KTRH GardenLine | 5-7-23

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 KTRHGarden Line with Skip Richter. Soz trip.
Just watch him as woozy clubbed backRicken. We're not a sign.

(00:38):
Well, good Sunday morning, ona good day for gardener. You are
listening to garden Line and I'm yourhost, Skip Richter. Hey, here's
a number. Write this down soyou can give us a call this morning.
Our number is seven one three twoone two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eightseventy four. Well, this is usually

(01:00):
the time where I do a littlebit of soap boxing or ranting or hopefully
just describing, educating. I don'tknow what, but yesterday's talking a lot
about turf and the things we needto be doing now to our turf and
some of the y to that.And one of the common questions that I

(01:21):
get in the show and working asAgrilife extension agent, I always received questions
about turf, and a common onebeing what's a good turf from my area?
What turf do you recommend? What'sthe best turf? That's the one
that the question that needs a littleThe question itself needs a little bit of

(01:41):
help there. And the reason isthat there's not a best turf. There
may be a best turf for acertain situation, but overall, every turf
species has its pros and its cons, Isn't it kind of like people people,
you know, they think that aboutyou. So anyway, so you
take a turf grash like Saint Augustine, nothing is going to do better in

(02:05):
when the light becomes more and morelimited than Saint Augustine. It is the
most shade tolerant of our southern turfgrasses, the ones that would grow here
as a perennial grass, Saint Augustine. It's one of its drawbacks or one
of the things people don't care forabout it is they say it needs more

(02:25):
water. Well it does. Itdoes require more irrigation, and it's because
Saint Augustine kind of lives on topof the ground. It's got a root
system in the ground, and ofcourse, but the runners are all up
on top. They don't have theunderground runners where if the top you know,
just we have blazing hot, dryweather and it just sort of fries

(02:47):
everything above ground with something like Bermudaas Lasia. You've got underground runners,
but we'll get to those in aminute. So that's that is that in
the genetics of Saint Augustine are suchthat it does require more irrigation, typically
over the course of a season,a hot season, when it comes to

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you know, how much do youput on your lawn a week for your
lawn to look good? That prettymuch the grasses are all the same,
in my opinion, they're they're reallyclose to all the same. They use
and about the same amount of grassand so on. It's just that Saint
Augustine has the habit of not lookingto the future, so when it gets

(03:29):
dry, it just uses its wateruntil you know, there's like there's no
tomorrow. And then when it getstoo dry, there's no water, it
has no reserves to speak of,and we begin to see the drought damage
to it. And I mentioned theothers having the underground runners that helps them.
And then there's buffalo, which donot plant. But if you can
hear my voice, do not plantbuffalo, And I'm talking all the way

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over to I thirty five westward.Buffalo is an extremely drought laurent grass that
does well in further western areas wheredrought and typical normal dry conditions help keep
the weeds out of it. Ifyou come over to Houston. In fact

(04:14):
I did when I was in Conromany years ago as county Agrilife Extension horticulturist
in the Montgomery County Office. Weplanted patches of all the different common turf
species, and the buffalo it wasoverrun with weeds. And it's because the
weeds in our climate here and theminor rainfall we get, they just proliferate.

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And buffalo is not a competitor withweeds, and so, plus it
has a very fine texture and weedshow up like a neon billboard and the
buffalo lawn. But you go farenough west where you can allow it to
go completely dry, everything turns tawnycolored. And when that happens, and

(04:55):
then you get a rain, buffalobounces back. And so that's where it
belongs. Way out well and upyou know some of the some of the
planes a little further north of usand um, you know, going up
through New Mexico excuse me, Oklahoma. But so we're gonna throw a buffalo
out of the discussion. But that'sthe that's Saint Augustine's deal. It's very

(05:16):
available. Some people don't like thebroad leaves. If you came from the
Midwest or someplace where you can growblue grass and fescue and some of those
grasses, well, Saint Augustine lookslike a big, fat weed, probably
to you. But it's a it'sa soft grass. It's good for the
kids, you know, rolling aroundplaying in the grass. And by the
way it's it is not particularly ahost of chiggers. If anybody has never

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had chiggers, go find a bermudagrass lawn, roll around in it a
while and you will know then laterthat day what chiggers are. But Saint
Augustine doesn't have that problem. Andso that's another plus of Saint Augustine.
Also, we say it uses water, but in the shade it doesn't use
hardly anywater. I mean, anyplant as you move it into shade requires

(06:01):
less water, and Saint Augustine cantolerate a considerable amount of shade. And
so I have a picture that Iuse when I give talks. But it
is a lawn in Austin under stagetwo water restrictions, meaning they could whatever
stage they where, they could notwater their lawn, and it had been
weeks and weeks without water, andeverywhere the sun shone outside, the Saint

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Augustine was dead. I'm just completelybrown gone. Underneath some live oak trees
it was still green. And it'snot because they watered under the live oak
tree. It's because in significantly lesswater is required. Well, let me
see you're listening to garden Line.Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four.If you'd like to give us a call,

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we can talk stuff. If not, I'm gonna keep talking about grass.
So anyway, that's some Saint Augustinepluses. So these ill conceived laws
that say we're gonna in our citynot have saying Saint Augustine allow. That
doesn't quite fix the problem. Iunderstand what they're aiming for, But there
are places where Saint Augustine is thebest grass and where it takes almost no

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water. And in fact, overhere in Houston, you should be able
to grow it with no water justbecause we get so much, so much
rainfall unless we go into one ofthese unusually long drought periods. So that
was Saint Augustine. Now, thatwas a lot to talk about We're going
to talk about some of the othergrass species as we go through the day.
But if you're thinking about putting ina lawn, hopefully with this discussion

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you would get a little bit ofideas on what might be a good choice
for you, saying Augustine by faras the most common turf that we have.
Well, you're listening to garden Lineour phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four.All right, good Sunday morning. We're

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gonna get down to the nitty grittyhere, and we're gonna start off by
going to the phones. By theway, our number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. We're gonna head over to Montgomery and
talk to Albert this morning. Goodmorning, Albert, Good morning, Skip
morning. I've kind of got twoquestions. Ones about pear trees. What's

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one or two good variety of peartrees I can plan in my yard?
And do I gotta plant two ormore so they pollinate the boy? There
there are a lot of good peartrees, and it's best if you plant
two or more. There are thereis some self pollination, but in general
it's just better to have that crosspollination for them. Um, there's a

(08:50):
pair I like called Warren. It'sit's kind of hard to find around,
but it's pretty good. It takesa little while to come into production,
but it has more of that buddybuttery quality texture. I grew up eating
Keefer, which is the old hard, gritty pairs that that maybe Grandma canned
if you go back that far.But Keefer's, you know, a good

(09:11):
old tough pair and good for canningand things. But if you want a
survivor, it's a survivor. Uh. There are let's see ten t E
n N is a good one forthis area. Um. Some people are
really fond of airs ay rs.Uh. Let's see. There's a couple
of others. Um Acres Home.Acres Home is another one that that might

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be popular. But I'll tell youwhat I would do. You're you're out
of Montgomery, I'd go out toa NA and see what they might have
on hand out there. Uh.And they they can certainly get you fixed
up, depending on where in thearea are. You may be close to
Arburgate coming down into the Tomball areaand they and they sell fruit trees,
you know, all you all yearlong so they get they can get you

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plugged in. Maybe, you know, when I recommend varieties, I'm always
thinking, Okay, is that availablehere locally? And that's always the you
know, the challenges. One placemay carry it, one may not,
or maybe nobody has it. SoI don't want to send you out looking
for something you can't find. Okay, that's a lot of good info,
thank you. Yeah, what else? What was your other question? A
second question? I got probably agood good good Saint Augustine. It's pretty

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good, uh, and a normalweather pattern. Do I set my sprinklers
to water one good time or twogood times during the week? Okay,
that's a great question. I'm gladyou asked that. If your lawn is
struggling, if it hasn't developed agood deep root system, if a disease
is messing with it or whatever,you might do twice a week just to

(10:46):
kind of help it along. Butyou don't water the same amount you water
a little bit less. Overall,about an inch of water a week is
needed for a lawn, but thatvaries, you know, in the spring
and in the fall. No,you don't need an inch. A half
inch is plenty in the summer,when it's hot in the sun. Yes,
an inch in the shade, notan inch a week is needed.

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The key, you know, Albert, is when you water, you want
to soak it all into the ground. And our heavy clay soils, I
don't know what you're specifically is there, but in general there's a lot of
clay soils here that just can't takewater in as fast as our sprinklers put
it out. And so if Itold you I want you to soak an
inch into the ground, well youwould get about a third of the way

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there or less, and it startsto run off. And so what we
do is call cycle and soak,meaning you water and then you wait.
You water and then you wait.So if you put on let's say you
could water a third of an inchand before it starts to run off,
you run it for until that amountof time and then have it go off
for forty five minutes and then comeback on again and do it again and

(11:50):
again. That way you put thatbank account of water in the soil and
it is available all all season,I mean, Elsie, and all week
long. It just carries it forward. All right. That's a lot of
good information. Thank you, skip, Yeah, thank you, Albert,
I appreciate, appreciate that call.Uh we I'm going to continue on that

(12:13):
a little bit more because I thinkthere's there's some more to be said there.
When I say an inch a week, I'm talking about under ideal conditions,
what a plant, what a grassplant you know, would like to
have. But it rains here.It rains here a lot. And a
number of years ago I got ahold of the ET data from the weather

(12:37):
stations of the region. So whatis ET data. Well, the nerd
word is a vapo transpiration. Soremember that. Write it down and you
can be the Cliff Clayven at thenext garden party. So a vapo transporation
is how much I'm gonna just supersimplified and say it's how much water it
does the grass you use? Howmuch water is lost during a period of

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time. So on a hot,sunny day, it's gonna be more than
on an overcast, cooler day.Uh you know. So there's a lot
of factors. In fact, theyhave computer that takes all the data from
the weather station, including windspeed,humidity, temperature, solar radiation and so

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on. It crunches it all togetherand it tells you what and you can
go online. There is a placecalled watermyard dot com. You can go
online and watermyard dot com you cansign up and depending on which community you
live in. It's not all overthe state, but depending on which community,
you can sign up to get aweekly email telling you when it's time

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to water. And when I didthis, when I when I looked at
the data for on average in Houston, how much water is used in April,
And I don't mean irrigation, Imean how much is lost to et
in April, how much in May? How much? See what I'm saying
and how? And then I overlaidthat with on the average, how much

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rain falls. And there was justlike two or three weeks of summer where
you'd need to water. Well,we know that that's probably not true,
that just two or three weeks,but it may be true because every year
is not the same. I mean, we could go through forty days without
rain, which is not normal.And it's one hundred degrees okay, which
is a little high for normal.But we in general are way over watering

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our yard. And as we waterwell and allow that soil to drain out,
as the soil drains out, itswater. Then that would be water
taken out by the plant. Thatwould be water evaporating from the surface.
Oxygen comes back down in the soil. So think of it this way.
If you if you take if yousay you've got a glass of tea and
you a straw, and you takea sip. When you take your mouth

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off the straw, what happens tothe tea in the straw? It falls
down because of gravity, and airmoves in behind it in the straw.
So as your water level and thesoil dries out, you know from top
and down, what is filling thatspace that the water had, Well,
it's air, and that is astimulating That's one of the reasons we airate

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soil. Now it's on a microscopicscale, but it helps your plant's rood
system. If you constantly water,which people do, and they just keep
it wet up at the surface,then you're not going to have good oxygenation
download You're gonna have a very irrigationdependent grass plant. You're going to have
a plant where most of its rootsystem is dependent on that little water up

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top, and so when grubs comealong or something else, it's not as
resilient. So watering smarter, andI'll talk about that more as we get
into the heat of summer, butthat is something that I think is worth
mentioning. Our phone number is sevenone three, two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two andtwo fifty eight seventy four. If you'd

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like to give us a call,Joshua gets you up on the board and
we can we can visit with youabout whatever is of interest to you.
In the meantime, I'm I'm stillkind of going on a soapbox here for
turf, so let's get let's keepgoing on that one. I was talking
about the species of turf, andI meant I talked about Saint Augustine.
The next one I want to talkabout is bermuda grass. Bermuda grass is

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one of the more drought tolerant grassesthat we have. So if you have
a place that you cannot water andyou need it to survive, bermuda grass
would be a choice for that reason. For that reason I already mentioned that.
You know, if you've got alittle lawn you want to roll around
in and the kids play in it, does you will have chiggers of the

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bermuda But you don't with Saint Augustine, uh, not as much. Bermuda
needs a lot of sunlight. Itis not shade tolerant, and it comes
in many sizes. So you canget the coastal bermuda that the farmer bills
Hey with. You can get thesemi dwarf mudas that you see on golf

(17:02):
course greens on football fields and soccerfields and things like that. Or you
can get a super dwarf tommuda thatyou would see on a golf course green.
I said green, while ago Imet fairway on a golf course green
the real super dwarf. And soyou have a wide variety of options.
But with bermuda grass, the morefrequently you mow the better. And that

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is more so true than Saint Augustinewas saying. Augustine, you forget to
moan, and you come back andback a little bit, it still looks
pretty good. With bermuda. It'salmost like a forest where you know,
if you walk through the forest,it's all dead twigs and tree trunks down
there and up on top as thegreen. So at bermuda. If you
have an infrequent mowing schedule, whenyou do come in and mow then you're

(17:45):
going to have a twiggie looking grassuntil the green's back up again. Well,
you're listening to Garden Line. I'myour host, Skip Richter, and
our phone number is two one twofive eight seven four. Give us a
call and get on the boards whenwe come back from the news News with
Nikki. That's our game today.We're gonna play News with Nikki. We
will talk to you about your question. Well, good morning on a good

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Sunday morning for gardening. This isgonna be a good day for gardening.
I hope this afternoon you can getout there and enjoy the garden, enjoy
the landscape. Maybe go visit agarden center at the same time. Well,
our phone number seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two ktrh Andwe are going to go now out to

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Huffman and talk to Mike this morning. Good morning, Mike morning. How
y'all doing? Man, We're well? All right. Listen, I've got
a nightshade plant in my wallflower.Gordon, Dude, I don't know how
I got there. He just cameup, and I want to know the
safest way to dispose of it.Am I gonna am I gonna have to
get a bottle suit or something orone. No, not at all.

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It's just a standard nightshade weed.Um. I don't know, because a
friend of mine had the app onhis phone and he took a picture of
it, you know, And thenI'm telling you it was exactly like what
I had, the little white flowersand the green berries and the blackberries on
it. So it was exactly thesame thing, okay, And it didn't

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say what it was other than anightshade. Oh. You shouldn't have to
do anything. Just pull it upand thought in the trash, get rid
of it along with the seeds andstuff that are on it, and don't
eat it. You know that wouldbe the concern. No, No,
I'm gonna feed it to my neighborand see a bad action. You know.
I've wondered that since you're talking aboutthat. You know, you know

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what polk salad is, Yes,yes, so so. Poke weed is
a weed around here and in theSouth. It's well known that you can
eat it. But to eat it, you got to boil it and pour
off the water. Maybe boil itagain and pour off the water, and
you get all the toxins out,and I wondered, how did they figure
that out? With somebody trying topoison their son and larks something one time

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and they spill the water coming fromthe kitchen to the dining table land is
years ago. It's guy named Ugand they say, U eat you know,
we eat that? No, likeyou know? All right? The
caveman taster for the king, Um, that's that's funny, you know.
The night shades fine, just theyare poisonous. I don't know how terribly

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toxic they are. I'm sure they'dbe very unpalatable, horrible to taste,
but anyway, yeah, just youcan just pull it out and get rid
of it all. Roger, thankyou very much. I appreciate that.
Thanks for the call, Mike,appreciate that. Huh. All right,
let's see you. Let's go bythe way the phone number seven one three
two to fifty eight seventy four,and we're going to now go out to

(21:03):
catch spring and talk to Ed.Good morning Ed, Good morning, Skip.
Hey, I got a quick questionfor you. Here. I'll purchase
all the fertilize you you can dofertilize day. But I'm reading up and
seeing all the weather for cans thenext two weeks. But a bunch of
rain hitting the area, is itgood to go ahead and put it down.
You're gonna hear two things on thatquestion, two answers from people.

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One is you put it down beforea rain because the rain washes it in
the Other and this is what Iwould say, is if you know that
it's not going to rain a lot, that's fine. But if there's any
question on the amount of rain we'regoing to get, I would wait,
and I would you just need aboutan you know, half inch of irrigation
to put to walk, you know, move it down into the soil and

(21:48):
start getting things going with the fertilizer. And I would rather water it in
and be in control of that.That all land drains to somebody of water,
and if you dump it, youdrink it, and just think of
it that way. If it's ifit's an underground aquifer supply or and there's
some parts of the state where youknow it's very sensitive underground water supply quality
issue. But it's also true ofponds and washes off into pond and you

(22:11):
get alogae bloom and fish to deathand so on. So I guess what
I'm just trying to say is themost efficient thing would be the watered in
yourself. But if you're real carefulabout it, you can put it down
before a rain. I got someTVA on that. I heard a couple
of callars a couple of weeks agoon the habit algae problem in their pods

(22:33):
of having some expertise in that ifthey would get them some Mosambique telapia,
that they can get it any fishhancheries that will solve the problem. I
did not know that is that afish that's you don't have to have a
license or no permit. No,no, you do not. No,
you do not have to have apermit for the Mozambiak telapia that is the

(22:55):
grass carp But the mosambek. Yeah, the only drawback with them is when
the wintertime hits in, if thewater gets real cold, they're gonna die.
But okay, you know I've hadthem in my pond now for all
eight plus years and I do nothave a problem by ponds about an acre

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out there, and I don't havean algae problem at all. Very interesting.
Well, thanks for that tip,Ed. I appreciate that we're gonna
head now out to Silbee and salesbyand talked to Sandra. Hello, Sandra,
good morning. How are you doingtoday? I'm well, how are
you doing? Excellent? My questionis I have a friend of mine and
I've been going over there and helpedher do George workers. She's been piling

(23:37):
up leaves around the base of allof her trees. Will those leaves kill
her tree? Oh? Absolutely not. Think about the forest. That's what
nature does, Okay. You know, first I told her I thought it
might because I know, if youcan only put a certain amount of dirt
against the bottom of tree right everyyear, Yes, but dirt will a
tree? Well, dirt is thetrunk. Basically, the trunk is not

(24:02):
made to have dirt piled up againstit, and you end up with issues.
Without going into detail on him,you end up with issues for the
tree. They're just a bunch ofleaves, is fine, now, I
wouldn't you know, she said,pile them up against I'm thinking these things
are going to settle down and bekind of pulled back and make more of
a natural mulch. But if theyyou know, they got like five foot

(24:22):
pile of leaves up against the trunk, well that's not gonna do it any
good. I'm not as worried aboutit as that they'd been dirt, because
they're going to decompose down to nothing. Okay, okay, And I have
another question. I have a placeat the lake, and my neighbor has
cinipede grass, and that cinipede iscoming over and get into my Saint August
thing. Is there anything I cando to slow that down or stop it?
All? Right? Tell you what, Sandra, I'm gonna have to

(24:44):
take a break for time. Letme come back and enter that yet the
entwer is gonna be Yes, Sandyand Cyprus, you're next. Right after
we get back from break, ourphone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four, he'd havea fall in mind. Let's see.

(25:08):
Well, good Sunday morning, ona good day for gardening, as all
days are good for gardening. We'regoing to go back out to Silsby and
continue our discussion with Sandra. AndSandra, I think you were wanting to
keep the centipede from creeping in.Is that right into my say long sing?
Yes, he's already coming over.Yeah. Uh so centipede is also

(25:29):
quite shade tolerant, so you know, the shade doesn't set it back as
much as something like Bermuda would be. The centipede, though, doesn't really
like the US A lot of nitrogen, a lot of fertilizing. It does
better in a poorer, slow condition. So as you do the regular care
of your Saint Augustine that we talkabout here on the show, it gives

(25:52):
it the advantage over centipede. Uh. There's not a herbicide that kills centipede
but not Saint Augustine. That doesnot exist. And so it's going to
be a matter of uh, youknow, either doing some hand pulling,
you know, getting getting a linethere between the you and the neighbor where
you kind of manage it right there. Cinipede, you know, turns twenty
colored in the in the cool season, where Saint Augustine remains a low green,

(26:15):
so it's easy to tell them apartat that time. But that's going
to be what your options are isjust trying to culturally fertilize this and give
this the Saint Augustine the edge orhand pulling it. What color do you
say it turned tawny color when whenwe have really cold weather. Now,
maybe if you don't have a coalwarner. It turns a kind of a

(26:37):
tan color compared to Saint Augustine.And when we have coal weather, especially
as you get further north up TylerWay, I mean it just you know,
browns out in the in the coolseason. Okay, well, I
appreciate so much. Thank you foryour time, Thank you for your call,
Sandra. I appreciate that. Let'shead out to Cyprus and we're going

(26:59):
to talk to Sape. Got anothersandy, A sander and a sandy.
What's up hi? This get?Good morning, Good morning. I called
you last weekend and I told youabout my uh my Saint Augustine. That
I've lived here twenty years and thatthe first fifteen I didn't take care of

(27:22):
it, and I started this pastyear and a half and we're four to
five years, and so I putout. I went to eighth and they
told me to get They told meto buy this uh weed beater complete and
because I showed him the pictures likeyou told me too, and I put

(27:45):
that down. I'd say about thirtyof my Saint Augustine's coming through twenty five
to thirty. But there's still lotsof wheats since I put it out last
Tuesday, just not even a weekago. When can I put it again?
Can I? When I try somethingnew, you definitely do not want

(28:07):
to do it again. It isa it is a pre emergent product.
The prodiamine in it at least isa pre emergent and when you double up
on pro diamine, that is goingto inhibit your root growth on your Saint
Augustine. And so I would Iwould definitely not redo it. I would
give it at least probably sixty daysbefore I came back and did that again.

(28:32):
Okay, And um, so Ishould put on that nineteen for eleven
or whatever. I forgot what theweed and the fertilizer nitro both. I
think it started with nineteen and Ithink the number yes, the super turf,
Yes, Um, I can goahead and put that out now,

(28:56):
Yes, absolutely you can. I'mgonna go back to that we beat or
complete just for a moment. Iwas talking about the pre emergent part of
it, and that's why especially Idon't want to reuse it right now if
you've already used it. But itdoes have the post emergent too, which
kills existing weeds. But I'm moreworried about I see problems when people double
up on prodiamine type products used accordingto the label. That's okay, but

(29:22):
you know how we are tea spoonsgood at tablespoon's better. I did it
last week. I'm gonna do itthis week and kill it deader than dead,
you know. And so yeah,just just don't do that. Follow
the label will tell you too,don't. I always follow the label?
Okay? And also do you havesomebody else? Wait? Can I ask
you another question? You can.We were heading to break in a minute,

(29:45):
but let's see if we can getthat done. Okay, my oak
grass, that I plan it.They got pretty tall. There's the Clemson
Spinelists. But I gave some ofthem. Came up too close together,
so I gave them to my sisteryesterday. I think they got too big,

(30:07):
and I they're drooping down? Isit because their stress? Should I
wait a little bit? Are theyin pots or where are they? Put
them in a bright shady area.Keep them watered and they'll bounce back.
They will recover, but they needjust a break, maybe a morning sun,
but afternoon shade would be good,just for a little while. Once
they get their feet under them,you know oak Rack and live in the

(30:30):
full blazing sun. Okay, thatdon't have the time to read do that
root system you bet, Sandy,Thank you for the call. Thank you.
Okay. You're listening to garden Lineand I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and our phone number if you'd liketo give Josh a call, get
on the board or about to takea break here seven one three two one

(30:51):
two fifty eight seventy four. Sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We've been talking about outturf species. That's morn. I'm it's
going to continue to do that throughI guess today's gonna be turf Species Day.
But when we get back, I'mgoing to continue on with Bermuda grass
and Zoysia will be on the way. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse

(31:18):
any of the products or services advertisedon this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden
Line with Skip Richter. So justwatch him as so many well, good

(31:49):
Sunday morning, on a good dayfor guard Day. You were listening to
garden Line and I'm your host,Skip Richter. We are here all more
until ten am, answering your phonecalls and questions seven one three, two,
one two five eight seven four ifyou'd like to ask a question seven
one three two one two fifty eightseventy four. Roses are a popular popular

(32:16):
plant around here, and I wasvisiting Buchanan's nursery the other day and looking
at some of the color plants.By the way, Oh my gosh,
they they have got like for Mother'sDay. If your mom doesn't just want
flowers that you put in a vaseand then after a week they're kind of
gone. They have these florist qualitylooming plants, you know, the daisies,

(32:37):
the beautiful multicolored daisies, the bagoniasand calancho or calanchoe however you want
to put it, calla lilies andthings. It's just beautiful and it'll be
flowers at last. A good whileI was, I was thinking about that.
That makes a lot of sense,more than a cut to do that.
But anyway, Roses Cinco de Mayo. I saw some of those out
there, and that is one ofmy favorite roses. It was introduced back

(33:00):
in two thousand and nine. It'san all America rose selection. I can't
describe the color to you, butit is a it is in the orange
coral range, orange coral, pinkrange and through and not in Pink's probably
not the right word to throw intothat sentence. Highly disease resistant and it
gets about maybe three feet tall alittle bit more. You can keep it

(33:21):
smaller if you want. As anamazing rose. Anyway, I saw some
of those at Buchanans. They're they'rein the Heights at leven Street. In
the Heights. You can go toBuchanans Plants dot com. You ought to
sign up for their newsletter. Youjust get a lot of good information on
what's going on at Buchanans Plants.I think that's pretty cool. You know
that when it comes to Mother's Day, all of our nurseries have just so

(33:45):
many good products. You know,these quality local independent garden centers, the
mom and pops. They don't justput plants in the nursery. I mean
they have gift shops. They've gotall kinds of bling and stuff that your
mom would enjoy. And I wouldencourage you thinking about that maybe she's not
a gardener. It's okay. They'vegot stuff that's just beautiful. You know,

(34:06):
it's not like they have to takecare of a plant. But if
she is a gardener, can youever get it set up better than that?
And I know she would appreciate that. And you know what, I'm
just gonna give you one more ideaor thought when it comes to Mother's Day,
why not take your mom with you? If she's here and you're able
to do that, take her withyou to a garden center. So instead
of showing up with this wonderful giftand plant, it's time spent together,

(34:30):
which I know is always important tomom's And so just another little twist on
things. We've got some wonderful gardencenters and some great opportunities to take mom
out and get them something nice,but also have that memorable time together.
Our phone number is seven one threetwo one two five eight seven four.

(34:52):
Let's go ahead and go to thephones. We're gonna go and now let's
see we're gonna talk to Dwayne.Good morning, Dwayne, good MORNINGSID for
taking my call. Right yesterday,I sent you a picture of a red
oak. It came from d dotSet Snyder, and I transplanted it last
week and the leaves are turning brownand I water it every day, and

(35:16):
I would just wandering if it's justfrom normal shock, or if I need
to add something else to it.I put roots stimulator when I did transplant
and let it soak in there fora while. If I filled up the
water to hold water and everything,so it's getting plenty of water, I
just don't mow. If maybe I'mputting too much water, I think you

(35:37):
may be. I just was gettingback to my emails and trying to take
a look at that. It's ared oak, and you've got some tip
burn on the leaves, which isa sign of a root problem. It
could be physical damage to the root. It could be a root rot.
It could be a lack of water. It could be putting a bunch of

(35:59):
salt based fertilile as are in theplanting hole and burning roots. All of
those kinds of things can cause asymptom similar to what I see on this
plant. So I would just kindof think through them. I'll tell you
it really foliage almost has a kindof a scorched look too. I would
definitely hold back on the water fornow, but dig down around that plant

(36:22):
and feel the soil about four inchesdeep or three inches deep even, and
if it's not moist to the touchwater, but otherwise let's hold off because
I think it has what it needsit but it looks like it's been through
quite a shock. Okay, allright, well i'll try that. I
just want to make sure I didn'tkill it by overwater. Well hopefully not,

(36:45):
but those kind of symptoms aren't goodon the top. That means something's
wrong underground, and so let's justback off. If you think you might
have overwatered, then I'm sure it'smore than wet enough. So let's just
back off of the water, allright, Okay, I'll try to Thanks
a wat skip, Yeah, thanks, right, appreciate that call. Uh,

(37:07):
they're you know, talking about waterand trees and stuff like that.
The red oak called the nut talloak, and you I'm gonna always misspelled
this inn you t t a LI believe as a spelling. But nutall
is a type of red oak thatit's native here in southeast Texas, and

(37:27):
you'll find it growing in kind ofwet areas, you know, swampy ish
areas, and it can take thatkind It doesn't want to be underwater,
but it's more tolerant of overwatering thanthan something like a Schumart would be.
For example, just a little bitmore geared for that. It's just as
beautiful as a Schumart too. Sowhen you're looking for a red oak,
that that is one you may wantto ask about, especially if your drainage

(37:52):
is anywhere anywhere in the in question. I'll tell you. We are going
to go back to the phones here, talk to Lisa and League City.
Hello, Lisa, we got wegot I'm sorry, Linda. We got
one minute, and if we haveto hold over after break, we will.
So let's let's start. Let's startreal fast. Um. I about

(38:15):
a year ago or two years ago, Randy Lemon diagnosed my tree is having
twigs sturdling, okay, which youknow they cut a little branches. Um,
I keep seeing little tiny branches allover my yard. Do I really
need to get rid of those?Because I need to get a trombone prayer
I believe to reach up at thevery top of my oak tree. Yeah.

(38:37):
Well, it sounds like you're kindof moving around there on your phone,
so we're kind of getting a littlegarble. And so what I would
do is pick up every branch thatfalls, burn it, bury it though
it in the trash, and dosomething to get it off your property.
And I would not bother with spraying, with going to the trouble to try
to spray a big tree. Justthe end those branches that fall is egg

(39:00):
than the larva that is going tocreate new twig gurglers. And so if
you pick them up and faithfully dothat, you'll find that we can cut
way back on them. All right, okay, perfectly, by the way,
I know we have just a littlebit of time, but like I
way tell you how wonderful you are. Yeah, you have added so much
to this show, and we justappreciate your knowledge and your time. Well,

(39:22):
that is very kind. I appreciatethat. Thank you, Linda.
You're listening to Garden Line. I'myour host, Skip Rictor. Our phone
number seven one three two one twofive eight seven four. We'll be right
back. Well, good morning,on a good Sunday morning. We are

(39:53):
here to talk gardening. You listenin the Garden Line. I am your
host, Skip Rictor, and ourphone number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We're going to head out now toSouthwest Houston and talk to Anthony.
Good morning, Anthony, good morning, sir. I'll have Saint Augustine lawn

(40:16):
and it's pretty much healthy. However, this one section, I'll say about
ten by ten out of the wholebackyard, I cutty's real cute. It
all lily pad looking things, butthere it's in golfing my Saint Augustine.
Okay, what can I take careof that? Well, that's what they

(40:36):
call dollar weed and dollar weed itlooks like a little umbrella. The little
stem comes up in the middle ofthe leaf, a little round, wavy
edge leaf on top. That's whatyou're dealing with. And you number one,
the weather you keep the lawn,the happier the dollar weed is gonna
be. So let that grass geta little on the thirsty side before you

(40:58):
rewater. That's just good for thegrass any way, to not stay soggy
all the time. But yeah,just culturally cutting back, that's not going
to kill the dollar weed. It'sjust gonna if you don't do that.
I mean, it's like you're justgiven the dollar weed. The rocket fuel
at wants to take over everything.But there are products that are pretty effective
against that. One that just comesto mind would be weed free zone.

(41:21):
It's a Fertiloam product. Weed FreeZone has four different broad leaf weed control
post emergent products in it. Youwant to use it, though, follow
the label, the labels the law. Even if I tell you something that's
not on the label, follow thelabel. That's the law. And what
it'll tell you is when it getsup about ninety degrees, it can damage

(41:42):
your Saint Augustine. So get itdone. Now we're about to enter a
season where you're not gonna be ableto use this stuff anymore until it cools
off again. And so get thatproduct and put it down. Do a
good job. Follow the label inhow strong you make it? You don't.
You can't spray this a lot oftimes a year. You can do
it in the spring, you cando it in the fall. That's about

(42:02):
end. And so that would bethe way I would get rid of it.
Well, all right, thank you, all right, thank you,
Anthony. I appreciate that call verymuch. You are listening to garden Line.
Our number is seven one three twoone two five eight seven four.
Hey. By the way, nextSaturday, that is the thirteenth, I'm

(42:23):
going to be out at the ArburgateNursery for a couple hours. Actually a
little longer than that. Eleven thirtyam to one thirty pm. That's a
day before Mother's Day. Bring yourmom. I'd like to beat your mom
too. I'd love to meet you. If you want to come in and
ask some questions. You can bringme some samples. Please put them in
plastic bags so we don't turn everythingloose over there, and I'll be glad

(42:47):
to diagnose or identify if you would, if you've got photos on your phone,
or if you could take photos andput them on your phone of landscape
questions you have. You know,what is this plan? How do I
what might I do in this area? Back here, I just seemed to
have trouble. I'm looking for somethingthat's color. You get the idea,
But well focused photos. Make suresometimes when you hold up a little like

(43:10):
a plan or a flower and youtake a picture of it, your phone
focuses on the background rather than theforeground. Right, Just check your pictures,
make sure that that they're well focused, so we can do our best.
But that's the Arburgate. But they'regonna have a little shindy going.
I mean they're gonna have a peachBalini's I mean, wow, that's that's

(43:30):
cool. Uh, they know howto throw a party at the arburg Gate.
They just are stocked up on allkinds of things. I mean the
yard art, the plants, thatjust the gifts for mom and the and
their gift shops. You will nothave trouble shopping for Mother's Day next Saturday
at the arbor Gate. Well wellworth the visit. I've been talking about

(43:53):
turf this morning, and I gotinto I finished in Augustly you start talking
about bermuda bermuda grass, the threehypes or three general groupings. Is the
wild coastal bermuda, the actually I'mgonna make it for of course, that's
the pasture grass. The common bermudais just playing cheap old common bermuda.

(44:13):
You can make a decent lawn outof it if you very regularly and fertilize
it very regularly. But what mostpeople get is a semi compact type of
buna, semi dwarf type of bermuda. And that's what you'll find on a
golf course screen, that's what you'llfind on a high school football field or
a soccer field or things like that. That the biggest advantage of bermuda is

(44:36):
its wear and terribility. Now,if you put Saint Augustine out there and
you had, you know, fiftyten year olds playing soccer four games a
week on it, I mean itwould pound it to dirt and that'd be
it. Bermuda has the ability,because of its underground rhizomes, to be
able to recuperate and come back.It can take the wear and tear,

(44:57):
and if you're fertilizing it and narratingit, take care of it well.
It can take that wear and tear. And that's why we choose it for
athletic fields. The medium heights bermudasthe semi dwarfs are a good way to
go as you get smaller and smaller, Like if you want to make a
backyard golf course green, you couldWow, that's a complicated thing to be

(45:19):
successful. So I'd advise against itunless you have somebody knows what they're doing.
But the shorter you keep the bermuda, the more often you're going to
have to mow, because with bermuda, you don't let it grow a long
time and then cut it way back, or it looks terrible until it regreens.
You want to look good all thetime, So frequent sharing just a

(45:40):
light sharing frequently. Like on agolf course green, they mow it every
day. Do you know that?Every day? On a fairway they're probably
mowing it definitely more than once aweek. But on your home lawns,
if you can at least get abouta five day mowing schedule, seven day
mowing schedule at the most, youcan have a beautiful lawn. The shorter
you cut it, the more oftenyou have to mow, because we're only

(46:01):
wanting to cut off a third ofthe height every time we mow, And
the shorter you mow it, youneed to get a real type mower,
not the big propeller blades. Soif you're going to try to go down
and have a one inch high Bermudagrass, which you could, the old
propeller is just that mower goes offthe bumps in the yard. I mean,
it's just gouging and cutting. Thereal type mowers. That's why golf

(46:23):
course green looks like it does.But that kind of mower is available and
you can certainly do that the Bermudagrass. I guess the other thing that
last thing that I would say aboutBermuda I mentioned that it does have the
drought tolerance and so on, butyou want to make sure and fertilize it
regularly. It needs. It isa heavy feeder, and especially with wear

(46:46):
and tear, you're going to needto add a lot to it. Now,
you want to fertilize it regularly,but you don't want to over fertilize
it because bermuda, unlike Saint augustwell, both can grow thatch, but
bermuda and especially grow a thick thatchwhen you're pushing it and over fertilizing it,
So I would avoid that. Lastone we're going to talk about is

(47:07):
Zoysia. Zosia grass is a wonderfulgrass for a lawn. It is mostly
shade tolerant, not as much asSaint Augustine, but more than bermuda.
The fine textured and the course texturedtypes, that's the distinction we should make.
The fine texture types are even moretolerant of shade than the course textured.

(47:30):
Not a huge difference, but alittle bit. The issue as zoysia
is it is a tough grass andit grows dense and if you don't keep
it mode pretty low, it getslumpy and your propeller blade because it's tough,
if your blade isn't sharp, ittends to kind of knock it over
and you end up with a lumpylawn. So sharp blade mow lower.

(47:52):
A real type mower is good toR E E L R E L reel
as opposed to propeller blade. Butthe more often you mow and the sharp
blade, that's the secret to aquality zoysia because it can really really get
dense, and there's a lot ofgood varieties. I would recommend getting the

(48:13):
broad leaf types of Zoisia. Therethe species of Japonica Zoisia japonica, those
types, and we say broad leaf, it's you know what a third of
the width of a bermuda of aSaint augustine leaf. But anyway, those
kind some of the most beautiful lawnsI've seen, or Zoisia lawns. That's
that's the trade off with some ofthese grasses. Zoysia does crawling underground as

(48:36):
well, so it can invade anarea from like bermuda grass does in your
flower beds. You know, you'rechopping the cutting the top off with Saint
augustine and centipede, it's all ontop of the ground. With bermuda and
Zoysia, it sends the submarines inunder the flower bed, and here they
pop up inside your flower bed,and that is an ongoing problem to have

(48:58):
to deal with. It'd be niceif these grasses knew exactly where we want
them to stop. We want themto fill in fast, but we want
them to stop where they're supposed tostop, and they tend to have a
way to not do that. Youknow what, I was talking about feed
stores yesterday, and I was justthinking about League City feed today this morning.

(49:19):
League City Feed down in League Cityarea. If you are in Santa
Fe Dickinson all that you're you knowyou're in League City area. They're in
Highway three, a few blocks southof Highway ninety six, and it's the
traditional feed store. You know.They they take care of you. They
carry your stuff out to the carfor you. They carry the fertilizers and
the saw products that we recommend onhere, premium pet food, everything you

(49:43):
need for your chickens, your backyardchickens. And while you're there, maybe
you even get a chance to meetMadison's Dalmatian Rorshak, which I still think
is the best name for a DalmatianNikki. I think you could probably sit
there and stare at rorshak and sayI in that one, I see what
a banana? Yes, there's asquirrel chasing a rabbit on the side or

(50:05):
something that's like looking at clouds.So instead of it, you know,
maybe I wonder I need to tellWes and Madison they need to just offer
like a psychological service. So insteadof going to see a paying one for
it, you can just go studyrush act, tell them what you see
and they would tell you what yourissues are. That's great. I don't
think it works that way, butit would be a good idea. Maybe

(50:29):
maybe someone, maybe someone should shouldcreate dogs with spots for that reason.
Okay, anyway, League City Feedhere's the phone number two eight one three
three two one six one two Mondaythrough Saturday six to nine or so nine
to six and closed on Sundays.Check out the thunderbirds down at League City
Feed. I joke about that rusha thing, but now every time I

(50:54):
see a dog with spots, Istart looking and seeing what I'm seeing.
Hey, our phone number seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Give us a call. Well,good morning on a good morning for

(51:20):
gardening, which every morn is agood morning for gardening. It's gonna be
a wonderful afternoon to get out andget some stuff done, go see some
garden centers. Like I said,I gotta go pick up that that aunt
control product, because they are actuallyjust crawling all over the place. I
uh, you know, if youif you are not from the South and
you moved down here, the firstexperience with fire ants is an eye opening

(51:44):
experience, is it not. Iremember many times, you know, growing
up as a kid, if youstepped in something soft out on the farm,
you knew what had just happened,right, a cow by something along
those lines. And then fire ants, of course they come in. When
I grew up, they were alreadyhere, but fire ants come in.

(52:07):
And so now when you're walking throughthe yard and you step and something soft,
it's like, oh, we justhave this natural reaction that we've learned.
I need to get my foot outof there quick and then start checking
my shoes and socks and ankles andeverything else, because I probably just have
a whole bunch of mad ones.I think they sit up there at the
top of the mound, just tickedoff all the angry ones. They make
them go sit at the top ofthe mount and wait for somebody to mess

(52:29):
with them, because they sure arefaster reacts, especially when the weather's warm.
Well, our phone number seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Let's go take some callshere. We're going to go to Port
Natchez and talk to Jenet this morning. Good morning Janet, Good morning scamp.
How are you. I'm well,thanks, I'm only good. Thank

(52:50):
you for mentioning the flower angelonia.I've never heard of that before, and
when you said it was also referredto as the summers an Act dragon.
Yes, I went and I finallyfound them and I'm playing it the whole
bed of them, and they're absolutelygorgeous. So I wanted to thank you
for that. Well, that's wonderfulto hear it. I'm gonna give you

(53:12):
a tip, you know, keepthem adequately watered and infertilize them. If
you don't have a good slow releasein the bed, get one, because
those things we'll just about bloom themselvesto death. I mean, they are
beautiful blooms if they have water andfertilizer, and so you want to have
both on them. Yes, andthey're beautiful. Good because I want them
to look just like this in Juneand July for you. Yeah. So

(53:36):
I'm taking good care of them.I'm doing all that to them, and
thank you so much. Well good, I'm glad you enjoyed them. They
are they are, thank you forthe Okay, bye bye, happy,
all right, take care. We'regonna go to Missouri City now and talk
to Ruben. Hello Rubon, goodmorning, Yes, good morning. Quick

(53:59):
question on greenhouses. I want tobuild a small one, but how do
you pollinate or how do greenhouses?How the plants pollinated? So you have
it's just about growing for production ina greenhouse, not just starting some transplants
to go outside, right for production? Yeah, well, if the plant

(54:21):
has to be pollinated, it's notgoing to be pollinated in a greenhouse unless
you come up with some way todo it. The big professional growers.
There's actually some growers, and thisjust amazes me. You can buy bumblebees,
a little box of bumble bees andput it in a greenhouse for pollinating
a big greenhouse. Now that's notyour backyard greenhouse, Rubbon, but I

(54:43):
just found that to be interesting.That's one way that growers with huge greenhouse
ranges deal with it. With thingslike tomatoes, they don't need a bee
to pollinate them, but they needto boom the bloom to shake, so
the pollen falls within the bloom andit pollinates. It's health. So what
they'll do is they'll vibrate the wiresthat the tomatoes are growing on. Or

(55:05):
if you had, let's say inyour greenhouse, you're growing them in beds
on the ground, you could justkind of rattle the cage and shake them
a little bit every day, justbriefly, and that would do that.
That would accomplish the pollination for youon that. Otherwise you're gonna have to
have some insects in there doing that, okay, because I know that's a
black mason bee. So they'll pollinateabout thirty times more than a regular honey

(55:27):
bee. Yep. It just don'tcreate money. Yeah, yeah, there's
another Maybe I don't think you canget those though for the greenhouse. Maybe
you can. I'd have to lookinto that, okay. And then one
more question. There was a gentlemanthat just to live at the Randy Lemon
show that had a organization down inFreeport that needed grounds heres. I don't

(55:50):
remember his name. I thought Ihad put it down on my own.
I don't know. Maybe some ofyour listeners or maybe you might know the
name of that individuality. I guessit was like a charrib type organization,
but needed volunteers and or materials.Okay, And if anyone does know,
or you know, I'll be listening. Maybe I could get a phone number
and location of it about tell me, tell me again, what kind of

(56:14):
what were they? What was thegroup doing? Well, there were one
thing, that's just I don't heseeing a moment. I don't remember what
you're doing. But he was helpingout. He had a lot of food
for the community. Let's say itwas not in Freeport, but I know
that he wanted volunteers, needed volumneheres here. He was building buildings and

(56:39):
head greenhouses for one thing. Andand uh, just I just don't remember
the name of that individual. Okay, it's not occurring to me. But
if any listeners are aware, thengive us a call. We'll maybe So,
yeah, I know Randy has alot of the Oh, I know
what it is. You're talking aboutout Harvest for the Hungry. Go go

(57:01):
online and look for Harvest for theHungry. And that's the one that's the
one you're referring to that's it allright, all right, great, thank
you. I appreciate that call,and uh, Lee, I see you
out there in Conro when we getback from break. You'll be first if
you'd like to call in. Sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. I can't

(57:45):
well, good morning on a goodSunday morning. This is gonna be a
great day for gardening. We can't. I can't wait to get out and
visit a garden center this afternoon.I got I gotta get some of that
done today. There's a couple ofthings I was picking up yesterday, and
I forgot to get a certain kindof pop that I need for a house
plant that needs bumping up and justkind of looking at it and thinking,
you know, that needs a biggercontainer so I can take off and grow

(58:07):
some more. But anyway, I'llbe getting that done a little bit later.
Let's head to the phones. Bythe way, the phone number is
seven one three two one two fiveeight seven four, and we are going
to go talk to Lee in Conro. Good morning, Lee, good morning,
Skip. Appreciate you taking my callthis morning. Yes, sir.
My question of you is some feedbackand guidance. We've got a potted lemon

(58:32):
tree and a potted mandarin orange treethat we're given to us a couple of
years ago by one of our sons, and I think both of them are
doing well. On the lemon plant, we've gotten four or five very nice
lemon's prior years, and we haven'thad any sign of plant of on the

(59:00):
mandarin orange until this year. Andthis year we've got probably the lemon plant
is gone on nuts, and we'vegot twenty or more little lemons, and
I've pruned some of those back becauseI think there's too much for the lembs
to hold. We want to transplantthose into a bigger pot. And my

(59:22):
question of you is if you havea recommendation on the type of soil and
the time of year we best weokay to make a transplant now or should
we wait till fall before winter.That's that's a good question. And the
inches now, it's fine. Nowit's a good time to do it.

(59:45):
How big is the pot that they'rein now? Is it like a five
gallon pot or is it much largerthan that? Fourteen inches tall by fifteen
inches across at the top. Okay, well, definitely want to get into
a bigger container, especially that mandarinand needs a little more room. But
the lemon as well will appreciate it. So get up a bigger sol volume

(01:00:07):
and find a rose soil. There'srose soil available from uh you know,
you get it from Nature's Way,you can get it from heirloom soils.
Quality rose saw mix is going tobe exactly what you need for that kind
of container. So that answers bothof my questions. And I appreciate your

(01:00:27):
guidance. And I'm quite familiar withNature's Way. I've gotten a lot of
their leak mold composts or since we'reyeah, we'll be you know, being
up in Caro, you're kind oflike the perfect spot. You're almost in
between the two. Uh you know. But while we're a mile north of
Spring, we got an all starrace that I've gotten some stuff too,
but I didn't are the different soilsI wasn't sure. I wasn't sure.

(01:00:52):
Yeah, Well that that answered whatwhich is the royal rose soil and the
wire? And I'm I'll probably givethem the Nature's way of try. Thank
you, thank you, thank youfor your g You bet well, I
appreciate that. I appreciate your call. Our phone number. I got time
for one more call. If youcall quick, it's seven one three two

(01:01:14):
one two five eight seven four sevenone three two and two fifty eight seventy
four. You gotta have fast fingerson this when we're running out of the
hour, but even if we don'tget finished, we can talk to you
the next hour seven one three twoone two five eight seven four R two
on two KTR eight. That's anothereasy way. By the way, if

(01:01:35):
this morning I've been talking about lawnsand went through each of the grass types
with the pros and cons, aresome information you might need to know about
the kind of mowing and whatnot thatyou do for them. If you miss
stuff like that, you can golisten to us on podcast. We're available
on podcasts through an iHeart system.The podcasts, you can go back and
listen to pass shows, or youcan also tell your friends about it.

(01:02:00):
They come. People that don't livehere can listen a live online all the
time, and you can also listento pass shows to the podcast. We
have folks a surprisingly far area thatlisten to Garden Line a lot of Houston
transplants that moved halfway across the countryand they still listen, and so we
welcome that as well. It's it'senjoyable doing a garden show, and it's

(01:02:22):
enjoyable helping people with gardening, andthat that's what we really want to is
we want you to have success.If you're one of the folks that says
I can't garden, I tried it. I killed a plant, killed ten
plants. I have a brown thumb. Here here's my answer. Number one.
To be a good gardener, yougot to kill a lot of plants.
That that's first. You gotta killa lot of plants. And that's

(01:02:43):
how we learn. And there isno try it once, you know,
I mean you can. You cantry it again and again and we can
learn and we can do better.I still kill plants. I still try
things, right, I neglect somethingor I try something to see if it
works, it doesn't work, andso on. That's okay. Gardening is
fun. There's no rules. Now, I know the neighborhood Association has rules,

(01:03:07):
right, but really in guardening atyour yard, what do you want
to do? Do you ent yourbackyard to be a big vegetable garden,
we'll do that. You want toput in a pond and have a golf
course green though the rest of theyard, you can do that. I
mean every you know. You learnhow to do stuff and just enjoy doing
it. And maybe you don't haveroom for a big dig in the dirt
garden, you can just deal withhouseplants. You can start plants inside.

(01:03:30):
You can grow plants. Now wehave lighting that's such high quality. You
can grow a tomato plant all theway through fruiting indoors with not a drop
of natural light at all. Andif those kinds of systems, if those
kinds of things are of interest toyou, I encourage you to do that.
Expand your gardening. Learn how topropagate plants, learn how to start

(01:03:52):
seeds, learn how to root cuttings, learn how to divide your perennials.
And with each little bit of knowledge, your thumb gets greener and greener and
greener. Because there's no such thingas a brown thumb, but there are
uninformed thumbs. And our goal hereon Garden Line is to inform your thumb.

(01:04:12):
If you will give us a callweek and talk you walk you through
it. Just give it a shot. If you've got kids, grandkids,
kids are your own, I encourageyou to get them involved in gardening.
I'm telling you, I know I'mbiased, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
It affects mental development, it affectsphysical health. It changes the way

(01:04:36):
you eat when you grow healthy foodand enjoy it yourself. That's our number
one health problem in this world isin this country, is the way we
eat and what it does to ourbody. With gardening, I mean you
can grow what you want. Ifyou want to have a herb garden.
If you won't have hanging baskets ofcolor, what is of interest to you?

(01:04:59):
Now is the day get out tobuy some of those products, to
go home and try them and planthem. Any questions If you go to
the nurseries we're talking about, they'regonna tell you everything you need to know.
But if you got questions, giveus a call here at Garden Line.
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorseany of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRHGarden Line with Skip rictor just watch him

(01:05:38):
well. Good Sunday morning, thesun has come out. We get a
little bit of sunshine. Shining throughthe clouds here. Still kind of hazy
overhead, but hey, it's goingto get better. This is a day
to get out there, get somethings done in the garden. We've been
talking about lawns this morning. Wecan talk about trees. If you'd like,
give us a call the phone numberseven one three two one two eight

(01:06:00):
seven four seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. I was
in my backyard the other day andit was I don't know, going around
looking at some things and taking careof this plan or that, and I
passed by this little pail that wasfull of rainwater, and it was sitting
there and I don't know I'd forgottenI guess I set it down with the

(01:06:23):
you know, opening up and therainwater coach of rains. It just got
in it and hello, mosquito larvae, wrigglers wriggling around in there. And
it just reminded me I am breedingmosquitoes, and we don't need to breed
mosquitoes. I have a news flashfor you. I have to tell Nikki
about this one for the next newsflash. There are enough mosquitoes in the

(01:06:43):
Houston area that we were full.We have enough. We don't need to
breed more so, how do wenot breed them? Well, we go
around and we make sure that ourgutters are draining well so they don't sag
in whole water. It does nottake a mosquit along to lay eggs,
go through the larval stage and beout as an adult. I mean they
are fast at that. Anywhere they'restagnant water. The catch basins underneath your

(01:07:05):
pots can breed mosquitoes. The birdbath out there, well, what do
you do. Well, one thingyou can do is just dump them.
But like me, I had oneI didn't even know about and it was
there. So we try to dothat. But if you've got an area
that you need to it needs thewater needs to stay. Maybe it's a
little pond, maybe it is abird bath and you just you're not going

(01:07:28):
to get out there and you know, dump it out twice a week.
And to get fresh water in there. You need to know about mosquito dunks.
Mosquito dunks are a natural product.They float on the water. They're
a little donut like beige donut likethings floating on the water. They slowly
dissolve and they they release a diseaseof mosquitoes. It is not a disease

(01:07:50):
of lady beetles, it is nota disease of afids. It's not a
going to hurt the family, cat, the dog, the birds that get
a drink out of the water.It completely safe organic product. It's a
type of BT different than the caterpillarBT. But when you do that,
you got a month of protection againstmosquito larva in that spot. So anywhere

(01:08:11):
you've got water that you just can'tdrain out, you need a mosquito dunk.
Maybe there's some other kind of stagnantpond in the back, mosquito dunk.
Put them in there. You're goingto find them everywhere there. All
the independent nurseries and feed stores wetalk about carry mosquito dunks. Ace hardware
stores carry mosquito dunks. It's justit just makes sense. I mean,
there are very few problems that wedeal with out in the lawn and garden

(01:08:35):
where it is such a simple solutionas us. It's safe, it's naturally
organic, Throw it in walk away, it takes care of it for a
month. You can't get simpler thanthat. Cannot get simpler than that.
Well, you're listening to garden line, and I am your host, Skip
Richter. We are here to talkto you about whatever is of interest to
you of gardening. So give usa call at seven one three, two,

(01:08:59):
one two and five eight seven four. I just went blank there.
You know I've said that eight hundredtimes seven three, two and two fifty
eight seventy four would be glad tovisit about the things that are of interest
to you. Kind of went throughthe lawns today, the different species of
long grasses and things like that thatare in the soil. I want to

(01:09:20):
talk a little bit about the trees. This is a This is an important
time. If you have planted treesthis past fall and winter and spring,
or if you're planting them now.When that tree goes in the ground,
all of its roots are still inthe cylinder that you pulled out of the
pot. Right. So when thattree is a stabbed head, it grown

(01:09:42):
from a seed in that spot,it would have roots twice as high as
the tree in all directions that theseed would have had time to have created
that kind of a root system.But when you're taking a plant that was
bought from a nursery and putting itin the ground, the roots are not
where they will be. They're justwhere they still, you know, where
they were in the pot you boughtthem, in that pot in the nursery.

(01:10:05):
Especially when it gets the summertime.Their water in those things twice a
day to keep those trees alive atleast once a day, depending on the
weather. So what happens when itgoes in the ground, Well, you've
got wet soil, but it pumpsthat root ball dry that the foliage the
top of that tree has an abnormallysmall root area because that's the only way

(01:10:28):
we can grow them is you know, in a pot, we're always going
to have a restricted root system whenwe grow it. So when you get
it established, you're gonna in thatperiod of time, you're gonna need to
keep that root ball moist. Nowyou don't drown it, you don't water
log it, you know that's deadly, but you do have to keep it
moist. And we talk about treehugger sprinklers earlier as a way to do

(01:10:49):
that. Because it wets that area. You can build a berm of soil
around a tree you just planted andfill that berm up with water and it
all has to soak right down inthere. That's fine if you wanna take
that up roach, but you haveit's touching go this first summer because the
roots are slowly moving out into thesoil, which is good, and so

(01:11:10):
we're gradually wetting a wider and widerarea, which is good. But you
know, I can't say you needfive gallons of water a day. I
mean we can give you these rulesof thumb. You know, if this
mini gallon container, here's how youwater it. But in general the idea
is you keep that container root ballmoist all the time, and that requires
regular watering and then in time wecan back off where we're not watering the

(01:11:33):
base of the tree. You know, if you've got existing trees in your
landscape, they're roots your way outof the way out in all directions.
The tech Sager life extension scientists dida study where they took pecan tree and
they washed out a route. Theyyou know, followed it with washing out
a route to see how far awayfrom a tree is a pecan root,

(01:11:55):
and they got out two and ahalf times the height of a pochondry.
You know how big a pecan treeis huge, Well, think about two
and a half times at height Thattree has roots out there. So your
neighbors three or four houses down theirtree roots are in your yard probably,
which is another reason why we don'tuse certain products that can be damaging.
We control products canna be damaging totrees because your trees roots are all through

(01:12:17):
your yard. Your neighbor's trees rootsare all through your yard. So it's
just a tip on getting your planetsstarted. By the way, if you
buy a new tree and you're gonnaplanet, cut the roots that are going
around the outside. You know,we don't want to do that because we
think we're gonna hurt the tree ifwe cut that root. But if you
cut them, trust me, theywill resprout and grow out. One time,

(01:12:39):
out Arbigate, working with Beverly,I pulled a tree out, I
cut the roots, put it backin, came back two weeks later,
pulled it out in fresh, newwhite roots growing in all directions from that
cut. Don't be afraid to cutthe roots on the outside. Circling roots
to a tree no good. That'sjust a little tip for the day.
We're going to take a break now. Our phone number seven one three,
two, one two five eight sevenfor Ruth out in spring. I see.

(01:13:00):
You'll be first up called Josh,and you can get on the board
as well. Well. Good morning. It's a good, good Sunday morning.
We're looking forward to a day thisafternoon, get a little bit of

(01:13:21):
gardening done. I see some kindof clouds growing out there, but I'm
gonna go worry about those. Ithink that we need to get those to
blow away and not worry about them. It's always it's always good to get
out and enjoy the weather. Iget the week coming up here, it's
a good time to get out andget some I would call it therapy and
health enhancing time out among the plantsin the garden. Our phone number is

(01:13:44):
seven one three two one two fiveeight seven four. You're listening to Garden
Line and we are going to headout now to spring and talk to Ruth.
Good morning Ruth, Good morning Skip. I have a question along the
same line as what you're talking about. Um. We've I've got some new
fruit trees and I'm putting them inpots, and I'm noticing all the circular

(01:14:08):
roots grown around. Do I breakthose up somewhat and then put them in
the new pot or just plant themjust like they are? How big is
the pot across the top. Howhow wide is the pot? Yeah,
I would just cut those circling rootsin the container so that they branch.

(01:14:29):
You know, with fruit trees,it's not as important as it is with
large landscape trees, because a landscapetree, you know, an eight we're
going to call this an eight inchcircle root going around, right, that's
an eight inch As it gets biggerand bigger, maybe it starts off the
size of a spaghetti and the nextthing you know, it's the size of
your finger. And as it getsbigger and the trunk gets bigger, the

(01:14:51):
two come together and the root endsup years down the line, strangling the
trunk of the tree. And bythe time you see the problems above and
the foliage of the tree, it'sa little late to try to get that
embedded root out of the trunk that'sstrangling it. Now, in a fruit
tree, we don't end up witheight inch trunks usually, so you're probably
gonna be okay not cutting it.But I on an eight inch I still

(01:15:14):
would. I still would. Okay, just a couple on the bottom,
just no anything when you when youpull it out of the pot. Anything
going around that you see apply especiallythough down on the bottom it's not as
important, but I usually will cutsome roots down there as well. Just
get a fresh start, and believeme that it won't set them back much.
They'll take off. Awesome, goodhunt. Thank you so much.

(01:15:38):
Yep, yep, you bet,you bet. Okay, thank you for
the call. Yeah, planting,planting trees is it's a long term investment,
of course it is. So whatyou want is you want something that's
going to last a long time andbe better with the years. When I
was living in Conrow, and actuallyI lived up in the Willis area,

(01:15:59):
and a friend of mine up inWillis, older gentleman at that time,
showed me a picture of his housewhen they first built it. And then
he showed me a picture of thehouse now. And they'd moved on,
gone to a different house, butshowed me the house now. And in
that old picture, and it's likea forty year old picture, there was
this little scrawny tree in the frontyard and it looked basically like a broom

(01:16:23):
handle sticking up out of the ground, I mean a one inch trunk or
something. And then in the secondpicture, this thing is I mean,
it is the home. I meanit is just beautiful spreading tree. That
just I mean, I don't knowhow many thousand dollars it's worth in the
value of that property, but it'sworth a lot. Now. Why is
that? Well, they picked agood variety and speak or a good species

(01:16:46):
to plant for the area, atree that was going to be happy there,
and then they took good care ofit over the years. They took
good care of they planted it properlyand got it started. But the other,
the other thing in that secret sauceas they did it, he didn't
wait twenty years to plant the tree. The best time to plant a tree
is the day before yesterday, rightor not? Actually the best time is

(01:17:09):
forty years ago. Then the secondbest time is the day before yesterday.
And then we'll call today the thirdbest time. But let's get it done,
because they add value to your home. That combination quality species, quality
grown tree, and quality planting thatadds up to a long term, very

(01:17:30):
valuable investment. Before you just goout and grab whatever's for sale, let's
figure out what tree you need.Let's do a little research. Do you
want evergreen or deciduous? Would youlike a tree that flowers or not?
Is it mainly for shade that youwant it. Those are all factors in
deciding. And when you know,we talk about places you know like Verdant

(01:17:54):
Tree Farm for example. Vernant TreeFarm is an excellent place to purchase your
plan, your trees and things.They do a great job of growing them.
They know how to produce a qualitytree. And when you go out
and you get a tree at aplace like that, you're going to end
up with a quality tree, onethat's gonna last. The folks at RCW

(01:18:17):
Nurseries will sell you a good qualitytree as well, and you just have
to start with that because what mostpeople say is they want a fast growing
tree. I want I want,I want to grow fast like I'm planet
today, hang a hammock tomorrow.Right, Well, go back. Remember
some of you who are old enoughremember the nineteen sixties when Arizona Ash was

(01:18:38):
so popular, and then there's thenineteen seventies and eighties, and by the
nineteen nineties whole neighborhoods of Arizona Ashlook like hat racks. They had fallen
apart, they'd prune limbs off,it was butchered, it was horrible,
and so thirty forty years down theline they are pulling these trees out and
starting over with the broomstick. Whatif seat of an Arizona ash they plant

(01:19:00):
it a quality tree, so fastis not the most important thing. There
are some species that are faster thanothers, and we got we got some
good quality trees. But the wayyou care for it has to do with
fast too. Right. Plant aquality tree that's a reasonable growth right,
take care of it right, andyou will be way ahead in the long
run. Don't be duped. It'sI cringe when I see these advertisements for

(01:19:27):
some tree that grows ten feet ayear. You know it's it's some fast
growing tree. Put these words inyour head, grow fast, die young.
That's that's pretty much the case forthose kind of trash trees. They
just aren't going to give you thequality that you want. So anyway,
I'm ranting and raving, but Ilike to do that. I think it's
a topic worth renting and raving becauseif I if I talk one person into

(01:19:51):
planning a good quality tree that hasbeen grown right from someone that knows what
they're doing, the right species atthe right time, I'm the right way.
I think we have accomplished something thatIt's an honorable thing to plant a
tree under whose shade you will neverset, but your kids and your grandkids

(01:20:13):
will, and if you ever sellthe house, it's going to be a
valuable asset to your home as wellwell. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. You can giveus a call here on garden line.
If you don't follow us on Facebook, encourage you to follow us on Facebook.

(01:20:34):
Two. We have regular postings upthere where you can see things that
are going on in the community.I'm a little neglecting doing more of the
educational postings on there, and I'mgoing to try to get that fixed because
we need to be putting those upas well. Little tips that you can
share with your friends, things togive you success or maybe explain a problem

(01:20:57):
a little bit better so you canunderstand exactly what you need to do for
it. That's that's kind of thewhole deal right there. So back on
the tree on the tree comments.First of all, we got some calls
coming in. I'm gonna Randy andNorth Houston. I'm gonna let you hold
just for a second here. We'reabout to go to break, and I
want to be able to have enoughtime to do service to your questions or

(01:21:20):
a couple of others coming on.If you'd like to get online, it's
seven one three two one two fiveeight seven four. If you give Josh
a call, he will get youon the board and we will be able
to visit with you when we whenwe come back from break. So,
uh, today's a good day togo out shopping for a tree to go
visit. Go buy one of thoseplaces, pick a tree out, get

(01:21:43):
it ordered, get it planted.If it's a little bitty, If it's
a little a small tree you canpick up and carry, that's fine,
you can do it yourself. Butif it's getting bigger, I say,
even thirty gallons is kind of hardto manage. You need to get a
professional to take care of that.You know what, Randy, I think
I am going to have time toget your call. I'm gonna go ahead
and head out to North Houston andwe're gonna talk to Randy. Hello,

(01:22:03):
guy, how are you doing.Hey, I'm good. Good talking to
you. Skip. Yes, Hey, I've got a question. Um,
I was planning on planting a magnoliatree out in the front part of my
yard between my drive, between mydriveway and my neighbors, it's a strip
of about probably about eight feet wide, okay, and uh just wanted to

(01:22:28):
know if that's an okay place fullfun to plan a magnolia tree. Well,
the sun is good. Eight footis kind of minimal. I would
definitely go with a magnolia that's amore compact growing form. Uh. There
is little gem there is uh isit called teddy Bear? I believe is

(01:22:49):
one. There's several of them outthere. And when you go to a
good tree tree place, you're gonnathey're gonna tell you what selections they carry
that If it's only eight feet though, that only gives it four feet to
either sidewalk right and and that rightthat worries me a little bit. There
are things you can put in theground to direct the roots downward so they
don't go right under the sidewalk,because that's how they do damage. A

(01:23:12):
little route grows bigger in time andthe sidewalk lifts up, and so we
want to avoid that. So I'mI'm kind of on the fence for even
a dwarf type magnolia in that area. But it is possible, but you
might want to look into some kindof special uh you know, work to
have done to direct those roots down. How would I how would I direct

(01:23:34):
the roots down? Skift? Well, it's a barrier they put underground.
It's they don't trans and put avertical barrier in it. It's it's a
little bit of a job to dothat. But anyway, that's my thinking
for a long time. You won'thave a problem. I'm just thinking twenty
years down the line, thirty years. I'm just not sure. Okay,
gotcha? Would would a cypress treebe a bed of choice? Definitely?

(01:23:57):
Not No, not not a cypressand location. Hey, I'm gonna have
to run to an ad Okay,but thank you for the question. Uh
Mario, clear Lake Mark, clearLake City. We will be there very
soon when we come back here.First stop, don't you cry? Well,

(01:24:28):
good Sunday morning, on a goodday and a great day for gardening
this afternoon. Get out there anddo a little bit of the things you're
planning. Look out the window,where do you need some color? Stand
in front of the lawn or infront of the house, look around and
and just assess your your landscape.Just take a look at it. You
know, when I drive around town, I always look at landscapes and notice

(01:24:50):
things like, oh, that's aninteresting way they created that bed. Or
I like the way they decorated youknow the bed borders with that. Or
you know this plant that they've usedthat's a unique feature. Learn from that
and take it home, put itinto practice in your yard. You're listening
to garden Line. I'm the host, Skip Ricter seven one three two one

(01:25:10):
two five eight seven four, andwe're going to go to clear Lake City
and talk to Mark. Hello.Mark, Hello, sir. I thought
it was going to be the secondone from Clearly Well, I don't know.
Somehow I grabbed you first, Sothat's okay. I hope it don't
offend a guy that should have beenfirst before I ask my questions. The
caller back was talking about magnolia betweendriveways. Yes, and I have called

(01:25:33):
you about magnolia leaves before. Iwould hardly recommend that he gets one of
the best leaf vacuums he can findon the market. Okay, that's a
good point. They do have theseasonal drop, don't they. Well,
yeah, and for me, it'sthree hundred and sixty five days a year.
It's incredible. For years now,I've been confused by the units of

(01:25:57):
measure for pots from bags of soil, fertilizer, stuff like that. They
have, for instance, an eightinch pot. You have quartz and gallons
in bags of soil and fertilizer,and I don't know how to make the
conversion. I can take a taperedpot and I can figure out based on

(01:26:17):
the measure of the top in thebottom and if slungs it straight sides,
calculate how many cubic inches or cubicfeet that pot will hold. But quartz
and gallons, you know how,I'm at a loss. Where can I
go to get a conversion table ora way of making that version. There

(01:26:40):
are some of those online, anda ball seed company used to have one
online. I'm sure there's others.Now. I would do a Google search
for container plant container conversions and seeyou may try putting ball seed in there.
But there there are charts like that, And yes, it is confusing,

(01:27:02):
and one at one point we're talkingabout how many inches and the next
point we're talking about quartz and uh, and then sometimes they throw in the
number that's a number two pot orwhatever, and so if ye too,
Yeah, so that that's what Iwould do. You know, I don't.
I can't talk and Google at thesame time, but if I could,

(01:27:23):
i'd look for one for you.But they are there. You might
if you don't have success, youmight try. Well, I would just
do it that way. I woulddo plant plant container sizes conversions. Now,
well, I've tried. I've trieddoing that, but apparently I'm used
to write keywords. I haven't foundsomething that says if if I can find
something, I will post it toour Facebook page. How about that,

(01:27:45):
you say you'll do? What wouldit? If I find it, I
will post it to the garden LineFacebook page. Oh, I'm not a
Facebook user or any other place youcan put it. Let's see. I
will mention it next week on theair. How about that? If I
find You're going to be in clearLake on the twenty seventh, is that?
What time is it going to start? At? Eleven thirty to one

(01:28:05):
thirty, And I'll be at wildBirds Unlimited. It's a new wild Birds
store down there. I'm really excitedto go see it. I haven't been
down to the clear Lake store yet. They haven't been opened that long.
But no, it's just not inhis grand opening is the week before you
Yes, you go, he said, it's soft opening. Now. Yeah,
we'll be talking about that a lotgoing forward as we get a little
closer to her. Thank you verymuch, sir, Thank you Mark.

(01:28:27):
I appreciate the call. Thank here. All right, let's now I'll talk
to Mario and clear Lake. HeyMario, actually Mark had called in about
a minute and a half before youdid, so that's no problem on the
skip. I have really two questions. The second one occurred to me after
I spoke to your producer. Firstquestion is I have what I believe to

(01:28:50):
be mildew on some knockdown roses.And I noticed it in early April,
and I thought my garden folks hadtreated it, but apparently they didn't.
And I'm wondering, given the lengthof time, whether it's too late to
do anything about it. Is itlike a white material on the leaf surface,

(01:29:11):
and are or the leaves kind oftwisted and their growth has Yeah,
they kind of shriveled up and it'sa knockout rose. Yeah, I did
not know knockouts had that kind ofa problem with powdery mildew. Well,
I could be a mistakes. Maybethey're not knockout, but I thought they
were. Yeah, okay, wellit doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if

(01:29:32):
you use. If you use kneemoil, just don't do it on a
hot sunny day baking down to theleaves. But kneem oil is a very
good powdery mildew control spread spread onthe plants, and you just have to
coat them because it only kills thepot of mildew if you fully coat the
leaf, otherwise the spots that remainunaffected. Also, you can use a

(01:29:54):
product containing bailaton bay L E TO N. And we are hitting a
hard, hard break here. Doyou want to hang on to continue the
discussion or did that cover it?That covers it? But real quickly.
I had a Japanese maple that gothit real hard and to freeze, and
my gardener's cut it down, actuallycut off the top of the thing,

(01:30:15):
well more than the top, abouttwo thirds of it, and it's growing
up like a bush. What whatcan you tell me about? So when
I come back from break, Iwill I will answer that one for you.
Mario. We let's say you're listeningto the garden line seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we'll be right back from a
break. Good morning on a goodday for gardening. We are going to

(01:30:47):
head back out. I believe Mariois still there from a clear lake and
go ahead. And you were sayingyou had a Japanese that was now a
bush right now, I said maplemistakenly. It was a blueberry. Japanese
blueberry, definitely. Yeah, itwas that body feet tall. It was
beautiful, and then the freeze reallyhit it. Yeah, that's a problem

(01:31:10):
with that. My gardeners cut itthe top off, actually two thirds of
it, and so I have akind of like a free foot dub and
the leaves are growing now. Yeah. So and I expect you can kind
of do what you want to do. I mean you can, you can
do some sharing to try to reformit into what you want. It sounds
like you still have one trunk comingout of the ground and then there's a

(01:31:32):
lot of branching going on from wherethey cut it off. Yes, that's
right. Yeah, So I wouldjust say shape it like you want.
It kind of is what it is, you know. I mean, we
wish that that hadn't happened and diedback, but you could pick a branch
or two or three to go upand kind of form the center again.
But by doing some frequent sharing youcan help form that shape that you're looking

(01:31:55):
for and get it back back inshape. Otherwise it's gonna be pretty rangy
going in all directions right now,Kim, Will it grow as tall as
it was when I had that trunkthat went up, like I say about
eight eat or so, well,yeah, yes it will. But as
you spread the growth out over multipletrunks, it's gonna want to it's going

(01:32:16):
to be more of a wider ratherthan taller bush, just because you know
the top tall part has been lostand now you've got multiple branches sprouting.
But if you shaped it, youcould theoretically get it back up to where
it was, as long as wedon't have enough cold hard winterer. Oh
great, that's good dude. Allright, Well, yep, looking forward
to seeing you over it in clearLake when you come up on the twenty

(01:32:41):
seventh. We've been over to thatstore to don't like a little location.
They all are. I love Ilove Wahlberg. I appreciate that, and
thank you, thank you for thecall. I'm looking forward Saturday to twenty
seventh. Being out there, letme ask you a question, speaking to
you everybody listening, or do youconsider yourself a compassionate person? I would
think you do. I drive throughHouston and I see people that are on

(01:33:04):
street corners asking for help. Iknow there's a significant homeless problem, in
the nearly homeless problem in a community, But I don't think that the face
of homelessness is what you may thinkit is. The face of homelessness may
be a mom living in a carwith her kids. For whatever horrible reason,

(01:33:24):
She's found herself in that situation andshe just needs to get on her
feet and get a job. Theface of homelessness may be a man who
had a really well paying job,and you know, sometimes we tend to
be a paycheck or two away frombroke and lose a job, a couple
of strokes of hard luck, andnow you've got a person that once had

(01:33:45):
it all together, and now he'sjust trying to put her all back to
piece, all the pieces back inplace. Star of Hope. Does that
Star of Hope mission serves Harris FortBen, Brazoria, Montgomery County. Do
you know they feed almost a thousandpeople a day They have vans. Their
Love and Action vans go out andthey're reaching out to people with prayer and
shelter and recovery programs giving them ahope of a future out on the street.

(01:34:10):
People can come in to both thehomeless men, women and children.
They can stay up to a yearas they focus on having their life changed,
education, employment, spiritual growth,how to manage life and money,
substance abuse. This is life changingstuff. If you want to give a
dollar, don't just hand it toa person on a corner. That's a

(01:34:30):
whole new set of stories as towhere that usually ends up. Give it
to a place like Star of Hope, where there's true training, true hope,
true accountability and a chance for anew a new life. Do you
know they feed more than six thousandmeals a week. For two dollars and
eighty cents, you can provide ameal that's the cost of a cup of
coffee. Go to Shmission dot orgStore of Hopemission, do sh mission dot

(01:34:57):
org and learn more. I urgeyou to support Star of Hope. I
uh you know years ago, wemy wife and I with our church used
to come and work with Starvhope downtownand the last time I visited. The
new facilities are like, oh,my goodness, this makes the difference,
you know, instead of just ahere's here's lunch for a day, good

(01:35:19):
luck, I feel better now.I gave something. You're part of a
partnership that is changing lives and trulygiving people hope. And I think that
kind of compassion is in all ofus. Uh And I just can't I
can't say enough for what I believein, and that is a star of
hope. Mission. Well, mygoodness, we've talked about all kinds of
flamp stuff today here on garden Line. I want to remind you that next

(01:35:44):
Saturday, from eleven thirty to onethirty, I will be at Arbourgate,
the day before Mother's Day. Bringyour mom. I want to meet you.
I want to meet your mom too. You can find out more information
if you if you want to typein info at start at Arburgate dot com.
Info at Arburgate dot com for moreinformation. But just go online to
Arburgate dot com. You can seethe amazing stuff they have to offer.

(01:36:08):
And I promise when you go andshop with your mom, it's gonna be
the greatest Christmas gift you can imagineif she's a gardener, Oh my goodness.
In fact, there's no limit towhat you can do if she doesn't
care about plants but just likes prettythings, fragrances for inside the home,
you know, some beautiful art,something to put in the yard. It

(01:36:30):
just goes on and on. Andthat's Arburgate that that's who they've always been
out there. It's a show place. So next Saturday, eleven thirty to
one thirty, and urge you tocome out. If you've got some plant
samples, bring them in a bag. Please keep them in a bag.
If your insects and plants, I'lltake a look at them. Take pictures
on your phone of things. Wantto identify this. I want to diagnose

(01:36:51):
that. Here's an area of mylawn. I want to I want to
do something different in look at thesegarden plants are not doing good? What
can we do? Just good,sharp focused pictures and we can help.
We can provide that kind of advice. And I always love getting out and
meeting the folks. So everybody wayup north, you know, conro the

(01:37:11):
over and can't even say tomball,thank you. I got the word tomball
and stuck out of my head furthernorth. Other than that, I know
we have people drive down from BrianCollers stationery even to come down to arbigrate
the shop. I hope you'll comeout and see me there. Look forward
to visiting with you. In themeantime, we got one more hour in
the books, so if you'd liketo be on the air, here's your

(01:37:33):
last shot for a week seven onethree, two, one two fifty eight
seventy four. Give Josh your call. All you gotta tell him your name
and basically what it is you're callingabout. You know that he doesn't need
to have the whole description. Hecan't type all that in for me,
so just the basic one phrase,one one set of words is to what

(01:37:55):
it is that you're curious about.He'll get you on the board and when
we come back from break then youand I can visit at that time.
Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarilyendorse any of the products or services advertised

(01:38:17):
on this program. Welcome to ktrH Garden Line with Scarre Rictord. So
just watching as well. Good morning, nice Sunday morning. It's not a

(01:38:47):
little rain passing through, but I'mstill gonna be able to get outside some
I enjoy enjoy days like this suchbalmy nice weather. Hey're let's into the
Garden Line. I'm your host,Skip Richter, and our phone number if
you would like to call in isseven one three two one two five eight

(01:39:08):
seven four. We're entering our lasthour for this morning. Be back again
next Saturday. By the way,we're every Saturday, every Sunday. If
you're not familiar with Garden Line fromsix am to ten am, so you
can tell your neighbors about it.You know that neighbor that doesn't take care
of their yard. Maybe just kindof subtle hint, just a interesting radio
show you might like. And oncethey start listening, we'll tell them to

(01:39:31):
straighten up and get everything going inthe yard. Take care of that yard,
right so it looks good. Youget the idea well, talking about
gardening and stuff that the vegetable garden. Our vegetable gardens are really zooming along
right now, tomatoes or producing andthings are looking pretty good. I'm getting
quite a few emails and calls atthe Agri Live Extension office. But also

(01:39:56):
you know here on Garden Line,we get these kinds of questions that where
tomato leaves are twisting up you know, the new growth up at the top
of the plant is just abnormal looking. It's not growing right, and the
question is what's doing that and whatI do about it? Well, there's
two typical common causes for that.One of them is that the plant has
a virus, and a virus isincurable and a tomato, so once you

(01:40:19):
have it, you get rid ofthe tomato quickly, pull it up,
get rid of it, because aninsect will feed on that plant, ingest
the virus and then go feed onother plants of tomatoes that don't have that
virus and inject it into them,and so it spreads that way, so
you rogue those out. The otherthing is broad leaf herbicide damage. If

(01:40:41):
you use a broad leaf herbicide andget some on those plants, or in
the real warm summertime as the weatherthere's some of those products can volatilize and
just drift and that drift have aneffect on them. But what typically happens
is people use manure from pastures thatwe're treated with brush killer products. Certain
ones are so persistent they go throughthe cow, they sit there in the

(01:41:03):
parlia maneure for months, and thenyou put it on your garden, and
they still affect your garden, especiallysensitive plants like a tomato. Another way
we get that is through hay.The same thing a pastures treated to kill
the brush on that hay now asthat ingredient, and so you multure tomatoes
and you get it that way.So those are the two common causes.

(01:41:24):
Neither one of them has a cure. Both of them. You pull it
up and you move on. Well, our phone number seven one three two
one two five eight seven four,and we're going to head right out to
Passadena and talk to Mary. Hello, Mary, good morning. How are
you this morning? Well? Thankyou? How could we help? I
definitely need help. About three weeksago I put image all in one long

(01:41:50):
weed killer on my front yard,which happens to be San Augustine with weeds,
won't harm lawns, kills one hundredplus weeds. Well, my front
yard is dying. And I lookon the back in very small print,

(01:42:10):
not even under directions, and itsays not for Saint Augustine grass. So
I'm just wondering what I can do. I can see that it's killed.
Part of the lawn on top it'syellow. But when we go out and

(01:42:34):
we pull we still have roots.So I'm just not sure what to do.
I don't know if there's anything Ican do except just sit by and
wait. Yeah, the I thinkit's a Quinn Clark in that product that
is so so damaging to the SaintAugustine's. Some'm turf can take it,

(01:42:55):
but Saint Augustine kent. But youknow, it takes us back to here
we go. The label, youknow, you always have to check it
carefully because the right absolutely enough.I'm so sorry I call myself reading the
whole thing, um, you know, but but in very small print.
I mean, it's the last thingthat you see on this Yeah, and

(01:43:17):
I can't it's so small. Ican't see dis ingredient. Um. It
begins with them as it looks likesulf or something self Intrizona and Quinnclorac or
the ingredients and image all in one. Uh. And I've grapped about this
before. But these companies that havea product that's well known, then they

(01:43:38):
make other products with different ingredients andthey put the same name on it.
Like not all images are these twoingredients. The standard image was a completely
different ingredient. The same thing asa roundup. There's a roundup that you
spray on your lawn for broad leafwheat. Well, roundup kills everything,
right, Well, not this one. It's a different mix. And I
don't know why they put the samename on them. I can't believe they

(01:44:00):
don't have a lot of issues withpeople doing like you're describing. Can I
like a big box or something,or were tractors supply? Okay, well
you know this is I'll just giveyou, give me just a soapbox moment.
This is why we love those independenthome garden centers because that would they
would not have sent you home withthis product. They know what they're talking

(01:44:23):
about. So anyway, but whatdo you do now? What you do
now is rake up the dead materialsbest you can. I'd give it a
little bit of time, you know, a few weeks before you reside,
But go ahead, and then you'regoing to have to reside. Now,
if you've got living sprigs of grassevery foot or so, you can coax
it back in to refill. ButI suspect you got much bigger areas than

(01:44:43):
that. I think we do.In part of it, we can see
that some of it looks like it'sgoing to survive. I didn't I didn't
get it down to the route orwhatever. Okay, But I'm just wonder
if there's anything else that I shouldyou know, as m there anything else
that I should do. None ofit out, Yeah, none of the
good lawn and garden fertilizers and nutrientthings are going to fix what's there now,

(01:45:09):
once it's covers what is able torecover and start to grow. Yes,
those products are helpful now. Itprobably wouldn't hurt if you could do
a compost top dressing if you feellike you have enough soil to be I
mean enough living grass to be worthtrying to recover, well, putting all
that microbial activity up there at thesurface and kind of helping that grass as

(01:45:31):
it tries to recover to be ableto get going. And the compost top
dressing also would would shade the bareareas of the lawn a little bit to
cut down on weeds. Obviously weedsare already a problem. But I don't
want to say that like that topdressing is going to fix the chemical damage
to your turf gress. It's not. We're just trying to get it going,

(01:45:54):
and I suspect you're probably gonna needto do some resotting and at least
parts of it, I think so. And watering really is not going to
make the chemical bull away, Noit's not. It's just going to be
a matter of time. And Mary, I appreciate that call, and I
have to take a break, butthank you for the call, and I
wish you well with the lawn.For other folks that are listening. Another

(01:46:17):
reason why we go to a qualitygarden center and knows what they're talking about,
so that we don't have to bethe chemical expert knowing everything. They
guide us and the label guides us, and we avoid situations like this.

(01:46:44):
Well, good morning, it's gonnabe a good Sunday morning, and it
is a good day to be outsideonce we get past this little rain.
A little cloudy right now, butit's the temperature just perfect to be out
there. Hey, you're listening togarden Line, don't you give us a
call? Seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. This is
our last hour for today. We'llbe back till next Saturday, So here's

(01:47:09):
a good time to ask those questions. I just want to remind you that
on Saturday, next Saturday, Iwill be at Arbor Gate from eleven thirty
to one thirty. I hope you'llcome out. Beverley and the folks out
at Arbourgates. They're gonna have somepeach Bellini's available. That's worth the price
of admission right there. Hey,it's a day before Mother's Day, so
you want to pick out a beautifulflowering plant for your mom, or perhaps

(01:47:31):
something for an inside decoration or agarden decoration. They have an unending supply
of everything you can imagine you mightneed out there. Now, that's the
day before Mother's Day, May fourteenth, next Saturday, I hope you'll come
out. Bring some plants samples,put them in a plastic bag so nothing
escapes, take a look at them, identify, diagnose whatever kinds of questions

(01:47:54):
you might have. Take some pictureson your phone and make sure they're in
good sharp focus and bring them.I'd love to meet you. Bring your
mom to Hey. Why not buyyour mom her Mother's Day gift when you're
out with her. I know it'snot the surprise the next day, but
wouldn't that time of shopping and momgetting to pick something out be kind of
cool too? That works for you? Bring your mom out there and love

(01:48:15):
to meet her as well. We'vetalked about a lot of different things today.
Spend a lot of time on turf, which is always appropriate because turf
is one of the three teas thatmakes the phone ring. Trees, turf,
and tomatoes. No one ever callsme about their Cole Robbie. One
of these days, I'm going toget a Cole Robbie call. But I
have so far in many years ofdoing this, I'm mad well and yet.

(01:48:38):
But tomatoes, everybody loves to vetas. It's kind of like the obsession
of the vegetable garden. Just freshgreen, quality tomatoes that you grew yourself
in the vegetable garden. By theway, now is it time to move
into those hot weather plants If youwant to grow sweet potatoes, we got
to get those in because we needThey need a long time to grow and

(01:49:00):
developed their roots. The secrets tosuccess with them. One of the secrets
to success with them, by theway, in addition to a good sunny
spot, is you want good qualityslips that you put in the ground.
Get them rooted quickly and get themgrowing quickly and keep them going and healthy.
They need to have a good startto develop the good quality storage roots.

(01:49:20):
If you go through drought stress,if you go through other kinds of
stresses, you have a little spindleyslip. You don't plant it deep enough,
getting several nodes down there in theground, you're not going to have
the full development of the kind ofroots that you would like to have on
a sweet potato. Other things inthe summertime, southern peas, black eyed

(01:49:40):
peas, purple whole peas, crowderpeas, zephor cream peas. We use
the word peas for all of them. I wish we would use the word
beans, because that's pretty much whatthey are as a bean. But you
cannot get a better quality homegrown vegetablethan that. There are a lot of
things, you know. I knowwe talk about homegrown tomatoes or better store
bought and I agree with that.I agree with that. That's you know,

(01:50:02):
green beans and so on. Butwhen you have fresh shell peas,
if you've only eaten black eyed peasout of a can, you have not
eaten black eyed peas. I don'tknow what they do to those things to
make them taste so bad in thecan. When fresh they are so good.
And in the South, everybody knowsthat you have got to have.

(01:50:24):
You got to cook some southern peas. You know, everybody's got their recipe.
A little bit of bacon, alittle bit of onion put in there,
whatever, And when you're done thatthat juice. In the South we
call that the pot liquor. Thepot liquor juice from cooking fresh black eyed
peas, southern peas. That isgood for a lot of things. Some

(01:50:44):
people just like to drink it.And it's that good. So if you
don't have room in a garden todo these. When you go shopping,
go to farmer's market, support oneof our local farmer's markets and buy some
fresh shelled black eyed peas. Ifyou can find those locally, get those
and try them out. Sometimes grocerystores have frozen ones, and that's that's

(01:51:06):
good. I mean, that's asecond best I guess to at least get
that fresh taste. But man,so good, so good in the vegetable
garden. Our phone number seven onethree two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. I was talking about
being at at Arbourgate on next Saturday. But you don't need to wait till

(01:51:29):
next Saturday. I'd encourage you toget out there today. Arburgate is that
kind of nursery that is a destinationgarden center. You can go online to
Arborgate dot com Arburgate dot com findout more about the place. But it's
a mile and a half west oftwo forty nine. On twenty nine twenty
they've got their one two three easysystem. I like the way they set

(01:51:50):
that up, so it's three differentproducts. It's a one two three step.
Number one there's a food that feedsanythings with roots. Number two is
a soil for any application that youmight need. And number three as a
compost. It's going to improve anyand all soil. All of this completely
organic, completely easy. When you'reat at Arbogate, the folks that work

(01:52:11):
there are well trained and knowledgeable andthey can help you. Like maybe you
want to put in a pollinator garden, or you would like to plant fruit
trees. They've got those. Theycan tell you that I need two plums
to pollinate each other. Go oheatand ask them. They'll tell you.
They'll direct you to the plants youneed. They'll give you the advice you
need to have success with those plants. And that's important you know, it's

(01:52:34):
one thing just to take a planthome, but you need to have somebody
that can help. And our goodquality retail independent mom and pop. There's
a lot of adjectives on there.Those garden centers are the ones that can
direct you to that kind of thing. Well, that's enough for me.
Let's go to the phones seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four.

(01:52:57):
We're gonna go downtown Houston and talkto Ray about crape myrtles. I
believe is that right? Ray?That is correct? Good morning? How
are you well? Well? Thankyou? So I plant. I planted
a crepe myrtle a year ago andit was blooming. It was fine at
that point, Um, early springor winter. We trimmed it back to

(01:53:18):
cut out the dead that was onit. And now it's just not blooming
at all. And unless it's tooearly, I don't know what. It's
a little early. Um. TheThe other thing is how's the sunlight ray
on that plant? Perfect? Ineed it gets at least six seven hours
of sun Okay, got a minimum? Good? Then then you should be

(01:53:39):
in good shape there. Yeah,I think I'd just give it a little
bit more time. Uh, youknow, the crepes bloom on the new
growth, and so they've got tohave the strength and energy of the plant,
plenty of foliage to you know,create the carbohydrates necessary to make the
blooms to look so good. Andso I think, just do everything you
can to keep it as healthy asyou can, and it should start blooming

(01:54:00):
for you pretty soon. Do youremember what variety it was? Any chance?
You know? I don't remember?Um. I know the leaves are
kind of like a oval shaped,which is probably typical of a great myrtle
anyway, but this was a pinkishcolor for this great myrtle. Okay it
did you know? You know,several different branches from the bottom, so

(01:54:21):
which makes sense. Yeah, Well, and you can choose, you know,
with great myrtles, you can havea one trunk tree or you can
have a multi trunk tree. That'swhat it is. It is a multi
trunk that is correct. That's good. Well. The main thing on those
is just when you do pruning,if you do prunting, and you don't
have to do prunting, just makesure and don't do that butcher job that
you see all over town that thatjust now ruins the beauty. Yeah,

(01:54:45):
now, I basically was just cuttingthe little bed apart from last year where
they bloomed and turned to pods.Yea, So it was just basically cutting
that stuff out. Yeah, Ididn't do a hack job. Yeah,
we used to. We used tosay, don't prunting anything bigger than a
pencil. Yeah, that's about whatwe did there. You go, well,
and you know, but there's times, there's times when you need to

(01:55:06):
train it. And that's the thingwhen you when you kind of have the
vision of what you want your treeto be when you buy it and plant
it, then as a branch startsto grow, it's like, yeah,
that's not the right direction, that'snot what I want here. And you
take it off when it's real smalland there's no no ugly there. You
know, if you wait until yougot to get a saw to take it

(01:55:28):
off, now you got a bigwound. And so you know, we
start to get in that that thingof detracting from the beauty of the plant.
Yeah. I've been trying to keepa lot of the bugs off.
Everything I got willows in the backyardgot bugs. But buy it advanced stuff
seemed to clean that up pretty quick. So that was nice. Yeah,
but you know, other than that, I really haven't seen any kind of

(01:55:51):
bugs on the great myrtles or anything. So I was just curious if it
was just too early or just giveit some time. Yeah, give it.
I'd give it some time. Thatwe got a couple of insects that
can bug him a little bit,but I want to bug him a lot.
But I think right now, Ijust give it some time and call
back if you don't have good bloomsgoing on it in another month or so,
we'll be glad to visit with youmore. Thanks, thank you,

(01:56:12):
thank you. You take care.We are going to head to break here
in just a second. So Johnin League City, I want to give
plenty of time for you to beable to talk about your question. You
will be first when we come upin the meantime, if you will give
Josh a call at seven one threetwo one two fifty eight seventy four.
All he needs to know is yourname and basically what your question is.

(01:56:35):
Three or four words that just describethe question. I know, other than
all the details, he's not goingto help with that. He's going to
send the call to me. Soso just give him the basics and we'll
get going here. We're about tohead to the news and talk to Nikki.
So I'm just going to talk toNikki now about that. I'm doing
well. How are you doing?Any horticultural emergencies out there? I heard

(01:56:56):
that there were mosquite decided in Houston, so I didn't know if that was
breaking news or we already knew that. We kind of knew that was coming.
Just be really careful with that standingwater. There you go, goodby,
good my friend up below run I'llget to well. Good morning on

(01:57:26):
a Sunday morning, it's gonna bea day to do some kind of gardening,
maybe house plant gardening when this raingoes through. And then after that
we'll get outside a little bit.Well, we're going to head out to
Plantersville, by the way. Ourphone number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. We'regonna talk to Aaron. Good morning,
Aaron, Good morning, scop.How are you. I'm well? Thank

(01:57:46):
you? How can I help?Well? We bought a power to sob
this weekend and filled in our barespots and had some leftover. So my
husband just laid on top of thecut grass and like some advice on how
to get it to thrive even takeand if it will grow on top of
the grass it was already there.Yeah, probably not, Probably not good
to set top side on grass.You want good contact with that little thin

(01:58:10):
lera soil that comes in with yourside. You wanted to contact the soil
in your yard, and that's whythey do rollers. That's why you know,
if you don't want to run abig roller just stepping on it and
mashing it down, making sure getthat side to soil contact. So if
you've got a whole bunch of organicmaterial in between it, like the grass,
it's not going to root down aswell. Now if you continue to

(01:58:31):
just kind of roll it and thatgrass underneath is going to decompose and sync
down. So you you know,you may get by if you've already laid
the whole lawn lawn out like that, but generally we try to get good
side soil contact. Okay, andany fertilizer suggestions recommendation. After a couple
of weeks, you want to getit to water, water it and get

(01:58:53):
it to root in really well.So early on we water regularly because think
about it, that grass can't havemore than about a half inch of a
route, because that's about how thickthat side is underneath. The soil is
underneath, and so we got toget those roots from the grass down and
once they're into the ground, thenthey're there they can take up the nutrients
and benefit the plant. So wewait to put our fertilizer on for a

(01:59:15):
couple of weeks just to kind ofget it going a little bit, and
then do a very light fertilization.Maybe wait about six weeks and do another
light fertilization. Okay, in anysoil activator you can do that. I
don't know specifically on side that's ausually pretty a large area. Probably not
essential that you do that on theside, but the adequate watering frequently.

(01:59:38):
That may mean water every day ifit's sunny and warm for a few days,
and then go to every other dayand you know, eventually get it
onto the once a week schedule.Okay, well that's great. I appreciate
your time. All right, Aaron, thank you for the call. I
appreciate that. Let's see, wegot some time here. We're going to
go to John in League City.John, I got a minute or so,

(01:59:59):
how can we help hiriy uh?So I've got a large flower bed
that's been neglected. It's essentially startingfrom scratch, and so I need to
get some good um you know,I don't need the Cadillac of top soil
or anything, but just some goodquality soil for a large, large area.

(02:00:19):
And I'm just gonna be putting somebushes and flowers and and you know,
no no fruits or vegetables in there. So what would you recommend for
that? How big of a bedis this, John? I mean,
is this a large large area orjust a fairly small I mean it's gonna
it's probably gonna be several yards oftop soil. Okay. Uh? And

(02:00:44):
what do you when you say flowers, you talk about like annuals or perennial
flowers, or we talk about rosebushes or what are you going to?
Um? Well, I'd like todo a little of both, but it'll
be annuals and perennial mostly. Butprobably most cost effective for you would be
to get a good quality compost itdown about three inches deep and mix it
in as deeply as you can.Now, if you want just I'd already

(02:01:05):
ready to go bed mix. Thena raise saw mix or rose saw mix
is probably the way to go whereyou already got something blended up. But
if you just want to work withthe soil you have, is it a
heavy clay? Yeah? Okay,Well you're talking about economy here, and
so I would just do the thecompost if you if you could go a

(02:01:28):
little further, then I would doexpanded shale. And I know Airlom Sails
makes an expanded shaw compost combination thatyou can put down because the expanded shale
helps that clay stay open for alonger period of time. The compost will
break down, but with the shalein there, it gives you a little

(02:01:51):
bit longer benefit in terms of keepingthat clay loose. All Right, thank
you, thank you very much.I appreciate the call. We're going ahead
to break. If you'd like tobe on the air next when we come
back, give Josh a call atseven one three two one two five eight
seven four. Well, good Sundaymorning. I hope you're enjoying this morning

(02:02:36):
so far, it's a good one. Every morning is a good one.
You're listening to garden Line. I'myour host, Skip Richter, and we're
here to answer your gardening question.So if you'd like to give us a
call. We have a few minutesleft in today, and so now it
would be the time to call.If you want to get on the air,
I probably could take one more call. You can dial seven one three

(02:02:58):
two one two five eight seven fourseven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. You know, Iwas talking about Star Hope a little bit
earlier, and I just want tosay a few more words about them,
Star of Hope. If you wantto make a difference in people's lives now,
you can certainly donate. I meanabsolutely donate. It takes a lot
to do all the things that theydo, to provide six thousand meals a

(02:03:23):
week, to have a shelter wherepeople can live, to have the training,
the education, the employment, allof that. It's free for them
there by the way. They mean. They have to follow the rules and
they have to participate, but itgives them a chance to make a different
life. And I've been there.I've seen the face of homelessness and almost

(02:03:44):
homelessness, nearly homeless people that areon the last string. These are folks
that want to make something out oftheir lives. They're not out just looking
to freeload on society. They theywant a chance to turn it around.
And you know you've probably heard theraised there but for the grace of God
go I and I kind of seeit that way too. I mean,
we all are in places where withthe right things happening in our lives,

(02:04:08):
we can find things very different.And wouldn't you want someone who comes along
and just provide you the opportunity,not just a handout, not just you
know, I don't want to work, so here's some money. We're talking
about a change in life, ahuge change and a difference in people's lives.
Star of Hope Mission sh mission dotorgh mission dot org. You can

(02:04:31):
find out information on how to donate, but you can also find out how
to volunteer. Maybe you'd like tobe a volunteer at Star of Hope.
There are many a wide range ofdifferent kinds of opportunities for that. I
hope that you will give them acall, and I hope that you will
become a supporter and be part ofmaking a really significant difference in people's lives.

(02:04:54):
We've been talking about gardening today andas we kind of draw things to
a close with the Gardening show,the calls that we've had all of this,
I just want to remind you thatwhen you are wanting to make a
beautiful improvement in your landscape, thatgetting the right plants, the right soil,

(02:05:16):
the right place, that is allthe difference in the world. You
know, it could be the bestplant in the world, but if it's
wants sun and it's in shade,not going to do well. If you
just want instant zip, I mean, you can't beat annuals. Annuals give
you a quick color, but annualsrun their course in the season, and
that's why we bring in perennials.Perennials play a part in the annual cycle.

(02:05:39):
Many perennials are just pretty for ashort time of the year, but
the plants live here after year,so they kind of enter center stage when
it's their time and then they leavecenter stage. And that is a good
part of a mixed landscape. Someperennials last a long long time, a
gold star Esperanza, for example.They just blooms and blooms and blooms all

(02:05:59):
year long, just about. Butannuals and perennials is a combination a good
way to do that. We're aboutto enter the warm season, when things
get really hot, and when thingsget hot, our blooming options are limited.
If you go to a garden centernow, it is a riot of
color wall to wall, all theseplants that you can plant. When summertime
comes, there's not as many options. There are some that will do good,

(02:06:23):
but not as many. So withsummertime we look to foliage for our
color. We have cannas with beautifulcolor foliage to the leaves like I like
tropicana. I think that one's justthere's a lot going on in the colors
of the leaf of tropicana. There'scopper plant that has beautiful foliage. Persian
shield for bright shady areas does well. And I see we got a call

(02:06:46):
come in. I'm gonna jump overthere. Hey Gary and garden Oaks.
I wanted to get you for theshow's over and it's about to be over.
Jerry, Okay. Well, Ihad planted a cutoff from a romane
lettuce to bottom point. They saidit part if. They said it would
grow if you put it in asaw. Well, a plant did come
up, but it wasn't a romaine. Oh really yeah, some weird looking

(02:07:11):
plant look with a stock on it. And I wondered if a Romaine's a
hybrid. I see what you're saying. No, No, if it was
a hybrid using a vegetative propagated piece, which is what you did, you
would still have the original plant.It would just be so I don't know
what came up. Well, whatprobably happened is it probably bolted. You
probably have a bloom stock kind ofthing coming up because our days are getting

(02:07:32):
what now, our days are gettinglong enough to where those plants are kicking
into bloom. The lettuces, thespinaches, the arugula, you know those
kinds of things. Celantro, thoseare all bolting. So that that's what
Okay, I know it so surewas bitter. Yeah, well that's another
thing. As it gets warm,it gets bitter. Now, if you

(02:07:55):
have lettuce that hasn't bolted, ifanybody's listening, you can kind of pull
it up and leave it just afew of the roots at the bottom and
put it in the fridge, ina glass of waters, a jar or
something, just to kind of keepit perky where it dudn't will And a
night or two in the refrigerator helpsa little bit on that bitterness. Not
a lot, but a little bit. Okay, I'll give it a try,

(02:08:16):
all right, Thank you, Jerry, appreciate the call. Well,
here we are at the end talkingabout color and foliage color being so important
in the warm season. Get outthere and as you're planting, don't just
plant things that are pretty now,but get ready for summer by putting in
some beautiful foliage color. I nameda few of those plants in the shady

(02:08:37):
areas. We have colias and somany colors. Coalis awesome plant, awesome
plant for the shade. Beef steakplant. It's kind of got a blood
red color, which is where itgets its name. Beef steak pant plant
looks good in the shade. Andremember that white is a color too.
And if you've got shady beds,to line them with something like an astac

(02:09:00):
ass that is white. It justdelineates the bed. If it's a pathway,
it draws your eyes down the pathway. There are other white foliage plants
or law a lot of white inthe foliots that you can put in shady
areas. So don't just think spring, but also think summer as you're getting
ready to do your landscaping. Wewant your place to look good all year

(02:09:24):
round. So the combination of annualsand perennials mixed together, the use of
foliage in the summertime, and thenalso some really well chosen shrubs and trees
that just or absolute turn your placeinto an absolute show place. There's a
lot of good tree options too,by the way, that are smaller.

(02:09:46):
One of my favorite trees. Iknow we're run out of time, but
I just gotta say one of myfavorite trees is Chinese fringe tree. And
now there's a native fringe. It'sfine. If you love native plants,
that's a great one. Grand Seagraybeard native fringe. Chinese fringe is much
more showy, and it just hasa wonderful I don't know how to describe
it for you, kind of ahoney like fragrance in the spring when the

(02:10:09):
little shaggy white blooms come out.It didn't get too big. And you
know, as it used to bein the old days, lots were like
a third of an acre or bigger. Now lots are so small you can
reach out your window and close yourneighbor's blinds. And so when we pick
trees, we don't need. Wedon't need a live oak that's going to
cover three yards right at maturity.I don't need something a little bit smaller,

(02:10:30):
so just a few ideas for you. Hey, it's been good talking
to you and look forward to talkingagain next Saturday.