KTRH GardenLine | 5-6-23

Skip Richter answers gardening questions while continuing Garden Line.

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 Son.
Just watch him as so many Well, good Saturday morning, on a great

(00:36):
day for guarding. You're listening togarden Line and I'm your host, Skip
richter our phone number. Please writethis down. You never know when you
might need to call seven one threetwo one two five eight seven four.
And why you got the pen andpaper out, keep it handy because who
knows, we'll probably give you someinformation you'll want to write down over the

(00:58):
course of the morning. Well,I tell you we have that wonderful weather
or spring. If those of youwho haven't lived in Houston area or anywhere
in Texas actually through through a brutalsummer season know how much we appreciate mild
weather conditions. And boy, isthat ever what we're enjoying right now.
We've got some good sunshine this weekend. Good day to be out for gardening.

(01:21):
Course, every day is a goodday. It's a good day to
go out and visit garden centers whilewe're out and about too. I was,
it's what I do it's almost ahobby. I just love to get
around. And I tell you,if you've if you've not lived in other
areas, you are fortunate to livein an area that has so many great
garden centers. I just sometimes Ithink probably what we need to do is

(01:46):
get a hold of the Chamber ofCommerce and we need to have a garden
centered tourism promo for the Greater Houstonarea. In other words, someone would
come over here, get anice hotel, enjoy the incredible number of restaurants that
rate, restaurants of all kinds thatHouston has. And you know, each
day you put two or three,Can you get to three in a day?

(02:07):
I don't know, not if youhang out and enjoy all they have
to offer. But anyway, youget the idea. We can kind of
keep somebody busy for certainly a wholeweekend just enjoying the wonderful garden centers in
the Greater Houston area. It's timeto be out and fertilizing our lawns.
And I'm sure we'll talk about thata lot today with callers and everything.

(02:27):
But your turf grass is best suitedour best. It performs best when you
have the right nutrients in the rightamount, the right ratios that are there
in the soil. Because the soilis the bank account. I'm a broken
record about it. All begins inthe soil. Everything happens in the soil.

(02:50):
Success for gardening happens in the soil. You'll hear these things. You
hear me say, spend money onthe brown stuff before you spend money on
the green stuff, meaning get thesoil right before you put a plant in
it. And when it comes toa lawn, this same is true.
Now you don't have an existing lawnthat you're going out there in rototelling,
But if you have compaction, you'reaerating and compost top dressing your soil,

(03:15):
you're fertilizing through the course of theseasons. And now is the time to
get down fertilizer for that long term, carrying you through the summer period.
And that's where we want something that'sgonna gradually feed our lawn over time.
Because Saint Augustine, unlike us,is perfectly happy in the big middle of

(03:38):
a Houston summer, being outside andin the sun, and it's able to
grow very fast in those conditions,a good warmth, and nobody gets super
super hot. That's not great.But during or let's say temperatures we would
consider a little bit unpleasant to beoutside. It's still happy as long as
it has sole moisture, which I'lltell you it rains a lot here.

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And so with a little irrigation fromus, and I mean a little,
not a lot, we can keepSaint Augustine happy all the time. But
when you over fertilize it with nitrogen, you get a growth response. And
that growth response is it looks likethis number one. You get a lot
of top growth at the expense ofroot growth. I saw a picture a

(04:24):
slide back in the day of thirtyfive millimeter slides. I remember the first
time I ever saw this image.But it was three crocks of nutrient solution
and they had a little lid oneach one, and into the lid was
planted a turf grass. And soif you set the lid down, you
know, it was like the turfgrass was growing out of the croc.

(04:46):
But when you picked it up,you could see the whole root system hanging
down. And there were three therewas no fertilizer moderate and then over fertilizing
the nitrogen, and the one withexcessive nitrogen. I had lots of top
growth, meaning you get to mowa lot, meaning certain diseases and insects
are especially fond of your lawn becauseyou've turned it into a life more succulent

(05:10):
meal for them. And the otherthing was underneath the lid. The root
system was very limited, and youwould think, well, if nitrogen makes
grass grow, why why do wehave such a limited root system. Well,
it makes the top grow at theexpense of the root system when you
overdo it, And so I knowthat it's our human mindset. It seems

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that if a teaspoon's good, atablespoon's better, and that is just almost
never never the case. So whatyou want to do is you want to
gradually fertilize through the summer, andthat way you get what going back to
that image I described the middle crocwhere there's decent top growth and good color,

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and there's decent root growth as well. Because when you have an extensive
system, you have a drought resilientturf grass. When you have an extensive
root system, a little bit ofgrub chewing here and there is really of
no significance. When you have anextensive root system, the resiliency of that
lawn and being able to survive andthrive is just better. So it's kind

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of like us, you know,I mean eating not eating is not a
long term plan. Eating way toomuch is not a good long term plan,
right, But a modern amount ofhealthy food that's what we're aiming for.
And so I just want to pointout that if I'll talk about this

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more in a moment, because I'mgonna talk about lawn fertilizing quite a bit
today, but I just want topoint out that when we give recommendations on
how much to apply and what toapply, it's for a reason. That
is for a reason. Now whenI talk about excessive nitrogen, don't think
that that means if the nitrogen numberand the bag is too high. It's

(07:01):
how much you put down that matters. So you put down a rate of
fertilizer so that whether whatever the numberson the bag, you get the same
amount of nitrogen in the soil.That that's what we kind of aim for.
And I'll explain that more as wecome back here from break in just
a moment. Lets just know that, uh, if you haven't fertilized your

(07:24):
line yet, it's time to getout there and do it. And the
second thing is to return those clippings. And we've talked about that before.
But you're listening to garden Line.I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
the number seven one three, twoand two fifty eight seventy four. Everybody

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had well, good Saturday morning.You are listening to garden Line. I
am your host, Skip Ripter,and this is a good day for gardening,

(08:09):
as they all are. We weretalking before break, by the way,
our phone number seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four.
Seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. We were talking before
break about lun fertilizing and I'm goingto continue on that here for a little
bit if I can just do abit of a soapbox. It's important to

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have the nutrients you need down inthe right amounts. Now, the key
to how much we apply of aproduct is based on the amount of nitrogen
in it. That is kind ofwhat we use as our guide. And
the reason we say that is,in general, we look for a fertilizer
that's going to have a ratio ofnutrients where the nitrogen is higher the phosphorus

(08:54):
is lower. And the potassium isin the middle. Now, there are
times when that is not an approachratio where your lawn needs something different.
But in general, if we justlike I walk up to your yard,
I have no idea what you've beendoing, if you fertilized or not,
what you used or anything, thenI go with one of those ratios.
You'll hear me say three one twofour one two ratios of nutrients. That's

(09:16):
means three times as much nitrogen asphosphorus, twice as much potastum as fosphorus
three one two. That's always inthat number on the bag. So the
first number nitrogen is what we usedto gauge it. And if you'll divide
the first number on whatever fertilizer bagis sitting in front of you into one
hundred, that tells you how muchof it to apply per thousands of per

(09:39):
feet of lawn. So a fertilizerthat has a higher number, you're going
to need less of it because it'smore concentrated. Fertilijah has a lower number,
you're going to use more of it. And it doesn't make lower or
higher or anything good or bad orwhatever. It's just we're trying to get
a good dose of nitrogen because that'swhat pushes the growth now law needs.

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It's all the nutrients, of course, but nitrogen is the one we used
to gauge everything. So that's that'skind of how we do our recommendations.
So for example, if you hada fertilizer, let's say that it had
a really high nitrogen, like asixth one too, someone will say,
well, that's too much nitrogen.It's only too much nitrogen if you put
too much of it on, youknow. It's like think about you can

(10:22):
take tile and all you can takeregular tile and all extra strength tile,
all right, one just has moreof the same thing in it, and
so you would maybe take less ofthe extra strength to equal the amount and
the regular strength. That think ofyour fertilizing that way, and that hopefully
that simplifies that. That divide thefirst number into a one hundred and I

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probably need to post that to Facebook. In fact I will today I want
to get off this show. Butyou want to just use that as your
guide. So when we get intothe summertime, it is warm, and
the grass is as happy as it'sgoing to be, and it is willing
to grow very fast. Now wewant grass to have vigor and have good
health, but we don't want tomow every other day because it's growing so

(11:07):
fast. By the time we wakeup in the morning's time to mow again.
And so what we do is weuse a fertilizer that gradually releases.
And there's a lot of different waysfertilizer can be made to release gradually.
There's there's technologies that can be incorporatedinto a fertilizer to give it a slow
release so the nitrogen doesn't all comeoff at once. Organic fertilizers typically or

(11:31):
slow release because they are microbially brokendown in the soil to release those nutrients
that we want our grass to haveaccess to. And the slow release is
a good good way to go.If if you don't have a slow release,
maybe you still have some of youknow, like fifteen five ten,

(11:52):
which is a faster release fertilizer onhand. And now we're going into summer.
Would I would cut that application inhalf? So I told you how
to figure out how much you need, and so if you cut it in
half, you can fertilize now andfertilize six weeks later, and you sort
of create your own more even growthrate. It's not as good as a

(12:15):
as a slow release fertilizer in termsof smoothness of even rate through the time,
but it's still it's still better thanjust dumping it on all at once.
Well, our phone number seven onethree, two, one two five
eight seven four seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four. We

(12:35):
want to hear what you're interested inas we go forward. Today. We
got a lot of a lot ofgood horticultural things to talk about. But
you know, the best, thebest radio, I think is when you
guys call in, we can talkand and kind of help solve your problem.
I'll guarantee you that in an areathis large, there are a lot
of other people that have the samequestions you do, the same kinds of

(12:56):
challenges or whatever in the garden,and so you want to be able to
I'm gonna be able to answer yourquestions, and then other people are going
to hear the same the same kindof thing, you know. The hang
on just a minute. I've gota little glitch here going on. I
believe the phone calls that are comingin are not showing up on my board.

(13:18):
So we're gonna we're gonna fix that. Josh gonna come in here and
wave a magic wand to fix thatfor us. So anyway, I was
talking about about the law, andI also wanted to mention that this is
a good time to get your perennialsestablished. If you can get those established,
then here we go. Then theyhave a better chance of surviving,

(13:41):
doing well, and moving into summer. Okay, the gremlins are out of
the system. I think we gotit working now. For those of you
who have been hanging on while Ididn't see you were there, I'm gonna
go ahead and get going here,Terry in Beach City, let's see all
right, Josh, I gotta getin here one more time. Oh,
there we go, Terry, goodLorning, good morning. Sorry for the

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glitches. How can we help?Okay? I had an area where bamboo
was had been growing. To cutit down, used to stump grinder to
bust up the root of clusters,and I killed the area. How long
should I wait before I come backand plant maybe magnolia trees. Well,
even when you grind it and doall that, there's still a lot of

(14:28):
wood in the ground in that spot. Okay. And so generally we don't
put a tree right back in there, because the stump grinder takes care of
the stump. But there's a lotof huge roots that are just outside that
area, depending on how wide theygrind, and so I usually like to
move over a little bit just toget away from that immediate area. Now

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there's there's no problem if you takecare of the plant and get it in
and get it established and going.It's just here you got a new plant
trying to get started, and there'sa lot of roots that are going to
rot in the ground, but they'renot running yet, and so it just
it just gives it a little moretime. Okay, well, I really
need to use this eric, sowe're using it for a screen. My

(15:13):
neighbor's big butts barn so speak.So I need to go in that area,
so I can wait if I needto. Okay, well, but
if if you can get all thewood chips and stuff you can out of
there as you do that, howfar over could you move or do you
have to be right in that spot? It probably has to be in that

(15:33):
spot, all right, Well,then just go ahead and go for it.
I tell you what I probably woulddo if you don't have a need
to get a tree out right nowin that spot, and you could wait
until fall. That is an excellenttime to plant, and it would give
the wood that's there time to atleast begin the decay decay process, and

(15:54):
I think it'd probably be a littlebetter off. So why don't we hedge
our belt by doing that? Ifyou can wait on the planting. Okay,
let that area sit, don't doanything to it and wait till the
hall. You know you don't.I might throw a little nitrogen on there
and kind of water it in gooddo that a couple of times, because
nitrogen helps the carbon in the woodhelps microbes decompose it. You need that

(16:19):
carbon and nitrogen. So if it'sall just wood chips at rotsbury slowly,
you had a little nitrogen that speedsthings up a little bit. So I
mean, you know you're not nukingit with fertilizer, just a couple of
times like it like it was alawn area and you were fertilizing. That's
about right. Okay, Well,appreciate your help. All right, thank
you very much. Appreciate the call. Uh let's go to Ralph in northwest

(16:44):
Houston. Now, good morning,Ralph, good morning man. I'm sure
glad to have you. I've beenhere. Well, listen to this program
was sent ahead to house, comeinto a street and now yeah, well,
anyway, I've been trying to followyour ship schedule. But my Saint

(17:06):
Augustine has some bootle patches that areneeds some help, and I have I
don't know, I guess I haveto and then fertilize or whatever. Alrighty,
have you done any aeration lately?No? Okay, Uh have you

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fertilized this year yet? No?I haven't. All right, good,
Well, we want to get somegood fertilizer down and and you would it
would it would do you well toput out a release a fertilizer that is
going to help kick that lawn intosome vigor. And I tell you,
I tell you A good one touse for that would be uh, the

(17:48):
Slow and Easy by Nelson plant food. Uh. Nelson Slow and Easy is
designed for summer, and I likethe way it releases slowly. We got
other options for doing that, butthe folks Nelson and developing that really designed
it to to give that gradual releaseto help your long to do its best.
And so that that would be somethingI would do now. No,

(18:10):
it's a twenty two two ten fertilizer. That's the numbers on the bag.
So you only need five pounds perthousand square feet to do well to do
what you wanted to do. Theother thing I would ask you would just
be do you do you have anyum? Do you have any disease problems
that have been plaguing it in thepast? Or is it just now losing

(18:33):
that? Yeah, it's not thedress. Is I had real wrong runners?
But I yes, okay, andI can't get it to just all
I'm fighting that I don't know,Okay, Yeah, tell you what.

(18:55):
Hang on, I'm gonna put youon hold and come back to you right
after the break. You're listening togarden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter in the number seven one threetwo one two fifty eight seventy four.

(19:18):
Isn't well, good morning on agood Saturday morning for gardening. You're listening
to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number.
Write this down. We got theboard's working now where I can see
you when you call. It isseven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. And we're going tohead back let's see, we were visiting

(19:40):
with my who do we have here, Ralph? I believe we had Ralph
Northwest Houston, all right, Ralph. We were talking about your fertilizer and
I was mentioning, you know thatyou put out a product that will give
you a good gradual release over time, and I think that that should take
care of it. The only thingwhere we were going and with the conversation

(20:00):
was about diseases. Do you haveyou had disease or insect problems in that
law and in the past, Ohno, not really, Okay, little
packages of this, and I canfigure out what to do that. If
you feel like it might be compacted, you know, you go out there

(20:22):
and uh, it's a place wherepeople walk or you know, pets or
vehicle traffic or anything that would reallyspeed up the compaction, then aeration.
I definitely would would do that.There's never it's never wrong to erate.
I mean, it never hurts,it always, it always is helpful.
But sometimes it's more needed than others. So I can't I can't predict you

(20:45):
know, how compacted your lawn is, but I can tell you that if
you if the spots are just littlesmall patches, there's a number of things
that could be and I don't knowthat I'd run out trying to treat diseases
and everything right now, just fora few small patches, I think fertilizing
them, giving a good, goodsoaking, get that fertilizer in the ground
will do the best thing in termsof getting bigger, so it closes over

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those patches. All right, Igot you. That's I do appreciate you,
man. Okay, well, thankyou for the call. I appreciate
that, Ralph. Now we're goingto head out to Willis and talk to
Mike. Good morning, Mike,Good morning. Are you today? I'm
well, thank you now that Igot the gremlins out of the air waves
here and I can actually see thatcallers are calling U. So you're talking

(21:33):
about the fertilizer guard me thinking,I fertilized my law for the first time
this year, back in February,and I do the whole bag between my
front yard and my backyard, andI experienced the issue that you were talking
about earlier, a lot of overgrowth, great growth, but then a lot
of overgrowth. They had to goback with a rake and rake everything up.
Yeah, So my question is I'mnot too sure exactly how big my

(21:56):
lawn is. It's from the frontin the backyard. What setting would you
come in on those little spreaders thatwe use? Boy, yeah, if
you what what kind of product brandare you using? What's the company?
I still want? I'm on thestill the rainy levit schedule with the nitric
clause. Okay, all right,So there ought to be on a bag

(22:18):
some guide there for you. Asfar as the setting. The problem is,
I can't tell you the setting becausedifferent sizes of fertilizer particles require a
different setting on the on the onthe fertilizer spreader, and you need the
one that fits whatever, depending onthe fertilizer spreader you own and the fertilizer

(22:38):
you buy. That's what determines thesetting. And so it can it can
be all over the board in termsof what number would be the right one,
depending on you know, those thosethings. So I would I would
just do your best guess at that, but it should be on the bag.
If ever you're in doubt, alwaysgo lighter, because you can always

(23:00):
come back over the lawn a secondtime, even at the same setting or
even a lesser setting, and yousort of head your bet. That way,
if you put too much out,you run out a fertilizer before you
finish the lawn, well that's aproblem, right, So, but I
think your situation was the other Itwas that it was it was too much
was going out. So just justeither look on the bag or go on

(23:22):
the website Night Fuss Fertilizer website andyou should be able to find the number.
Sir. All right, Mike,thank you appreciate the call. Let's
see, we're gonna now head outand we're gonna go to Michael and Cyprus.
Good morning, Michael, Good morning. How can we help? Oh?

(23:47):
Yeah, I'm interested in compost topdressing. I know Randy Lemon had
mentioned in the pad that's never toolate or too hot to do it.
But what kind of precautions do Ineed to take to it at a hotter
month, say right now or beginningof June. If you've got a good
quality leaf mold composts, and thatmeans good quality means it's it's been thoroughly

(24:08):
you know, decomposed. Uh,there's not going to be a problem with
that with the seasons. Now,I wouldn't put it down an inch deep,
you know, on on the line. Of course, that's not a
top dressing. That's an inundating butyou can you can put a quality compost
like that down any time of theyear. Okay um. Now, in

(24:30):
regards to the new side, I'verecently laid about a palette of a new
side in a dog pin area.Okay, um, do I need to
put composts on that or a voidputting compost on that as well? Uh?
How recently like the last two weeks? Yeah, in the last few
days, Okay, I would Iwouldn't top dress set. I would get

(24:53):
it rooted down, give it agive it at least two weeks to root
in well, and then begin tolightly fertilize it. And I think that
would be the best way to go. At some point in the summer.
You could do the compost top dressing. That's fine, but let's just let
it get rooted in and not addtoo much in the mix at this early
stage. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you for your ope. All
right, Michael, thank you forthe call. You're listening to Garden Line.

(25:17):
I'm your host, Skip richter ournumber. Please write this down you
don't want to forget it. Sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Well, good morning,good Saturday morning on a good day for

(25:37):
gardening and a good day for talkingabout gardening. On the radio. You're
listening to garden Line and I'm yourhost, Skip Richter Our number seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour, and we are now going to
head out to conrow and talk toBill. Good morning Bill, Hey,
hey, Skip, good morning toyou. Two. Is you are called

(26:00):
you last week about take all patch. I guess it's also called take all
root rot correct. And I putdown pro piconozole for teen okay three,
and I put down a slow releasefertilizer and with urea because I think that
would help change the pH where willmake it more acidic. And then I
was reading similar about this, andmy question is as the oxy as oxystroban

(26:26):
is another thing that I heard wasputting really quite good for for this.
Is that correct? That's right?As I understand, Yes, yeah,
yeah. As oxystroban is a newer, I guess, a newer chemistry than
propiconozole that you mentioned, and itis a systemic and it's very very effective
because it gets in the plant andcontinues to provide some benefits. So if

(26:48):
you know you have put that down, how long what plays? How long
should I wait before you know?Having done the one, do I need
to wait before I put the nextthe augie down there? You know,
I would probably I would probably giveit about four weeks before I put it
down put the azoxy following it.But take all root rod is primarily at

(27:12):
least the turf scientists pathologists are tellingme it's primarily infecting in the fall,
in the spring, the cooler seasonsof the year, and not so much
in the summer. We see theresults in the summer because as grass has
lost roots, it's unable to toleratethe summer as much. But I don't
think you need to be doing thefungicide on that in the summertime. Does

(27:34):
it just go dormant or does itdying or what? I don't know.
It's just the pattern of its affectingthings. It's kind of like that,
you know, the big brown circleswe used to call them brown patch,
that they're in the lawns. That'sa cool season issue also, and when
it gets hot, that fungus justdoesn't have the ability to, you know,
do what it would do in thespring, but I'm take all round

(27:56):
all year. But it just thatthe treatment times or primarily fall in spring.
All right, we're I guess we'restill in spring for a couple of
months. Really, yeah, weare. And actually, you know,
the propiconazole, you know, asI'm thinking about it, it's gonna do
fine, And I might just waitnow and then do the next treatment in
the fall, I think. Okay, that was my next question is how

(28:18):
many treatments is well, one ayear in general is enough. But if
you're trying to get started started upearly on and now you're switching products,
that's why I would have the twothis year. But anything you do to
acidify the soil surface, you're notgoing to change a pH of all the
soil, but just up there wherethe Saint Augustine runners are sitting, if

(28:41):
you acidify that area, it givesthe grass the advantage over take all root
rot being able to thrive. Okay, very good. Does a moony sofiate
work for the acidifying you know,it's been recommended in the past. That's
a twenty one zero zero row fertilizer. If you feel like you have all

(29:02):
the nutrients you had need in yourlawn. There's nothing wrong with that.
Uh. There are a number ofacidic type fertilizers and a microlife makes a
six two four in a red bag. That's that's uh more ascetic. Uh.
And it's not going to change thephure. So but we're just we're
just pushing, we're leaning, We'releaning everything toward a little high lower pH

(29:22):
up there on the runner. Uh. Sometimes people have recommended other things,
you know, light sulfur applications andso on. Okay, you know a
lot of my neighbors got hit bythe same thing. And one guy had
a guy out held a long guyand he was my neighbor. Said he
said it was this was all causedby the freeze. Um no, how

(29:44):
does that work back? You know, back in February twenty one, we
saw some damage to some lawns fromfreeze. But in general, uh no,
this is not this is just anopportunist disease. Disease. It's around
all the time. It's the mostcommon thing I see on saying in Augustine
and so as Ron gets stressed,the disease has the opportunity to move in

(30:06):
and infect the patient, if youwill. He's pulling out all the dead
stuff and adding dirt to the towhere he pulled out the dead stuff.
Does that make Does that make sensetoo, or do you need to do
that? No, just just getthe dead stuff out of there so the
new side can sit on the soilrather than sitting on top of dead stuff.
If you're having to add some yet, but you're you're not gonna you're

(30:30):
not gonna rake it out. It'sit's ubiquitous and so all right, yeah,
all right, all right, Hey, very good. Takes a lot.
Yeah, thank you for the call. I appreciate that you were listening
to garden Line, and Mike,I appreciate you hanging on so far,
and we're gonna have to ask youto hang on just a little bit more.
We're gonna go to break here.You'll be first up and Ron and

(30:52):
Deer Park you're next, if you'dlike to be on seven one three two
one two five eight seven four sevenone three two one two. Kt r
H ktr H Garden Line does notnecessarily endorse any of the products or services

(31:34):
advertised on this program. Welcome tokt r H Garden Line with Skip rictor
just good Saturday morning on a goodday for gardening. And to start off,

(31:56):
maybe a cup of coffee and somegarden line on the radio. You
know, I wanted to mention onSaturday the thirteenth, that is next Saturday,
day before Mother's Day, Arburgate ishaving a special event and you really
need to go check it out.I'll tell you more about it later,
but I'll be out there. I'llmake a two hour appearance at the table,

(32:17):
probably be there longer than not.But anyway, that's out at Arburgate
in tom Ball area. They havequite a shindgg going. So let's start
by going now to Mike as promisedin spring. Good morning, Mike,
Good morning, Skip Skip. SoI'm a retired now and I finally have

(32:37):
time to do all the right thingsthat I want to do in my vegetable
garden. And so one of thethings that I do is I grow sweet
corn, and I have about sevenrows fifty feet long, and then they
are looking beautiful. Now, theproblem is a lot of times I get
that warm right up in the top. And I've been doing some reading and

(32:58):
I don't mind using kim when whenI have to. Okay, um,
so what would you what would yourecommend for not having worms? And I
think timing is very critical. Allthat that's right, That is right.
So you got a couple of options. Uh, you can there is a
BT granule that you can sprinkle intothe whorld. You know, as corn

(33:22):
comes up, it's like it's thislike hollow tube in the in the top.
You can sprinkle a BT into there. And because these critters are feeding,
the eggs are laid and they're feedingout there at times, and so
that that's one thing you can do. The other thing is when the silks
come out of the top of theear and they're only, oh, let's
say two inches long, just puta couple of drops of like a mineral

(33:45):
oil. You can use a vegetableoil to just a couple of drops to
gum up all those little silky strandat the base. Because the the moth
lays egg and the caterpillar that hatchescrawls in the tip of the year.
And when you do that, youcreate a caterpillar killing zone there. They

(34:05):
can't take that that oil all aroundthem and it doesn't affect your your corn,
it doesn't affect pollination. It'll stillall work. But you know you're
not drenching it. You're just puttinga few drops right in the tip of
the year after the silks are abouttwo inches long. Well, I am
talking about a lot of corn.Okay, so this is just a little

(34:25):
batch. Yeah, well it's it'sit's fifty rows and I have seven rows.
Yeah, a lot of us probably. Well you said you're retired.
What else you got to do?Well, you know what, I'm so
busy. I don't have more anytime to do anything. All right,
Well, all right, so we'regonna I'll back off. If that's a

(34:46):
little you got a lot of corners, that's pretty tedious, So you would
just I would just go with aBT. But you're gonna need to do
BT. If you're gonna do aspray that works, well, but you're
gonna need to do that about probablytwice a week for a little while here
as it gets started, because BTdoesn't last but about a date or two

(35:07):
in the environment. And you knowyou want to get at times, so
you get it on there. Sowhen the worms are hatching and starting to
do what they do, you canyou can shut them down, and that
time is about two inches of thesilk. Well, no, you would,
I would be spraying the BT whenthe corn is you know, like

(35:28):
waist high or even even smaller dependingon Just look. You'll see that you'll
see holes in the leaves as they'recoming out of the top of the cornstalks,
as it's growing and getting taller,and that's a sign that those caterpillars
are that there are caterpillars out andabout Yeah, how about spinosa? Spinosa
is fine? I don't know.It depends on the product as to whether

(35:50):
or not it's labeled for corn avegetable garden. I know there's a Captain
Jackson makes a spinosa and Monterey makesa spinosa. There's a lot of spinosa's
out there, but just check thatlabel to be sure. But it works
on anything that choosing eats leaves,so that would definitely include the caterpillars.
Very cool. Then I'll appreciate you. All right, thank you, sir,

(36:12):
Good luck with the corn. Allwe ask is that you drop a
bushel off at KTRH Studio and we'llcall it each yea, so alrighty by
blast. All right, let's headout to Deer Park now, by the
way, our number is seven onethree two one two five eight seven four.
We're gonna talk to Ron this morning. Good morning, Ron, Hey,

(36:34):
good morning. I appreciate you takingmy call. Actually one question turned
to two. So the first one, my main question was, I use
about a three core inch thick mulchon the soil, on natural bark mulch,
but I know it's that underneath that, it's still the soil is really

(36:54):
hard on tom. Okay, andthat's curious. What I could do to
you know, is that is that? Should that be expected? Okay?
And what is an alternative? Andthen the second question, you've mentioned something
about something too of a ward offtakeoff patch because I have a problem with

(37:15):
it. It seemed like every year, you know, Yeah, I'm not
sure exactly how to address that.Okay. Well, they're trying to stay
away from any heavy chemicals or anythinglike that. Okay. Well, um,
let's take those one at a time. Did you mean to say three
quarters of an inch is as deepas the mulchos? Yes? Okay,

(37:35):
Well I you need more. Iwould have, you know, two inches
or depending what is the bed?Is this a flower bed or a shrub
bed or what? Yeah, it'sit's makes a flower in shrub. Okay,
I would at least do a twoinch malt if it's a pretty fine
textured mulch, and if if youget real chunky, you might even have
to go a little deeper than that. Because we're trying to block the light

(37:58):
out. You always want to leavethe mulch and just add new malts.
And so if you're planning flowers,just pull that old malts back when you
plant, pull it back around them, and refresh with a little bit on
top. But the old malt,as it's decomposing, is working at the
soil surface, and it's helping toloosen the soil. So one other alternative
might be run to go ahead anduse a compost as a malt, maybe

(38:23):
an inch if compost as a malt, and then if you want to put
some wood, you know, decomposedwood on top of that as a malt,
that's fine. But that compost atthe soil surface will go a long
way. And then each time you'rereplanting something like flowers, you know that's
going to get worked into the soilsurface a little bit, just inherently as

(38:45):
you're digging into pulling up an oldplant putting in a new one. And
so I think that would be thepathway to having a better situation there.
Okay, So go with a compostabout a minute, about an inch,
about an inch initially, and youkind of scratch that in to an inch,
so you got an inch on topand scratch it in and then finish
with a mulch on top of that. And I think you're going to have

(39:07):
we're gonna have to we have torun to break. Let me come back
and I'll jump on the take allpart of your question. You are listening,
I'm gonna put you on hold here, Ron, you are listening to
garden Line our number seven one threetwo one two five eight seven four.
Get to meet you guys and getto see some cool stuff. We're going
to head out to Deer Park nowand we are going to talk to Ron.

(39:30):
Hello, Ron, thanks for waiting, Yes, sir, just waiting
that you're gonna let me know aboutwhat to put down to us, you
know, as a permititive or somethingor take the take all? Right,
okay, Well there's two ways togo by take all, but both ways
begin with cultural practices. If thesoil is compacted, that needs to be

(39:52):
alleviated with coreperation and compost top dressing. If the area is very shady,
that's st as the grass, andit may not be a spot for grass,
or it may be that you canimprove on that a little bit when
we use products that stress the grassand a lot of the weed control products

(40:12):
when the weather gets hot, thepost emergence can stress the grass and that
predispose go ahead. Okay, Sothe thing that you want to do from
a control standpoint, if you'd rathernot use a fungicide, you can put
peat moss out. And this hasbeen done in two A and M tests

(40:36):
and been successful, and we haven'tquite turned the corner on it to where
it's just an automatic recommendation. We'realways really cautious to make sure that the
data is correct. But if youput about one compacted bale of peat moss
per thousand square feet and water itin that acidic environment around the runners,

(40:57):
really helps suppress take our root rot. Uh. And so that would be
a compressed bale. So just thinkof like a hay bale, but but
a bag of compressed pete. Youhave to break it up into a wheelbarrow,
make little piles around the yard andthen and then spread it around uh.
And that would be the non UH. That would be the more organic
way. Of course, acidifying fertilizershelp. Even an application of sulfur to

(41:22):
the lawn can be helpful. Butbut that would all be part of that
cultural effort. Well, where wherewould you find the bag the bailed Pete
Moss in So you're going to findit in any of the good garden centers.
If they don't have it, they'regonna be able to order it for
you. Uh So, you know, you what, what's the what is
the closest place you like to shop? I don't know, I'm in your

(41:45):
parks. I mean we have mowsnursery and then a couple of box stores,
home depot at loads. I'll tellyou what. I would check with
one of your local Ace hardwares too, U the Ace hardware. If they
don't have it, they probably canget it. Go ahead and ask them
see if they get it in.If not, Moss Moss probably could order
it and get it in for youas well. But just think about a

(42:07):
bail per thousand, So just figureout about how many thousand square feets you
want to cover and that that wouldbe the next approach for it, along
with a little bit of stuffer.Is that like a hay bail? Yeah,
it was like a bag of soil, but it's square and hard.
You remember when coffee used to comein those little vacuum packed breaks. That's

(42:29):
what I'm talking about, but ona big, like three point eight cubic
foot bag, and when you fluffit up, it becomes a lot more
than that you have to break.Okay, Yeah, it's okay, it's
like that coffee excepted. Okay,excellent, good thank you very much.
Yeah, good luck. Appreciate that. I shall thank you. Ye bye

(42:49):
bye. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and our phone number is seven onethree two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. We're talking about lawns
and fertilizing lawns, and I wastalking about the ratio of the numbers on

(43:10):
the bag, why we put nitrogenon, why we don't put too much
nitrogen on, and you just ingeneral, you want to get your lawn
soil to the condition where when thatgrass needs anything, it's there and it's
in the right amount. You know, some nutrients, when they become excessive,
they inhibit the plant from being ableto take up other nutrients because they

(43:37):
make those nutrients, they change theform of the nutrients. So for example,
okay, nerd alert here, we'regonna go a little nerd alert.
But I just want you to understandthe concept. If you have high pH
and super high phosphorus levels, ironbecomes less available and so you get iron
chlorosis on your grass. Even thoughthere's plenty of iron in the soil,

(43:58):
the plant can't get it. Andthat's why I like to recommend soil tests,
because when you do a soil test, you find out what is in
my soil, and then you canfertilize accordingly. In general, you know,
I've I did a study one timein northwest Austin where we looked at
two hundred homes. We soil testedeveryone, and there wasn't a single home

(44:21):
that needed phosphorus. I'm serious,two hundred. Now, that's not necessarily
normal for it to be that crazyoverwhelming, But in general, phosphorus is
generally not needed much a little.It's an essential nutrient, but most soils
are going to have some, butmaybe not your lawn. So with a
soil test, you find out whatyou have and you can fertilize you know,

(44:44):
accordingly, And that's that's what we'retalking about. If you want to
get your soil tested, you cango to soil testing one word soil testing
dot TAMU, dot e DU.That is a state soil testing lab up
in College Station, and there's afarm there you fill out. You want
the urban soil test. And that'snot because we're in Houston. I mean,

(45:07):
you can be out in Timbuck twoon one hundred acre farm far from
civilization. You still want the urbansoil test. If you're doing lawns and
gardens and landscapes. That's really whatthat means. I wish they called it
something different, but anyway, theydon't. So this isn't the farmer's soil
tests. This is the urban soiltest. Fill out that farm, tell

(45:28):
them you know, I'm growing roses. There's a box to check I'm growing
saying, you know grass, Ihave a vegetable garden. And then when
the results come in, it willbe geared toward what you are growing in
that spot. And you don't haveto soil test every year. I mean
every few years is fine, butit just helps you fertilize more intelligently.
And in the meantime, we giveyou the rule of thumb and you're not

(45:50):
going to go wrong. I mean, you can go fertilize with the rule
of thumb for five years in arow. That's fine. Just occasionally you
do need to check and soil teststo get the best results from that.
That's kind of what we're aiming for, because everybody wants to have a beautiful
lawn, right, I mean,you know we it's it's like an American
tradition. We we love our lawns, and I know there's a movement towards,

(46:15):
you know, having less lawn anddoing other things. And hey,
it's your yard. Do what youwant. I mean, it's your property.
As long as you and the homeownersassociation can get along on it,
then have fun. But in general, people want a beautiful lawn. They
want it to be uh just attractive, evenly green and the carpet of the
landscape. That's basically what a lawnis. That's your outdoor carpeting, and

(46:38):
so having it good and beautiful isimportant. Our number one cause of law
problems. Um uh. If youwant to see the number one cause at
lawn problems, we need to golook in the mirror. It's we we
tend to to miss take care ofour law. We you know, our

(46:59):
fur furizing is uninformed and sometimes illlytimed. H We uh have compaction that
we don't alleviate on the lawn.We overwater Oh my gosh, do we
ever overwater our lawns in Houston?Uh? It is? It rains a
lot here, but we still waterlike we lived in El Paso U.

(47:19):
And you know all the things wedo to to predispose problems. I talked
about overdoing the nitrogen and having issueswith that. That's the problem. You
know. Just take care of yourgrass, return the nutrients, follow our
guidelines, use the kind of productswe're talking about, and you can have
that kind of beautiful dance and healthyand healthy lawn too. Let's head out

(47:42):
now we're gonna go to the phonesas John in Lafayette, Louisiana. John,
how are you today? Great?Just raining a lot crazy over here
right now? Is it all right? Yeah? And you're listening to Guardline
on the radio or on their computeron my computer? Well, yeah,
I phone too, sore fron Okay, good well, glad you listen.
How can we help? Yeah?I lived over ju Snarrea for like forty

(48:07):
years, you know, I alwayskept up my yard and never think with
the nitrofoss products. And since Imoved over here my yard, the weeds
are just going crazy. Now I'mnot sure how to get started on it
because I cannot find the nitro fossproducts over here. Okay, use I

(48:27):
was going to have any ideas whatI can do to get get the weeds
under control anyway. Yeah, Soif you're not finding the products we talk
about here, the nitro fist,the Nelson's, the microlife for example here
for your lines, just find somethingthat has a three one to ratio three
times as much of the first numberas a second, half as much or

(48:52):
twice as much of the third numberas a second three one two, and
you'll find that a lot of numberslike fifteen five, ten is a real
common one that you see out there. And I would fertilize at the rate
we recommend. You can follow theschedule that's available online. And as far
as the weeds, you have twooptions. You can start fighting them with
sprays, and if you're going todo that, you need to do the

(49:14):
broad leaf spray right away because it'sabout to get way too hot for applying
those things. Or you could justmow it and ignore it and work on
mowing, watering, and fertilizing tobring that lawn back and choke out most
of the weed problems. And thenyou may have some treatments for the others.
But when you get into the fall, you want to put a pre

(49:37):
emergent down to stop the seeds thatare going to carry you all through the
winter. In spring, the weedseeds that are going to do that.
And I think in general that thoseguidelines are is how I would go about
it. Just you can make thatchoice. But I'm about to have to
go to a break here. Didthat cover your question? Yeah, I
believe so. But the fifteen tofifteen five ten, that's a fertilizer,

(49:58):
right, yes, sir, thatwould be an example of a three one
to ratio product. Okay, allright, Hey, thanks for listening and
Lafayette and I appreciate you giving usa call. You're listening to garden Line.
We're gonna go to break, butGreg and Pinehurst will catch you right
when we come back. Spirit Well, good morning on a good Saturday morning

(50:30):
for gardening. We love to talkabout things that are gardening related. I'm
going to head back out. Istill got John there on the line and
Lafayette johnre do you ever a followup? No, I don't, okay,
id't know. I didn't know Iwas still on the line. I'm
sorry, no problem, that's okay, thank you for your call. Let's
head to Pinehurst. We're gonna talkto Greg Well. Hello, Greg,

(50:53):
Hey, Skip, how you doingso? My yard is looking phenomenal thanks
to you and Randy Hobby. I'vegot about a hundred foot of fence privacy
fits that I went to line withm Probably I'm thinking cherry laurels. The
only other thing I could think ofwould maybe be Eagleston hollies. But I

(51:15):
really like the cherry laurels. I'mjust afraid they're not going to get tall
enough. How tall do cherry laurelstypically get. They get tall enough.
I've seen even the Brighton tight,which is a more compact grower, I've
seen at twelve fifteen feet tall.So in time, okay, that time
perfect? Okay, yeah, intime obviously in their fast gros. And

(51:37):
then one more question about that.Could I was thinking to kind of just
add a little color maybe on theends of each of one hundred foot each
side, put like a vitex orsomething is that we play well together a
vitex in tery level. Well,you know, you wouldn't want to get
them too close together. But thevitex is deciduous, so it's going to

(51:57):
be your summer color. You wouldjust have to keep that trimmed in order
to maintain uh some appropriate size forwhat you want to at a vitex,
you know, Santonio. The otherday I saw some vitexes that were two
stories high. That's one of thetallest vitexes I've seen. So they get
big in time, but in generalthey can be kept. I have one

(52:19):
at my house that's about it's probablyabout ten feet tall. I've been kind
of keeping it at that size,just with some judicious pruning, so you
have a range there. And thenwhat one more question in my beds,
I call it, can call ita bed um, it's um. There's
this area that I would love alandscape or tell me he thought a Japanese

(52:39):
maple would be a really good kindof ornamental tree. Okay, because it's
a very very low shade. Um, but I'm afraid it's almost got too
much shade. How much can aJapanese like how much sunshine. Does a
Japanese maple apps actually need excuse me, Yeah, that's that's hard to be
precise with an answer on that.They if they, if you were to

(53:00):
ask a Japanese maple, it wouldlove a little morning sun and then some
dapples shade throughout the day. Uh, if you if you put it in
too deep of a shade, ifit's deep enough, it's not going to
do well go downhill. But ifit's it's at least going to be more
sparse. It's gonna be a littlemore thin, just because it's not getting

(53:22):
that light. So sure, itcomes down to foot candles and time greg
In other words, you know,a good little morning sun goes a long
way and keeping a plant boosted,but a bright shade all through the day
can essentially be the equivalent. Andyou know, think about the solar rays,
you know, like rain coming downand so how hard is it raining

(53:43):
and how long does it rain?Right, and so that determines how to
train you get And the sun issimilar. And so it's not to say
you can get a whole day requirementin an hour of blazing hot sun.
It's just to say that if theshadier it is the brighter it needs to
be, and the longer of asomewhat bright time during the day you have

(54:06):
for it to do well. Okay, Yeah, I just want to set
it up for success. And I'mstill not sure it's the right spot for
really anything to grow because I hadsome the builder had put some I think
box woods or something there, andthey just die because it just does die.
And it's got very go kind ofpoor drainage. So maybe I shouldn't
put anything there. I don't wantto buy a Japanese maple in it die

(54:27):
in a year. So yeah,yeah, they're they you know there,
they come at a price. Theyeah, I don't know that. I
think the drainage. I mean,look at how you fix that, because
there are a lot of good thingsin the sun. There's bears breeches,
which is a nissa canthus makes atall spike. It's an unusual perennial.
Uh there ish I had one inmy head just a moment ago. Oh.

(54:47):
The oak leaf Hydrangia makes a verylarge, pretty bush. But again
you don't put it in a swamp. But but it'll appreciate a moist area.
It likes wet feet. Yeah,and you know, just wherever you
know, wherever you do your shopping. I mean you're not too far from
A and A, are you?Or are you pretty far from Yeah,

(55:08):
it's up in Montgomery actually, uhyeah, no that's not too far.
I'm really I'm close to plants forall seasons in the arbor Gate. But
I think, okay, well,hey, any of those places are going
to be able to point you tosome things that I wouldn't list here if
I talked for an hour. Youknow that that they care, yeah,
and so. And also down atNature's Way they have a nice plant selection

(55:29):
now and a lot of natives.So if you're interesting something a little native,
they may have something that works wellin the in the shade for you.
But those yeah, okay, yeah, the places you mentioned that you're
gonna be able to come home withsomething good. And my landscape for actually
used to work for plants for allseasons, so he definitely knows what he's
doing. But kind of like you, it's kind of like he can,

(55:50):
I have so many ideas in hishead, right, so hopeful, Well,
yeah, I know it's it's it'salways hard, off the top of
the hat to think through a billionplants and come up with one. Sure.
Yeah, I tell you I'm gonnabe at Arbourgate next Saturday. I'll
be there over I think it's eleventhirty to one thirty. I believe it's
the time. Uh and uh yeah, that's right. And if you want

(56:10):
to take some pictures of that areafrom different angles, just kind of let
me see it. Maybe I couldgive you a little bit better answer on
how the maple would do there.Just absolutely bring them on your phone.
Already you're going to be there,so yeah, it will definitely come out.
Oh it's gonna be a blast.I mean they're gonna have Balini's I
mean, you know, so it'sgonna be it's gonna be art in the

(56:31):
garden part. I'll bring my twoyear old. All right, there you
go. All right, thank thanksfor the call. Greg. I appreciate
that you're listening to garden Line andour phone number if you want to get
on the board during break seven onethree, two, one two five eight
seven four you did the same,being well, good morning on a good

(57:02):
Saturday morning for gardening. You're listeningto garden Line our phone number seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We're gonna headout now to northwest Houston and talk to
Frank. Morning Frank, Good morning, Skip. I have a problem with

(57:30):
my peach tree. I'm gonna dothe harveys, but all the limbs are
horror zone. So not all ofthem, but you know, most of
them is kind of you know,grouping on the ground. Okay, I
prop these limbs up a time upafter iluma harveys. Yeah, you kind
of need to. The weight ofthat heavy load is going to bend them

(57:52):
down, and they're generally bounced back. But if if they're weighted down for
long enough, the limb just kindof doesn't fully bounced back, And so
I would do that. I wouldalso look at the way you prune to
try to you want to create anopen bowl with your tree pruning. So
your peach tree looks like a bowlor a chalice, if you will,

(58:13):
but it's it's open. It allowslight in the center, but it's not
hanging so far out because as thosebranches go way too far out, Frank,
you're gonna end up getting sun skaldon the branches. There's gonna be
a lot more suckers growing straight upand water sprouts off the shoots that are
not productive growing back in the middleof the tree. So kind of aim

(58:34):
for about a forty five degree angleon all those branches, maybe sixty degrees
going out, and that would probablybe about ideal. So it wouldn't be
a provate to prom at this time. Oh no, I would prop them
now and get the get the fruitoff that you can. How close to
harvest do you think you are?Is this a real early peach or not

(58:57):
about this time tomorrow? Oh mygosh. Okay, no, don't do
anything. Just get prop the branches. You don't want them broken, and
then when the harm when the allthat's done, then you can try to,
you know, get things back intothe shape you want them. Do
any pruning minor pruning that you mightneed to do to keep those uh,
water sprout suckers coming up through themiddle of the tree. As we go

(59:21):
through the rest of the summer,do I continually see this tree? You
know? It depends on the growth. How old is the tree? How
many years in the ground. Oh, it's been in the ground about three
years. Okay, so you're you'rehitting the productive age of the tree.
Now it's kicking in on good goodproduction, good production, So I would

(59:42):
I would let the growth guide you. At the end of a season on
a peach tree, you should haveabout eighteen to twenty four inches of new
growth on the shoots. If it'smore than that, you don't need to
fertilize so much. Back off.If it's less than that, it could
use a little extra fertilizer. Sowith that heavy load of fruit, it's
probably not doing as much growing asit could. But if you're seeing some

(01:00:05):
vigor, now I would hold offon the fertilizing. Okay, I think
that's provided. But you say,profit don't wrap it, you know,
to string around it or something.Well, yeah, you could do the
I wouldn't you know, do thestring. I knew a peach orchardess that
had banded his trees to hold themup like that, using a kind of

(01:00:27):
a plastic type strap banding. Butyou don't want it to cut into the
branches. But I think you're ingood shape. But hey, Frank,
if you've got that many peaches,you need to bring me about a bushel
maybe bushel and a half, anddrop them off at the station. Because
you got too many. I haveto take some off your hands. Well,
I bring you with the squirrels,so only oh my gosh, well
that's gonna leave me hungry. Hey, thanks for the call, appreciate that.

(01:00:49):
Let's go out to northwest Houston andwe're going to talk to Mike.
Good morning, Mike, Marty Skip. I just had a drip system put
in my flower beds in my fyou know, in my front yard.
Yes, and they put the dripsystem in it kind of a grid.
And my wife couldn't like the waythat they laid the grid on top of

(01:01:09):
the you know, around around theshrubs. But it's lay it on top
of the ground. And I waswondering, would it be wise to put
some course pine board mulch in thereand kind of cover the pipe pipe looking
things? Gotcha, I understand thereason for that. You can do it
either way. The advantage of havingthe drip on top of the ground is

(01:01:30):
you can see when it's working andwhen it's not. You know, if
if an a metter gets clogged,it's kind of evident when you turn it
on, just go kind of checkit over. If you put it under
mulch, you can't see that,but it does hide the pipe. And
so either way is fine, justyou know, occasionally, just make sure
that it's working well. Maybe whenit's time to remulch or to add to

(01:01:51):
the mulch, you can kind ofpull the line up through the mulch,
take a look at things, turnit on, and then throw the new
malch on top of that. Okay, how deep should up put? Deep
should I make the mulch when Iput it down for the first time?
What is the plants being grown inthe bed? Oh? My goodness,
you would actually we are We donhave flowers or shrubs? No, no,
no, no, there's shrubs.Okay, shrubs. Yeah. I

(01:02:13):
would probably put about a three inchmulch. And it depends on what.
Now, if you're going with afine mulch like compost, for example,
well you don't need three inches,you know, an inch or two is
enough. But the three inches ispretty good for most things that blocks the
light. And that's what we're askingfor the mulch to do. Well,
I's gonna put down a course mulch. Shut, How deep should that be?

(01:02:36):
I still think three would work.You'll know though, if we'd start
popping through you don't have a thickenough Okay, very good, Thank you.
For your time. I appreciate you, Skip, thank you for the
call. You're listening to garden Line. Here is our number, write it
down, give us a call,Josh. You'll get you on the board
for our next hour, which whytime is flying this morning? Seven one

(01:02:58):
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two KTRH.
We're gonna be back here. Wegot plenty more to talk about today,
including your calls, so we referredto coming back and visiting with you
about what's of interest to you.The nice thing about gardening is there's something

(01:03:20):
for everybody, orchids on the house, to the lawn outside, to everything
in between. KTRH Garden Line doesnot necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcometo KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
So please just watching as I needto get out today and purchase some container,

(01:03:58):
some pots, or some indoor plants. I'm gonna be doing some repotting
of some indoor plants today and Ineed to find some really good, attractive
quality containers. Oh my gosh,the containers now so much better than it
used to be. It just it'sastounding. But I enjoy that process or
repotting. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter.

(01:04:18):
We are here to answer your gardeningquestions. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Give us call. Let's talk about whatever is of interest
to you when it comes to gardening. We were discussing peach trees and fruit

(01:04:41):
trees and things like that. Ifyou if you have a fruit tree and
you hadn't thinned it, you probablyneed to think about doing that pretty soon,
sooner rather than later. Of course, you know, if you're if
you're like Frank and you're already pickingthe fruit, well, my gosh,
I mean, that's a little toolate to thin. But generally I thin
peaches when they're about the size ofmy thumb. That kind of one inch
rule. I like it when whenwe have measuring devices at the end of

(01:05:04):
our arms. For everything, youknow, you plant, you plant onions
as deep as the first joint onyour index finger. You thin peaches when
they get about the size of yourthumb. Yeah, I mean we have
a lot of If you haven't figuredout how to use your hands for all
kinds of measuring. What's the whenyou open them wide open? What's the
distance from your end of your thumbto the end of your finger. I'm

(01:05:27):
talking about wide open where you cansee all your fingers and everything's sticking out.
From the end of your little fingerto the end of your thumb.
That's how far apart you thin yourpeaches. And so if you're you look
at the width of your hand,you know, close your hand up or
not not a fist, but justflat like you're you're waving at somebody.
Uh, the width from across fromone side of your your knuckles to the

(01:05:49):
other side across there, that's howfar apart you thin thumb plums. So
that makes it easy, right,easy to remember. Well, let's go
to the phones again, the numberseven, one, three, two into
fifty eight seventy four. We aregoing to start off in Montgomery talking to
Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey, how you doing skip, I'm well,
thanks? What's up? Well?I got this thing. I live

(01:06:11):
up here on five acres and it'spretty woodsy in some areas, and I
was wandering around through the woods.I found a cedar juniper that evidently they
pop up here every now and then. I guess birds eat the juniper berries
or whatever, and because they seemto be underneath trees and kind of in
the woods. But I want totransplant this one that I found. It's

(01:06:35):
only about three and a half fourfeet tall. But I was wondering,
do they have tap roots? Idon't think so, but I may be
paying about that. I don't youknow, if it's a seedling. I
don't know, Jim, I'm gonnahave to check that out. But I
can tell you this when you transplanted. First of all, if you could

(01:06:58):
wait until fall to do it,it would be better because you can do
that it's an evergreen, and whenthey don't like being transplanted. So if
you can get it done in thefall, when it's cool and the demands
are super low, I think yourchances are going to be better. But
think wider rather than deeper. SoI think you're a question about a tap
root, was like, how deepdo I need to dig? You only

(01:07:19):
need to dig about eight inches deep. But if you can get you know,
like two feet wide on each sideof the plant, that's a huge
thing. But what I've done,I'll take a tarp out and I'll slide
it onto the tarp so I don'thave to pick up all that soil,
and then I'll just drag it overto where I want to replant it.
So I don't know if that's apractical on the setting you're describing or not,

(01:07:42):
but no, it's probably about.Like I said, I live on
five acres, so when I foundthis thing, it's up closer to the
front of my property and where Iwant to put it, it's back closer
to the house. But I canwait till, you know, gets cold
and do that. But um,it's sandy soil, so it's pretty easy

(01:08:06):
after it rains to move a lotof that out of the way and kind
of scrape it away and then digit up and I can get pretty much
all the roots. I've done thatwith some of its American Hollywood grows wild
out here in the wood. Yes, I've moved a couple of those before
and they're growing like crazy. Wellyou must know what you're doing then,

(01:08:26):
because that's a that is a gooda good way to go about it.
But yeah, I would I woulddo that early November, or it could
be later than that, but youknow it the pressures off the plant at
that time, and you have themost weeks until it gets hot again.
Yeah. I was just mainly concernedif it had a tap root, because
that those are harder to get to, you know. Yeah, I'm gonna

(01:08:50):
have to check to be sure onthat. I just all right, well,
I can wait till later. Imean, it's not a big rush,
it's not in a section where youknow it's going to be a problem.
So I just uh discovered it.And I noticed that my neighbors that
we well we all up here haveat least five or ten acres and I've

(01:09:10):
noticed some of these that are reallylarge that have grown up. And it's
it's the cedar juniper type plant.You know, it's dark green, and
it's got the little thorny kind ofbranches, you know. Okay, yeah,
so yeah, it really looks pretty. It's grown, you know.
Uh. Like I said, Ijust discovered it this winter, when you

(01:09:31):
know, everything gets deciduous and thenI can go wander through the woods and
I can see, you know,what's still green. Yeah. Well,
good, well, good luck allright then, So thank you very much,
Thank you for the colle Jim appreciatethat. Let's head out now to
rich in Spring. Hello Rich,good morning, Skip. We're looking for

(01:09:53):
a non selective herbicide that is fasteracting than the normal forty one percent states
faster. Okay, what are youtrying to kill? Just normal weeds?
I don't want to wait. Itseems like it's ten to fourteen days when
I spray, you know, withyour normal product, and it takes a

(01:10:15):
long time for him to start wiltingand then dying. I'm just looking for
something quicker. There used to bea product called Finale that was faster.
It didn't it didn't translocate quite aswell down as glypha sate did, but
that would be it now. Certainly, like if you're just trying to burn

(01:10:36):
the top of annual weeds and notthat generally kills them, then a vinegar
product is about as fast as youcan get on a hot sunny day.
You put it out and it justfries the top pretty quick. Um.
It's trying to think of other thingsfor that that would be faster but also
still be effective that you know,if it's grasses, the products that grass

(01:11:01):
control products only that have sethoxiden inthem, or they're reasonably fast. So
I don't know that that's where Iwould go with it. I think,
Okay, I appreciate your helps,kid, Thank you all right, good
luck with that. You are listeningto garden Line. I am your host,
Skip Richter, and we are hereto answer your gardening questions. If
you want to give us a call, the number is seven one three two

(01:11:25):
one two five eight seven four.You are listening to garden Line. We
are having a blast today answering yourgardening questions and just really getting into the

(01:11:47):
down and dirty of all kinds ofthings gardening. Let's head out to pair
Land and we're going to talk toKevin. Good morning, Kevin, Hey,
good morning, Skid, that life'scaller. I think he was onto
something because I've been saying it fora while. I'm not going to name
the product, but I think weall know what it is. That's a
weak killer. I don't know ifthey've watered it down, but it does

(01:12:08):
not work anymore. I started usingjust straight vinegar, you know, five
percent acidity in my garden sprayer,you know, just for driveway weeds and
stuff like that, and that worksand it's organic. But the other product
that the gentleman was talking about,I think they just I think it's water

(01:12:28):
now. Honestly, well, that'sinteresting. You know, the vinegar does
if it's if it's strong enough,about eight to ten percent would be what
i'd aim for. I mean,go stronger, but it just I guess
vinegar actually becomes more dangerous as yousomeone who's talking to me the other day
about a thirty percent vinegar, Well, I wouldn't want to splash that in
my eyes. Yeah that'll burn.The extra extra careful, but yeah,

(01:12:49):
that works. There's also since you'retalking about that, I appreciate the call
coming. There's also now products thatare made with other compounds that top burn.
There's a a soap based weed controlproduct. In other words, it's
a it's not insecticidal soap, it'sa soap made to burn plants. And
there are there's products that contain thenatural ingredient eugenol and others that are used

(01:13:13):
as a top burn. So aslong as it's not a perennial weed where
it can come back from the ground, you fry the top back on an
annual weed and you get rid ofit. I mixed in a little bit
at dawn dish soap with the withthe vinegar. You know, just to
give it that surfactant you stickiness toit, yea, And I mean it
actually works great and it's cheap.Yeah, well, that's yeah. I

(01:13:35):
appreciate that that that a few dropsof dish soap is good. You can
also just buy a commercial surfactant thatare designed for that, but uh,
that that does help it stick.And for those of you listen, and
I'm kind of going outside the callhere, but whenever you're using a top
burn product like vinegar, it's bestif the weather's warm, the sun is

(01:13:56):
shining baking down on the plant.It works so much faster. If it's
fifty degrees outside and it's misty andcloudy and overcast, it doesn't work as
fast and as well as if youif you do it on good hot sunny
day. Thank you for that call, Kevin. You're listening to Garden Line
our number seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. Now we're

(01:14:16):
going to head out and talk toMelanie and Lamarck. Hello, Melanie,
good morning. I called you acouple of weeks ago because my pumpkin plants
as making mail flowers and no femaleflowers. Good news is is I've got
some pumpkins coming, but is myleaves are starting to yellow and brown,

(01:14:36):
and I don't know what's going on. What's going on is probably powdery milde.
It's some type of a foliage disease. But that sounds like powdery milde,
and you need to treat it asquick as you can. When it
takes all the foliage away, ittakes all the ability for the plant to
produce carbohydrates, which is what youneed to make a good pumpkin. And

(01:14:57):
so would I would begin to usea spray for the Do you garden organically
or you know, just whatever ittakes, or what's your approach, whatever
it takes, whatever it takes.Okay, all right, Well, there
are products when when you head outto a garden center you know in your
area that carries a wide variety ofthings. Look for a product labeled for

(01:15:20):
vegetables that is that will control powderymild. It'll be a fungicide, and
there's a number of different chemistries outthere on the market that can do that.
But you just want to make sureit's labeled for the vegetables and you
can do pretty good. I havefound pretty good success on with a powdery
mildew at using kneeme oil. Nowthat's an organic, but kneem oil spray.

(01:15:45):
You just don't want to spray toostrong, you know, and mix
it too strong, you know,spread in the hot sun. But kneem
oil is a very good organic productfor powdery mildew. Okay, I'll try
that, thank you very much,but just remember you're gonna have to whatever
you use, you're gonna have todo retreating. But you want to protect
that foliage. Thank you for thecall, Melanie. Thank you. Let's

(01:16:06):
head out now to friends Wood.I'm going to talk to Carolyn this morning.
Good morning Carolyn, Good morning Skip. I received as a gift a
peace lily, and so after Ihad had it for a few days,
and it's big, it's a bigplant. It came wealthy looking, so

(01:16:28):
I decided to plant to water it. Well, that perked it up for
a day or two, and thenit went back to being wealthy. So
I decided to repot it, andI bought a nice pot and I planted
it in rose soil. Okay,well, now it is just so droopy

(01:16:51):
that I'm gonna I don't know whatto do. Now. That's interesting,
and I have a moisture meter thatI use and it says it's moist Yeah,
I'm just stumped. Piece lilies orthey're they're a challenge. I've had
one that has just struggled for acouple of years, and I was always

(01:17:13):
like, is it too wet,is it too dry? You stick your
finger in the soil, or tryingto figure it out. When you repotted
this one, did you notice wherethey're healthy, creamy colored roots on the
outside or where they kind of brownand water soaked looking. They were kind
of brown and hard hard. Okay, so what what's happened is you've had
a root death on the plant andthat can be caused by saggy, wet

(01:17:35):
conditions. It piece lily. Thegood thing about it is it takes as
lower light, just about as anyplant in the house can take. But
when you get it or light,the water use just really slows down,
and so you want to be carefulnot to overwater it. I would make
sure when you repot with something likethat, I would use a looser mix

(01:17:59):
that's not as heavy and mucky,just to provide optimum drainage in the soil.
Uh, And then I would stickmy finger in the soil. I
mean you can see do it witha finger. You can sharpen a pencil
and stick it down a couple ofinches down in the soil. Pull it
out and you'll see if the sharpenedin the wood part is wet or stained,
or if there's soil clinging to it. Kind of like you know how

(01:18:21):
you use a toothpick when you're tryingto see if a poundcakes are ready to
come out of the out of theair. It's sort of like that when
stuff's clinging that a pencil can.If you don't want to get your finger
dirty, that's that's a way todo it. But I think getting the
getting the soil moisture right is thekey. And it sounds like I'm sorry,

(01:18:41):
go ahead. It sounds like youmaybe you can. Those are pretty
good. That depends on the sciencebehind how that particular meter you buy works.
Some of them are pretty accurate,some of them are not so accurate.
So uh, just you know,you kind of use all the above.
You know what I use as mine'sin a plastic pot. So I

(01:19:01):
picked the pot up and I cantell the minute I pick it up if
it's light, very lightweight compared towhat it is when sweat. That's how
I tell how much water's in it, because it works pretty good for me.
So maybe try try all the aboveand try to settle in. Would
you at this point if you weremade, how long ago did you repot
it? Oh? About two weeksago or a week ago? Maybe no,

(01:19:27):
but it's been two weeks. Youknow, if you feel like you
use some cheap, mucky potting soil, I would. If you feel like
you used a decent soil, thenI would not at this time of that,
right, you told me the rosesoil. Yeah, that's that's fine.
That should work fine for it.I shouldn't be careful on the water.
Oh, I don't know what todo with it now. It just
looks it's just droopy. And yeah, yeah, well I would pull I'd

(01:19:53):
lay the pot over, pull itout and just get a look at the
roots and soil and see what yousee going on. If it's drooping,
it doesn't have a good root system. The root system has died from either
drought or saggy conditions, and soyou know, you got to get a
good root system on it. Thereare drenches of fungicides that can fight root

(01:20:15):
rot, but the real problem issoil moisture, and so somehow you got
to figure out how to get thatright. Boy, I tell you I
have friends that have had these thingsfor twenty five years that they're still wonderful.
And I get this going on.I'm a professional horticultures and I just
admitted to you that I've had oneI struggled with. Of course, I'm

(01:20:38):
not taking care of it, youknow, the cobbler's kids go barefoot at
my house, but when it comesto Paris. But I moved it to
a different location and start watering alittle more and it's doing better. And
so I guess I was keeping alittle too dry. I don't know anyway,
good luck with that. Thank youfor the calls. I'm gonna go

(01:21:00):
out to Montgomery and talk to Terry. Terry I got, I got about
one minute, so let's see ifwe can do this. If not,
we'll hold you over pass break.Hi, thanks for taking my call.
I've got some black powdery mildew growingon my Saint Augustine in the front yard
and it's flotchet but I think it'sspreading. Do you know what it is?
I do, and it's nothing toworry about. It is a fungus

(01:21:24):
growing on the surface of the SaintAugustine and it will dry and it'll turn
kind of a grayish color, andwhen you mow you may see some dust
that's the spores of it. It'subiquitous in nature. When conditions you're right,
it takes off. You can squirtit with a hose and blast it
off. It is not a diseasethat's in the plant. So good news.

(01:21:45):
Oh that is very good to hear. And we did that in less
than one minute. I'm amazed.Well you did your part. Thank you,
Terry. I appreciate that. Thankyou. Have a great day.
Thanks for your thank Bye. Stevewill get to you when we get back
from break. Well. Good Saturdaymorning, on a good day for talking

(01:22:15):
about gardening and also forgetting not indoing some gardening. You're listening to garden
Line. I'm your host, SkipRector and our number. Write this down
seven one three, two one twofive eight seven four seven one three two
and two fifty eight seventy four.We are going to head out to northwest
Houston now and talk to Steve.Hello, Steve, Hi, excudum.

(01:22:40):
My question about lawn fertilization. It'sabout organic versus SYNTHETI now I use an
organic fertilizer, you know, microlife, and I just one year take on
organic works synthetic you know the nitrofoals y'all tend to promote a lot or

(01:23:04):
you know brands like Scots which alot of people use. Um, that's
my question. Okay, So like, well, I think I understand what
you're asking. So let me see. I'll find out here in a minute.
The fertilizers we talked about on thisshow are fertilizers that I personally have

(01:23:26):
used and they work. That theywork. Some people are not organic in
their approach, and so the syntheticsprovide the advantage of uh some special chemistries
that control the release a little bitmore perhaps, or they just they just
provide a variation in the nutrient contentas we go through the season. You

(01:23:48):
can choose different different lines and things. But that's available pretty much in their
organics too. The organics are goingto slowly decompose due to microbial activity,
and so a lot of folks areinterested in gardening organically. And you may
notice that some of the products we'retalking about, like nitrofiles, for example,
they have their own organic version asdoes Nelson plant food, And so

(01:24:11):
it's kind of your choice as tohow you want to garden, how you
want to approach that. But ifyou hear me talking about it, I've
tried it. It works, andso I have no hesitation recommending it.
Okay. I have just always heardabout some synthetic fertilizers that they're kind of
bad for the soil over time.I don't know how true that is.

(01:24:35):
I know I have restarted my lawnsome I don't know, eighteen years ago,
and of course, when of thelawn is new, it may look
beautiful. I sit outside is lookat it. But it seems like every
year my lawn quality seems to erodea little bit. Now, maybe I

(01:24:59):
have a soul oil issue. MaybeI need to have someone come out and
check my soil. And yeah,well, if you have somebody, you
know, what do you recommend asfar as that goes, as far as
checking your soil, well, asfar as soil is concerned, a soil
test, you can go to asoil testing dot TAMU dot edu and find
out if something yeah, yeah,soil testing one word, uh some if

(01:25:24):
something is out of balance, thatcould be a problem and you could have
that with organic product, you havethat with a synthetic product. I mean,
out of balance is out of balance, right, and so fertilizing based
on a soil test is a goodidea, you know, as far as
the other though, it really comesdown to what you want to use.
I mean, we could talk aboutthis for an hour, really drilling down

(01:25:44):
into all the details. But ifyou if you properly take care of your
lawn, whether the fertilizers coming fromorganic or synthetic, the nutrients of plants
take up or the same. Thedifference is with the synthetics, it's a
salt based fertilizer with the organics justcoming from something that was once alive,
a living material, typically plant based, and uh that is releasing those nutrients

(01:26:09):
back into the soil gradually over time, so you can have a beautiful lawn
either way, you decide what yourpreference is. If you're not happy with
what you've been using, then switchtry something else and see see how that
works. Okay, okay, okay, um, all right, well,
goodn thank you so much for theinformation. All right. I hope that's

(01:26:30):
helpful. I know that the wholeorganic synthetic it's a can of worms,
and and there's there's a lot Ican say about it. And I don't
mean to say that nothing, nothingmatters or anything. I'm just saying that
I see people have success with bothways, and and my approach here is
you tell me how you want agarden, and I will guide you in

(01:26:51):
having success with that that way.Uh. And so I hope we'll come
across that way. I personally,I use a lot of organic products in
my lawn and landscape, but Ijust like to use them. I love
them. It's not I wouldn't sayI would never use a synthetic at all.
I'd also use that, but it'syou know, it's your preference,

(01:27:13):
and uh. You know everybody isgoing to have a reason. Uh.
And you'll hear a lot of argumentsfor one way or the other. I'm
not going to get into all thattoday or on the show even It's just
know that if I'm recommending it,it's something I've used and it works.
Let's head out now to Tom Balland we're gonna talk to Ken. Good

(01:27:33):
morning, Ken, Good morning,I've got Uh. We moved my mother
in law down from Dallas recently,and we brought a rosebush with us and
transplanted it. So just last weekwe put it in the ground and it's
looking pretty poorly, and I wasthinking maybe a root stimulator. Oh yeah,

(01:27:59):
you could give it a shot onthat. I mean, I'm sure
the transplanting. Was it in apot up there? Did you have to
dig it up up there? No? Okay, well yeah, it has
a lot of reason to be unhappyright now. But um, you just
want to keep the soil moist withoutkeeping it soggy wet. Hopefully you put
it in a rose soil. Ifyou didn't, I would today, uh

(01:28:25):
pull it up, get some goodrose soil to put it on, and
enhance the soil quality in the bed. Keep those roots moist, good,
good, Okay, Yeah, you'redoing all you can. Just keep it
moist. I don't know if ifyou know, I didn't see it when
you dug it. I didn't seethe size and the amount of roots and
all that. But maybe there's notquite enough roots for it to just keep

(01:28:46):
going pretty well. So I wouldeven consider throwing a little bit of a
shade over it a bit and justkind of giving it. When it's a
real hot sunny day, do alittle shake cloth or something. And just
give it some time to kind ofget some roots in. You don't want
to block the light, but youjust want to kind of let's reduce the
demands on it a little bit.That might help. Overall. I think
you're going to be fine. Itjust it's gonna pout for a while and

(01:29:11):
may even decline and get some deadbranches. But if you keep the soul
moisture moderate and then give it somefertilizer, it's going to do well.
Hey, Ken, I got torun to a break, but I hope
that is helpful for you. You'relistening to garden line seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four.Well, good Saturday morning, A good

(01:29:38):
day for gardening, good day fortalking about gardeners. We've been talking a
lot about fertilizers and lawns, andI think lawns is the kind of the
topic of the day. It seemslike today as most days. If you're
familiar with Nitrofos products, are youfamiliar with their Superturf. That's the nineteen
fourteen Nitrofis Superturf is designed for summertime. They triple guarantee it keep the grass

(01:30:02):
green longer, reduces mowing requirements andreduces brown patch problems in Saint Augustine as
we get later in the season.And the reason is we're gradually fertilizing with
Superturf nineteen four ten. It's feedingover a full twelve to sixteen weeks.
It's cutting down on those problems becausewe're not overdoing the fertilizer. You'll find

(01:30:24):
nitrofosts anywhere. Nitrofost products are sold, of course, but you can call
them seven one, three two toeight eighteen sixty eight, or head out
to one of the many ACE hardwaresall over the Greater Houston area for your
nitrofost Superturf. All right, Ithink I'm going to head out to Crosby
and we're going to talk to Barbararight now. Good morning, Barbara,

(01:30:46):
Hey, good morning, so niceto talk to you as well. I
have a I have a brand newhummingbird butterfly garden. It's a good size,
some shape, and I have highhopes for it. It's real pretty
so far. I've packed it withperennials that will bloom. My problem is

(01:31:08):
weeds. I can't molt it.It's a two part question. I can't
vult it because they have chickens andthey're going to relocate anything that's loosed.
So I'm looking for the definitive groundcome. Oh. I also have milkweeds
for the butterflies. So far,I hadn't brought one to maturity because kickings
like to hop up and pick thosethings off. I think I've got a

(01:31:28):
busset for the chickens. But anyway, I'm looking for the definitive ground cover.
See what comes to mind for you, something low growing, doesn't have
to bloom. I was thinking ofjust letting the dichondra go, But what
can I buy? Anything come tomind? Maybe that blooms? Oh boy,
Well, first of all, youneed to give your chickens a good

(01:31:49):
talking to you. This is unacceptablebehavior and they need to know that feeding
them you're being good to them.As long as they're turning it into eggs,
I'm gonna let it have all.Right, there you go. You
know the problem when you put inplants, it's it's yes, you're cutting
down on weeds, but essentially thoseplants become a weed to the to the
other plants. You know what I'msaying that their competition growing together U s

(01:32:13):
for blooms. This is a realgood sunlight obviously, because you got good
blooming plants that are in and outthere. Uh there is see what would
be a good option. There isa Oh my gosh, my mind is
drawing a blank on the plant I'mtrying to say, and it'll occur to
me a minute. Oh my god. Anyway, I'm gonna I'm gonna have
to draw a blank on that rightnow, the one somebody's listening and they're

(01:32:36):
gonna come up with the ideal logoand ground cover to put in between all
of these bernials, and they're gonnathey're gonna tell me about it, and
you're gonna remember it at the sametime, while I kicked myself, that's
the nice thing. I only havewhat how many million people live around here
that could call and and straighten meout. Yeah, the work if I

(01:32:57):
have another question. But by theway, I thought about of one thing.
It's blue shade, blue shade ruellia. Uh there that that would be
a good one that you might wantto try. And it's not the kind
of ruelia that just gets big andthrow seeds all over the creation. This
is a low growing, spreading plantand there's also a blue days da ze

(01:33:19):
volvulus blue days. It's a littlebit wet for the blue days. That,
yeah, it's a little bit toowet. Forts um, all right,
I've found one and I can't rememberthe name of it either. I
was gonna going to toss it outthere. I'm leaving the little tags on
everything, so whatever makes it throughthe winter, I'm going to concentrate on

(01:33:42):
that next spring. But I'm plantingeverything, a little bit of everything I
can think of that attracts humming virgins, butterflies, you know. You know
what hey, let me one second, sorry, Barb. You know what
I would do is I would lookat an herb ground cover. A regano
spreads the low prostrate grow prostrate runuh. Regonos marjoram as a similar kind

(01:34:03):
of growth habit uh. You know, there's a reganos that more come more
upright, But I'm talking about theones that spread. They spread far and
wide and they do well. Andone other plant see has as my brain
kicks in, I start imagining plantshere. Another one is called um uh
frog fruit, and it is itis like a lot of weed. But

(01:34:24):
people have just heard about frog people. That's that's a thing. I've been
pulling that up. I have seen, I know I have seen. I've
seen entire yards of frog fruit inHouston, not not like you know,
five acres. Yeah. Well,Dichondra is a law is a lawn weedy

(01:34:47):
in California, and we we eatthat out. Yeah it is, it
is for us. Dichondra doesn't formas nice dens of a covers it as
it does in California. They plantit by seed in California. But I
think the frog fruit would be goodbecause it has little blooms on it,
So that's going to help pollinators,a little tiny paras wasps. I can

(01:35:09):
sure, I sure have some rootstockthat I can transplant there you go,
uh from the yard to the guard. That's a good thought. Yeah,
And it's easy to route little sectionsso you can fill it back in pretty
quick with that. And in themeantime, though, I wouldn't completely rule
out giving those dead gun chickens atalking to you, because you know that.

(01:35:29):
All right, we'll sit down.Listen. One quick thing. Where
can I get rock for decorations?Oh gosh, you can get them all
kinds of places. Where are youout in Crosby? How far would it
be for you to go down toSna Malt not too far outs around local
multiplaces and yards will have some rock. But you know that. Okay,

(01:35:54):
where's wherever's closest to you? Idon't I don't know where you go for
that kind of thing. Okay,I'll check the multiplaces. If those chickens
can relocate the rock they got,they deserve what they get. Listen,
if they can relocate the rock.For good about eggs, you need to
butcher them because they're gonna have muscleslike you. Believe me, Fir,
you're right. Thanks for having fun, Barbara. Oh my, you're listening

(01:36:16):
to garden Line. I hope you'rehaving a good time. I sure am
myself right now. KTRH Garden Linedoes not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program.Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor

(01:36:41):
just watch him good morning on agood Saturday morning. Regarding good Saturday morning
for listening to the ready talking aboutgardening. Two. If you would like

(01:37:01):
to do so, write down thisnumber seven one three two one to five
eight seven four seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four. You
know I was talking about being outat the Arburgate, and I just want
to mention that again. This isnext Saturday, the thirteenth, now Mother's

(01:37:21):
Days the fourteenth, but I'll beout there for two hours from eleven thirty
to one thirty, and I hopeyou'll come out and see me. Number
one, it's worth going to Arburgatewhether I'm there or not. But on
top of all that, we're gonnabe there answering your questions. We're gonna
you can bring in samples, bringthem in in a plastic bag. We
don't want to turn anything loose inthe nursery. Let me take a look

(01:37:42):
at it. Bring in a sampleto me to look at. If you
want to take pictures on your phoneand bring those in, maybe we can
look at identifying a plant or identifyinga problem. Just make sure your photos
are as close as possible. Maybe, you know, if it's an overall
setting, like I was talking withsomeone earlier today about a I see a

(01:38:05):
Japanese maple tree, you know,seeing the whole setting kind of helps to
assess that. But if it's anythingthat I need to get a good close
look at, as close as youcan get, but check and make sure
it's in sharp focus before you bringit, because I want to be able
to help you with it. That'sgoing to be the day before Mother's Day.
And by the way, when you'reout there, I promise you can
find eight hundred thousand things that yourmom can't live without. Now, maybe

(01:38:28):
she's a gardener, Oh my gosh, grab anything. It's good, it's
good to go. If she's nota gardener, they're unbelievable gift shops.
Beverly has just set up a beautifulshow place and there's everything from cool yard
art to beautiful indoor gifts. Maybemom, you know, would like a
house plant, they've got them.Maybe she like a really attractive pot for

(01:38:50):
the house plant. They've got that. So come out and see me next
Saturday, day before Mother's Day,eleven thirty to one thirty at Arburgate.
And by the way, why notbring your mom. There's an idea that
would work pretty cool. I thinkshe would enjoy it that if she hadn't
been out there before, I knowthat she would enjoy it. We always

(01:39:10):
like to take family to some ofour great local complete nurseries like we have
here. You know, I wastalking earlier about a Nitrofoss in the bag.
I think we're discussing their super turfas a summer. You know,
Nitrofos products are available in four poundjars for the specialty types of things,
you know, the color express,hibiscus food, plumeria food, rose food,

(01:39:31):
and so on. Well, thisis a very economical way a little
four pound jar. Maybe you justhave a couple of hibiscus plants, or
maybe you you know, just havea citrus tree or two, and you
could just get away with a littlefour pound jar as a very simple,
efficient, cost effective way of providingyour Nitroo products. The Nitrofos products are

(01:39:53):
sold everywhere. I mean they're allover town. But if you're up in
Tombauld, Arbrogate and DND Feed sellNitrofos products. Down in the Fisher's Hardware
down in South Houston on Sophomore,or the one in Laporte on Broadway Street
sell nitro Foss products. And thenACE Hardware is just you know, pretty
much everywhere there's an ACE hardware,you're going to find those Nitrofoss products like

(01:40:15):
that, like that four pound jar. You know that when we think about
the springtime and planting, it's justit's hard to not be excited because there's
so much happening right now. Thelawns are growing. We're taking care of
our lawns. Our trees are growing. Any final little bit of pruning that

(01:40:36):
you might need, you know,for your tree to keep them happy and
healthy and everything, this is atime to get that done. There's just
a lot of different activities. Ifyou've got a vegetable garden. Our cool
season gardens are kind of heading out. My lettuce is bolting and it's I'm
about to pull it out. Gotone old old time what do you call

(01:40:57):
it, heirloom variety called crawford thatI grow. So I always let one
stalk go to seed and save theseed because you don't see, it doesn't
last forever. It helps to storeit right, but it doesn't last forever,
and so I'll let them go toseed. I've got my cilantro actually
is trying to bloom right now.In fact, it is blooming right now,
and several things, and I alwaysleave a few of those blooms around

(01:41:17):
for beneficials. For example, acarrot. Did you know that a carrot
blooms. It's like Queen Anne's lace, which is closely related to carrot.
So I'll pull all my carrots upand I'll leave one or two at the
end of the row. Just letthem put up a bloom. It's pretty
number one. It's a good cutflower. Actually, surprisingly enough, strange

(01:41:38):
reason to grow carrots, but Ithink it's kind of cool. The blooms,
though, are real attractive to beneficialinsects. The little blooms on your
cilantro when it bolts and goes tobloom. I've got a couple of radishes
that I let go bloom just becauseI think the blooms are beautiful. They're
really cool. And so this isthat transition time we're putting in the warm
season. You know, we've alreadyplanted Tomatoesefully you got your tomatoes in by

(01:42:00):
now. If not, it's alittle bit late. The peppers, eggplants,
squash, cucumbers, all those thingshave been planted. But it's time
to heat things up. You know, there is some really warm weather material
out there in the garden that thatincludes things like southern peas, black eyed
peas, purple hull peas, crowderpeas, and for example, U there

(01:42:27):
is okra. Everybody knows okra.I can't forget okra. It's my favorite
summer vegetable. And by the way, if you're not an okra eater,
um, let me know because I'lltalk you off the edge. I'll tell
you out to make okre where Iknow what you're gonna say, you're you're
typically I'll say it's slimy a.We can fix that. We can fix

(01:42:47):
that. Okra is a wonderful Southernvegetable. It's such an important part of
things like a gumbo for example,and of course fried okres real popular.
There's other ways to do okra aswell. But other warm season gardens.
There's malabar as in Malabar, theycall it Malabar spinach. It's not spinach
that is also mucilagius like the ochris, but it's a very good green.

(01:43:11):
Molochia very popular in mini cultures.Molochia is a very good green. And
you only need like two molochia plantsif not one, to just stay in
molochia because it becomes a bush inthe summer. It's not perennial freeze it
down, but you share it backand share it back and share it back,
and it just keeps coming back andkeeps producing healthy greens for your summer

(01:43:35):
table. In the flower gardens.You know, we've got all the spring
flowers that have been doing so well, but as we start to get really
hot, things like Selosha start toshine. A gomprina or Bachelor's buttons one
of the names. One of theplants called bachelor's buttons that do really well
when it's hot. Angelonia summer snapdragons. Another name for it, Oh

(01:43:58):
my gosh, that blazes through theheat really well. Scave Ola. If
you have a hanging basket, Scaveolalooks great coming over the sides of it,
as do the type of It's actuallykin to a listum, but we
call it lobularia, which is alsowhat a lissum is. The lobularia the
stream series does really well in thesummer heat. And keep going and going

(01:44:19):
for you. Zenia's sunflowers, lotsof good things to carry us on in
the summer, and many many more. That's just naming a few. You
know, you get into a shadyarea and there's many other options. Well,
you're you're listening to Gardenline our phonenumber seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. I'll stopstop the monologuing here for the next segment,

(01:44:42):
give us a call. Let's talksimple, which was Wednesday. All

(01:45:03):
right, good morning, we arelistening to Lorie Morgan with a little bit
of flash blast from the past.I guess you're listening to Garden Line and
I am looking forward to talking toyou. So you'll need a phone number
in order for that to happen,and that would be seven one three two
one two five eight seven four.We're in our last segment this morning.

(01:45:25):
We got a big day of gardeningahead as well as tomorrow afternoon as well
as a good time to get outand be in the garden. So give
us a call. Let's see whatkinds of questions you might have. You
know, I was visiting with Louisefrom Heirloom Soils the other day and he
was telling me that they are promotingan event, or they're sponsoring rather an
event called plant con which is aninaugural plant convention here in the Houston area

(01:45:48):
and Heirloom Soils folks ask me ifI would tell you a little bit about
it, and I'm more than happyto do that. That is going to
be on May nineteenth through twentieth init will be an event where you can
come and see a lot of vendorsand a lot of things regarding plants.
And I mean it's it's it's toobig to just describe in one little,

(01:46:10):
one little period of time. Butif you go online to plant con pla
ntco n dot org slash tickets,plant con dot org slash tickets, Uh,
it is going to direct you toall the information you need on how
to be a part of that.But the folks at Heirloom, Uh,
they are one of the sponsors ofit and a very enthusiastically uh talking about

(01:46:34):
it's gonna be a great, agreat thing, great party. So I
hope you hope you'll be able tojoin. I'm gonna be there myself.
I'm gonna go out and check itout. But plant Con inaugural Plant Convention
for Used in Texas. Well,we are talking all kinds of things gardening
today. You know, there's athere is a real interests these days in

(01:46:55):
things that provide an enhancement to thegarden beyond just growing a plant to eat
or look at. And that wouldbe things like butterfly gardens and hummingbird gardens
and gardening with the birds and wildbirds Unlimited. You are not going to
find a better place than wild BirdsUnlimited to get supplies, to get equipment,

(01:47:18):
but also to get information, quality, accurate information on birds. Now
you can buy bird stuff a lotof places, as you know, but
there's nothing like wild Birds Unlimited.They've got a store in Katie if you're
out west, if you are maybenortheast in Kingwood or northwest and Cypress down

(01:47:39):
south in Paarland, bel Air,West Houston, and soon a clear Lake
store. In fact, it's goingnow. I will be out at clear
Lake by the way. We aregoing to be doing a live out there
coming up. I'll tell you moreabout that later as we get a little
bit closer to it. Well,let me just let me just tell you
right now. It's going to beon May twenty seven. That's way out

(01:48:01):
ahead of time. But since I'mmentioning it, I just put that on
your calendar. Come out and seeme if you're out in that area.
Now that that store fifty four fortyI was trying to find the address El
Dorado Boulevard. That's on the cornerof El Dorado and clear Lake City Boulevard
across from the HB. The storefrontit faces clear Lake City Boulevard. So

(01:48:24):
you just you're not going to gowrong with a wild Bird's Unlimited. And
if you've not been into one,you need to go. You know,
there was a time when I wasnot a birder and then I walked into
Walbird Unlimited and oh my gosh,and now it's what kids buy me for
a Christmas presents is stuff from wildBird's Unlimited. A pretty cool, pretty
cool store. And it's a funhobby by the way. You know,

(01:48:45):
we keep talking about mothers to day. Oh my gosh, how can you
go wrong a hummingbird feeder or anew bird feeder or bird house maybe quality
a mix, it's appropriate to theseason and the wildbirds folks, by the
way, they can they can dojust that. You know the springtime that
birds have nests with eggs and young, and those young need high protein.

(01:49:08):
You know, they don't need abunch just bird seed. I mean they
need like protein like dried meal wormsand things like that. Willbirds can get
you fixed up with that and whateverthe season, whatever kind of bird you
want to attract, they can pointyou to the right feed and the right
kind of feeder to accomplish. Justthat so pretty pretty important stuff. I
love love bird bird watching myself,especially the hummingbirds. I've got a new

(01:49:31):
hummingbird feeder and I you know,as it came from a wall birds as
a matter of fact, last year. And I'm sorry to say this,
but I bought it, I camehome, I set it down on a
shelf and ran off doing something.I just saw it the other day.
So now it needs to go outwith my other hummingbird feeders because I love
watching hummingbirds and they're they're just youknow, entertaining. I guess to watch

(01:49:55):
as well. So anyway, wellenough of that, let's let's go to
the phones the number seven one threetwo one two five eight seven four,
and we're going to head out toTomball and talk to Amy. Hello,
Amy, good morning, Good morning. I just had two dwarf magnolia trees
planted in my yard and I wantto know what I need to do to

(01:50:17):
them to make sure that they growhealthy dwarf magnolias. Okay, Well,
they want well drained soil. Theyprefer a slightly acidic soil, so that
may require if you didn't do alot of bed development prior to planting them.
Maybe incorporating some organic matter to soilcreate kind of a woodland soil around
those plants as best you can.Fertilizing with a product for acid loving plants

(01:50:43):
is always helpful. But good sunand good drainage, or the two keys
and the compact types of magnolias,they get sizable over time, but they
just grow in a more They growmore slowly because they're growing more compactly,
and they're they're not hard to keephappy as long as they have good soil
drainage and and somewhat of a woodlandforest type soil ideally, So what does

(01:51:08):
that mean woodland forest type soil?Okay, Well, the forest knows how
to build soil. It drops leaveson the ground and drops leaves on top
of those leaves, and they rotand it just gets better and better over
time. Right, And so whenwe add organic matter into the soil,
and when we malt and keep itmulched, always have malts decomposing on the
surface. And as wide of anarea is esthetically acceptable to you. You

(01:51:33):
know, if you were that magnoliatree and you walked up and said,
hey, how far away do youwant grass, it would say over the
hill where I can't see it.That's a magnolia's opinion and every tree's opinion
of grass. So those kind oftips create that forest floor where that's where
their magnolias are from, and that'swhere magnolias are happy. Okay, all

(01:51:55):
right, all right, very good, thank you very much. Yeah,
and it's not the fastest growing ofspecies. So get you a good quality
fertilizer and gradually, over time continueto feed it to keep the vigor as
as best you can. Okay,all right, yeah, thank you,
thank you. I appreciate your call. Let's see now we're going to head

(01:52:16):
out to Tumball and talk to John. Hello, John, good morning,
I'm good. Thanks, great question. I know about as far as the
spraying for weeds, anything overready fivedegrees, don't do it. If you
have a day coming up it's goingto be less than eighty five. Can

(01:52:38):
you like, I've already sprayed onceshe needs sprayed in the evening if the
following day is not gonna be eightyfive or is that two risky? Yeah?
You know, the eighty five isa general guideline, you know,
because there we're talking about a lotof different kinds of chemistries and the wheat
control products, so they're not allexactly the same. There's one, uh,

(01:52:59):
there's one called what's the name ofthat thing, Celsius that's a little
hard to find, but it actuallycan go up to about ninety degrees ninety
two degrees and still be okay.But in general we aim for eighty five
just to avoid problems because when youstress Saint Augustine, then things like take
off patch become worse, and sowe just want to stay away from that.
But they answer to your question isyes, if you can. If

(01:53:21):
you can do it when the temperatureis a low cooler and especially when the
next day is not going to beone hundred degrees, then that would be
just fine. But go ahead andget it done right. And as far
as going forward, as far ascutting the grass or watering after that,
what's a good time for you,how many hours, two days or twenty

(01:53:42):
four hours or after you apply,well I would I would do them.
Well, let's see, so Ithink in this case, if you don't
want to mow off the leaves ofthe weed, you're trying to spray,
and so I would go ahead andtreat it, and then I would give
it. I give it a weekif you could. Now, if you're

(01:54:03):
in a most cycle spot right nowwhere it can't it can't set a week,
then go ahead and mow it andthen do the treatment. But you
just need some leaves to put theweed control product on. The post emergent
weed control all right, speaking areal one more quick question, free emergent
post emergent. It doesn't seem likeI've done several applications. It's not doing

(01:54:26):
much of anything of the pre orthe post or what both. I mean,
I I've had in the collected yardthat I bought a house from in
all right, it's just a tomI'm gonna I'm gonna cut to the chase.
Here's what you need to do.I want you to pull up one
of every kind of weed you got, put it in a bag and bring
it to Arbourgate next Saturday. I'llbe there from eleven thirty to one thirty,

(01:54:49):
at least to one thirty, andI will look at the weeds and
we'll see if we can get tothe bottom of this. You may have
a weed that needs a special productrecommended, or we can talk timing and
other things, but I think that'sthe best I can do. If you
can be there next Saturday. Let'sdo that, Okay. Appreciate you,
Bet, appreciate you very much.You're listening to garden Line. I'm your

(01:55:12):
host, Skip Richter, and thephone number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Michaeland Sugarland. I see. I want
to be able to give you timeto really discuss your question. So if
you will hold on, you willbe first when we come back from break.
For the rest of you, Nowit's a good time to call Josh
and get on the board. Well, good morning on a good gardening day,

(01:55:45):
as all days are. You're listeningto garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we are headingtoward the end of the mornings show
here. We got our last segmentgoing, so if you'd like to give
us a call, the number sevenone three two one two five eight seven
four, and we're just going torun right out into sugar Land there and
talk to Michael. Hello, Michael, Good morning, Scip, good charlady,

(01:56:09):
morning to you. Thank I I'mcalling because I've got I've been on
the schedule that you feed you soto provide for about the last four years
and every year and my grass hasbeen you know, I got said Augustine,
it's it's been perfect. But forsome reason, it's like this year,
after that last little freeze, I'vegotten maybe seven or eight spots that

(01:56:30):
even though the rest of the soilbut the grasses is perfectly green up to
you know, when we're supposed tobe there's dead spots where you can see
the runners are dead now on thesame Augustine, runners of course are coming
back. But my question for youis should I pull those runners out to
date the soil to allow the newrunners to grow, or should I just
leave them alone and let nature takeits course. Well that's a good question,

(01:56:54):
Michael. I think it's a littletoo tedious to try to pull up
dead runners. And there's nothing wrongwith you in that, but that that
would be a little bit of achore. If you feel like your soil
might need a little narrating, thenI would either hire a company to come
out and do the aeration for you, and you know, we get we
talk about green pro and the folksthat do that and the compost stop dressing,

(01:57:15):
or if you want to do itto it yourself, you can rent
a good core narrator. You wantto rent one that pulls the cores of
soil out and drop some on thesurface, not just squeeze as a hole
open in the soil. Don't getthat second kind of narrator. Get a
core narrator, and then get yousome quality leaf mold compost, a good
quality leaf mold compost. And youwere you were down there in the Sugarland

(01:57:42):
area, you're going to be ableto find that. You know, your
garden centers, you got the twoenchanted it's enchanted gardens, enchanted forests that
probably are going to have some bagsof that for you. You can also
go down to CNA Maltch. I'dcall the folks down CNA Maltch that's not
too far away, and get somequality for a top dressing. This is
if you're doing the do it yourselfthat that's what I would do first.

(01:58:04):
Uh, certainly fertilizers important. Goahead. Well, I got another question
as a follow up. You knowI've already put down top top dressing pretty
much. I do it every year. I've just recently put down the super
Church about a week or so ago. Okay, good, so that's what
I'm a little behind on the schedule, but I guess should I. Since
I've already put down top dressing,I put down fertilized as well. And

(01:58:28):
those areas where and the spots thatI'm talking about, there's maybe six or
seven of them, and they're nomore. They're about the size of a
baseball and they're really tiny. Okay, yeah, they're not going to big
there, just at least small,uh you know, one here maybe six
and six and seven feet apart.So what I did was I actually put
a little more uh fertilizer on thosespots. And I'm beginning to see an

(01:58:50):
improvement. But I guess my secondquestion is should I go ahead and now
do the whole area because that's gonnamake that area a little more child or
yeah, but just leave that areaalong. Well, I generally prefer to
fertilize smoothly over the whole area,right, instead of just having some greener
spots than others. So however,you might be able to achieve that.

(01:59:12):
Now, if your spotsor the sizeof a baseball, that is almost certainly
not a disease or an insect that'sdoing that, Uh, there's go ahead.
I actually dug into it to checkfor you know, for chinch bugs.
I mean, and I've never this. This roe has been perfect in
every way. Uh. I justthought it was unusual because it's never happened
before where you would see just andwhen I say size of a baseball,

(01:59:36):
maybe twenty five inches, yeah,and only one in particular area, so
I know there's no chinch bug.I took that out and had that chample.
But they're they're just uh it's kindof confusing because they're only in that
little area. All right, Well, tell Michael, I'm heading to a
break here. Um, I thinkthat you don't have a disease. It's

(01:59:59):
gonna be something unusual, like youstop the lawnmower and a little bit of
gas strip down, or a dogwent to the bathroom there. It's gonna
be some outside the box kind ofthing like that that's killing those spots.
But I think you're good. Whatyou've done sounds great. I think you're
on the right track and it's goingto fill in just fine. Call me
back if that's not the case,if these developed, because we want to
catch things early. But I thinkyou're okay. Thank you, sir,

(02:00:23):
Have a great day, all right, Take care our phone number seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Day. Well, good morning, good Saturday morning.

(02:00:50):
Good for gardening and talking about gardening. And that's what we're about to go
right to do now, our folksto see. We're gonna head out to
clear Lake City and talk to Larry. Good morning, Larry, good morning.
I have a question about the dollarweed it's going through saying augustine grass.
What is the best product to usefor that? There are a number

(02:01:11):
of them that will work. Um, there is a weed beat or Ultra
that is available. You can findit in a lot of places. I
mentioned it because it's widely available.Oh my gosh, the second one is
dropped out of my head right nowI'm thinking about it. But we Beat
or Ultra would be one I wouldprobably go with. That's gonna be yeah,

(02:01:31):
we Beat or Ultra. Huh.I believe it's a that's a bone
nine product. And what is thebest and best pound to employ it?
Absolutely as soon as possible, becauseonce temperatures get up in the mid to
upper eighties, which we're kind ofwe're bouncing around there this week. In
fact, today is gonna be alittle warmer than that but it's supposed to
cool just a tiny bit, butgo ahead and get it down because the

(02:01:55):
warmer it gets, the harder.Those products are on your Saint Augustine grass.
Okay, the liquid or a granularproduct. The one I mentioned is
a liquid. Okay, yeah,yeah, okay, I appreciate it.
Thank you very much. You're betin good luck with it. Okay,
thank you, yes, sir.Yeah, you know. The the getting

(02:02:19):
ahead of weeds is something I talkabout the importance of building a good dense
turf to choke out most of theannual weeds coming from seed. But something
like uh, Virginia button weed orsomething like a dichondra or uh you know
those those persistent weeds dollar weed thathe was just talking about. That those

(02:02:42):
weeds you're not gonna get too dense. They're gonna they're gonna be there,
especially the dollar weed. Uh.And so that's where we just have to
hit him with a with a postemergent and to get to get rid of
them. Number one though, onVirginia button weeding dollar weed both don't water
so much. The more you walk, the more problems that you're going to
have with those weeds. It makesthe weed have the advantage and really grow.

(02:03:06):
So keep your Saint Augustine a littleon the dry side, give it
a good soaking, let it dryout. Don't just you should not ever
water Saint Augustine three times a weekin Houston. You shouldn't water it two
times a week, to be honest. If you've got a good established Saint
Augustine with a good root system,then once a week it's gonna be enough.

(02:03:27):
Now, if you've got issues,maybe a little bit more, but
don't overwater it. And that helpsgive the turf a little bit of a
good fighting chance against those those perniciousweeds that stick around. You know.
I we're talking about products and thingsI mentioned earlier about nitrofists four pound jars
and and I don't know if you'vethought about fertilizing in this way before,

(02:03:49):
but with nitrofis, you've got thebig bags. They've got all the lines
of products and big bags, andthat's fine. But when you just have
a few of a plant one ortwo, you know, couple of rose
bushes, or maybe you know acouple of citrus trees, or are just
a small color containers that you wouldwant to use their color express in the

(02:04:10):
four pound jars is the economical wayto go, and you're going to find
them everywhere. Nitrofosts, soul soFisher's Hardware and South Houston Lake Hardware include
Ausbush Ace and the Woodlands. Reallyall the aces are going to carry those
nitrofos products, and the four poundjars is something you should take a good
look out. I think you're goingto find exactly the blend of fertilizer you're

(02:04:30):
looking for in a very compact,more economical package as well. Earlier I
was talking about birds and at thehouse, I've got a bird feeder that
I actually neglected. I'm surprised.The birds have been banging on the back
door telling me to feel the dangthing up, but they haven't yet there.
I guess polite birds, but Ijust noticed the other day it was

(02:04:53):
out of feed. I just walkedby run around too much, I guess,
not taking care of the of myown stuff. But Wilbird's unlimited.
You know we mentioned them earlier.Is just to go to place. Something
I didn't mention earlier that I dowant to I do want to mention now,
and that is the website. Ifyou want to find a Wall Bird's

(02:05:14):
Unlimited near you in the Greater Houstonarea. And I'm talking about stores in
Katie, stores in Kingwood, storesin Cyprus and Pearland and bel Air and
West Houston. And now there's thestory in clear Lake and I will be
there in one of the ed towardsthe end of May. I'll be out
there and I'll announce that later.But that one's on Eldorado Boulevard. That
is just a really, really goodplace to go. I'm so glad you

(02:05:39):
guys have one out there in theclear Lake area. But if you want
to find the one nearest you,go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston.
That gets you our Houston Wall BirdsUnlimited group WBU dot com forward slash
Houston and it'll direct you right toone near you and I and that's important.

(02:06:00):
You know, Houston's a big town, and you know I'm willing to
drive all over town for garden centersand things like that just because I can
never get enough. I mean,there's always something cool and new going on
and I want to go see them. And so for me, it's nothing
if I'm in Cyprus to drive downto you know, southeast Houston, or
if I'm in Kingwood to drive acrossdown to the southwest side, or vice

(02:06:25):
versa. There's so many good places, but I know a lot of people
you like to find places that areclose to you. You know, I
was kind of surprised. I guessit makes sense. I hadn't thought about
it. But folks here tend tolive in their little burb, you know,
their little corner. Maybe you're downtownin Houston and you just don't head
outside of that much. That's fine, and that's why we have good garden

(02:06:45):
centers all over the place. We'vegot ace hardware's all over the place.
We've got wild birds all over theplace. You can find something close to
you. And I don't know ifyou've noticed this before. I talked about
this before, and I'll probably talkabout it again and again. But sometimes
there's a mindset that we have whenwe're trying to save some money, and
you know, that's that's something weall do, is try to, you

(02:07:08):
know, save money and get morefor our dollar. And the idea is,
well, I'm going to go someplaceand buy a cheap plant, or
I'm going to go someplace and justbuy a cheap product. And the problem
with that, I would contend thatthat is not a way to save money,
that that's a waste of money.And here's why you buy cheap pruners.
You use them a few times andsay words the kids don't need to

(02:07:30):
hear, and throw them in thetrash or put them in a bucket,
and you're going to get around tosharpening them, and you don't. But
you buy a plant that is ina place that doesn't take care of their
plants, and maybe it's a plantthat doesn't belong here. I've been to
big box stores and seen raspberries thatwon't grow here. I've seen grapes it
won't grow here. I've seen perennialsthat don't grow here, and they're being

(02:07:51):
sold because they're being sold in thatchain all over the country. When you
go to a place that knows whatthey're doing, they haven't. They have
of staff that knows what they're doing, and they direct you to plants that
you're probably not going to get atthose other places, and they tell you
how to plan them and how totake care of them, and the products
they give you work. That isa way to save money because you get

(02:08:16):
quality and you enjoy it for years, rather than being disappointed and frustrating and
struggling, and you know, youcall it's like this thing won't grow well,
it doesn't want to grow here.You know that lilac was great in
the Midwest, but it shouldn't besold here, right. That's why I
would say, go to quality independentgarden centers. Go to quality places that
carry the products that we recommend becausewe know they do well here. But

(02:08:41):
there's no product on this show thatI will recommend that I don't know is
going to do well, or abusiness that I don't believe is going to
be the kind of service that youdeserve in your garden because your dollars are
hard earned and they need to bewell spent. And so realize that a
quality pair of prunters that you cansharpen unless to the rest of your life.

(02:09:03):
I've got prunters are twenty years oldand they're still going strong. That's
the kind of things you want todirect you to think about. That mindset