pushing things up a bit,maybe just going out and getting into some
new new plants. I guess youknow. I talk about people often ask
me what's your favorite plant? AndI hate that question because all of them
I like all of them. ButI've talked about earlier my favorite group of
plants or Salvia's. If I hadto pick one, I would just say
Salvias. All the other plants thatI love are saying, hey, what

(01:00:52):
about us, Well, you mademe pick one. But when I say
favorite new plant, that's gonna bethe Cajun series of hibiscus. Now,
the tropical hibiscus is just an outstandingplan. You guys have seen him at
garden centers and things. But Iwas walking through our CW Nursery is a
good while back and it was thefirst time I'd encountered the Cajun hibiscus,

(01:01:13):
which I don't know where I've been, but there they were colors like you
cannot imagine. I mean, justI can't describe. I'm color challenged already
when it comes to descriptive words.But you need to see them. You
need to check them out, gobuy Rcwe haven't been there before. Cajun
hibiscus, you know, they they'vehit our area and they're a really popular
plan a lot of around town.A lot of people have fallen in love

(01:01:37):
with them. OURCW Nurseries dot Comis a website. It's that's the nursery
that's on Tomball Parkway Highway two fortynine where it comes into Beltway eight.
Check them out by the way.This weekend, Remember for all our garden
centers, this weekend is when wehave the tax free weekend for plants and
water saving supplies. So that's areason to go to r C. The

(01:02:00):
hibiscus is another reason to go.All the other plants or another reason to
go, and on top of it, off, that's not enough. They
got a fifteen percent sail on alltheir fruit trees and fifteen percent on select
other trees. And they have awide variety of other trees as well,
not every other tree, but onselect ones. But how many reasons is
that now piling up? To goto OURCW nurseries. But when you go

(01:02:22):
there, just say, hey,skip said go see the Cajun hibiscus,
and they will take you right tothem. We're you're listening to garden Line.
We're here to answer your gardening questions. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. In my homegarden, one thing that I really need

(01:02:49):
to do is to add more compostto the beds that you might have noticed
that you build a bed and youfill it with soil. We call it
soil, but it's basically, youknow, like a rose mix or a
vegetable and herb mix or something likethat. But then next year it's a
little lower, and the next yearit's a little lower. Same thing happens
in your containers because that organic matteris oxidizing way, it's on its way

(01:03:12):
to hum us think of it thatway, which is a good thing,
but you have to add more andfluff it up, and I need to
I need to do that, andI can't think of a better place,
especially for those folks that are downsouthwest Sandy Point or Cola, Iowa,
Colony, Fresno, Quil Valley,Sienna Plantation. That's CNA Mulch. Then
you go on line to Sienna mulchdot com, CNA mulch dot com and

(01:03:36):
see what I'm talking about. They'vegot the bulk soils, they've got the
bag soils, they've got the mulchesthat you need to put on the surface.
By the way, uh, youknow, mulch is the number one
way we fight weeds and the numberone way that we protect the soil.
Keep the temperatures moderate during the summertimereally important. While you're out at Sienna,
you can grab all the fertilizers whotalk about they have all of those

(01:03:59):
as well. Now they're closed onSunday, but they they're open Monday through
Friday seven thirty to five thirty andon Saturday seven thirty to two thirty.
They're on FM five twenty one nearHighway six and two eighty eight. Boy,
that area is growing like crazy.I guess you could say that about
a lot of areas around Houston,but a lot of new neighborhood's going in.
And you are fortunate if you livein that area to have a place

(01:04:20):
like Sna Malch by the way,for a small additional charge, they can
also deliver and drop it off foryou, So Sena Malch check them out.
But if your garden beds are settlingdown like mine are, it's time
to fluff them up a little bit, get some get some good material in
there. And we are fortunate inthe Houston area to have so many options
for really quality material our phone numberseven one three two one two five eight

(01:04:45):
seven four seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. We are
hitting the time when it's fixing toget really hot and then the stress and
the strain goes on our plants,and we need our plants to be in
the best health that they can.If you've got a tree, tree roots

(01:05:06):
reach widely out in all areas.I think one time when I was going
through school getting my degree and studyingfruits and nuts and things like that,
they said that a pecan root cango two and a half times the height
of the tree in all directions.So think about the size of a pecan
tree. Now imagine two and ahalf times that distance out. So there

(01:05:27):
are roots everywhere, but the majorityof roots the concentration where if you've gotta
you can't go to two houses downand water your neighbor's yard to water your
pecuntry. But if you can focuson the area underneath the branch spread of
the tree and maybe a little beyondthat and give it a good soaking.
When we're going through drought, focusyou're feeding in that area. Now,

(01:05:49):
to make things simple, just hireAffordable Tree Service to come out. They
are experts at taking care of yourtrees. They'll come out and you can
pay them to come out and ofa consultation. What needs to be trimmed
back, what needs to come out, what is perfect just the way it
is. And they won't oversell you. They're not going to do that.
They're going to tell you if youneed something and tell you if you don't

(01:06:10):
need it. You can go toaff Tree Service dot com or you can
give him a call seven one threesix nine nine two six sixty three.
Now, either Martin or his wifeJoe are going to answer the phone.
How many times you call a businessand the owner the owners Martin and Joe
answer the phone. If Martin andJoe don't answer, hang up. You've

(01:06:32):
called the wrong place with affordable inthe name. But they specialize in all
things from deep root feeding to fertilizingto pruning, trimming up trees, getting
ready for hurricane season. Afftree Servicedot com or you can call Affordable Tree
at seven one three six nine ninetwo six six three. I like to

(01:06:57):
I like to spend time out workingwith some of the flower beds and the
herbs and things. In fact,I got some plants that I need to
take home and get planted. Thepleasure of it, you know, it's
fun to go out to the nurseryand chop around and see those things.
You get to buy a plant andtake it home. But it's also just
a lot of fun, you know, to get out and plant them and

(01:07:17):
pamper them along and take care ofthem and celebrate when the next bloom pops
up on those flowers. If youneed the supplies for all the kinds of
things we're talking about, ACE Hardwaredot Com is the place to go find
your local ACE Hardware. They're nothard to find, thirty nine of them.
They're gonna have every fertilizer I talkabout on garden Line. They're going
to have a wide variety of pestcontrol management products. They've got herbicides and

(01:07:43):
things like that. They've got anawesome grilling section. If you are a
weekend warrior with a web or Triggor Big Green Egg and more, they've
got that. Their paint studio includesBenjamin Moore paint. In other words,
everything you would expect from a gardencenter. Ace Hardware dot Com, Ace
Hardware dot Com. Oh Mama,pay my girl to be at all.

(01:08:23):
He's a magic man. Good morningon a good day for gardening, as
all days are good day to talkabout gardening. We are here to answer
your gardening questions. If you'd liketo give Josh a call seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, he will get you on the board
and we can talk about whatever you'reinterested in regarding gardening. Let's go out

(01:08:44):
there now. We're gonna start innorthwest Houston and talk to Ralph. Good
morning, Ralph. Hey, Ralph. I'm gonna put you on hold and
see if we can get. Ican't here. Oh there you are,
there, you are? How areyou doing? My vis is a garden
and everything. You should have gota good program here. You know.

(01:09:06):
I'm fine about my country. Igot you got wat the works, I
got very fruit trees and everything,and I'm Gorden doing beautiful with your help.
Well knowledge, well and well,it just took watering thing. It's

(01:09:28):
just hard to get to without theuh you know, this rain has gotten
me all messed up. I gotto know more about water. And I'll
tell you, man, is itstaying too wet in your garden or what's
going on? Oh, I've gotto get the rain. Okay, Yeah,
you know, I don't know whetherit's just to keep a watering and

(01:09:49):
yeah, I guess I just keepa watering. You just have to,
you know, check your soil.See how it's doing. A big tree
like a pecountry, it's got rootsin a lot of places. And I
can tell you this. Pecans arenot struggling for water anywhere around the Eastern
area right now. We've we've hadenough over you know the last few months

(01:10:09):
that they're they're okay. A goodsoaking never hurts a Pecan, though,
so you know, get the sprinklers, drag them out there and turn them
on, and or if you gotan automatic system, just give it a
good soaking took you keep going,keep doing it. I got my may
hold, and I got my pigsand my pocons and my tears. You

(01:10:30):
know, Oh, you got afull time job, Ralph, you got
a full time job, mute.But it is a great this year and
everything. But you know, it'sjust it's just good. It is a
great hobby. But you know,and and uh, you're so much too,
so knowledgeable, and I really appreciateit. Well, Ralph, I

(01:10:53):
I think you appreciate the call.And yeah, gardening is a great hobby.
I mean, we stay busy andsometimes we have things to fuss about.
We we need something to fuss about, so usually it's the weather.
But anyway, I ta we're goingto go out to Kingwood now and talk
to Joe. Good morning Joe,Good morning Skip. I'd appreciate your advice
on when to put out the grubkiller, trying to keep the feral hogs

(01:11:18):
away mainly, and then also thearmadillos. Is it when the you start
seeing dead June bugs on your drivewayis that too late and you'd put it
out when you start seeing the armadillosdigging up in your beds or were is
the right time to put it out? Well? The armadillo, the armadillo

(01:11:40):
is it could be a sign ofgrubs. It could be a sign a
lot of other things too. There'sother things they dig up, like earthworms
and feed on. So it doesn'tnecessarily mean that it is. You know
that you have grubs, but thatis that can be a sign as far
as grub killers are concerned. Whenthe things come out that we call jim
bugs, they really should be callingthem may bugs around here right then,

(01:12:02):
when those come out, that's asign that they're going to be out there
laying eggs. And what happens isthe eggs hatch, and after the eggs
hatch, the larva feed near thesurface for a while and when it starts
to get hot, they go downdeep. And when they go down deep,
we're not going to be able toget a successful treatment of insecticide down

(01:12:28):
to reach those grubs. So here'shere's what's here's what's happening that we want
them to hatch out. We wantto get as many hatched out as we
can, and then we want toapply our product before they go down deep.
So that's that's kind of the signsof it what we're looking at.
I would say that I wait untilyou know those those mating flights that you're

(01:12:49):
seeing around you see the bugs outthere flying around your your lights at night
and stuff, then go ahead andput the application down. That should be
sometime in June. Some products lastlonger than others. Some insecticides just you
know, go right into the plantthey do their stuff, or into the
soil and they do their stuff andthat's it. Others stick around a little

(01:13:12):
bit. A meta cloprid is agrub control one of many products for grub
control that sticks around a little bitlonger in the plant. But this would
be the time to stop them ifyou've if you've had a problem with those
over the years. So when youstart seeing them dead on the driveway,
wait a little bit, or isthat about the right time to start putting

(01:13:32):
them just a little bit when youknow the very first ones again, we
want them to get all their eggslaid. You don't want a treat,
especially with a product that's not goingto stick around. You don't want a
treat and then there's still June bugsout there flying around and laying eggs.
We'd like to get that egg layand done. So that's why I usually
say toward the end of June,mid mid to late June is usually a

(01:13:57):
pretty good time to do that.Now, every years different, so using
the calendar to predict insects as alittle iffy for the years. Yeah,
and then product another one in addition, tomate a clop dialogue dialogues is another
one. I think. I don'tknow. Dialox isn't as common of insects
sight and I don't know the label, but if it's labeled for use on

(01:14:18):
the lawn for grubs, that wouldbe fine. Yeah. Yeah, it's
by advanced drug killer pluses. Okay, Yeah, sounds like it sounds like
it'll work. Yeah, okay,skip. Thank you for your help.
All right, thank you. Iappreciate that call. Let's go to pair
Land. We're going to talk toDon. Good morning, Don, Good

(01:14:39):
morning, how are you. I'mwell? Thank you, that's good.
That's good. I planted a rosebusher last week in the lawn in my
flower would bed, and I waswondering, how long do I need to
wait before I put off my rosefood on me. Usually I give plants,
you know, at least a coupleof weeks to get settled in and

(01:15:00):
start growing. There's no rush,but there's also no harm being done to
go ahead and put it out.You're gonna put the rose food out in
a wider area than just that littlecylinder of soil that you had when you
got the plant out of the pot, right, So you're gonna go a
little wider than that in the areayou treat, and those nutrients will be
down in the soil and as therose starts to send its roots out that

(01:15:23):
they'll be available to it. Youmight start with a little light application now,
maybe three weeks later, do anotherlight application, just kind of gradually
feed it over time and encourage good, good rapid growth. Okay, Yeah,
and don't don't forget the watering ifit turns dry that Oh oh no,
I've been water in an area theother day. Yeah. And yes,

(01:15:47):
and also before to fertalize out,should I water the plant first,
then put the food out? No, you put the you put you put
the food out and wash it inwith an irrigation that are scratched into the
soil surface. If you're if you'reable to do that, if you have
a bed around it like that.But just remember that that cylinder dries out

(01:16:11):
fast. When I say cylinder,I mean the soil that the rose came
with. That dries out fast becauseall the roots are there, They pump
all the water out quick. Somake sure and keep that moist. Don't
overdo it, but keep that moist. And once the rose gets roots in
the soil around it, then youdon't have to worry about that. Okay,
all right, all right, thankyou, all right, mo hey,
thanks for the call. Appreciate thatvery much. We're going to run

(01:16:32):
out to spring and talk to moHello, mo Hi, me. My
neighbors are going around about plants.Okay. He went to alberghee by all
kinds of cheese, nice throwing themout in the damn street, and I
pull most of them back in onmy property. Sounds like the hell you

(01:16:54):
got some? Are they still alive? Yeah? Uh summer peace cheese.
It says piece trees, lemon trees, apple trees. And one says,
uh pair, oh my god.Okay, Well get him in the ground
as quick as you can. It'sgonna be touching. Go if they were
pulled out of the ground. It'sgonna be a little touching go as to

(01:17:15):
whether they know they're in buckets.They were thrown out in buckets. Yeah,
he wouldn't bought buckets of trees.And then he didn't his wife didn't
like them, so okay, andshe didn't even like the tomato plants he
bought, so I got those.All right, Well go for him,
I mean, take care, justmake sure and add him to your Christmas

(01:17:35):
list for all those nice free plants. Yeah, I say. And then
he threw at this this uh tenfort something back of Stephanid goes on the
ground. It's in a silver bag. Okay, oh nineteen two. Wow,

(01:17:55):
it's a nitrified silver bag. That'sthat's like gold. Hang on to
that. Hey, we're gonna we'regonna winder. He through seven of those
bags away. Oh my gosh.All right, well don't I don't have
any I don't have any words onthat one. Hey, I gotta go.
We're going. Yeah, I'm gonnasave it and you can tell me
later on how to put it out. All right, Mo, we gotta

(01:18:18):
go to break. Thanks for thecall. I appreciate that. Sounds like
you went into a gold mine.Well, you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter,and we're here every Saturday from six to
ten and every Sunday for six toten, eight hours of garden Line each
weekend. There's no excuse to notbe able to listen to some of that,
right if you want to give usa call seven one three two one

(01:18:41):
two fifty eight seventy four, oryou can say it this way two one
two ktr H Josh will get youon the boards and when we come back
from our break, you will bethe first ones up. In the meantime,
I just want to remind you twoweeks from now, I'm gonna be
out at the wild Birds Unlimited inKingwood. That's Saturday, June tenth.
Saturday June tenth. I'll talk aboutit more next weekend, either from eleven

(01:19:03):
thirty to one thirty, So Ihope you'll kind of schedule your weekend around
being able to come by and seeme. And when you do, you're
gonna see why we talk so highlyof Walberg's Unlimbeth on this show a major
storm. KTRH. Garden Line doesnot necessarily endorse any of the products or

(01:19:25):
services advertised on this program. Welcometo KTRH Garden Line with Scarre Rictord.
Just watch him as well. Goodmorning, great day outside, nice Sunday

(01:19:55):
morning out. This is the lastday of this weekend, meaning it's the
last day of that opportunity to avoidpaying your state tax on the water saving
plants, soils, composts, deviceslike treher or sprinklers, drip irrigation hose,
end timer and on on and on. So this is the time you

(01:20:17):
want to get out there. It'skind of like having a little bit of
a sale. You don't have topay that extra what is an eight point
something percent or whatever that is.Uh, we're going to head out first
to Spring Branch this morning and we'regoing to start with David. Hello David,
good morning. So os mister Rictoron each your help. I have
a u it just overnight came out. It was like a my para tree

(01:20:43):
has a web web worms. Igot just worms. I don't know what
they're called. Where they have aweb surrounding the part of the outer branch
that they're in. There's about twospots in my para trees and it's full
of paris. Okay, you knowwhat yeah, but I should do.
Yeah, I've been seeing those breakout. I saw some on some wild mulberry
that the birds had planted and theywere starting to cover up with those.

(01:21:08):
You got a couple of options.Peartree. How big is it? First
of all, it's probably like abouttwelve years old, and it's probably like
around tall. Okay, way waytoo high to reach, that's for sure.
Uh. You know, when youbreak up the webs wasp which are
their number one food is caterpillars,they will start going in there and they'll

(01:21:29):
find them and they will start haulingthem away. But what I would suggest
gets some kind of a long poleif you can are a very hard stream
of water to break up as muchof the webbing as you can and then
spray it with either a product containingBT which is a wormed a caterpillar disease,
or a product containing spinosaid, whichis an organic fermented product that's made

(01:21:53):
from soil microbes. So both ofthose are organic products, and they both
of them work very well against caterpillaris feeding on your plant. And by
the way, I can reach theweb one on me like a ry ten
feet tall, but I will I'lltell you if you're not squeamish and they're
down that low. I probably justreach up in there and strip the webs
out by hand and then squirt thesquirt the leaves are feeding on because both

(01:22:17):
of those products, they need toeat the product, So spray it on
the leaves and that that'll do it. BT, you're probably gonna need to
spray it about every three days fora little while, just if in your
new ones hatch out and so on, Spinosa. It soaks into the tissue
and it lasts a little bit longer, so that that's kind of part of
the decision. I guess, okay, I certainly will. All right,

(01:22:40):
Well, thank you so much.I appreciate your call. I hope that
is very very helpful for you.Let's head now out to Austin County and
we're gonna talk to Doris this morning. Good morning, Doris, good morning.
How are you. I'm doing well? Thank you good. I have
to tomato bushes that have huge meatoeson them, but they don't seem to

(01:23:04):
want to ripen. Okay, well, they will just give them some time.
Once they hit they hit a maturestage. But they're still green,
but they've hit the maturity stage.And after that they start that ripening process.
If they're all the way to themature stage, you can pick them,
bring them inside, set them onthe counter, and they will finish

(01:23:24):
ripening. And some people do thatwhen they're worried about mocking birds, and
some are squirrels coming in and ruiningthe show. But otherwise, just leave
them on the on the plant.They will ripen. They won't just stay
green forever. Unless it's one ofthe very very few varieties that actually is
a green tomato. I don't thinkit is. Yeah, I don't think

(01:23:45):
so either, And I don't knowwhy they even have those. Well that
that would be confusing, wouldn't it. Yeah, just be a little patient
with it, you know, ifI knew, I knew that it was
mature. You know, when yousay full size, it's getting close to
them, sure there, but whenvery big, okay, well, when
it starts to blush a little bit, if you want again for the birds

(01:24:06):
and squirrels, you can go aheadand bring it in, let it ripen
on the counter, and they willtaste a very good, very very good.
Okay, thank you so very much, you bet, and thank you
for the call too. If youhave not tried the arbor gates one two
three punch the one two three completelyeasy system. It's an organic system.

(01:24:29):
So what they give you is theyhave a food that feeds anything with roots,
and that would be the four fourthree. It is going to have
organic matter. It's got to haveall the nutrients, the trace minerals,
the main ones we look for aswell the main nutrients, a slow release,
it's a quality product. The secondwould be the organic soil complete.
Now that is made with certainly withcomposts and also large particle sand and expanded

(01:24:55):
shale. So when you work thatinto a bed, the organic matter is
going to continue to decompose and headtoward humus, but you have that shale
component that you've added in which ishelping to hold the soil, keep it
open. And then finally, theorganic compost complete, high quality. It's
two different types of composts blended togetherright before they bag it, so it's

(01:25:15):
got a lot of beneficial microbe diversityin it. It's well balanced too,
with the micronutrients macronutrients you need likenitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, but also
the micronutrients that you need. Sothe organic one two three completely easy Blend
from Arbourgate. You can go toArbourgate dot com and learn more about it
and learn more about Arburgate Garden Centeras well. I want to talk about

(01:25:41):
a place that is important to me. I mean it's a it's a personal
thing, and that's Star of HopeMission. My wife and I volunteered for
Star way back years ago when welived in the in the Houston area,
and it's it makes a difference inpeople's lives. We see homeless people around
on all the time and how dohow do you help? How do you
put that compassion to work? Well, you do it through Star of Hope.

(01:26:05):
Now write down this email Shmission dotorg. When you give to Star
of Hope, just two dollars andeighty cents is a meal that's like a
cup of coffee. They serve morethan six thousand of those meals a week.
But people that move in with Starof Hope, they have one year
to go through the trainings for education, how to get a job, how

(01:26:27):
to deal with substance abuse. Itdoesn't cost them a penny. They even
provide clothing for them and help themgo out and get a job. You
know, if you fall on hardtimes, maybe you want to get a
job, but you don't have acar to get around to do it,
or to show up regularly to work. Star of Hope changes lives. It's
money well spent. It makes adifference. Put your compassion to work.

(01:26:48):
Go to Star of Hope Shmission dotorg. We're gonna take a break it
is. Let's see. I giveyou a phone number. We've got some
room on the boards if you'd liketo call in seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Joshwill get you on the board, and
Carolyn and Spring Branch we will bewith you first thing when we come back

(01:27:13):
of the seas. Good morning ona great day for gardening. This is

(01:27:33):
called Chamber of Commerce. Weather thatwe're enjoying out there. So I hope
you have a little opportunity this afternoonget out and do a little bit of
gardening yourself. That's it's the mosttherapeutic thing that I can think of.
And that's that's not just my opinion. I mean, there's so much research
to talk about the benefits of gardeningon our health. Certainly physical benefits you're

(01:27:57):
getting out, staying active and soon, got incredible benefits for mental benefits
as well, for example, fightingdepression with kids ADHD. They're actually looked
at kids exposure to plants and beingout in nature and things like that.
Done research studies and found that beingaround plants and that way hasn't an impact

(01:28:21):
on the ADHD or add that achild would have. So gosh, how
many reasons do we need to getout and have a good time in the
garden. Let's head out to springBranch. First thing here and we are
going to visit with Carolyn this morning. Good morning, Carolyn, Good morning.
So Hi, step I just wantedto thank you. I was listening

(01:28:43):
to Central Texas Gardener on Channel eightyesterday morning and you were on there and
you were talking about the beneficial insectsand you were talking about how the apids
of the insects eat them as wait, the eggs of insects the larva.
I think, yeah, I'll getit right in a minute. Yeah,

(01:29:04):
yeah, Anyway, it was reallygood and I especially like the idea of,
uh, putting tops of plants aroundyour garden that attract these you know,
good intakes right that they can youknow, have lots of time to
make little ones and eat the apits, right, Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, Angela Agender, I thinkit calls out an insectory garden. I've

(01:29:26):
seen some really cool stuff she's puton the web about that and when you
when you, if you build it, they will come. How about that.
That's a good way to put it. I didn't know. I didn't
know Central Texas Gardener was running those. That's a for those around here who
don't aren't familiar that that is aTV show on the public TV in Austin,
Texas. But it comes on athirty in the morning Saturday mornings.

(01:29:49):
Interesting, Okay, I recorded.I guess, I guess I've become a
rerun so whatever that whatever, goo, I appreciate. I appreciate the call.
Thank you so much. Really,you're welcome and a good day you
bet bye bye bye. You takecare. If you are looking for a
quality soil mix, you're you're youdon't need to look further than Heirloom Soils

(01:30:14):
of Texas. And by the way, that's the website Airloom Soils of Texas
dot com. I don't care whatkind of soil you need. Do you
need a ROAs soil? Do youneed a vegetable vegetable and herb Blend.
I was talking about that earlier.Do you need a potting mix to go
into containers? They've got it all. Now. You can go online to
Airloom Soils of Texas dot com.They've got an Heirloom Soils qubic yard calculator

(01:30:36):
where you can you can say thingslike, okay, how many wheelbarrows is
in a qubic yard? You know? Or I've got x inches or feet
by x inches or feet by andhow much composts do I need? And
boom, it tells you right then, right then, and there. They've
got those super sacks. They canbring certain ones of their mixes right out

(01:30:57):
to you in a big bag,set it on the on the driveway,
and it holds a cubic yard.And that's a super clean and easy way
to go about it. But airlinSels of Texas you're not going to go
wrong. Super quality, super quality. We're going to head out to a
tes casita right now and talk toCarol. Hello, Carol, Hello,
good morning, good morning. Ihave a question about no SEM mosquitoes.

(01:31:21):
Do you have any solutions to getright of them? Well, I'm I
always think of no sms as somethingyou see that you get down on the
coast in some areas that now,the mosquitoes themselves are quite a problem,
and these are not These are notregular mosquito. Okay, these are little,

(01:31:41):
tiny biting bugs. Oh. Idon't have a solution for them.
Maybe somebody has an idea on that. But you know, they're not on
your plants where you spray your plants, or at least you don't know where
they are when they're resting on plantssomewhere. I guess do the repellents not
work? The mosquito repellents? Lastyear I was told to put bathron on
my lawn, which I did.It didn't help a bit. Try everything

(01:32:09):
I've read about and heard about,but I can't find anything, and they
just take they take me over whenI go outside. Yeah, I'm gonna
look into that a little bit.That's outside the horticulture world, so I
am definitely no expert on that atall, But I'll see if I can
find anything. But yeah, thebifan thrin is a good persistent insecticide in

(01:32:29):
the lawn, but I doubt thatno cms are coming from there. Maybe
wrong about that. I've been toldthey're real bad about Azellua bushes and I
have a lot of azala bushes.Okay, Well I'll look into it,
Carol, thank you for the call. Sorry, we can give you a
good solution on that. But I'llsee if I can find that. Okay,
I have one of the quick questions. Have a lot of high biscus
plants, and I have one.The foliage is gorgeous, but it will

(01:32:51):
not bloom. I feed it justlike I do all my others, but
no blooms. Well, be carefulthat you're not overdoing the night hitrogen on
it. You need a good balancedfood and you know the hibiscus food.
And yesterday I was giving out someof the Nelson products out at wild Birds
and they have a really nice qualityof hibiscus food. But when you look

(01:33:13):
at the numbers, it's not likeoverdoing the nitrogen on it. That would
be one thing. Good sunlight,of course, is important. Lots of
sunlight is important. I don't knowwhat else would keep it from blooming.
Maybe we got some hibiscus experts thatcould call in and give us a thought
on that one. But anyway youget the idea of it, Just be

(01:33:35):
patient and watch that high nitrogen.All right. Thank you for your help.
All right, Carol, thank youso much for the call. You're
listening to garden line. All right, let's see, I'm your host,
Skip Richter in our number seven onethree, two, one two five eight
seven four two one two fifty eightseventy four. Perhaps you used a pre

(01:33:57):
emergent herbicide in the spring, whichis a good idea for all the warm
season weeds, but those don't lastforever, and so we hit this season
and it's time to consider a secondapplication as a follow up. So as
those products break down in the soil, which they will, then you do
another application to continue that protection againstweed seed germination on into the summertime,

(01:34:24):
and that would be a product calledbarricade. Barricade is a nitro foss product.
It controls both broad leaf and grassyweeds, but it's not going to
kill the weeds you already have growingin your lawn. What it's going to
do is prevent any weed seeds fromgerminating. So if you're still struggling to
get that lawn back dense again whereit chokes out most of those weeds,
this is a time where in themeantime, using a barricade a product will

(01:34:47):
work. You can find it atPlants and Things and Brunham DND Feed and
Tamba has barricade and K and Ma side in Kingwood another place where you
can find barricade from nitrofoss. Ifyou happen to live up in the area
around Magnolia, Tomballs Magnolia area upthat way, Spring Creek Feed is a

(01:35:09):
wonderful opportunity to go and find theproducts we talk about and friendly staff,
courteous staff, and all of theother things that you might need, like
your pet foods, your livestock foods, wildlife feed. They even have a
grooming center. You can go toSpring Creek Feed. They're located in Magnolia
on FM twenty nine seventy eight.So up in Magnolia FM twenty nine seventy

(01:35:33):
eight Spring Creek Feed and you canbuy all of that kind of stuff.
If you happen to be in FAor four h or if you're a military,
if you're a senior citizen, there'sdiscounts for all of it, all
of you and if you don't seewhat you need, they will special order
products for you. So the thingswe talk about on garden Line or there

(01:35:54):
and anything you need just ask themand they will try to special order it
for you as well. I thinkwe'll head back out to the phone right
now, and we are going togo to Baytown and talk to Robert.
Hello, Robert. Okay, Ihave his wife. Oh, we have
hello, Robert's wife. Okay.We have a spot in the front garden

(01:36:18):
that okay, rob us here.We have a funglish problem. We had
a satsuma, it was infected byit. We cut it down, and
now we planted a peach tree andsure enough he got it again. What

(01:36:41):
can we do well, ma'am,that's a little too generic for me to
be able to tell you, becauseI'm still not clear there. I cannot
think of a disease that attacks satsuma'sand peaches, so you may have more
than one thing going on. Couldyou take some pictures of that tree from
a distance so I can see thewhole tree, and then close up of
leaves or anything that when you sayyou have a fungus on it, show

(01:37:04):
me a good, well focused picturethat I can put you on hold and
Josh can get you an email whereyou can send that in and I'll be
happy to take a look. Okay, hold on Herebert he can tell you
a little bit more. Okay,Um, we know we have brown rock
because when the when the pies didcome, only as they started rick on,
they started rock with yes with fungicide, and the bark has some splits

(01:37:32):
in it. Okay, yeah,the splits in the bark could be natural
as the tree gets older. Butif they're on the southwest side of the
tree and they're very deep fissures inthe bark down even to the inner wood,
that is damage from cold in thewintertime. It strikes the southwest side

(01:37:54):
of the tree. So as faras the brown rock, you have to
spray preventively your fungicide. Don't waittoo you see it, You just have
to be out there ahead of it, because it will ruin the show and
most importantly any rotten fruit. Pickit up. If anything is left dried
hanging on the tree, that mummyis full of spores to infect again later.
So cut those out, do thatsanitation and lower your problems with the

(01:38:19):
brown Right, you want to eradicateit, but at least you won't be
as bad. It won't be asbad if we get that email worse pictures.
All right, I'm gonna put youon hole right now. Hang on
and let's see we will get Joshto take care of that. Um,
let's see, we're going to headout to League City and talk to Barbara.
Hello, Barbara, good morning,Yip, so good to hear your

(01:38:41):
voice. Question. I came homeafter being gone for a few weeks,
and my tomato plants are covered inholes, tiny holes. They look like
pincushions. Okay, okay, andI can't find any critters on it.
All right. The holes are toosmall to be snails. They're all the
way up to the top. Iknow exactly what you're talking about. That's

(01:39:02):
a little beetle doing that. Andif there's still enough foliage left to say,
find a product with spinosaid. It'sSPI n O s A D.
It soaks into the tissues, soyou know, day or two after you
spray, a beetle shows up andeats a leaf and it kills it.
But I'm having to head to breakhere. We got about a minute left.

(01:39:24):
But did that. I just gota pen. Could you spell that
again for me? You bet?SPI n O s A D spinosa Okay,
great, thank you you're my hero. Well, hey, well that
was easy, Thank you very much. I appreciate the call. There,
Barbara, you're listening to the GardenLine. I'm your host, Skip Ricter,

(01:39:45):
and the phone number is seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We're going to head tonews now, but if you will give
Josh a call, he'll get youon the boards. Nikki, did you
know that spinosa is made by fermentinga soil? Micro isn't that interesting?
That is fascinating. And see youstart talking about a little beetle and my
mind goes right to ringo. Yeah, that's funny. I'm kind of a

(01:40:09):
horticultural Cliff Claven. Also, theyfound it on the islands in the Caribbean
and brewery waste or no sugarcane somethingwaste. So yeah, and here we
are with a wonderful organic product.Wow. Sometimes you want to go all

(01:40:34):
right, gosh, I get it, Cliff Claven. Those of you who
have never watched Cheers, you misseda lot number one. Cliff Claven,
he's a no at all. Heknows everything. Well, let's put it
this way. He thinks he knowseverything. But thank you for the music.
Oh gosh, best Meilvan Ever.You're listening to Garden line. I'm
your host, Skipwrecter, not CliffClaven, although I could at times be

(01:40:57):
a horticultural Cliff Clayvin some one threetwo one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eightseven four. Let's head to northwest Houston
and we're going to talk to Paula. Hello, Paula, good morning.
I have an answer for that ladywho's plagued with mosquitoes. She said,
she may not plagued with no seemsa little different creature, but oh I

(01:41:24):
thought mosquitoes. Yeah, well,what's your mosquito? Oh I'm sorry,
I'm just understood. That's okay.We kind of bounced around with both of
those. What's your mosquito remedy?Well, I'm retired, so I Gordon
every day. In fact, I'mstanding out here in my yard right now.
I've been dead hitting flowers and likeI said, she may not want

(01:41:45):
to hear it's this, but I'mliterally covered from head to toe. I've
got a sunhet on, I've gota mosquito net under the sunhet. I've
got a T shirt on. I'vegot a light weight long sleep men shirt
over that. I've got lightweight,long pants, which and I'm wearing socks
and with my Gordon clogs clogs.It's so funny because I see the mosquitoes

(01:42:11):
like buzzing around my head. Yeah, of course they can't get to me
because I got the mosquito net on, which is I think ninety nine cents
at wal Mart or something, soit's back of a deal. Well,
very good. Sounds like you're you'rebundled up. Well that's good. Protect
you that lu stuff. Protect yourskin too, which you know the effect
of the sun's rays at up overtime, so it's always a good idea

(01:42:31):
to protect your And then in thesummertime, I have um coal packs that
I put I've got one that goesunderneath my hat, and then I've got
that goes around my neck, soit all works. You sound like I'm
picturing like a polatoon of army peoplegetting ready to go to battle, and
you're just heading outside the garden.I know, but it's a battle with

(01:42:54):
these mosquitoes, right yeah, allright, well, hey, thanks for
okay, thanks for that tip,Paul, I appreciate shot the call.
Yeah, the phone number seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four
and by the way, I,Carol, I've during break I kind of
checked this out, and I alwaysgo to research based websites. This is
information I found was from the Universityof Florida Extension and they basically there's not

(01:43:18):
a lot you can do for nosums. They do say that DEET should
be helpful, but they don't reallythrow all their eggs into one basket on
the DEET either. I think probably, you know, other than just nuke
in the yard all the time,which is not really going to help.

(01:43:39):
I don't think there seems to bea really good noseum control out here.
And I've again been perusing all thesethings trying to figure them out for those
of you who don't know what theyare, which I was only vaguely familiar
with them. They're basically a littlelike a little tiny flying midge. A
midge is something when we say tiny, imagine let's see what would be this

(01:44:02):
tiny almost the size of like apoppy seed. But we're you know,
but the size of the end ofa pencil, the lead, the width
of that. That's about how bigthese things are. And that's why there
are no SEMs. You can't seethem. Kind of gross. I could
read to you what they do andwhy they cause a problem. But I
don't know, lunch is coming upfor too long and I don't want to

(01:44:24):
do that to you. Yeah,we need a good no sum remedy.
It sounds like if you are,if you're interested in finding out better ways
to have success with your shrubs andyour trees, maybe you're doing a hedge.
I want to give a couple oflittle tidbits of advice that I think

(01:44:44):
may be hopeful for you. Ifyou want a hedge to be a screen.
Number one, you want to bean evergreen so that it's also a
screen in the summertime, as Imean in the wintertime as well as in
the summertime. When those hedges,you want to get them up high enough
wherever you sit or stand or whatever, you don't see what it is across
the hedge that you don't want tosee, or vice versa people seeing in

(01:45:10):
You know, maybe you got theneighbor who's got the car up on blocks
in the backyard or likes to sunbathein his speedo and his speedo years were
about three decades ago. Well,you know, you need to get some
type of a good hedge, butjust high enough. It doesn't have to
be twenty feet high unless you're tryingto block a two story building or something
or the view of it, buthigh enough to do that. You always

(01:45:31):
want to keep the hedge where allparts of the hedge get sunlight top to
bottom. So depending on the orientationof the hedge and the traveling of the
sun through the sky, just thinkkeep that in mind. I always say
keep the top of the hedge alittle narrower than the base because all these
hedge plants try to grow top heavy. The top wants to expand out and

(01:45:56):
then you end up with an umbrellaof foliage and down below it's all bare.
And once you lose the foliage downlow, it is very hard to
get it back short of just cuttingthe hedge way way back and kind of
starting over on rebuilding it. Soalways keep the top narrower, so most
of your pruning is going to beup at the higher parts of the hedge.
It's not going to be as muchto do down low. But where

(01:46:18):
it gets good sunlight, you getgood growth, you get good density.
So that's just a tip. Ifyou're interested in having a success with a
hedge, you know when you're whenyou're planting trees and taking care of trees,
the first season is critical. Numberone. Planting correctly is critical.
And I'm not going to go intoall of that right now, but that

(01:46:40):
first summer season is a tough onebecause that tree had it grown in the
spot where you've now planted that tree, had it come up from a seed
and grown there, there'd be rootsall over the place, reaching way out
in all directions. But now you'vebought it with this little cylinder of roots
all wrapped around and you put itin the ground, so it takes time
for those roots to get out.First critical summer is really important. You

(01:47:03):
know. I talked about using asprinkler that goes around the tree and that
provides and call them tree huggers,provides water right there. It can provide
water right there at the base,or water or a bigger area. You
can also put a little berm ofsoil around a tree, a little wider
than the root ball, just forthe early on, making sure that you

(01:47:24):
know, you fill the berm upand it allsokes straight down in there.
That's also a good strategy because yougot to keep that dried. It pumps
dry really fast. Once roots startto get in. Then regular watering is
the secret through the rest of thatfirst year, making sure you support those
roots. So it's one thing thatkeeps the tree alive, it's another thing

(01:47:45):
to get it growing. And ifit's a shade tree or a tree like
that in your yard, you wantit to be big enough to hang a
hammock in as fast as possible,So that means good early growth. And
it's important to fertilize, but Ithink people don't realize that, and it
comes to supporting fast growth, wateringprobably plays a bigger role than fertilizing,
as important as fertilizing is, andso adequate watering is really important if you

(01:48:11):
want to do that. Hey,you're listening to garden Line. We're about
to take a break our phone numberseven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you want togive Josh Cook, get on the boards,
and those of you who are onthe board right now, we'll be
getting back to you first when wecome back from break. Look they do

(01:48:40):
look ye good, A good Sundaymorning. I hope you are enjoying the
day as much as I am.Already suns out Guy's blue really looks good
out there. Good day to getout and do some gardening. It's also
good day to call into garden Linethe phone number seven one three two one

(01:49:02):
two fifty eight seventy four. Andwe are going to head out to Katie
now and talk to John. Hello. John, Hey, how are you
doing. I'm well, thank you. So a few years ago a bird
deposited mulberry seed. Mulberry tree isgrowing about four feet away from my house
and the utilities man, and I'mwanting to cut it down because it's it's

(01:49:28):
getting fairly tall. Wife says,not so much. Keep it. Let
the birds eat the berries. What'syour thoughts? All right? John,
I gotta tell you a gardening adviceon garden Line is free. Marriage advice
is one hundred dollars an hour.So I don't know if you want to
go. I don't know if Iwant to wade into the big middle of
that. Seriously, I'm not afan of mulberries because of the reason.

(01:49:49):
You you know, birds eat theseed and they drop them everywhere, and
they come up in the fence linesand everywhere the bird stops, you know,
they just land on something and withone quick flick the tail, they've
planted and fertilized a mulberry seed,so I would I wouldn't keep them,
but everybody, it's your yard.You're you're in your wife's yard, and

(01:50:11):
so it's up to you guys asto whether you want to keep it or
not. But just know that you'rejust gonna have more of that going on.
Mulberries can be a little messy andthe birds end up getting most of
them. I've had a mulberry tree. My neighbor had it across the fence
in the backyard and it would loadup and I always thought, yeah,
the branch is hanging over this way, I may have me a mulberry.
But the birds came in and cleanedthem out. So the one reason you'd
have it seems like the birds arekind of taking that away from us.

(01:50:35):
I don't know if that helped.One question I did have is regards to
regards to the root system and theutilities, meant, is there any possibility
of damage there or being really closeto the foundation for house as well?
You said it was four feet away. Correct, It's not gonna damage your

(01:50:58):
foundation like it would damage going underneaththe sidewalk and lifting it up. But
what it will do is there'll bea proliferation of mulberry roots there around the
house, because that's a cool,moist area, especially if you don't have
gutters in the house. But it'sstill and they pump the soil dry and
so our soils shrink and swell,and that's how we get a damage to
the foundation. And the tree rootsthere are part of the problem there.

(01:51:21):
I think four feet from the houseis way too close. You're gonna have
limbs rubbing the eaves, rubbing theshingles and so on. Yeah, if
ever mine, I would get ridof it. Okay, appreciate it,
all right, thank you for appreciatethat. If you live up in the

(01:51:41):
Montgomery area. By the way,this is the weekend where we have tax
free purchases on plants, soil products, and so on. So if you're
up in that area, the placeyou need to head right now is A
and A Plants and produce. Aand A Plants is on the east side
of Montgomery, so all of Lakeconra Conro itself and up and down Highway

(01:52:01):
forty five. Even A and APlants is going to be an awesome source.
They've got all the kinds of thingswe talk about on garden line,
the fertilizers, the mulches and compostsand things like that, awesome selection of
plants, lots and lots of plants. And one of my favorite things at
A and A is the bling thatcomes with it, you know, the

(01:52:24):
chiminy, the metal art, theflags to put out in the yard,
all the different decorations, the patiofurniture and so on. So why are
you there pick up some of thatas well, But don't forget Today is
the last day for tax free soif you're up in the A and A
area, you need to check themout. This is your chance to make
those kinds of purchases that help savesoil moisture, helps save water, additional

(01:52:46):
watering because they're more efficient. Thatwould be including composts and including malts and
so on. A and A plantsand produce up there in the Montgomery just
on the east side of Montgomery onHighway forty five, let's head over to
Kingwood and we're gonna talk to Kenneth. Hello, Kenneth, good morning,
How are you doing. I'm well, thank you all right? I see

(01:53:09):
what I did? I just hador area. They didn't put down any
composts. Okay, is it that'sassary quick down or is it just a
good idea? Well, those aretwo practices that are both helpful. So
if if you if you were toput a just an error, let's say

(01:53:30):
you just do the aeration, thatis beneficial. If you just did the
compost, that would be beneficial.But when you do them both, now
you have the oxygen down in thesoil and you're getting some of that organic
matter down in those holes, sothat helps hold the hold open. That
still helps with the oxygen, butit's like you're you're mixing slowly over time
organic materials down into enrich your soil. So to put them together is better

(01:53:55):
than either alone, but either aloneis still good. Now I've got plays
all down below, we've got alittle the top. Okay, yeah,
but would you get into the clay? Yeah, yeah, that's it's hard.
It may be hard to get downthat. You know, a narration
is probably gonna go about four inchesdeep, and so that that may not

(01:54:16):
be deep enough to get into theclay. But still it's improving the soil
that you have. And we alwaystalk about adding compost to the soil.
Well, this is this is howyou do it in an existing in an
existing place. Hey, Kenneth,I appreciate the question very much. Thank
you, and don't forget. I'mgoing to be out there at while Bird's
unlimited Kingwood on Saturday, June tenth, two saturdays from yesterday. We'll talk

(01:54:39):
about that more next weekend if youIf you need to do some lawn fertilizing
for the summer, something's gonna lastall summer. Nelson Plant Food Slow and
Easy twenty two two ten excellent ratiofor the summertime it gradually releases. I
won't nerd out on the chemistry ofwhy that is, but just know that

(01:55:00):
it gradually releases those nutrients over timetwelve weeks or so, maybe even longer.
That it is going to feed youralong all the way to fall,
so you're good until fall, especiallywhen you return your clippings, which everybody
should do as well. If you'dlike something that's a faster release, Bruce's
Brew eighteen forty nine, that's fine, Just don't overdo those in the summer.

(01:55:20):
You don't want to push a lotof nitrogen at one time because it
just makes for more mowing. ButBruce's Brew probably overall is one of my
favorite, the turf star line thatNelson's has. I hope you'll check it
out. They're available a lot ofplaces. By the way, I just
talked about Ana, they carry Nelson's. It's a place you can get it
right there, as well as manyof our sponsors of the show that we

(01:55:44):
talk about. We are fortunate tolive in a place where there are so
many great garden centers this Houston.You go north, southeast, west,
all over the plate Central, there'sa garden center near you. I mean,
we got Ace Hardwares all over forsupplies, and we got feed Stars
all over that I have great suppliesas well. It's just it's really a

(01:56:05):
good place. I've lived in citiesbefore that maybe there was one notable garden
center not here. We got alot of notable garden centers, So I
hope you'll take advantage of that.Just remember I'm a broken record on this,
but today's the last day for thetax free weekend for plants, for
compost, for Mulcha's, for watersaving devices, a hos in timer,

(01:56:30):
a drip irrigation system, tree hugger, sprinklers, you know, anything that's
going to be part of the growingand watering or your plants that will help.
This is the weekend to save thetax money off of those, so
I hope you take advantage of that. Well, you're listening to garden Line.
We're going to be back for ourlast hour in just a moment.
The number is seven one three twoone two five eight seven four seven one

(01:56:54):
three two one two fifty eight seventyfour. Josh, you'll get you on
the boards and we will look forwardto talking to you about what your question
is regarding gardening. KTRH Garden Linedoes not necessarily endorse any of the products

(01:57:18):
or services advertised on this program.Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Director,
so just watch him as well.Good Sunday morning to you on a

(01:57:48):
beautiful day. Man, is beautifuloutside this afternoon. Good time to get
out there and do some gardening.And remember that plants this weekend end,
soil and compost and other water savingdevices are all tax free. And if
you'd like to add onto that alreadygreat news, I want to suggest that

(01:58:12):
you consider purchasing a tree today fromVerdant Tree Farm. And here's why they're
having a Memorial Day sale twenty fivepercent off limited time only. It ends
on May twenty ninth, that's tomorrow, twenty five percent off on all trees
and all palms, and boys,summers are great time to plant a palm
tree, I mean actually palm trees. It's better to plant them in the

(01:58:33):
summer than it is even in thewinter. And the folks at Verdant they've
got all kinds of palms, theMadule palm, Sylvester, the Florida sable,
the Mule palm, which is areally unique hybrid palm, Canary Island
windmill, you name it. Theyare the palm source and they have a
lot of other kinds of trees,but palms are a specialty with those folks.

(01:58:55):
If you can find the Verdant farm, the original one was out on
Barker, Cyprus on the west side. Down in pair Land, they have
one on West Broadway fifty nine ornine West Broadway, and then in the
heights kind of a center of townthree thirty seven Yell Street at ten,
lots of places. Just go online to Verdant Tree Farm dot com and

(01:59:17):
you can find where the nearest windouis and exactly how to get there and
maybe learn a little bit more aboutsome of this. This deal going on
that is a twenty five percent offis huge. That is a huge,
huge sale, pretty cool stuff.I was in the garden the other day
doing a little bit of work onsome of my experiments. Now I want

(01:59:43):
to say out loud, real crystalclear here, I'm not recommending that you
plant what I'm about to tell you, but I know you everybays wondering what
on earth are you gonna say.I have been working to come up with
a way to grow rhubarb down herenow years ago. Now you probably know
I'm not from the Midwest that didn'tgrow up eating rhubarb or whatever part of

(02:00:03):
the country that rhubarb typically grows in. But a number of years ago I
did a little experiment where we startedrhubarb from seed in the fall. I
actually planted it in August and littlecontainers where we could keep it moderately cool,
and then we put it out inthe garden late September October, I

(02:00:23):
believe, and it grew all winter, and then in the spring we got
a good harvest from it. Now, if we have a very bitter cold,
it will freeze rubar back, butit's by and large moderately hardy,
but we took it through and inthe spring, big tall, beautiful stalks.
When summer came, they started torot and fall apart. And I
mean that all the soil. Thiswas at an organic farm in Austin that

(02:00:45):
I used to work with. Andso if you think about it, when
strawberries you're ripening here, which iswhat February now, not February unless you
got him undercover, March, April, maybe going into the early part to
May. That's when the rhubarb wasavailable. So if you've ever heard of
strawberry rhubarb pie, then you knowwhat I'm talking about. And you can

(02:01:09):
grow it here. It's just aoverwinter biennial. It would be like you're
planting a broccoli plant. You plantit in the fall, and of course
well that you're harvesting before the eventhe Christmas time, but you get the
idea. It's a cool season plant. So what I'm doing this summer is
I'm trying seedlings. I found asource of some people that collect rubarb seeds,

(02:01:30):
different strains from different parts of thecountry, and so I just bought
the seeds, put them out.We're watching them to see how long they're
going to hold up. I plantedthem way way too late. In fact,
it was spring before I got outthere. I mean late winter before
I got out there and plant them. But they look good. Now I'm
going to watch them and see ifany of them hold up. And if
they do, hey, we're savingseed from that. And we're gonna try

(02:01:51):
it again. Now, don't getyour chops set for the great New Texas
version of rhubarb. If we everdeveloped up it, it would be a
long time coming. And I suspectthat genetically there probably isn't a heat tolerant
enough rhubarb in the gene pool togrow down here. But we're going to

(02:02:11):
try it. But if you missrhubarb, you're a transplant from somewhere else
and you just miss rhubarb. Youcan grow rhubarb in Texas in that winter
fall through spring technique that I justwas talking about a minute ago. If
you happen to live out in Kingwood, you are rich with garden centers.
You've got Warren Southern Gardens on NorthPark Drive. You've got Kingwood Garden Center

(02:02:34):
on Stone Hollow Drive. Both ofthem are open seven days a week.
And here goes my broken record again. Today this is the last day of
tax free purchases for plants, forcompost or for soil. Now they carry
everything, and both of these gardencenters they carry everything. We talk about
regarding fertilizers. They have they havea filling station for the Nelson plant food

(02:02:59):
in microlife jugs, so so ifyou buy one of those in the little
plastic canisters, you can take thosein and refill them. It's a little
bit less expensive and you avoid addingmore plastic to the waste stream, which
we have heard and heard how wedon't want to be doing that. They're
going to carry every kind of plantthat you can imagine, herbs and veggies
and citrus fruit. And by theway, now is a great time to

(02:03:19):
get out there and plant some citrusroses and annuals and perennials and so on.
They're really good at designing. AndI was at at Warren's a good
while back, and I was justreally impressed with the planters that they had
created a beautiful container, maybe atall vaselight container, and they had plants
spilling over the sides and going upthrough the middle. It's just that design

(02:03:42):
element. So you can go youcan go there and just purchase those,
or you can go there and kindof look and go okay, okay,
I see what they did there,take a picture of it, buy some
plants, and go home and doit yourself. I mean, if you're
a do it yourselfer, which mostgardeners aren't, you can also do it
that way. But take advantage thisweekend. Now's a good time to go
out and purchase Warren's Southern Gardens onNorth Park, Kingwood Garden Center on Stonehallow

(02:04:05):
Drive. Those are really really funplaces to go. See good gift shops
too. By the way, ifI was talking about the rue barb and
rue barb in the vegetable garden,we always want to try to grow things
that aren't from here, right.I don't know how many times people have
attempted things like for scythia or lilacbushes because maybe they grew up in a

(02:04:28):
place where those plants were prevalent anddid so well and they have those memories.
I always tell people if they wanta lilac, the best thing they
can do is plant a crape myrtleand spray with perfume. That'll get that'll
get you pretty close. I'm sorry, but that's as close as we can
get to a Lilac there is.Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy

(02:04:54):
four. Well, good Sunday morning, beautiful weather, Chamber of Commentation.
May leaders should cook calling it backstart coming gardening weather, because that's really

(02:05:16):
what it means. Do you liveup north toward Navasota, that whole region
we're talking about collistation in Brian Navasota, all the small towns out in the
countryside, beautiful to drive through bythe way, if you'd like to do
that one afternoon. But we're talkingabout Ron's Prairie, Richards Anderson, beat
Eyes. Iola. Doesn't sound likefun, it is, it really is.

(02:05:39):
You're fortunate to have a place calledGrimes County Feeding Farm Riot out there,
two miles west of FM two fortyfour on State Highway thirty. Now,
the folks at Grimes County Feed havedone an excellent job of stocking up
on these fertilizers that we talk about. They have a lot of other supplies
there as well. But earlier Iwas talking about out slow and easy,

(02:06:00):
you know from Nelson's. They've gotthat out there. They've got the products
like the barricade from nitro files andthen they have also some microlife fertilizer and
now I say some, it's quitea bit of it in stock. They
keep all that in stock. It'severything you would expect of a feed store,
all the supplies that we know feedstores carry, like quality dogging cat

(02:06:21):
foods, but even things like pondsupplies, maybe an aquatic herbicide or fish
food or fish stocking. They're involvedwith fish stocking twice each quarter. So
check out Grimes County Feed again.They're on Highway thirty two miles west of
FM two forty four. Mentioning theMicrolife, I wanted to just talk about

(02:06:44):
that just for a little bit.I have been. I've used Microlife in
my yard for a number of yearsnow. It's a product I love.
The release of it is gradual overtime, which you would expect from a
slow released product. Right now,I would say the combination to keep in
mind would be the six two four, which is the green bag, and
the Humates plus which is the purplebag for fur to Humates plus is concentrated

(02:07:10):
compost in a bag. Because that'sabout what it amounts to. You get
all the nutrients you get. Thesix two four doesn't just have nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium. It's an organicfurtlizer. It's got beneficial microbes, It's
got all of the trace elements thatwe need so much to put back into
our soil. If you want tofind microlife pretty much ever where you hear
us talk about here on guarden Line, but you can go online to Microlife

(02:07:33):
Fertilizer dot com and they'll take youright to it. I go back to
the phones now, by the way, the number if you'd like to call
seven one, three, two andtwo fifty eight seventy four, and we
are going to go to bel Airand visit with Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn,
good morning. How are you doing. I'm well today, thank you.

(02:07:55):
I have an east facing house.It's not a big house right now.
I would like to add some prettyfoliage, but especially some color.
But there's one hang up. Icannot get out and do a lot of
maintenance. Okay, you know,I'm just not able to. I want

(02:08:18):
to know something about lantana that's beenrecommended to me and something that doesn't grow
very tall, because I have japonicanext to the wall of the house and
I keep it at about three anda half feet, okay, So I
want something that would be in frontof that that would not be taller than

(02:08:41):
that. I'd like something around twotwo and a half feet. Okay.
Well, lantenna would be a goodchoice, but you got to make sure
when you go out and buy yourlantenna that you're getting a dwarf type.
Lantana can get you know, shoulderhigh some types of it, but there
are are some types that hardly geta foot high. I mean they're very

(02:09:01):
small, and so you would purchasethem. They bloom a lot and if
do you think it may be aboutsix hours of sun there, probably okay,
then I think lantenna would do maybenot quite that much, maybe not
quite okay, Well, lantenna wouldbe a good choice. Goussion. You
know, there's so many there's somany plants that I just don't know where

(02:09:22):
to begin in terms of recommending them. I think that the perennial hibiscus would
look pretty good there. Now it'sjust going to be a summer bloomer and
not carry you on. But there'ssome very compact types of it as well.
And once again, if you boughta perennial hibiscus, make sure and
gets one that's very tall. Infact, it maybe a little tall for
what you were describing in that area. I may, I may pull back,

(02:09:46):
but I just love that. Ilove that plant. A lot I
had one years ago that had yeltbright yellow bloom with a deep orange throat.
Okay, well with the size ofa dinner plate. Oh my gosh,
Well that's amazing that that is veryunusual to have that color combination in

(02:10:07):
that size on a plant. Lotsof good, lots of good opportunities to
find different things to go in thearea. Certainly there's a lot of annuals.
I love Angelonia. I was talkingabout the Salvia nemu rosa meadow sage
is what it's called beautiful plants.They're only going to get the spikes on
those are only going to get abouta foot part and a half high,

(02:10:30):
and it does a good job andit'll stick around for you. The anything
that's that's a perennial. You werementioning not being out to just work all
the time in the garden. Uh, your plan at once you're kind of
done with it, maybe occasionally youwould share it back a little bit to
get some more blooms, but thosewill be a couple of options. But
good on good, I'm sorry interrupted, No, go ahead say it again.

(02:10:54):
Did you say salvia Salvia nemor rosa? Just in fact, you could
tell them Salvia namerosa or you couldjust say where's your meadow sage and they
could take you to it and itlots of color options and it's really beautiful.
I've been very impressed with that plant. But you know, picking you
one plant or two plants for aspot is like you sent me to the

(02:11:18):
mall with a credit card and saybuy me some clothes. You know I
would be I would be at aloss to know what to get, right.
So the same thing is true whenit's that wide open on plants.
But go to a good quality gardencenter one of our mom and pops we
talk about, they are going tohave ten good options for that area,
if not more. Okay, theSouthwest Fertilizer carry plants. They do carry

(02:11:43):
some plants out front. Southwest Fertilizerhas as you as you come in to
the store through the chain that kindof fencing. There's some plants that are
seasonal that are behind there. AndI think you can find something there too.
You might check out see if theyhave some of them. I remember
seeing some there too. Okay,okay, So I appreciate there your information

(02:12:05):
so much. Thank you. Allright, thank you for the call,
Carolyn. I appreciate that. Let'shead out now and we're going to talk
to Mike. Good morning, Mike, good morning. Real quick, about
five years ago, had a coupleof pine trees about fifteen feet apart,
taking out ground down the stumps.Now we're starting to get depressions where they

(02:12:26):
used to be, and I thinkit's the roots. I dug up some
dirt and I dug out some rootsthat were paper They were thick, like
eight inch roots, but they werepaper thin and full of water. So
I had a feeling they're smart tolast. What's the smartest way to do
it besides just pouring dirt in it? Well, yeah, there, that's
kind of the way to do it. You don't use a compost or malt,

(02:12:50):
because those are going to go thesame direction that your roots went when
the plant was dead. Now yougot organic matter that's just going to go
away as it imposes. So usesomething with some stability to it, and
that would be a soil, atop soil type product, and top soil
or field dirt. Well, whenI hear the word field dirt, uh,

(02:13:11):
my warning signals go up because alot of stuff gets sold that's not
quality because it's just used to createa mound to put a house pad on
or something. So just look atit, take a look and feel it.
You know, is this a qualitydirt or is this just a bunch
of clay. If it's red,don't don't get that. Don't get the
red field dirt kind of stuff.Because I dug down about three or four

(02:13:37):
feet and I had some big oeight inch roots going straight down still.
Oh yeah, I just wasn't gonnadig. I wasn't gonna dig to China.
Well, you don't have to worryabout those going straight down. If
you've dug down a little bit likethat, that's good. Yeah. Pine
trees have a tap root and theycan a big tap root that goes down
in the ground helps anchor them.Hopefully that'll get you off to a good

(02:13:58):
start there, Mike. Okay,Yeah, I just I was hoping there
was a smarter way and I had, you know, I was just hoping
anyway, Thank you very much.I listened to you all the time.
Well, I appreciate you listening.Thank you very much. If you want
to give a quick green up toyour lawn, you ought to consider the
hash to grow twelve for eight.That's a beautiful ratio. Twelve four eight.

(02:14:20):
That's the one where I was talkingabout a three one two kind of
ratio is excellent. Now this isa this is a lawn food supplement and
it's got the Medina soil activator init, and it's got the humate liquid
humus in it as well. Youhook it up to hos in sprayer to
a little quart sized jar. Youcan buy bigger ones, but I use
the quart size and you just sprayit on the lawn. It takes about

(02:14:41):
ten minutes to treat an average lawn. But because you're putting them out on
a liquid there, you're going toget a quicker response. It's going to
be a very nice quick response.It'll stimulate the soil organisms that happens when
we add things like a humus tothe soil. I'd say do it about
four times per growing season. Butif you just want to get a quick
start right now, your lawn's kindof struggling has to grow twelve for eight

(02:15:05):
lawn food from Medina Act products.It would be a good choice. I'm
gonna go out and we'll talk toPaul and Missouri City. Now, Paul,
are you going to put me onthe spot? Well, no,
this is an easy one for you. Okay. Um, yeah, good
morning, skip, good morning.Yeah. I have a I think what's
called a cannus plant that has largeleaves and flour on topic. I've seen

(02:15:31):
it in red, yellow, andorange. But um, you know,
they tend to spread as they grow, and and I want to I want
to put them in the front,but I want to build a barricade.
I want to stop the prolific spreadof them. Okay, So, how
I guess my question is how deepdo I need to go down to keep

(02:15:52):
that root system, you know,within a barricade. That's a good question.
Most of the time when I seecanter roots there in the top six
inches of soil. Now, Idon't think they're going to go deeper than
that. I guess I could bewrong. But you know another what I
do with my can is is Ijust take a sharpshooter shovel and every couple

(02:16:13):
of years, as they're getting toobig. I just go in there and
you know, cut a circle asto here's where I want you to be,
and this pull the others out.And that's a lot of work,
I know. So I understand thedesire for a barrier, but I don't
know if you went down about teninches, surely that's deep enough. Yeah,
okay, well, yeah, Iunderstand the thing about to shovel them

(02:16:35):
with my lousy Look, I've gotsome underground irrigation piping under the hair,
and I hate to, hate tohate to you don't get Yeah, well,
how how are you going to doa barrier with that irrigation pipe around?
Well, I mean the pipe isfairly close to the foundation of the

(02:16:56):
house, so okay, so yeah, I'm clear. I'm really clear that,
but I just I've done it before. Okay, Well, that's all
right, that is what I woulddo, and I think you'll find some
pretty good success with that keeping themin bounce. All right, very good,
thank you. Hey, thanks forthe call, Paul. I appreciate
that you are listening to garden Lineand we're here to answer your gardening questions.

(02:17:20):
Our phone number. Write this downso you can give us a call.
Hey, we've got thirty minutes leftin the whole weekend of garden Line,
So get ready to give us acall. Seven one three two,
one two five eight seven four sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. And by the way,Nikki has walked in the room. I
forgot to tell you that somebody yesterdaytalked about how big of a fan you

(02:17:41):
are. So I'm thinking we needto make T shirts the Nikki Fan Club
that you've got your followers and adorersout there, and so here we go.
You know they used to be Lemonhead. So why aren't there some Nicky
Fan Club shirt Nicki News Network.No, No, this is my thinking.
I'm thinking since this is a threeday weekend. Yes, I'm storing

(02:18:01):
a petition that we have you workon the Mondays of three day weekends.
Me. Yes, thank you forthat. Yes, did I ever do
anything mean to you or what?No, it's because we love you,
because we on these holiday Mondays wegarden all right, Yes, that's true.
It is true. On holiday Mondays. Just replay the show from the

(02:18:24):
previous day on we're on podcast.Okay, well, I know it's okay.

(02:18:45):
You can jump up and dance.You're listening to Guardline on a good
Sunday morning for getting outside getting somestuff done this afternoon. Hey, our
phone number is SEE two two fiftyeight seventy four. I wanted to talk
to you about the Dellweb community goingin at fullsher It's two miles outside of

(02:19:07):
Fullshre from downtown Fullshre two miles toon FM three fifty nine. Now,
the reason I'm excited about this communitynumber one is Dellweb. I mean,
that's the quality of the inspired designs, the lifestyle programs that come with a
Dellweb community. The thing that excitesme as a gardener is I'm helping them
create a community garden on site forresidents. What a wonderful opportunity. You

(02:19:30):
live in a beautiful community with walkingtrails and all of that good stuff and
have a community garden there that's foryou to use. Go to Dellweb dot
com slash Houston for more information.D E. L W, E B
B dot com slash Houston or Callumntwo eight one four five nine zero six
o nine. Let's head out tothe phones here. I'm gonna talk to

(02:19:54):
Sharon out in stagecoach. Hey,how you doing, Sharon? Great?
Thank you. I've tried a coupleof times to grow poppies and I think
I'm doing unless we're doing something wrong, is it any way to grow them
here? Well, Sharon, poppies. You should just throw the seeds out
there and you have poppies. Imean, they reseed profusely themselves, so

(02:20:18):
even when you're not planting them,if you've had one, they come up,
so they're pretty easy. But here'swhat I would recommend. Get your
poppy seeds and just hold them intothem, keep them inside, don't let
them get hot outside in the garageor something. And when we get to
about late September early October, goahead and throw those out on the ground
and they will come up. Youneed to learn what they look like,

(02:20:41):
so you don't think they're a weed, because they look a lot like a
thistle somewhat coming up. But yeah, and they will come up. Just
you need good bear soil. Youneed good seed to soil contact. Don't
bury them. They're a little tinyseed, so basically you can rake the
soil, scatter them and then justwater them in and in that water it
sort of settles the soil in aroundthe seed really nicely. But do you

(02:21:05):
need to seed them. No,I mean, I guess you could.
I have never fertilized poppies in mylife. Of course, they're in a
garden bed, so you expect thisall to be a little decent there.
But yeah, correct, Now whatkind of you try to grow? I
probably should have asked that to beginwith. Yeah, well, of course
I love the red ones. Okay, so that's that's where I want.

(02:21:26):
I have a strip that's like tinsotwatand and thirty foot long. It's got
kind of like a wild flower garden, so that's where I want them.
But I would to get them.I was wondering if I should do them
in pot you know, like inseed bad things, and then transplant them.
I guess you can't do that.Well, it is humanly possible,

(02:21:50):
but they don't like it. SoI would recommend just throw scatter the seed
out there where you want them togrow. And since it's a wildflower area,
random is good. So I thinkyou'll have success if you'll do that.
Next year, you may have toclear away a little debris on the
soil surface so they can get goodseed to soil contact. Okay, I'll
try it again, all right,you call me. You call me back

(02:22:11):
the next spring if these things cameup and I want to hear all about
okay, all right, all right, thank you, bet bye bye goodness.
If you are interested in gardening andyou don't have a spot, you
don't have a garden, you're notgoing to dig up the dirt and go
to all the trouble of all thatstuff. You need to consider getting yourself
a Vego garden modular metal bed.Now. Vego garden beds come in different

(02:22:35):
sizes. You can get them downeleven inches seventeen, they go they go
on up in size. They're they'recoated with a product that stops them from
resting and corroding, and then they'recoated again with a paint that is food
safe paint to use. They're completelymodular. So do you want an oval
bed? Do you want a squarebed? Do you want a bed shape

(02:22:56):
like an L or a C?You pick it out, you can do
it. You can set one ofthe Vegos. If you get the taller
sizes, you can set it downon a concrete patio and grow in that.
Just fill it up with a goodquality mix. If you're an organic
gardener, it's especially nice because youknow I don't want to use the treated
wood. Well, here goes Vego. Now there's a lot of impostors out
there, but go to Vego vgogardendot com and you can learn all about

(02:23:22):
them. A lot of our localindependent nurseries and garden centers are starting to
carry the Vego garden beds as well, but I highly recommend them. If
I were to create a brand newgarden, I wouldn't think twice, it
would automatically I would put in aVego bed. They are attractive, they're
beautiful, they work really really well. I want to head out now to

(02:23:43):
Jersey Village and we're gonna talk toMaybeth. Hello, Maybeth, Yeah,
good morning. I had black swallowtaillarva on a Dell plant twelve up.
Okay, what do I do?Do you want to keep? Do you
want to eat dil? Or doyou want to have butterflies? The Dell

(02:24:07):
is not edible right now? Imean it's fine to see, okay,
and so now I don't want adeal. Well, they like dill.
They probably like fennel too. Ithink I'm trying to think of what else
are you worried about them not havingto something to eat, not making it
to adult stage. I don't knowwhat to do with the farming is new

(02:24:28):
to me and so I don't know. Do I just leave them? Yeah,
yeah, just leave them. Watchand enjoy. You'll see some little
crysalists appear as they get ready tobecome a butterfly. You may not see
them on the deal plant. Ifthere's anything that's leaning against they may crawl
up on that and make their crystalists. But watch for them. They're really

(02:24:48):
cool, really cool to watch.It's amazing. Well, it's a bad
descott a lot I've got adjacent toit, like some tis and some sage
and basil and map that are allin there together. So well, thank
you. Spread sounds like you're doinga good job. If the bill,

(02:25:09):
if the dill seeds land around inthere, they will come up and spread.
In fact, I hate to saythis on the air, but I
have tried to start dill as transplantsbefore and I get them out in the
garden and they just seem to bereally unhappy with me. But when they
come up where they want to comeup, they're very happy. So just

(02:25:30):
let them do what they want andweed out the ones you don't want.
Okay, this bed's so full thatI think they're probably going to fall to
the wayside instead of to the ground. I don't think they could reach get
down to the ground. If theythey'll blow off somewhere. We may have
dil Yeah, so next next spring, uh maybe Mathew, definitely need to

(02:25:52):
plant some cucumbers and you you're readyto go for some pickles, that would
be true. So just let themgo and enjoy. Let them go and
enjoy. That's right. Appreciate thatcall. That's funny. Yeah, deal
is boy? Does is it everwilling to volunteer? That is for sure?
Oh my goodness. You're listening togarden Line and we are here to

(02:26:15):
answer your gardening questions. I enjoytalking to gardeners. And our phone number
if you want to give us acall seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four seven one three twoone two five eight seven four. Josh,
we'll get you on the board.We're gonna take a little break here
in a moment, and we willcome back to answer your gardening questions.
By the way, those of youout in the general Kingwood area, Porter,

(02:26:39):
New Caney, all those places,I'm going to be two saturdays from
yesterday, June tenth, at thewild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood. Please come
out and see me. I loveto meet you. So nice meeting the
folks out at the clear Lake wildBirds Unlimited. By the way, if
you're still in clear Lake and youhaven't registered for the drawing, they're drawing
tomorrow, so don't delay. Webit barning. Wonderful day to be outside

(02:27:13):
and enjoy the weather this afternoon.Get outside, do some stuff in the
yard or garden, just relax,enjoy yourself, or get out to a
garden center pick up some wonderful newplants. Boy, this is a good
time to do it. And againhere's the reminder. This is the last
day of the tax free weekend forplants, for compost, for mulch,

(02:27:35):
for water saving devices. This isthe time. So it's like having an
almost eight percent discount on what you'rewhat you're purchasing out there. Sounds like
a good deal to me. Let'shead out to Groves and talk to Tony
Well. Good morning, Tony Well, good morning to you, sir.
Can you hear me? Okay?I can okay? On the vegetable guards

(02:28:00):
skip and first I appreciate what youdo on the vegetable garden, skip on
the pathways in between each row.What can I put in there that I'm
able to walk through there? Youknow, like maybe after a big I
don't know range storm and I can'tget in it. What I get my
all muddy? You know what Imean? Okay, So what I do

(02:28:22):
is I put leaves in And youcan put a lot of leaves. You
feel, you know, you putthem in there, it's like it's full
up when you walk on them.As it stays moist it they sit down
and then you add more and youadd more one time in a thirty five
thirty five garden. I'm not kidding. I put three hundred bags of leaves
in one season. Just wow.And at the end of the season,
now you have a trench full ofcompost, which is kind of nice.

(02:28:46):
You can move that up into thebed if you If you don't want to
go through that process, you canjust get wood chips, you know,
the uh whatever access you have.Some people use those tax free, tax
free the grind up and blow theminto the back of the truck. Services

(02:29:07):
you know, the tree grinders andstuff. They'll they'll often dump chips for
you but you know that's a littlebit more of an ordeal. But anyway,
yeah, I just fill it withorganic matter that will create an all
weather pathway. And you can't justdo leaves once. You gotta several times
pile them and walk on them andthey sink down and then you will have
a nice all weather pathway. Okay, Well, how about grass. It's

(02:29:31):
not a good idea grass clippings.Grass clippings you can only spread a little
bit, like an inch or twobecause they will start to get mucky and
stink and they'll get slippery and yourfee can slide out from under you if
you're sitting on something that's got thicklayer of grass clippings under it that are
decaying, getting gooey. So justbe a little sparing with those, okay,

(02:29:54):
Because my wife is the one thattold me to quit putting them in
there because there was bringing in weedsand uh, well, I mean yeah
it could be. Yeah, ifyou if you mow a weedy lawn,
you're gonna have weed seeds in thosegrass clippings, So that's true. Also,
you don't want to use grass clippingsfrom a lawn that's been treated with
a lot of herbicides because you dosome of those are a lot of persistent,

(02:30:18):
a little bit persistent, right right, right, okay, all right,
scamp. Well that answered my question, sir. I appreciate all what
you do for Thank you so much. I appreciate appreciate your call. By
the way, I want to mentionI was wrong about the tax free ends
today. It's actually I believe goodfor Monday as well, so you can
go on line check that out.But uh, maybe we get an extra
day out of this deal. Uhwe uh. You know, I wanted

(02:30:41):
to talk to you about the BeeSupply. I've mentioned them before. I
wish that I could convince you howcool it is to learn about bees.
Kids would be fascinated by it.I'm fascinated by it as an adult.
They do these honey bee tours outthere twice a month out in Dayton,
and you get to walk around,you get to learn about bees. There's

(02:31:05):
a little presentation, and then youget to taste all the different kinds of
honey. It's pretty cool. Goto the b Supply dot com. It's
they have an excellent website. Youcan learn about those tours. If you
are a beekeeper or you want tolearn to be a beekeeper. They have
classes. They have a beginner classtwice a month out there in Dayton where
you get hands on and the goodthing about going to and purchasing from the

(02:31:28):
B Supply is you can go backa thousand times with your questions. I
mean that, and they will patientlyhelp you and help you to have success
because they want you to have success, and beekeeping is really a fun hobby.
Check out the b Supply dot com. Let's go to West Katie.
We're going to talk to Joe.Good morning, Joe, Good morning,

(02:31:50):
Skip, thanks for taking the call. Yes, I've got a small raised
band. It's four foot by eightfoot. I've got three tomato plants that
are tomatoes that are rappening. Butbefore they fully rappen, there's a small
gnat that is eating chewing them upand eating them from the bottom, mostly

(02:32:11):
from the bottom up, but littleblack gnats. My Google search says it's
fungus gnats, but I don't I'mnot certain about that. Okay, do
you have a suggestion on what theyuse to persuade them from eating my tomatoes?
Okay, there, it's not fungusnats most likely, unless you had

(02:32:33):
a wound on your tomato, andthey were able to attract them in.
When they smell the fungus gnats,you know they they it's like fruit flies.
They can smell and and be attractedin. But I don't think it's
fungus nats what I think may havehappened. They may just be there because
they're hatching out in the soil.They like a rich organic soil, which

(02:32:54):
is what we typically plant in.And you may have fungus nat larva they
are hatching out, becoming adults andsitting there, or it could be that
there is some sort of a wound, but it's probably a different kind of
gnat that you're seeing. Sometimes thetomato will get blossom en drought where it
decays on the end, and thenthat will attract some little things in like

(02:33:15):
that. But I can't think ofanything that is what you described that's located
on the tomato where you described therewould be a primary attacker of your tomatoes.
Oh okay, But if what wouldbe first course of action doing something
about the soil? You keep it. Go ahead, because you're right,

(02:33:39):
it is rich and all that endwith all the range you stayed Willie most
for a period of time, sothat I mean I tried to initially some
liquid seven and that did not okay, you know, gave relief for a
few hours. That's about it.That's interesting. Well, letting the top
of the soil dry out is veryhelpful with fungus nuts. There's also a

(02:34:01):
form of BT that's what we buyfor caterpillars, but there's a form that's
different. You can't use a caterpillarBT. There's a fungus gnat type of
BT. So go to where youpurchase your gardening supplies and ask them for
the BT that's for fungus gnats,not caterpillars, and you can spray the
soil and shut them down that waytoo. Okay, okay, all right,

(02:34:24):
well, thank you, thank youso much. All right, thank
you. I appreciate appreciate that callvery much. Yeah, and by the
way, out there in Katie,oh my gosh, you have you have
Ace Hardware stores nearby, and nomatter where you live in town, there
is Ace hardware. So go toAce hardware dot com and on that site
you can find a store locator andyou can find all the stores that are
near you. I mean they thisplace. We are fortunate at thirty nine.

(02:34:48):
ACE Hardware is in the Greater Houstonarea. I mean that is that
is just absolutely amazing. I amalways uh, I always enjoy going into
ACE. Just all the supplies theyhave. I mean, anything you need
for gardening that we're talking about here, like the fertilizers and and the pesticides
and all other kind of things likethat, you're going to find those at

(02:35:09):
an ACE Hardware. You know,depending on where you are out in the
Katie area. We got one onpin Oak Road, you know, it's
not too terribly far away. Thereis a number of aces. There's one
as you as you're going out toKatie, a little south of town,
there is a really nice ACE Hardwareout in um the guys you can't say

(02:35:30):
the name of the town, Rosenbergarea, thank you. It's down Plantation
Ace Hardware. They've got some reallycool supply. That's I was at that
one a while back and I wasreally amazed at all that they had on
stock there. Super super great placefor buying all the things we talk about,
as well as all the hardware stuff, you know, work gardeners where
we're more interested and fertilizer that wewere in, light bulbs and plumbing parts

(02:35:54):
and all those other things. Nicething about ACE two is when you go
in, they greet you and theyknow what they're talking about. I mean,
I'd give my right arm for anykind of place I'm shopping at to
actually have educated people to know whatthey're talking about. I can tell when
I walk into a garden center andif I ask a question, I can
tell in the first few seconds bylooking in the person's eyes, Oh,

(02:36:16):
they're going to be scrambling around tryingto come up with an answer rather than
telling me what's actually the truth.And they know that's that's just a shame.
Not going to happen today though,Well, you've been listening to Garden
Line today. We are about tohead out. I want to wish you
all a very very happy Memorial Day. What a wonderful holiday for remembering all

(02:36:37):
of those people who sacrificed for us, some of them giving the ultimate sacrifice
for us, for the freedoms weenjoy. You know, we do take
things for granted. That's just ournature as human beings, and we definitely
do not want to take for grantedthose who are willing to put their life
on the line for our freedoms.For our liberty that we are so fortunate

(02:37:01):
to live in the land we livein to have that kind of a group
of people and armed forces willing totake care of us. I mean,
you can even stand that out topeople in law enforcement, people, firefighters
and other many many people that makethe freedoms we enjoy, the safety and

(02:37:22):
life we enjoy, the benefits weenjoy possible. And that significance is not
lost on me, and I knowit's not lost on you either. In
the meantime, we're going to beback next Saturday. You're Saturday and Sunday
six am to ten am, Sowe hope you listen in. If you
miss something today or missed yesterday,you can listen to us on podcast.
Just take your podcast app I artMedia hopefully and you can get right to

(02:37:46):
garden Line and listen to us.Meantime, I just hope you will have
a wonderful, successful gardening week.