Cleaning Up Your Lawn And Garden After A Storm

Skip answers listeners' phone calls all morning.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Katie r H. Guardedline with skimp ricordes crazy what a trim
Just watch him as so many goodthanks to seats not sound so Welcome to

(00:36):
garden Line. Good morning. Ihope you got both eyes open. It
takes another cup of coffee. Well, let's let's do that. We've got
a lot to talk about today.You got any questions about gardening that I
can help with, something identified,something diagnosed, something off I'm just curious
about. Feel free to give usa call seven to one three two one

(00:59):
two seven one three two one twok t r H. Well, let's
just go ahead and say this weatheris behind us at least I don't I
don't want to look at a forecast. Just we've been through some doozies here
and UH, this kind of weatherhas really hit the area very very hard.

(01:19):
And my heart's go out to thosewho who have been hit difficult,
that have gone through the difficulty frombeing hit by the uh not only the
tornadic winds, but the rainfall thatoccurred while back so so heavily. UH.
Nature is resilient and people are resilient. We were here in Houston and

(01:40):
the Cypress area back when the bigflood hit fifty two inches of rain in
a couple of days. It wasunbelievable and I just amazing to watch people
bounce back when basically their entire homeis out of the street. But Houston
does have that ability and has provenit on more than one occasion. We're

(02:00):
glad you're listening to Guardenline today andwe're here basically to help you have success.
Well, I like to put itis, I want you to have
a more bountiful garden and a beautiful, more beautiful lawn and landscape, and
we're here to try to make thathappen. You probably heard me say it
before, but I don't think there'sany such thing as a brown thumb.
I think there are uninformed thumbs.And you know, maybe grandma you felt

(02:22):
like everything she touched grew and shehad a green thumb. Well, it's
because Grandma did some simple things rightand the plants responded as a result.
And that's how plants are. Ifyou provide them sunlight, soil moisture,
but also good drainage, the nutrientsthat they need, and if it's a

(02:42):
plant that's adapted to our climate andsoils, you can have success with it.
Now, nature comes in and throwsus a few bugs, a few
diseases, a few weeds and otherthings, and we can manage those.
But by and large, just followingsome of the principles that are already out
there in nature of how things grow, we can bring that home and have
success with it. One of thequestions that I get quite a bit is

(03:07):
on turf fertilizing, and basically it'sdid my right now? The question is,
well, did my fertilizer all washaway and all the rain that we
had fertilizer. We can oversimplify itby saying there's basically two types. There
is immediate release fertilizer and their slowrelease. Immediate release is it's called a

(03:30):
fertilizer salt. And think about ifyou put if you sprinkle salt on the
lawn and then you drenched it withwater, what would happen. The salt
would dissolve and it would wash itdown through the soil. It would wash
off the surface of the soil asthe water moves around because it's now in
solution. That's good for a quickresponse, but when you get a gully

(03:53):
washer rain, a lot of thatis going to get washed away, not
all of it, though, butyou can with the kind of rain we
had at my house. We hadfour inches and two hours, and yeah,
that's my multch was washing out acrossthe yard as a result of that
one. But the other kind offertilizer is a slow release, and a
slow release we say this is aslow release fertilizer. Actually they almost all

(04:16):
have some immediate release and then apart of the fertilizer is a slow release.
Now, other than the granule itselfwashing off your lawn, that fertilizer
doesn't dissolve away, so that inthis case nitrogen that's the ingredient that they
want to be slowly released. Thenitrogen doesn't just dissolve and now become in

(04:38):
the water solution from rain and irrigationand move off. It gradually releases into
the soil and depending on the chemistryof the slow release there, it could
be moderately slow or it could belasting over four months out there in the
environment. So aside from the granuleswashing way, if you put on a
slow release fertilizer, then and youare going to still have your fertilizer,

(05:01):
most of it they're available for yourlawn because even what washes into the lawn.
You know, the it gets takenup by microbes, it gets attached
to soil particles, and it's noteasily just displaced. Well, Nitrofoss has
created super Turf for the exact reasonof what I was just talking about.
We're talking about a fertilizer that isgoing to provide you nineteen percent nitrogen,

(05:26):
four percent phosphorus. We want thatmiddle number low and ten percent of the
potassium that's the third number on thebag. But that nitrogen, about half
of it's going to be slowly releasedover time. And by doing that,
you don't get a flush of growth, so you're mowing more. You don't
get that flush of growth that causesthe plant to become mostly above ground and

(05:48):
less below ground. Did you knowthat overdoing nitrogen actually makes you have less
root system and more to mow.And we don't need less root system when
we're going into summer droughts, whenwe're dealing with a few grubs here and
there and you know, chomping onroots. We need more. That's the
beauty of slow release. Anyway,Nitropos Superturve it's a silver bag. Now.

(06:11):
Nitrofoss products are widely available you're gonnafind them all kinds of places around
the area. For example, LakeHardware out in Angleton, Fisher's Hardware in
Baytown, and D and D Feedup in Tombole. They all carry nitrofoss
superturf and other nitrofoss products as well. So if you if you've got a
lawn and you have already fertilized it, just keep those words in mind.

(06:34):
If it was a slow release andyou got the gully washer, you might
want to, I would say,probably in about a month, go ahead
and do another application, but don'toverdo it. Just just kind of watch
your lawn. And right now,lawns look good. There's a lot of
nutrient that is available, and evenwith the washing away, I'm still seeing

(06:56):
lawns looking pretty good. You maysee a little bit of a yellowing from
iron chlorosis that can certainly happen,especially in soggy, soggy conditions or cool,
cool soils in the spring. Thathappens a little bit too. We're
listening to garden Line and our numberis seven one three two one two kt
r H. If you'd like togive us call this morning, we would

(07:17):
like to be able to help youhave success Nature's Way Resources summer hours.
I want you to just make anote of this, because I know it's
always good to go up there andpick up your materials. It's good to
have them deliver it if you wantto go that route. It's good to
go up there though, because youget to you get to see the plants
and things that they have. Theydo have a nursery too, by the

(07:38):
way, a lot of good nativeplants. Monday through Friday eight to five,
Monday through Friday eight to five,on Saturday eight am to two pm,
and close today, closed on Sundays. Up at Nature's Way Resources,
that's where you're going to find thehome of rose soil, the home of
leaf mole compost, the wonderful finematerial that is used for top dressing.

(08:01):
By the way, both the leafmold compost and the fungal compost that is
finally screened are good for top dressingyour lawn. They both worked very very
well. I was talking to IanNature's Way the other day, and he
was he did a little test inhis yard where he put the leaf more
compost and he put some finey screeneda fungal compost out uh and looking back
at it over time, he said, they both look really good. You

(08:24):
couldn't see a big, big difference. We're going to take a break here.
Our phone number seven one three twoone two kt r H will be
right back. Yeah, tell yousome that. Welcome back to garden Line.
Good to have you with us today. What do you want to talk

(08:45):
about? If you'd like to givea call with a question, perhaps plant
to be identified or I don't know. I guess we'll even allow you to
brag on having the first tomato already. Right, we'll go with that too.
Our phone number seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eightseven four. Feel free to give us
a call. I was looking visita number of garden centers this weekend,

(09:09):
just because I love to get outand you know, see what's going on,
see what new plants are out there, and they're always something new coming
out. Uh, and boy,they sure look good. This is a
good time to get out and aboutand enjoy that. But I saw some
boodliahs and it reminded me that isone of the I think one of the

(09:31):
best plants for our summer landscapes herein the area really across Texas pretty much.
But Boodleia is also called butterfly bush, so that tells you one thing
right there. Butterflies love it,They absolutely love it. The bushes used
to be that boodleia was just basicallya five foot bush of a real big
bush, and they were beautiful,very beautiful. But the breeders have just

(09:54):
continued to work with them, andnow there's some that get down to about
two feet high depending on the growingconditions. But that's a very compact boodleyo.
There's a series called Pugster Pugster thathas a number of very small ones.
There's some other small series too,and I'm not saying you need that
series, but that's one example ofa very dwarf one. But they have

(10:16):
these these flower spikes that are youknow, they can vary in length,
but we're talking about something that's oversix inches long in many cases that they
start off wide at the base andthey narrow to a tip, and they
often are very fragrant. They thefragrance of boodleia varies a little bit between

(10:37):
between cultivars, but oh my gosh, it smells nice and if you if
you cut them early in the morning, you can bring them in even an
atom to a cut flower arrangement,and that's actually good for the Boodleia bush.
And here's why. Boodley is oneof those plants that has alternating paired
buds going up the stem, sothat means just a u there's compass directions.

(11:03):
If two buds are one north,one south, you go up the
stem. The next one's east andwest. You see what I'm talking about.
So when you prune it, you'regoing to get two buds that take
off. Where you had one shoot, now you got two shoots. And
Boodleia blooms at the ends of shoots, so periodic shearing just makes the bloom
more and you get more ballooms outof it, and they just do really

(11:24):
really well. Here. They havetheir own little handful of issues that we
may have to deal with depending onthe summer and whatnot, but overall it's
a great plant and it just continuesto give you those blooms. You know,
when things heat up. It ishard to find really dependable plants that
will bloom into the heat of summer. When it comes to shrubs and things

(11:46):
like that. We've got Vitex,which has beautiful blue blossoms. Definitely a
good summer dependable plant. But Boodleiais another one that needs to go to
the list. In fact, theblooms of Boodlia are sort of like vitex,
but a little fatter and definitely denser, lots more flowers per bloom,
individual flowers. So think about that. Get you one, check it out,

(12:09):
if you look it out online,learn a little bit more about it.
Go to one of our great independentgarden centers today and just go by
and when you see one, pickit up. Smell the blooms. If
it doesn't smell good, pick itup, smell a different one. They
all have some scent. But Ilove it, I absolutely love it.
And again, if you want abutterfly garden, well there you go that

(12:33):
what do they say that keeps mamahappy? Mama butterfly, and get some
other things for keeping the caterpillars happyas well. You can have a beautiful
garden. What did they say inthe movie Field of Dreams, If you
build it, they will come.And that is so true. Whether it's
beneficial insects, hummingbirds, butterflies,Lots lots of good stuff there. Anyway,

(12:54):
just had to give a little shoutout to Boodliah butterfly bush, one
of those common names. I usuallyuse Boodliah because common names are so confusing
that you know, there are alot of things that have butterfly in the
name, but Boodliah, that's theone you're looking for. Our phone number
is seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four seven one three two

(13:16):
one two five eight seven four.In fact, talking about Boodlia, I'll
say where you can get some beautifulBoudliaz is down at Enchanted Gardens down on
the Katie Folscher side of Richmond.They're out there on FM three point fifty
nine. You probably have been there, a lot of people have. If
not, you need to run outthere and check it out. People come
from far and wide to see thatplace because it is that kind of showplace

(13:39):
and you're going to find all kindsof blooms and things. One of the
things that I'm just really impressed withand enchanted is the combination color containers that
they put together where you have alot of different plants, and that they
are already have these built, oryou can go in there and you see
one and you go, oh,I like that I want to make that

(14:00):
myself, and they can help youpick plants that'll fit in that color container.
You know, we usually use somethingthat's kind of got some long strappy
stems, like a grass plant ormaybe a foxtail fern or another kind of
fern if it's going to be inthe shade, and then we combine it
with something to fill in and somethingto trail over the sides. And it's

(14:20):
not hard to do. But gocheck out the ones they put together.
You will be impressed. The websiteby the way, Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot
com and Chanted Gardensrichmond dot com.If your lawn is if you're dealing with
pests in the law, maybe thedog is coming in and bringing in fleas
with him or her. You know, when you're dealing with fleas, you

(14:43):
gotta control them on the dog,but you also need to control them where
they're also living, and that isout in the thatch of the grass.
Flea larvae can develop in the thatchof the grass and then when they come
out, a dog runs by,they hop on and here we go again.
Nitroposs Bug max is an all insecttype killer. It kills up to
one hundred and thirty different kinds ofinsects, and within forty eight hours it

(15:07):
has basically done the work that youput it out for, but it lasts
for the whole season. When thiswhole summer growing season it's going to be
around, it's going to be doingthe work you want. So we're right
around the corner from chinchbugs. Ifsodweb worms show up, they're going to
be here too, typically a littlelater in the summer, but that can
vary. Ticks and fleas and antsand things. Nitrofoss bug Out Max is

(15:33):
a product that will get you offto a really good start in getting all
those things under control. That isimportant trying to get ahead of things.
Don't wait until a problem is tootoo big before you take action. You're
going to find it at all sposace up in the woodlands. You'll find
it at Plants for all Seasons ontwo forty nine, and you'll find it
at plants and things in Brenham.Lots of places to get these nitrofoss products.

(15:58):
Uh see, I was saying Ihad something, Oh, vegetable wise,
That's what I was going to talkabout. There are a number of
really great vegetable greens for summer.Now, most people, when you think
about gardening, you think about springand hopefully fall and maybe some in winter.
But here in this area we cangarden twelve months out of the year
with you know, there are afew freezes that we're going to have to

(16:21):
cover our vegetable plants for when wehave those doozies, But basically we can
grow year round. But when summercomes, that's when the list dwindles down
to a few things like southern peas, black eye, purple hole crowd or
those kind of peace let's see.Sweet potatoes is another one that we do
in summer, and of course okrais another heat tolermant. There are a

(16:45):
lot of other greens, and alot of these greens are more they're popular
in some part of the world,kind of an ethnic cuisine where they have
their popularity, and here in Texasgardens they just haven't caught on like they
should. But an example would bemolokhia that is very popular dishes lamb and
rice. It can be the leavescan be chopped up and made into kind

(17:08):
of a almost like you would makebasil and a pesto, sort of a
consistency like that They can be cookedand all you need is one or two
plants. It produces a lot offoliage. It's a very very good green.
Malabar sometimes called Malabar spinach, isvery willing to grow in the hottest,

(17:29):
sultriest weather we have and welcome toHouston right when summer gets here.
That is a good one. There'sone that all these summer greens have to
be called spinach. I don't knowwhy. It's because we don't know what
to do with them, or wewant people to know they can eat it
or something, But they're not spinach. But Egyptian spinach is a silosia.
That is another good one that youcan grow in the summertime. Amaranth greens.

(17:53):
The farmers call amaranth pigweed. Theyhate it. But there are varieties
of emern that have big leaves andthey're very taste, very very willing to
grow in hot weather. You cando that. Just don't let them go
to seed, nor the silosia,because they do produce a lot of seed.
Just chop the seeds seed heads offbefore they make seeds. Let's see,

(18:15):
there was another one. What wasthe other one? I was trying
to think of I just tucked myselfright out of it. Well, anyway,
siloshia amoranth malabar. Oh. Bythe way, did you know you
can eat sweet potato leaves, sweetpotato greens. You can do that.
And I even know of people thateat tender okra leaves. Now you're want
to cook them to get them softand they're not so itchy. But that

(18:38):
is actually an edible green that youcan eat in the summer. Maybe we'll
talk about some more here in alittle bit, but don't let summer be
a reason to stop gardening. Getyour garden beds prepared, get your soil
ready, plant your plants, getthem multched so that you're not dealing with
weeds when it's too high to beoutside, so that the soil isn't a

(19:02):
bazillion degrees temperature making it difficult forplant roots in the top three inches to
be able to grow. The mulchingis very, very important when you want
to have success with that. Iknow. The other green that I was
trying to think of personalaine, youknow, personallyane, the one that you
see in hanging baskets with all beautifulflowers. There's also a vegetable version of
perslaine. It's not grown for theblooms. It has big fat, fleshy

(19:26):
leaves, it's high in omega fattyacids. It's kind of a tangy lemony
flavor. A lot of different waysto use personalaine as well. So no
excuses. Get those things set upand we're going to have a great garden
to show for it. Speaking ofgetting ready, asumite asamte is what we
put down on the lawns for micronutrients, and azamite provides a wide variety of

(19:48):
nutrients in this mind product. Youdon't put it in the same hopper as
fertilizer spreader, but you spread itseparately from your fertilizer. It goes into
the soil and it create it's thatbank account of a central nutrients that your
plants need. We're gonna take alittle break right now. Our phone number
is seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. All right,

(20:26):
I'm ready for some bright sun toshow up. It's been an interesting day.
A little fog out there today too, but it's gonna be a good
day. Every day is a goodday for gardening. It just is.
It just is. We were whenwe were getting inundated with rain the other
day. Like I said, fourinches in about just under two hours that

(20:47):
I got. It's crazy. Iwas inside taking care of some houseplants and
doing a little plant propagation and someother things. I mean, you can,
you can garden on any given daysomewhere. Really nice thing about that
hobby Warren's Garden Center. I wentout and I was visiting with Michael and
some of the folks out there atWarrens and Kingwood yesterday and I'm telling the

(21:11):
place looks awesome. It is justcolor, color, color, as far
as the eye can see. Theone thing that really caught my eye was
some lantanas that they had, youknow, lantana. I remember back in
the day lantana about all you couldget was a big old four foot or
so lantana. And then there wasthe new gold that came along. That's

(21:33):
the yellow one you see everywhere,and it's a great lantana, but it's
everywhere. The breeders have created serieslike there's one called Bonanza, there's one
called It's a series of colors.There's one called Lucky that's a series of
colors, and there's more and thecolor oh gosh, peach, beautiful peach

(21:55):
and pink and combinations. You know, each lantana bloom typically has several colors
in it. They're just gorgeous outthere. I don't know why I'm talking
so much about lantana's, but Ilike them, and we ought to grow
them more. And finally we've gotthese options where if you want a lantana
that gets about a foot high,they got them. If you want lantana's
to get bigger, they got thosetwo. That's another one that a lot
of butterflies will like. Now.Warren's and Kingwood Garden Center both are out

(22:18):
there in the Kingwood area. They'reeasy to get to and if you want
more information on them, you justneed to swing by and check them out.
They've got a good website, they'vegot a good online presence. You
can even sign up for some messagesto when they have things going on,
they'll notify you of it. That'ssomething that you really need to check out.

(22:41):
They're open seven days a week.By the way, so hey,
I got something that would be agood idea for this afternoon. Just stop
by and check them out. Thebeautiful Oh they also have the filling station
where you bring your jugs in forfilling both Microlife and Nelson Plant Food there
at the Warrens Garden Center. We'regoing to go the phones here and we're

(23:03):
going to go to Roast Sharon andtalk to Denis. Hello, Dennis,
Hello, how are you today?I'm good, sir. What's up?
Well my garden. It happened lastyear and it's happening again this year.
My squash plants are getting the squashbores coming after it, and my tomato
plants I've got but my wife calledstink books. Yes, all over them,

(23:26):
Yes, wondering what to do.Well, Uh, those are I
would say, without thinking a lotabout just shooting from the heap, I
would say those are probably the twobiggest frustrating pests of the vegetable garden in
the summer season. The squash vinebower is a moth that looks like a
little wasp because it's black and orangecolored, and they lay eggs individually on

(23:51):
the squash plant that hatch into larvaethat go inside in tunnel, and they
basically cut all the plumbing tubes thatgo from the roots to the top and
so once they're in there. Otherthan doing surgery to get them out,
splitting the vine lengthwise. You're kindof stuck. That is a challenge.
The stink bugs and leaf footed bugs, both those are two different related insects.

(24:11):
They have piercing sucking mouth parts.And here's the fun facts. I
hope you haven't had breakfast, orI hope you didn't just eat breakfast.
They stick their mouth into your tomatoand they spit caustic spit, and that
dissolves the cells, and then theyslurp up the contents and then you're left
with a tomato with those little yellowheartspots that you like. But that's kind

(24:33):
of what's going on to create them. They're easiest to control when they're young.
If you're out in the garden alot and you don't have an acre
of tomatoes, just kind of walkthrough. I try to get out in
the garden daily just to at leastdo a walk through and look at things
when you see a little herd ofthem, because both stink bugs and leaf
footed bugs tend to hang out inherds when they're newly hatched. You can

(24:55):
put a little pail of soapy waterand swap the tomato or swap the branch
and they all fall in it anddie, and you didn't even have to
spray. Once they get wings,they don't have wings for a while.
Once they get wings. Now you'retrying to get out early in the morning
with something that really packs a punchto kill them, because they're not really

(25:15):
easy to kill a lot of oursafe organic type sprays are not going to
be very effective on those two pests. Is there anything you can do to
prevent the squashborus from company? Yeah? What I do in the garden is
I get I used to use rowcover. It's a very thin fabric that

(25:37):
sun and water can shine through andfall through. And now I use something
called garden mesh. It's like thinkof the screens on your house, but
think of it as little tiny squares, and the fabric is as soft as
a bedsheet. You know, it'svery easy to lay over. It has
almost no weight whatsoever. So basicallyyou're putting the screen porch over your squash.

(25:59):
You do that until the first femaleblooms open. So typically squash starts
off blooming with male blooms and thenit begins to do both kinds. And
when the female balloom's open, nowyou have a choice. You can leave
the cover over and each morning goout and do hand pollination. Or you
can take the cover off and you'vegot a good head start and by the
time the vine bores lay eggs thathatch and crawl down and tunnel in,

(26:23):
you have a window there of productivitybefore they get the vines. So those
are two options for them. Thereare some pesticide sprays, but you got
to be really careful because you getthem on the blooms and the bees which
we have to have for pollination,can get killed. Yeah, that's why
I heard. Okay, yeah,well that was news. I don't know

(26:48):
if it was good news, butI feel your pain. How about that.
I deal with those myself. It'sbeen the least two the years.
Previously I hadn't had the problem withthem, and now ye back again found
the blame. Yeah, there area lot of strategies, you know.
And I tell you that I wasout in the garden it wasn't my garden
the other day and there was asquashvind bore mama flying around laying eggs and

(27:12):
I was just filming and taking picturesof that and watching how they do it
and everything. And boy, whenyou go out in the morning, you'll
see them flying around and the sooneryou knock that one down, I use
a fly swatter even just to getthem on the ground where I can step
on them. That this less eggsthat are going to get laid. And

(27:33):
once you see that, that's whenyou may want to be watching to do
some treatment of just the vine itself, not the foliage and blooms and everything
else. But putting something down onthe vine real carefully would would be helpful.
Okay, I thank you very muchfor your time and information. You
Bet Dennis, thank you for thecall. Appreciate that a lot. If

(27:53):
you're looking for supplies for your gardening. ACE Hardware is a place for your
lawn, fertilizer, pest disease,and weed control. ACE is a place
for the disasters that we've been encounteringhere too. They have stocked up on
things like generators, on things likefans to drive things out, the humidifiers,
the tarps just to go over theroof and cover things. ACE Hardware

(28:18):
always is the place you just knowthat you can go there. There's forty
plus ACE Hardware stores in the GreaterHouston area and so there's one near you.
Just go to ACE hardware dot Comand find the store locator and find
the ones near you, and Acewill always have a set of supplies that
fits the situation that we're in,whether it's time to fertilize the lawn or

(28:41):
time to recover from a storm.Ace is the place we're gonna take a
little break here. We will beright back the phone number if you'd like
to get on the boards seven onethree two one two ktrh canvas owl them

(29:03):
line, Ride on Ladies and theDesert. Yeah, quest, I will
spare you the yodeling part, butI don't know, we may come back
to that sometime. Wow love loveThat music is just part of the mix.
Welcome back to the Guardline our numberseven one three, two one two
five eight seven four plus. Wealways have to keep you on your toes.

(29:26):
You know, you just kind ofplay the standard old stuff all the
time, and I don't know youmay fall into not paying attention. I
had a question come in yesterday andit was let's see who was Mark.
Mark sent me some berries, apicture of some berries, of blackberries,
and they had kind of a whitedrooplet a BlackBerry. Fun fact, a

(29:51):
BlackBerry has over over one hundred differentindividual little pistols in the flower, and
each one has to be pollinated becauseeach one crew, he's a druplet.
That's each of those little balls,if you will, on a BlackBerry.
And so if you have poor pollinationdue to lack of bees, bad weather,
whatever, then you're gonna have smallerberries because you don't get as many

(30:12):
of those druplets pollinated. But thingscan happen to them. You put them
in the refrigerator and make a realsudden change in temperature, and oftentimes they
can what was a black druplet canrevert back to a red one. That's
something that really can occur whenever yousee the white druplets in there. That

(30:34):
can occur also due to a dropin humidity and an increase in temperature.
That is something that we see occasionally. Some varieties are worse about this than
others. The sun's called can occurwhere the sun breaks down on the druplets,
and those that are exposed to thesun can do that as well.
There's some other things that can causeit. Stink bugs there's our friend again.

(30:57):
They do pierce and sich the juicesout of the BlackBerry groups. And
so a lot of different things canget in the way, But overall,
blackberries are a greape fruit. They'reeasy to grow, and we have a
lot of great varieties for here.But those are some of the things that
if you're still listening, mark thatI've been able to come up with looking

(31:18):
back at some of the BlackBerry researchersand things that they have had to say.
Microlife Fertilizer specializes in creating a widearray of organic fertilizing options. Now
the standard, you know, thestandard product for fertilizing your lawn for Microlife
is that green bag, the sixtwo four. It has a great ratio

(31:40):
of nutrients to keep that lawn fedwith the nutrients in a ratio that is
what grass wants to take up.But when you apply Microlife, you're not
applying three nutrients. You're applying alot of different nutrients because it came from
organic materials and organic controls have awide variety of nutrients. Plants have a
wide variety of nutrients, and thembeyond that big three. When you apply

(32:02):
it, you're also applying a lotof microbial content. You're also applying an
organic material that's going to go inthe soil as organic matter, which builds
the soil, especially if it's theHumane plus the zebra Zeerra four, the
purple bag. When you apply microlife, you are building your soil. And

(32:22):
the best way to think about itwhen you're gardening is you want to create
a healthy, robust soil, robustin terms of lots of microbial activity,
good oxygen done in the soil,and microlife helps you do just that.
We're going to now run out toBeaumont and talk to Paul. Hello,
Paul, Hi. Okay, LikeI said, I live down in Groves,

(32:47):
Texas. It's in between Beaumont andPort Arthur. Okay. And I
had a leap maple tree in ourbackyard kind of close to the how but
not very and it was a beautifulshade tree. But it's so brittle that
in the windstorms and et cetera lastyear and the fruit it died. Okay,

(33:14):
So I just barely cut it down. And a placement tree about twenty
maybe thirty feet tall. It wouldbe a good shade tree and yeah,
possibly okay, fruit tree, ohto replace it all the above, huh

(33:37):
Okay, Well, the fruit parkkind of threw me a bit of a
curve there at that height. Imean that there were getting into less than
a pecan size, but definitely morethan a peach or a plumb and whatnot.
Yeah, I would say for someshade options, Paul, just I
got some. I need to runto some other callers too. Probably for

(33:59):
the shade options, I might considera Chinese elm, like a drake elm
is one example of a Chinese elm. Uh. They're gonna get a little
bigger than that in time, butthey cast a nice light shade, and
I think they're very beautiful. Thetrunk is very beautiful. You could also
do a large type of crape myrtlelike Natchez, which has cinnamon bark and

(34:21):
white blooms. The larger crapes woulddefinitely fit that bill. Natchez gets about
thirty feet tall in time, Sothose would be a couple of options you
might want to consider for that.But I appreciate. I'm gonna let me
let me hold on just a minute. I'm gonna can you hold through our
our break that's coming up there?Okay, we've got in common, and

(34:45):
hang on just a minute. I'lltell you what, Paul, let me
get one more question from you.I'm gonna go ahead and do it that
way. Okay, I was consideringa Mexican plum. Would that be that'd
be fine, it'd be fine.Make sure it has good drainage, not
swampy wet during wet periods, andit's not going to get thirty feet tall,

(35:08):
but it will get taller than Yeah, that's fine. Then just yeah,
I've got it in my kind ofa middle backyard and I don't want
it kind of close to the house. So yeah, that Mexican plumb would
be okay. Not much to writehome about in terms of eating quality,
but it does have spring blooms andit's pretty. It's not going to be

(35:29):
a super long lived tree like anoak would be, but that one would
be fine. Hey, Paul,thank you, thank you for the call.
Appreciate I appreciate that very much.Folks at Landscaper's Pride have put together
a wide variety of products, twentyseven different products. As a matter of
fact, Now this spring has justbeen a very interesting one, to say

(35:49):
the least. But the number onething you're going to do to have success
in your gardeners prepare the soil.And so for example, Gardener's Magic Soil
from Landscaper's Pride is pine based blend. It's got humus, it's got screened
pine bark, and it's got compostedrisoles, and it's got chicken pullet fertilizer.
It's going to give you about threemonths of feeding. That's the gardener's
magic soil on top of the ground. And it is time to make sure

(36:14):
we have mult down pine bark multch, hardwood multch and black velvet mults all
three quality mulches. The pine bark'sthe most popular one probably it lasts a
little longer than decomposed as fast assome of the others. Their hardwood mulch
is made really from hardwood trees,not pallets or other things. And the
black velvet is not a dyed malt. It's a high quality moltz. It's

(36:37):
naturally very very dark in color,very beautiful. If you are looking for
a darker type of mult black velvetfrom landscapers, probe be a great idea.
Landscaperspride dot com is their website.You can find out where to buy
it and a lot of other veryhelpful things about their products on that website.
We're going to run out now toFairfield and talk to Marty. Hello

(36:58):
Marty, good morning Skip. Iput Captain Jack's broof thrips onto my roses,
and I put some on both ofthem. One had thrips and one
head thrips and fungus, and allthe leaves on the one with the fungus

(37:20):
are all falling off and dying andthey're sending up little tiny branches with little
tiny roses on it. Is thata normal thing? No, as it's
recuperating or no, that's that's kindof weird, Marty. I think I
need to look at a picture ofthat one. Okay, it could be.

(37:43):
There are a lot of things thatcan cause problems with not being normal
growth. One of them is roserosat virus, which is you don't want
that to be it, but thatis one and we need to look at
it quickly because it can spread veryquickly. And so let me take a
look at that photo. It couldbe a hormone type herbicide too. Well,

(38:05):
they were beautiful and have always beenfor years and years until I have
sprayed this Captain Jack's on it.Well, the other roads that I sprayed
it on looks fine. Yeah,well I can tell you that Captain Jackson
didn't do it. It just didn'tthat that product is not one that would
cause the kind of symptoms that you'redescribing there. It's got unless you just

(38:30):
really mixed it way way too much. I don't. I don't think that's
the case. So you think aboutthis. Man, could you take some
photos of that, some good closeup ones too. I'm going to put
you on hold. The producer willpick it up and we will see if
you can get get I've got youremail. Oh you do, I've got

(38:50):
you. Yeah, I've got youremail. Okay, if you can get
it to me today, if Ihave a little break in between my segments,
I'll take a look at it andmaybe talk about it on the air.
Okay, that's fine. If not, just whenever you get a chance.
Thank you, you bet, thankyou appreciate that very much. Well,
it's time for another break here,the big noon break, the top
of the hour. I want toremind you that if you have a lawn

(39:17):
you need to see my schedules.You need to have a copy of them,
and they're easy to find. Youjust go to my website gardening with
Skip. That's me gardeningwith Skip dotcom and you'll find the lawn care schedule
and the pest disease and weed managementschedule, and both of these take you
from January to December. It's acolored chart, easy to follow because of

(39:38):
the color coding. If you wantto know when chinchbugs occur, when do
you treat for grubs? What arethe times to treat per take all root
rocks for example, when do youput on pre emergent harveside? All of
that stuff that is all on theschedule. There are the organic options and
there are the synthetic options, bothoffered to you. There. You can
print them up, take them withyou when you go shopping. I think

(40:00):
it's good to hang on the wallof the garage so you can go out
and check on it before you're goingout to take care of the long We'll
be back by. Welcome to Katier. H. Garden Line with Skip
Rictor. It's sho crazy. Justwatch him as so many things to see.

(40:31):
Botasys back again, not a sign. Welcome back to garden Line.
I see the sun. That isa good, good thing. It is
going to be a gorgeous day.We're looking forward to getting outside. I've

(40:53):
got some things I need to getdone, like this afternoon hopefully start on
that. I've got a bunch ofprojects started at the house. You know,
I said yesterday that a a gardenhas never finished, and that is
something I think it's important to realizenow. I know that. You know,
you can put in a landscape andget all that done, but things

(41:15):
change, things evolve. What usedto be sunny gradually become shadier as trees
grow. Maybe the plants you planted, some of them don't make it,
they freeze during an unusual gold spellor whatever reason pests get them. You
decide to maybe you just want tochange it up for something different. You
know that's okay. Don't you geta new wardrobe periodically. Well, your

(41:36):
landscape needs a new wardrobe periodically aswell. So landscapes are always evolving.
I have moved things around. There'sno shame in changing your mind, doing
something different, creating something new,And I just think that's also fun.
It's part of the game to getout there. And you know you've been
hearing about pollinator gardens, maybe yourbutterfly garden, hummingbird gardens, and you

(41:59):
decide I wanted to that, Sogo for it, Go do it.
Create, Just have an that's themost important thing. And I hope that
as you listen to guard Line,you are having fun and you are basically
getting tips and help to make iteven more fun out there in the garden,
because that is really what we needto be doing. We talk about

(42:21):
rules in gardening. I always,you know, kind of I'm amused by
the color palette rules. I seethat. I get it. Opposite sides
of the color palette tend to gotogether better. But it's your garden.
What do you want to look atthat? You know, we'll say when
you make landscape beds, make bigsweeping curves because it's easier to mow around
them and it has a more estheticappeal. Well, that's true, but

(42:45):
it's your garden. What do youwant to look at? Have fun out
there, experiment with things. Doyou know it's okay to plant flowers in
a vegetable garden, It's okay toplant herbs in a vegetable garden, and
in fact, in some cases itcan even help you some of the pests
that you're dealing with in the garden. How many containers do you have on
the patio? How about a bignew container that is loaded with gorgeous plants

(43:08):
that are absolutely heat tolerant, blazingright through the Texas summer. Why not
do that? You have fun.You can grow vegetables in them, you
go flowers in them, you goherbs in them, or you can mix
it up. Just remember that.Don't get too uptight about all these things.
It is okay. I think itwas. J. C. Ralston,

(43:30):
one of the famous horticulturists toward theEast Coast, said to be a
good horticulturest she got to kill alot of plants. And that is true.
That is true. That the pointbeing that, Hey, you try
things, it doesn't work. Nowyou're a better gardener because you've learned something
that's good. Hey, if you'relooking for an organic plant food, nitroposs

(43:52):
has really done their homework, andyou know, after many years of research,
they came up with the Sweet Greenfertilizer. Sweet Green is eleven percent
nitrogen fertilizer, really high amount foran organic product. It's made based on
a molasses base with microbial activity helpingturn that molasses into a nutrient rich fertilizer.

(44:13):
So here's how this works. Youput it down, it dissolves away
and goes down in the soil.High carbon content being a sugar melasses type
product, and that just makes microbesreally really happy. That's why we put
molasses on the soil because it doesdo that for a lot of the specific
microbes that we want to promote.So Sweet Green itself is available in many

(44:35):
places. Like our other nitrofoss products, for example, you can get into
plants for all seasons. Plants forall seasons is you know the nursery on
Highway two forty nine, well,Tom where Tumball Parkway, That's what I'm
trying to say, where Luetta comesin just north of that. They carry
that. They carry a lot ofother products too. By the way,
you'll find all the fertilizers that allthe pest control products. I was visiting

(45:00):
with Sherry yesterday as a matter offact, and just talking about some of
the products that are out there andsome of the plants that are out there
on the market, and it's justa beautiful place. They've loaded with color.
Taking some pictures of the shade colorthat they have, and that's one
of the challenging areas that we haveto deal with. It's a shade things

(45:21):
bloom in the sun because sun makesthe plant have fuel to make carbohydrates which
makes blooms. But in the shadeit's a challenge. But there's some beautiful
foliage plants for shade. There's somebeautiful even flowering plants that can do that
in the shade. And Plants forAll Seasons has a good supply of all
of that. The best thing Ithink of all. Of course, the

(45:42):
plants are great, that's why yougo there, But the best thing of
all is the expert advice that you'regoing to get there. You can take
in pictures, you can take insamples. You can say what's wrong with
this plant, you can ask whatis a good plant for this specific situation.
They can help you with all ofthat. Plants for All Seasons dot
com website two eight one three sevensix sixteen forty six. You are listening

(46:06):
to garden Line our phone number sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three two one twofive eight seven four. You got some
room here on the boards if you'dlike to give us a call and be
happy to help you with your question. This is a good time right now.
It's funny how it calls kind ofEBB and flow. You know,
one minute I'm trying to get themall in the next minute just slows down.

(46:27):
I guess you guys aren't coordinating whenyou call her. That's how it
goes. Uh. Visiting with KurtHummel from three sixty Tree Stabilizer when I
was out at the Arbigate Nursery awhile back for an appearance, and Kirk's
product he invented. This product isthe three sixty Tree Stabilizer. Now,

(46:49):
I'm going to say back in theold days, because we need to move
on from that. But back inthe old days, we had to get
cable wire, and we had toget steaks, and we had to cut
up a garden hose to put overthe wire so it didn't cut into the
tree. And we got these threewires going out in three different directions to
provide support for our tree. Becauseyou know, a wire keeps the wind

(47:13):
from blowing it away from the steak, but it doesn't keep it from blowing
toward the steak. The wire doesn'tpush, it just pulls. With a
three sixty tree stabilizer, you putone I would use a t post,
but any kind of stake pretty closefoot and a half away from the plant.
It attaches to both the strap onthe tree side. You can make
it a little looser and allow alittle bit of movement. And we went

(47:37):
in we nerded out on the importanceof plant movement yesterday and why that makes
plant stronger. But the stabilizer willdo an awesome job of controlling whether the
wind's blowing toward it or away fromit. You can put two of them
in at right angles. You canput two and if you're going to do
a multi stem crpe myrtle, forexample, I would get two and one

(47:59):
kind of norset off, one kindof east west, so whichever way the
wind goes, you're covered. You'regoing to find these at Jorge Seddon Gardens
down in Alvinjorge has those down thereSouthwest fertilizer. Of course, Bob has
it, got everything down there,plans for all seasons, Arburgate, RCW,
Buchanans. These are all places whereyou can get the three sixty tree
stabilizer. If you've got to planta tree, or if you've planted one,

(48:21):
you know this spring, I wouldgrab one, I would get it
on the tree. You can onlyneed to leave it on there about six
months in most cases. But fora larger tree or in certain situations you
may leave it on a little bitlonger. It's not going to cut into
your tree branches. So have youever been around someplace where maybe it's a
parking lot where they guy wired atree down and they forget and they go

(48:45):
away and you come back later,and those wires are strangling, even with
garden hose on them, they're stranglingthe tree. Well, you don't have
to worry about that with the treestabilizers. Real simple, real easy to
do, allows that movement of it. Good good choice. Our phone number
is seven one three two one twoktr H. If you'd like to call

(49:07):
with a question, I'd be happyto help you here. Those of you
that are crawling out of this damagefrom the storm that just went through are
dealing still with the flood that weexperienced not too long ago. ACE Hardware
has the supplies that you need.ACE Hardware has been getting in the small

(49:28):
generators that you can fire up gasgenerators. They've been getting in things like
the de humidifiers, the fans eanachainsaw cut down limbs that have fallen on
the property. ACE has stocked upon everything and they stay that way.
By the way they respond to whatyou need. Because ACE is a place
if it's fertilizing time, which isall here. ACE has a stock of

(49:52):
all kinds of fertilizers. For example, ACE has Microlife fertilizer on hand.
That's one that you are going toalways find it a nice hardbroad I've never
been into an ACE in that Microlifeand it at least not yet. So
what do you need? Go toACE and they're going to have it.
Do you want to create a beautifuloutdoor setting, maybe with a string of

(50:13):
lights to beautify it. They're goingto have that. Whatever you need,
they keep it in stock. Andthat's nice because you just know I'm going
to go there and I'm going toget the things that I need, whether
I'm recovering from a disaster or whetherI'm creating a beautiful landscape. Either way.
Acehardware dot Com is their website.Over forty stores in the area.
Check out the store locator, findone near you and you will be set

(50:37):
up good to go. I mentionedMicrolife being at ACE Hardware stores. Microlife
fertilizer has a number of different typesof products. First of all, they've
got the granule granular fertilizers that wouldbe like the six two four. That
would be a number of different ones. They have one for fruit, they

(50:58):
have one for acid loving plants andso on. Then they have the liquid
products, a number of different liquidproducts that you can use for transplanting or
for folio feeding. Uh they youknow, of course they have seaweeds things
like that. The other had justnutrient rich fertilizers and always with Microlife you're
getting a very microbially rich fertilizer aswell, and that is really important as

(51:21):
you're building your soil. Microlife Fertilizerdot Com is their website and you can
go there and find out where youcan purchase it. We're going to go
to the phones now and talk toJudy. Hello, Judy, Hi,
how are you doing. I'm well, thank you. I've I recently.
I have an old rose that thatis a cut you know, that is
from my grandmother, and I wantto propagate it to make sure that I

(51:44):
always have it. So I putit in I did, I went like
I supposed to. I put itin class the containers and I did the
mixture and uh uh when I putI keep them damp and everything like I'm
supposed to. And then when Ipull on them there is some resistance,
but there is no new lease growingout. My question is how do I

(52:06):
know when to take those new shootsout and put them into a container and
what kind of soil do I usingthe container for what they are? It's
right, d I'm going to runto a break. I've let it go
past the time here and I willcome back and answer your question. Thank
you for holding for me. We'llbe right back. Name. We're back

(52:30):
up in the wood among the everhaven't made of earth and what we welcome
back to guarden Line. Thank youfor hanging with us. If you're like
to give me a call seven onethree two one two k t r H.
We're going to go straight back toJudy and Judy, you're just for
those who just joined us and tunedin. You were asking about propagating a

(52:52):
road and uh, how do youwhen do you move it over? And
what do you put it in andthings like that. Yes, sir and
sir, if you when a rosestarts to ruin, anything starts to root,
you want to be real careful andyou didn't do this, but you
don't yank it out of the groundto check for roots, because you'll break
them off. And you're going tohave a problem and you just kind of

(53:13):
tug gently to see it should beputting out new growth pretty soon. Uh.
Do you have it in a notdirect sun, but in a fairly
bright area, yes, sir,yes, I've kept it out of the
sun. Good. Well, Ithink you'll be okay, just give it
some time and watch it. Isit currently underneath some kind of a clear
cover to hold in humans, Yes, okay, yes, yes, just

(53:37):
just watch that the condensation in there. You don't want it to be sop
and wet and where it's more likelyto have those leaves kind of rot off.
But that that should work. Whenyou move it over, I would
I would be very careful to notdamage the young roots that are coming out.
And you're right, when you seenew growth, that's a good time
to move it on over. Uand any kind of a very high quality

(53:59):
pot type mix, something that notreal chunky. Now in the rose beds,
we can go with something a littlechunky or roast, you know,
soils and things for this little tenderseedling. I mean it's almost like a
little tomato transplant, you know thatyou put out it's got a little bitty
roots and so I would get itjust a good quality potting soil, you
know, jungle Land by Nitrofoss woulddo that. There is there are a

(54:22):
number of excellent ones. The folksthat airl in soils make a really high
quality potting mix as well for indoorand for outdoor plants. So any any
of those are going to do agood job. Move it to a container
that is not too large, maybea little bigger a four inch pot or

(54:42):
a little bit bigger. The reasonis when you have a lot of soil
and very few roots, it's easyfor that to get water logged and not
to dry out. You'd like theroots and the soil to kind of match,
if you will, and that makesit easier for you to not have
to worry about overwatering it so much. Okay, thank you, that was
very helpful. Okay, I'll checkon them today. Yeah, and then

(55:04):
I would just I would just waterit in, you know, with a
soluble plant solution that will help you, you know, to I mentioned micro
Life before. They've got a sevento one three saved one four. I've
bean seve one four. I needto go check. I can't remember the
numbers on the bottle, but it'sa liquid and I use that a lot
and watering house plants and watering plantsin and whatnot. That would be a

(55:29):
good choice. Okay, now Idon't use that right now, whether before
I move it right, I leftmove it needs Yeah, until it gets
going really good, it's not goingto be able to take up a quantity
of nutrients from fertilization. Okay,thank you so much. I appreciate your
input. All right, thanks forhanging over the break there. Appreciate that

(55:51):
our phone number seven one three twoone two k t R H if you'd
like to give us a call.It's kind of interesting that talking about Verdant
Tree Farm, that they number one, they have the three locations, but
that they have really created a websitethat I've enjoyed reading. You know,
you go there and if you wanta hardwood tree, a big shade tree,

(56:15):
for example, you can go thereand you can just scroll through the
trees they carry and there's a lotof good information on each one. The
same is true with their pines,pines, oh my gosh, palms there
we go a little bit different.They're palm trees. There's a lot of
different kinds of palms that they carry. If you really want to focus on

(56:35):
cold heartiness, they've got some awesomeones for that. If you want more
height or less height the palm tree, it depends on the situation. You
can go into Verdant, sit downwith them, take pictures of your yard
and say, look, I'm thinkingabout doing this here, what do you
think and they can make some suggestionsfor you. They also have very large
evergreen shrubs if you're trying to createa screen because you don't want to watch

(56:57):
your neighbor work on his car onthe cinder blocks backyard. Well joking aside,
they have awesome plants that can fitany bill that you're looking for.
Verdant Treefarm dot com. Verdant Treefarmdot com. Whether it's in West Houston
on Bark or Cyprus, in Paarlandon Broadway Street, or up in the

(57:17):
Heights area where Yale Street comes intoiten, there's a Verdant tree farm that's
going to be near you. I'mthinking about that. With the storms we've
had, the damage to trees.You know a lot of you that have
had that kind of damage, they'regoing to have a decision to make a

(57:37):
little bit of damage can be prunedaway and you go on. At some
point it becomes not a question ofis the tree gonna make it? But
am I going to want to lookat the tree that makes it? You
know, when one whole side ofthe tree's gone. Also keep in mind
that when storms rip a limb off, they typically tear a big bark strip

(57:59):
down that is extremely slow to healcompared to a well done pruning cut.
And so you may find that you'relooking at a tree and you know,
you have somebody like Martin spoon Moorefrom Affordable Tree come out and he'll be
able to look at it and go, you know what, that is never

(58:19):
going to heal and the exposed interiorwood's going to rot and not tomorrow.
But there's a time coming where you'recreating a hazard there, and those are
the decisions you have to make.You know, sometimes it's best to go
ahead and bite the bullet on atree. I know we hate that,
absolutely hate that, but sometimes it'sbest to just do that. And that's
where you get another high quality treeand get it in the ground as soon

(58:44):
as possible. The best time toplanet trees forty years ago, second best
times today, and when you've losta big tree. You want to get
shade back as soon as you can. I was talking about Verdant. They
have trees up to seven hundred gallonsized trees. That's a big tree.
I joke yesterday that they ought tocome with a hammock because it's already time
to put a hammock and that bignot quite but clothes well. Anyway,

(59:07):
think about those tree decisions before yourush out and just buy a tree.
Make sure you're getting one that's aquality species that grows that a moderately fast
rate. Don't fall for the veryfast growing tree. That typically fast trees
grow fast and die young. That'show I like to put it, grow
fast and die young. You canspeed up. There's some oaks and other

(59:30):
elms and others that will grow ata decent pace with good care, and
that is what you need long term. Back in the sixties people planted Arizona
ash and just about every new neighborhoodthat went in, it seemed like within
thirty years they were turned into hatracks by chainsaws as limbs broke and whatnot.

(59:52):
And so now thirty years down theline, when you should have the
most beautiful tree in the world,you're having to just replant. Don't plant
growing trash trees. If you havea question about a tree, give me
a call, we'll talk about it. But don't plant fast growing trash trees.
I was mentioning earlier and talking aboutthe potting soil, you know,
putting those those roses and things in. The folks at airloom soil. Not

(01:00:15):
only have that the indoor it's calledthe works by the way, the works
potting soil, but they also havea cactus and succulent soil. They've got
a roses and blooming plant blends calledrose and bloomers. Roses and bloomers.
It's not roses bloomers that would bedifferent. It's roses and bloomers. They
have a fruit berry and citrus mix. They've got the composted cocoa core.

(01:00:39):
They have. Yes, they haveexpanded jale and expanded shale compost blends.
Expanded shale sticks around a long time, longer than organic matter does. Then
compost that is does and it keepsthose clay soils open. But you need
to put enough of it down.Don't just sprinkle a few granules on the
top. You want to put severalinches of it down and mix it into

(01:00:59):
the soil well to get the mosteffect. But you buy it once and
you're getting decades of benefit from it. All from Airlym soils Erlom Sols of
Texas is a website. Check outthe website and the soil calculator. It
will really help you. It's timefor me to take a break. Here
comes the news. Seven one threetwo one two KTRH. Now there are

(01:01:21):
men who make history, there aremen who change the world, and there
are men like me to simplify theride girl. In that very moment,
it all that comes clear what Imeant to do for the reason I'm here.
Now every night I thank the LordI found it and literary time.
I put my arms around you.I feed like a frame. It gets

(01:01:45):
the whole the moll Lisa, don'tlike that down If that's all like the
frame that gets to hold the MonaLisa. They things all right. We're
back with garden Line and some unsolicitedadvice for the guys out there. I
know sometimes we need a little help. Right, you're listening to Gardenline.

(01:02:08):
Our phone number is seven one threetwo one two k t r H.
Seven one three two one two kt RH. You can give us a
call, be happy to help youwith whatever you're trying to accomplish in your
gardens. The questions that you mighthave. Nitrophas Superturf is the silver bag
that makes it easy. You walkin and look for silver. That's really

(01:02:29):
easy to do. It is ahigh quality fertilizer nineteen four to ten that
has a lot of slow release nutrientin it, and that's going to give
you three or four months of nutrientrelease through the summer season. Now why
do we like a slow release.Well, if you listen to me long,
you've heard me say this. Butwhen you dump a high quantity of

(01:02:51):
nitrogen on the soil at one time, you get fast growth, you get
to mo more, and you getincreased disease susceptibility from overfeeding the grass,
and you have less of a rootsystem. All of those are not good.
But when you gradually provide nitrogen overtime, that nitrogen is going to
help create a healthy plant and amore robust root system. For things like

(01:03:15):
grubs that are chumping off some rootsor summer drought, that is a challenge
that we have to deal with.Nitrofoss Superturf is a quality mix to give
you quality results in your lawn.Just do that and then return your clippings
through the summer season and you shouldhave a really gorgeous lawn. If you
are looking for Nitrofoss superturf, you'regoing to find it at most Ace hardware

(01:03:38):
stores. It's easy to find Nitrofosssuperturf. It's widely available. Our garden
centers typically carry that to arbigate forexample, the well you know what,
goat You just need to You justneed to go and check it out.
You're going to find wherever you shop, you're probably going to be able to

(01:03:59):
find that nine to five super dirt. All right, you let's see here,
Oh I wanted to. I'm goingto talk a little bit about some
color plants for summer in the shadeand getting out in visiting garden centers and
just seeing all the different things.It kind of reminds me of plant Sometimes
people will call and they'll say,Hey, what's a good plant for such

(01:04:19):
and such? And I come upwith one or two or three ideas,
and then my mind goes blank andit's like, Okay, I'm trying to
vision all the plants in the worldand what would fit there. But things
like koladiums. That's an easy everybodyknows kladiums for the shade Colius if it's
a bright shade, especially Colius isawesome for the shade. Something called Aztec

(01:04:42):
grass, which is really think ofit as a white striped floriope. That's
probably or maybe a white leafed withgreen striped floriope because it's primarily white that
it appears wonderful for shady areas.Chicken gizzard also called beef steak plant.
If it's a bright shade. Apersian shield is an awesome one for you
know. Surprisingly enough, ornamental sweetpotato vine in a bright shade location does

(01:05:08):
really well. It really does.Of course. Then there's ferns. There's
a lot of different kinds of ferns, especially in an area it's going to
be moist. We can go onand on, but when you have a
shady area, it's no reason tonot have color that is important. I
was at Moss Nursery a while backand just walking through, which, by

(01:05:30):
the way, you need to goand wander through. It's eight acres for
crying out loud. Allow some timebecause every time you turn a corner you're
going to see something interesting down atMoss. But they had elephant ears,
all different kinds of elephant ears withbeautiful, deep, deep burgundy foliage.
They have one type that has agreen kind of stripe down the center of
the leaf. They have some thathave the more variegation in the leaf.

(01:05:55):
It's just beautiful. Elephant ears wouldbe a good one in sun or shade
as a matter of fact, nottoo dense of a shade, but moderately
dense. It does really well downat Moss too. They've got some beautiful
hanging baskets, even hanging baskets forthe shade. The right kinds of plants
for that, cactus and succulents andhouse plants. If you're trying to attract

(01:06:15):
hummingbirds, go in and just say, look, I want to have a
hummingbird garden. Tell me your plantsthat I should plant that are there,
and they'll show you. You know, the folks that work there are gardeners
like you. They are. I'vewalked in on more of one occasion.
I've said this before, but founda master gardener two work in there from
Harris County or Gallison County too.The Moss nursery folks just they go out

(01:06:43):
of their way to create this wonderfulshopping experience. You know, this is
a seventy year old nursery and they'vehad a long time to learn how to
do it right now, everyone downin the Seabrook area knows about Moss Nursery.
In fact, people drive across townto get onto Moss Nursery. It's
easy, easy to get to ToddvilleRoad. That's where it is, Toddville
Road. Moss Nursery dot com.It's m A A. S. Nursery

(01:07:08):
dot com. Moss Nursery dot com. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven fourseven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Give us a call. Let's help you with some garden questions
that you might have. Now isactually a good time to give us a
call if you'd like to do that. I got some openings, so there'll

(01:07:30):
be not much waiting to get onat this point. With our lawns in
the condition therein and by the waythey're buy and large, they're in good
conditions. It's been a good springfor the lawns. But if you're looking
for dealing with problem areas, maybein the shade in the sun. Maybe

(01:07:55):
soil compaction, uh, you know, just the pity pattern of little feet
trampling through it. Maybe you hada disease like take all root rot that's
taking out areas of the lawn.Maybe it just last summer, you know,
you just couldn't keep the water goingand the long got kind of thin.
Well, whatever kind of deal you'redealing with there, the thing you
needed to be doing now is stimulatingthe grass plant to grow fast and cover

(01:08:19):
back over. Our southern turf grassesare running turf grasses, not clumping turf
grasses. So Saint august In,Bermuda, and Zoetia, those are the
big three. They will crawl backin to an area to fill in.
One aspect of turf that I thinkis really important. It's not an inexpensive
thing to do, but it isa very important and lasting thing to do

(01:08:42):
is to aerate and to top dresswith a very finely screened compost. Aeration
is called core aeration because it's notpressing a hole in the soil. It's
popping a plug out of the soiland dropping it on top of the surface.
And that that's how you want todo it. When you do that,
and then you top dress, youend up getting some of that organic

(01:09:05):
matter down in those holes. Oxygengets down deeper in our claysoils than it
would have otherwise, and it juststimulates the grass plant to grow fast to
be healthy. And that's what we'retrying to do. I mean, I
know you're water and fertilizing and thingshaven't head to water this year hard at
all, but that compost, topdressing and narration is important. And BnB

(01:09:26):
turf Pros is our compost and topdressing expert for those of you in the
southeast part of the Houston area.They cover all the way from over in
Sugarland and Missouri City kind of onthe west side, over to Pearland on
the east side, and then downsouth like Fresno, Iowa Colony, Siena,
Arcola, Manvil, throughout that wholeregion. They're the ones you need

(01:09:49):
to call. And why do Isay that, It's because for them,
customer satisfaction is key. They dohigh quality work. They only use products
and companies that I talk about andrecommend here on garden Line. So when
you're looking at having them do careof your lawn, that's what they're going
to do. They get there reallyfinely screened top dressing compost from Cienamal.

(01:10:13):
It's just down the road a littlebit. They go above and beyond.
They make a personal connection with youand just check out their ratings. People
that use B n B turf arevery happy with it. Their website is
bb turf Pros no End bbturfpros dotcom. The phone number seven one three
two three four, five five nineeight. Seven one three two three four

(01:10:38):
five, five nine eight. I'mgoing to go to a break here our
phone number again seven one three twoone two k t R. H Street
Loved Garden Line, Welcome back.We are continuing on with gardening advice and

(01:11:03):
things to want help you have amore beautiful landscape and a more bountiful garden.
If you haven't met out to NelsonWater Garden, Nelson Nursery and Water
Garden, I still still call themNelson Water Garden because you know that's they
are nationally famous for water garden.They really are. They were a leader

(01:11:24):
and they're the ones that created thatreal tall upright urn that where the water
spills out of the top and goesto the bottom and goes into a disappearing
we call it a disappearing fountain,comes back up to do that again.
They created that and then come toyour house. They can do that kind
of thing. But I want totell you a little bit about their nursery.
They have a wide variety of qualityproducts. Some beautiful hibiscus that they've

(01:11:45):
gotten in the Vitex that's the onethat blue blooms blue during the summertime.
You've probably seen that before. Somewonderful hadranges, different kinds of milk weed.
It's just it's just a great placeto go. Maybe you need a
guardena point Guardina Fragrance is heavenly,absolutely wonderful. But Nelson Water Garden is

(01:12:08):
the kind of place where you gojust it's almost like you're going to the
park or go into a botanical gardenor something where you go and you just
walk and wonder. You will beinspired. The water gardens are unbelievable.
The nursery is well stocked. Theyhave the fertilizers that I talk about here
on garden Line. They're available there. Now. Where is this place,

(01:12:30):
Well, Katie Fort ben Road justnorth of Katie Freeway, Ien, just
north of Katie Freeway, So thinkof it as your West Houston Garden Center.
That's a good way to do it. And go and take your friends
too, because it'll be a funouting. We're going to go now to
Conroe and talk to Bob. Hello, Bob, good morning, Good morning.

(01:12:51):
I have a tree question. Aboutfifteen years ago, we planted four
cypress trees on our lot. Welive on a a densely forested lot that
we left mostly wild except right aroundthe house. And I planted four cypress
trees about fifteen eighteen years ago,and I bought a variety that I was

(01:13:14):
told did not have the knees.I may even sold a bill of goods
because two of them I have notdeveloped knees. And two of them have
a number of these knees that havepopped up around the tree, and some
of them are as far away asfifteen or twenty feet from the main tree.
So my question is can I grindthose things off? Because I can't.

(01:13:38):
I'm getting to where I can't mowthe yard. I know, I
feel your paint. I have threecypress to produce knees in the house we
purchased. And boy, can Iask what variety you thought you bought?
I couldn't tell you montezuma or okay, well that's okay, yep, they're

(01:14:00):
somehow that got switched up at yourhouse. Manta Zuma cypress is one that
doesn't produce the knees, and itis good. So yes, you can
grind them off, but that's alot of work. What I do is
you take a grubbing hoe and wherethe little knee pops up between that little
bump and the tree trunk, mostlikely the root is coming in there,

(01:14:21):
rising up to create the knee goingback down and then continuing on. That's
kind of how that works. Soif you take a grubbing hoe and one
well targeted swing, a good heartswing down on one side of the knee,
and then one swing on the otherside of the knee, and that
just pops right out of the ground. It's really easy. And then you've

(01:14:42):
set it back for a good whilebefore you have to go back and do
that again. When you grind themdown, they're just coming right back,
grind them down, coming back,and so I would use a grubbing hoe
approach. That's what I did.It's not hard because you're not grubbing out
a stump or something, but Aftera while, you'll learn how to do
it. You'll be able to lookat the knee and figure out about where
to hit. Sometimes I'll do alittle kind of practice tap just down in

(01:15:04):
the swell up there it is.You hit the wood. You knew it.
But they cut up. They cutreal easily with a good swing,
with a grubbing Okay, yeah,that's what I'm want to harm the tree
or leave an access point for somekind of a disease to start. Now,
I've never had that problem with Cyprus. They're not prone to that.
They're used to wet soil. Theydo heal. It's a slow to decomposed

(01:15:28):
wood too, by the way.But anyway, Yeah, no, that's
what you gotta do, unless unlessyou want to play lawnmore targets. Well,
I'm afraid I might have to buya lot more from not Careful.
That's the truth. That's the truth. Hey, thanks for the call,
Bob. Good luck with that.I appreciate that very much. Nelson Plant
Food has a couple of fertilizers thatare good for the summer season. One

(01:15:49):
of them is Bruce's Brew. Now, Bruce's Brew it does release a lot
of its nutrients immediately it's a it'sa fast release, but it has two
different kinds of slow release in itas well, so you're going to get
a gradual feed. I would say, with Bruce's brew two applications through the
summer to moderate sized applications, we'llget you through onto the fall fertilization.

(01:16:13):
The other one is slow and Easy. Now, this one is one of
the slowest release products on the market. Now releases some fast, but it
continues because it has several chemistries init that allow a little longer release,
a little longer release, a littlelonger, and it just carries you all
the way to fall fertilization. Itdoes slow and easy. Slow and Easy

(01:16:34):
from Nelson plant Food is part oftheir turf Star line of quality fertilizers,
and they're widely available as well.We're going to go now out to Wharton,
Texas and talk to Angie. Hello, Angie, Hi, how can
we help? How are you well? I'm doing well? Thank you great.

(01:16:55):
I have a couple of roads questions. I have a knocked out right.
It has some kind of bedding allover it and these little worms in
there that make rattley noises. Okay, Branes, I missed a word,
it has what all over it aweb like some kind of web all all

(01:17:15):
over a couple of the branches.Okay, and there's little worms inside that
web, and the branches that theweb is on are dead. I don't
know. Well, yeah, wellI'm trying to picture and I'm you said
something about noises and that was throwingme a lot. Well, the worm

(01:17:38):
in there kind of is ratley like. It's look at its tail around making
rattley noises. It's weird. Itell you what. I definitely want to
see pictures of this. I'd liketo see the old bush. I want
to see kind of the web areaup close. And then if you can
get one of those worms out tohole halfway still and get a close for

(01:18:00):
two or three of it, thatwould be really helpful. I don't know.
There's not a there's not a webwormthat attacks roses to my knowledge,
and I've been doing this for youknow, thirty six years, so I
yeah, I h that's a stumper. If it's a dead branch, I
just need to go to the bottomand prune it out. I just don't
know what to tay on those worms. You didn't see signs of them feeding

(01:18:24):
on a leaf, right, No, I did not. The leaves are
gray and curling up. Now,okay, well go ahead and punt it
out wherever it attaches. Just tobe safe, if you make more than
one pruning cut, spray your prunterswith lyesol. I don't know exactly what
that may have been that killed it, but we wouldn't want to spread any
kind of a disease from one cutto another, and liesel is a good

(01:18:46):
way to take care of that.But I look forward to the to the
don't let me. I'm going toput you on hole when we're done here.
So yeah, all right, haveyou got to follow up? Ye?
Of have another one. I havea coral drift rose and it is
shooting off a single branch from thebase of the plant, with lots of

(01:19:12):
thorns on it. I was worriedabout rose rosetta. The leaves are not
curling, they're very pretty, andthey have beautiful buds on them. Buds
haven't opened up yet, but Idon't I mean, I'm not positive if
it's rose rosetta or it's just ayeah, funny little yeah. You can
that A lot of thorns does worryme. Typically with the ross that you're

(01:19:36):
going to get a lot of uh, there'll be a lot of thorns,
but they'll also be kind of areddish in the new growth, more than
normal reddish in the new growth.Oh boy, again, let's just put
another picture of that in there.If it's Rose rosette or rose rosette,

(01:19:57):
we do need to pull that bushout, and I'm going to go ahead
and tell you how to do itbefore we even determine that's what it is.
You want to get a big blacktrash bag and slide it over the
bush all the way to the groundand tie it together at the base.
And then when we dig it up, because it's going to have some of
the insects that spread it inside thatbag down. If you're just shaking the

(01:20:18):
bush pulling it out of the ground, you're just sending them flying and they're
going to infect others. So thatis what you want to do. All
right, I'm putting you on hold. The producer will get on and he
will give you my email. Thanksfor the call. All right, we're
putting this hour in the books.We will be back with more of Garden
Line. Our phone number is sevento one three two one two K T

(01:20:41):
R H. Seven to one threetwo one two. K t r H.
Hang with us over the break andwe'll get to your gardening questions when
we come back. And welcome toKatie r H. Garden Line with Skip

(01:21:13):
Richter's shoes Crazy what a trim Justwatch him as many good thanks to soup
hot crazy gas. I'm not asorry glass. Welcome back to guarden Line.

(01:21:45):
Good to have you with us.We're talking gardening and that's what we
do here, helping you have amore beautiful landscape, more bountiful garden.
That is what we're aiming for.Sweet Green fertilizer from nitrofoss is based on
a molasses space and a microbial activityon that molasses and basically what it's going

(01:22:06):
to do it dissolves the way goesinto the soil and molasses any kind of
sugar is basically a really high carbonchain product that's going to make microbes very
happy. That's where going it.Gardeners put molasses out there in their soil
because of that stimulation. Now Sweetgreen fertilizers eleven percent nitrogen. It is

(01:22:27):
going to give your lawn a boostand you're going to find that when you
put it down, you're going tosee that greening up and while you put
it down, you're going to enjoythe fragrance of that sweet smell that it
has. You're going to find thisproduct in a number of different places.
You know, microface is easy tofind. They are all kinds of different
places where you can get it.For example, you know you can find

(01:22:48):
it at most of the Ace Hardwarestores throughout the Greater Houston area. They
carry nitrofoss products, and it's easyto find those kind of places. You're
we're going to find it. RCW Nursery. RCW is one of the
nurseries that carry some of our nitrofossproducts. We're going to head to the
phones now and start with Joe andKingwood. Hello Joe, Okay, what

(01:23:16):
do we got going here? Weneed to get a hold of Joe.
I'm going to put him back onhold while get my producer to see if
he can get Joe back here.Let's go forward and we'll come back Joe.
We're going to go to Ellen inSouthwest Houston. Hello Ellen, Hi
there, I have a question aboutmy tomatoes. This year had some very

(01:23:40):
beautiful large ones. I ticked themoff the bush when they were turning put
them in a bowl, but theybecame very mushy, okay, and didn't
dearly all of them. Yeah,did you notice the interior was kind of
decaying away and the exterior looked betterinitially. Yes, okay. There are

(01:24:06):
some things that can cause a collapseof the cells inside and then that's followed
by the browning and decay away.Sometimes we get that with calcium. Calcium
is one that causes the blossom endrot where just the blossom end rots and
it begins there, but it canalso cause issues with the cell collapse and

(01:24:29):
things on the interior of tomatoes.There's not a disease that is starting that
and there's nothing to spray or anythingto do about it. You might want
to have a soil test just tomake sure you got good content of all
the nutrients in the soil. Youcan go to Soil Testing dot t a
m U, dot ed U andget the Urban Soil Test form. Fill

(01:24:53):
it out. That'd be a goodidea in general. But either way,
moderate fertilizing as you go, andjust I think it ought to clear itself
up. I don't know if thisrainfall and stuff has contributed to it or
not, but we do see thatfrom time to time. Great, great,
thank you so much. All right, Ellen, appreciate your call.

(01:25:15):
Thank you very much. You know, the Arburgate Nursery up in Tomball has
got a new parking lot and ifyou haven't been there, you need to
go check it out. There's alittle street called Trashel Road. It goes
behind the arbor Gate. So ifyou're going out twenty nine to twenty from
Tomball, that's how you get tothe Arborgate. On the west side of
Tombul you will pass Trashel Road.You can turn on it and go behind

(01:25:38):
Arburgate. If you miss it andyou see Arburgate going a little further and
Trasher Road comes back in just alittle further and then turn down it.
You got a great old weather parkinglot in the back. Easy to get
in, easy to get out.Arburgate is always stocked with materials. I
mean, do you need products?Do you need gifts? The gift shops
are incredible, absolutely Grubb. Butdo you need plants? What kind of

(01:26:01):
plants? You know? They grow? They sell fruit trees throughout the year,
the herbs, the vegetables, theflowers, the shrubs. It's you
will have a hard time looking forsomething that's not there at Arburgate. In
other words, they carry such awide variety of things, and they stay
up to date. And if theydon't have it, ask them, ask
them. They can get it infor I bet they can. I bet

(01:26:24):
they can. Very knowledgeable staff Beverlyand Kennon and all the folks that are
there. They know what they're doingand they will not steer you wrong.
You will find good answers, whetheryou're trying to, you know, diagnose
a problem, or whether you're lookingfor plants, suggestions or whatever. It
is. Arburgate awesome, awesome,awesome place to go and to get the

(01:26:46):
kind of expertise that you need tohave success. Remember I say, there's
no brown thumbs, there's just uninformedthumbs. You ask them a question and
they will inform your thumb. Whenyou get home, your plants will alayer
be greener because they heard there.How about that? All right, let's
go back to Joe and Kingwood.We got you this time. Joe,
good morning, Skip, Yes,I can hear you find now, Thank

(01:27:09):
you. I have some questions regardingpruning double knockout roses and hibiscus okay on
the double knockout roses. I haveabout six of them that are planted closely
together, forming basically a hedge,and they're over four feet tall, so
they're good, good mature plants.How frequently should they be prune to maximize

(01:27:31):
blooms, well, at a minimum. For shrub type roses which knockout as
t is one, you'll prune them. I prone mine back by about half
in the winter time, unless you'rejust wanting them to get much larger.
And then after they do their bigbloom show, uh you know, the
major flesh of blooms, I willshare them back by just maybe a quarter,

(01:27:54):
you know, just just a lighttrimming back. Every time you cut
a rose brandt or shoot, whatwas one shoot that ends in a flower?
That's where the flowers are on roses. At the ends of the shoots,
you end up with two shoots becauseyou cut it back, and now
you have two that's sprout out,and that'll be two flowers. Do you
see what I'm saying? And sowe'll do that again and again you just

(01:28:15):
end up with a very nice bush. I'll also prone them back pretty good
at the end of August because there'sa great fall reblooming show that comes with
repeat blooming roses. Now, ifyou want to do any other trimming,
if any is needed, you cando that, And it just depends on
how big you want them to be. But when you do the trim,

(01:28:35):
approx me a quarter off. Howfrequently do you do that? Would?
I don't do a lot of trimmingon my roses. I do it at
the it's usually toward the maybe maytime. On a knockout, you could
trim them back a little bit.You could do it again during the summertime.
Knockout just keeps blooming and blooming,and so it's kind of hard to

(01:28:59):
figure out when you go in there. It's kind of like pruning salvia greggy.
It's always got a bloom on it, but it needs to get sheared
back. And do you use yourpruners and just trim them stem at the
time or can I use like headstreammers on them? You can? Hedgetremmers
tend to make a messy cut.You may have branches that are almost cut,
but they're hanging by a thread,and so you may go in and

(01:29:21):
clean up a little bit. Otherthing about hedges hedgestreammers is you end up
with boxes and I think a boxedrowse to me esthetically is not quite right.
So I like to do the handpruning where I can leave it with
more of a natural look as Iprone. But that's up to that's up
to you. Joe. Yeah,and I have three mallow high biscus and

(01:29:43):
beds and then one in a containerin kind of same question, how often
should those be prune to maximize ballooms? The melow hibiscus, you don't really
need to prune them much. Youcan cut them back a little bit,
but they have big clusters of buds, and just each day a different bud
is opening, and maybe if youget toward the end of that, you
could cheer back a little bit andfertilize them and get going. But be

(01:30:03):
careful to not prune those too much. Hey, Joe, I got to
run. I'm up against a break. But I hope that helps. And
thank you for calling a garden line. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two k t r H. When we come back, Rosemary,
let's see Joe another Joe, Jackieand Beckett, you'll be up. Well,

(01:30:26):
it's not please, it's leaves.Welcome back to the garden Line.
Good to have you with us.As always, we're here to answer your
gardening questions and help you have success. As we enter the summer season,
there are a number of insects inthe lawn that we have to deal with
coming up pretty soon. Here weget into June is really early, but

(01:30:46):
we can begin to have chinchbugs,we can have sod webworms a little bit
later in the summer, ticks andfleas. That fleas actually can pupate and
go through their lives part of theirlife cycle out there in the grass in
the thatch and then come out andjump on your dog or cat when they
come in. Ants. That's anotherone. Nitrophos bug Out Max Nitrofuss bug

(01:31:09):
out Max. You put that downwithin forty eight hours, it has basically
done its job on those, butit keeps working. It'll give you through
the warm entire summer season. It'sgoing to give you control of these kinds
of pass now. Nitrofoss bug OutMax is available any place that you find
nitrofoss products. For example, RCWNursery would have this particular plant. A

(01:31:34):
lot of our feed stores like excuseme, I'm having trouble here, D
and DE feed up and Tombald.They're going to carry night Foss bug out
Max as well. We're going togo now to Rosemary and Northwest Houston.
Hey, Rosemary, Hi, howare you today? Skip? I'm well,
thank you, and I want tocall about a tree that we have

(01:31:56):
in our front yard. It's abouta thirty foot live oak and Thursday's storm
split it in half and half fellon our house. We did get that
half off the house, but theremaining tree that is standing because the trunk
did split, I'm assuming you're goingto have to have that taken down.
Well, probably live oaks. Theyare incredibly tough, and I've seen,

(01:32:24):
you know, live oaks with thehollered out interior that are still living.
But when that happens, you endup with a weaker tree. Now,
it's not going to be riding tomorrow, but in time you're going to get
that decay. If I were you, I would have Martin from Affordable Tree
come out and look at it,just to be sure, because you hate
to take out something that there maybe a way to save it. But
esthetically, if you're looking at itgoing, I don't want the tree that

(01:32:46):
remains. That would be a reasonalso to take it out, but if
you like, I can give youa phone number for a foot or Perfore,
well, actually we have an appointmentwith arbor true, we've booked them.
They're arborous. Yeah, going tocome out and look at it.
My next question is if we dohave to have it taken out, what
about all that root system and everythingbefore we can plant another tree? How

(01:33:10):
do we deal with that? Youjust all you can do is grind the
stump out at the base. Okay. The problem there is you're going to
put a lot of wood chips inthe soil, and so that area not
only is the soil fluffed up fromthe grinding, but now you got woodchips
in it, there's gonna be alot of settling. So I would leave
it a little bit of a moundand then go outside of the area where

(01:33:31):
you ground and plant your new tree. There. There's going to be a
lot of roots that didn't get groundthat are out there, and so it's
hard to dig a hole. Thecloser you get to that old live oak,
the more difficult it is to actuallybe able to dig a hole in
the ground. So that would beone reason to get a little bit away
from it. But as far asthe new tree is concerned, you can

(01:33:53):
be pretty close and it won't bethat much of a problem. So I
would say if you can dig ahole, then that's probably close enough.
So all those big roots that extendout, we don't have to try to
remove. No, No, Imean you can. You can. You
can go to some links to havethose ground or cut or things, but

(01:34:15):
they are going to decompose on theirown. If they're sticking way above the
soil, then you might have whoeverdoes it see what they can do about
them. But other than that,it just they decompose away in time.
Okay, okay, And is thereany waiting period between having that stump grinding
done and trying to clear that outand putting a new tree in if we

(01:34:38):
end up having to do that,well, No, it's just the waiting
period being that the soil has alot of wood in it and it's going
to tie up nitrogen for a while, and you could sprinkle some lawn fertilizer
on that and water it in andthat will help orplace that. And as
far as a settling would be anotherreason why if you're going to planet close

(01:34:59):
or you're going to try to plantin the same spot. You do need
to get that soil fully settled beforeyou you plant it, because otherwise your
new cheese is going to be atthe wrong depth. Gotcha. Okay,
yeah, we don't have a lotof space to move it far from that.
Ay, we don't have a verybig front yard. So okay,
thank you so much for your help. You bet appreciate that call. If
you are looking for somebody to comeout and do quarterly maintenance on your property,

(01:35:24):
on your beds, Piercescapes is oneto call. Pierscapes will come out
and every quarter they'll do fertilizing,weeding, mulching of your beds, changing
out the seasonal color for example,how many seasonal color changes do you want?
Just need to talk to them.They will do trimming as well while
they're out there, and they'll chuckthe irrigation system. And that's a good

(01:35:45):
deal, just keeping those things freshand looking good. If you're like me,
you get busy, you run arounddoing things and next thing you know,
you're looking at a bed going daggom. I need to spruce that
one up a little bit. Well, Pierscapes can do that for you.
They also do everything else you mightneed for example hard escapes landscape lighting poorly
drained areas, fixing that they cando that as well, or your irrigation

(01:36:09):
system needing some work done on it. Piercescapes dot Com is a website two
eight one three seven zero five zerosix zero. We're going to go now
to Stafford and talk to Joe.Hello, Joe, Good morning, Skip
morning. Hey. I got acouple of questions. Well, first of

(01:36:29):
all, I've got clay in myyard, obviously, but anyway, I
tilled it. I put about sixinches of micro grove garden soil and were
mixed in with nitroposs all purpose thirteenthirteen thirteen fertilizer. Okay, okay,
mix it all in it anyway.I planted some corn and sweetcorn back in

(01:36:58):
February by seed. It's only aboutthree or four feet tall, and a
buddy of mine told me that inthis area you can't I mean, it
won't get much taller. Now.It depends on it depends on the variety
of corn, But go ahead,okay. My other question is a plant
of romain lettuce back in February aswell, and the there's a step there

(01:37:30):
as stems coming out about three orfour inches, you know, and it's
not like a lettuce, you know, like you see Yeah, so what
you're what you're seeing is that plant. We call it bolting. It means
sending up a flower stalk. Andby that time and as the weather warms
up, you're not going to geta good lettuce. It's gonna be pretty
better as the thing heats up.Usually bolting is a sign that you need

(01:37:54):
to pull it out. We plantlettuce in waves, but it's it's getting
too late for doing that. It'sthe lengthening days caused it to bolt,
and so that's that's kind of normal. So when's the best time to plant
the romain? And like in Decemberor something. November you can plant romaine
let us starting back in October,you can plant it. November will probably

(01:38:15):
be good too, coming out ofwinter. I would do it in maybe
February, but just be ready tocover it up when we have a freeze.
But your planet, you know howmany heads let us to you eat
a week, So you don't needto, you know, to put five
hundred seeds in the ground like somepeople do. Just because there's a packet
full of ease doesn't mean you needto plan them all, but about every

(01:38:38):
two weeks put another little planting inand just see how far you can get.
Okay, well, the name ofthe corn that plan was early Golden
bitan. Okay, I don't knowoff the top of my head how tall
that gets. I do no cornsa heavy feeder, So continue to give
small amounts of nitrogen fertilize. Youcan use a law fertilizer if you want

(01:39:00):
to it. And that that shouldbe good. All right, Joe,
I'm gonna have to run. Goodluck with that problem. Appreciate it.
You bet appreciate that very much.Let's see here we uh, well,
I wanted to tell you we're talkingabout trees and tree trimming and things like
that. Martin Spoon more affordable tree. Uh he's been doing this for a
very long time here in the Houstonarea. And when it comes to summer,

(01:39:25):
you gotta do some summer pruning.Typically, if if a branch died,
if a tree died, get thatout of there. If it's still
standing after the storm, if you'vegot narrow branch angles, Martin can come
out, he can look at yourtrees. You see what kind of pruning
do I need to do to makesure that tree has optimum structural strength to

(01:39:45):
withstand the storm season. And hedoes that. You can call him at
seven to one three six nine ninetwenty six sixty three. That's seven one
three six nine two six sixty three. Or just go to a fftree service
dot com, a ff tree servicedot com. Tell Martin you're a guardenline

(01:40:06):
listener that helps you get to upthe list, and just don't delay.
He stays busy and right now Ican't imagine how busy he must be.
But don't delay. We are enteringhurricane season in June. We'll be doing
that all the way through November,and you need to get this work done,
even if it's a month or twofrom now. Go ahead as soon

(01:40:27):
as you can get that work doneon your trees. If you haven't been
out to RCW Nursery in a while, talking about them a while ago,
RCW Nursery has one of the bestselection of roses of any place that you're
going to go. Now that that'sthe garden center. That is where Tombo
Parkway comes into beltweight eight right downbelow there, easy easy to get to.

(01:40:48):
I call them to get it,got It Nursery, because if they
don't have it, they probably canget it and just tell them they can
make an order for you. They'rehappy to do that. They carry all
the fertilizers that I recommend on Guardenlineand some of those soil products as well.
Uh. They grow their own treesup in Plannersville, a different,
different operation up there, and theyhave them there at RCW Quality Trees.

(01:41:12):
They can come out and plant themfor you. They know how to do
it right, and I would recommendyou go about it that way. RCW
Nurseries dot Com. That's the website. Go check them out. Today it's
time for the news and so I'mgonna turn it over here. Seven one
three two one two KT right.Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have

(01:41:43):
you with us today. A littlebit of Bay City Roller. There's last
from the past. Medina who putsout those has to grow products, has
to grow, has to grow lawnnow, has has to grow supergrow Plus.
Medina's super Grow Plus. What isit? Well, it is a
fertilizer that has high nitrogen and zerophosphorus and a little bit of potassium in

(01:42:06):
it. It's a good booster forwhatever you're using it for now. It's
made for use on the lawn.It's a quart bottle. You hook up
at your garden hose. It takesabout ten minutes to cover about four thousand
square feet, which is how muchit will cover as you walk through and
do that. A little bit ofthe nitrogen in it about five five twenty

(01:42:26):
percent excuse me, one fifth.That's what I'm trying to say. Isn't
a slow release form. It's gota lot of good stuff in it too,
like iron in achilated form. That'simportant. Get a little folier feet
of iron out there. Seaweed extractis also in that. It's got molasses
and it's got humic acid. Soyour microbes be pretty excited about this.
Medina super Grow plus sixteen zero twohooks up to the hose and anytime you

(01:42:51):
want to give a boost to plants, you can do that. And yes,
I said plants, lawns, ofcourse, but you don't spread it
on your vegetable garden, your tomatoesand things. They will like it too.
I can tell you that we're goingto go now to the phones and
we're going to talk to Beckett.Beckett, thanks for being a patient waiter
on the lines there. Yeah,good morning. I have a question what

(01:43:15):
of holly? What is the bestfor cloud pruning? And different variety may
be for like crandle pruning. Ididn't catch the two types of pruning.
The first one it sounded like yousaid cloud on cloud pruning like a Japanese
garden. Okay. And second oneshape okay, I got you any really,

(01:43:41):
any of the hollies, if youstay with the pruning, can achieve
those shapes and and do very wellin it. The difference in holly's is
the height of them, and youknow how big do you want them to
be. That's where we look atthe Oakland holly, the Burford holly,
the savant, some of the holliesthat are commonly grown around here, and

(01:44:02):
they have different heights in general shapes. But I can tell you you can
turn any of those into the shapeyou want. It's just gonna be a
different size plant. Okay. Andmy second question would be, okay about
tree ivy pet head either deer resistanceor dear will eat it? Deer will

(01:44:25):
eat it. I'm ninety percent sureof that. Deer will eat the ivy
or the green ivy said resistance?Sorry, I didn't No, No,
they eat it, They eat it. I'm pretty sure that's yeah. I'm
ninety percent sure that's true because ican picture walking up to a tree trunk
that had that ivy going up itand the deer eating the leaves off,

(01:44:46):
had eaten the leaves off of it. But I'll check that and if I
find I'm wrong, I'll say thaton the air. Here just a bit,
okay, okay, thank you,all right, thank you for the
call. Appreciate that very much.Let's see Jackie and Galveston. We just
lost you there from if you wantto give a call back in you were
the next one up. A lotof things to talk about today, Warbird's

(01:45:14):
Unlimited. I'm going to be atthe Warbird's Unlimited in bell Air, by
the way, on the fifteenth ofJune. I know that's way out there,
but that's my next appearance, andI just won't tell you about it
right now. I'll be out therefrom eleven to one Warbirds in bell Air.
You know, there's six Wallbirds storeshere in the Greater Houston area,
and so it's easy to find onefairly close to you. You can go

(01:45:34):
to WBU dot com forward slash HoustonWBU dot com forward slash Houston and when
you're in there, you're going totalk to experts who know birds, and
I'm telling you they it is amazingthe different products that they have. The
feed bird seed selection blends for alldifferent kinds of birds. And instead of

(01:46:00):
having bird seed that's like the cheapstuff you see in a lot of places
that's full of those red bebies,you know, birds basically kick that out
of the feeder because they want theother stuff. They don't like that,
but it's a cheap filler that goesinto cheap bird seed. Wibirds Unlimited doesn't
have that. They when you buya pound of Wild Birds Unlimited feed seed

(01:46:20):
for your birds bird feed, youare going to get a pound of stuff
that goes into the bird that iskind of what you want. They also
have beautiful feeders, They have beautifulhouses for housing birds. They have My
favorite bird feeder, by the way, is the Eliminator. It's a squirrel
proof bird feeder, so if you'reinterested in feeding birds not squirrels, the

(01:46:41):
Eliminator is the Cadillac, and boyddoes it ever work. I'd really love
mine. Wallbirds Unlimited WBU dot comForward Slash Houston. All right, we're
gonna go to Jackie from Galliston.Now, hey Jackie, Hi, good
morning, Good morning. I'm doinggood. How are you good? Good

(01:47:02):
down here on the island and jointhe beautiful day? Oh boy, toes
in the sand or just oh yeah, here in a little bit, we'll
have the dogs on the beach.Oh boy, all right, don't rub
it in. How can I helptoday? So I have a b balm
bush that finally bloomed about a weekago, and this week now it looks

(01:47:27):
like they're dying, and so Ijust need some advice. Do I need
to prune them back? Or willthey rebloom again? They should bloom again
if you shear them back. They'repretty good about that. Now you say
bee bomb, We're talking about aperennial, right, it's not like a
bush per se where you have atrunk and all the branches. Yeah,

(01:47:48):
it's starting to look more like abush. I have it in a pot.
Can you describe the flower to me? Sure? It's like a round,
purple, streamy like flower. Almost? Okay, god, yeah,
that's bee bomb. That's bee bomb. Yeah, okay, I just want
to make sure we're talking about thesame plant. Uh yeah, you can

(01:48:11):
do a little sharing back on them. I believe those are in the mint
family, and and they just branchout and they produce their blooms. As
you know from having it at theterminal ends of the shoots. You can
have more than one layer sometimes ofthose blooms. So that's cool. But
that's a wonderful, wonderful plant.Thank you, thank you. Yeah,
it was part of my butterfly garden. We lost it in the freeze last

(01:48:33):
year and cut it all the waydown to the to the very bottom,
and it's it's bloomed again. SoI was very happy to see that.
Yep, yep, it is gorgeous. They make a nice little cut flower
too. I think people don't talkabout them from that aspect, but you
know, those long stems. Yeah, that's just another thing they could do.
Okay, all right, well,thank you show, Thank you,

(01:48:55):
Jackie. I appreciate that. Havefun this afternoon, even though even though
I can't be out there, atleast at least you'll have fun. Take
the joys of living on the island, all right. One of the many
joys of living on Gavest All right, beach there you are, all right.
We love feedstore share on guarden lineand spring Creek Feed is up there,

(01:49:16):
kind of north and east of theTumboul area. It's on FM twenty
nine seventy eight. It's located inMagnoli area. That's how I like to
refer to it. But twenty nineto seventy eight just minutes away from Graham
Parkway or from Highway to forty nine'seasy to get to. They carry the
fertilizers I talk about on guarden line, things like the Nelson Turf Star Line,
like the nitroposs, like the microlifefor example. They also have lawn,

(01:49:41):
garden and pond supplies of all types. For example, do you need
herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, thingsto treat your ponds, things to control
issues in the ponds for example,quality pet food, livestock food. Of
course, it's a feed store.If you happen to be f FA or
four H youth, a military,or a senior citizen, there's discounts for

(01:50:03):
all of those groups and they canspecial order Spring Creek feeds in it.
You gotta walk in. When youwalk in, you just stop, take
two steps inside and stop and lookaround. It is impressive. There's a
lot of other cool stuff at SpringCreek Feed then there the other day.
Actually took some pictures of it becauseit's like, wow, this is this

(01:50:24):
is amazing, very amazing place.Well, we had a backlog of calls
there, I had trouble getting toall of them. Uh, and now
we've got some opening on the board. So if you'd like to give us
a call, we will be happyto do that. Uh. Seven to
one three two one two k tRH. How can we help? Just
let us know seven one three twoone two k t r H. Buchanan's

(01:50:48):
Native Plants in the Heights is probablythe single best source of native plants in
this whole region. It is amazinggoing in there. I always loved shop
Buchanans. A little hideaway kind ofthing is the way I like to refer
to it, because you're driving downeleven Street and all of a sudden,
boom there. It is just it'sa beautiful place to wander through and enjoy.

(01:51:12):
Their website is something you need togo check out. That's Buchanansplants dot
com. Now you can get theirnewsletter and that you can follow them on
social media and they will teach youabout all kinds of native plants whatever they're
featuring for the week. But theyhave natives for the Houston area from only
the Houston area. They have nativesfrom a wider area here in Southeast Texas.

(01:51:36):
However you go about it, BuchanansPlants is a place. Do you
need things for attracting beneficials? Doyou need things for attracting butterflies or hummingbirds
or whatever? Nelson the Buchanans folkscan get you set up. What you'll
find there too, is a fullline of the soils and fertilizers that I

(01:51:57):
talk about here on Guardenline. Theycarry a wide variety of those. It's
an excellent place to get all setup and ready to go. Canis Plants
East eleventh Street in the Heights.But you got to go to the website
Buchanan's Plants dot com. Click aroundand you will be impressed. Sign up
for the newsletter too, follow themon social media. Very informative. We're

(01:52:19):
gonna take a little break here.Our phone number again seven one three two
one two kat r H. Andit's all because come back to the guard
Line. I just I still lovethat kind of have to answer in the

(01:52:44):
studio. All right, we aregoing to head straight out to the calls
in this segment and start in Hempsteadwith Jonathan. Hello, Jonathan, how's
it going, buddy? Doing good? Doing good? So I got a
question. I got my wife andlilies and we looked online on where it
places them, and it just lookslike anywhere we go with anythide of house,

(01:53:05):
they're not doing you good. Soany advice you can give me on
easter lilies, I appreciate it.Yeah. Good, drainage raised bad.
Good drainage is good. They needsun now. They don't have to have
full sun, but giving them alot of light is important for them to
do well. If you can makeit morning sun as opposed to afternoon sun,

(01:53:25):
Uh, then that's even better.You know, to be in shade
all day and then the hot afternoonsun just bakes them. It's not the
ideal situation. But depending on theparticular variety you ended up with, it
may survive very well and come backand come back and be strong, or
it may, you know, beone that just doesn't keep going. Uh.

(01:53:46):
There's a lot of variation in thedifferent types of lilies, and some
of them are just more at homehere than others. Okay, So you
say on the east side out soyou will be better. It would be
better from a light standpoint. Justmake sure the soil you've mixed in some
composted organic matter or brought in agood bed mix so that the excess water

(01:54:09):
when it rains too much, drainsaway. Okay, okay, sounds good.
I appreciate it, all right,man, Good luck with that.
And hey, way to go.A plant for Mother's Day is a great
and birthdays and everything is a goodidea. Thank you, sir. You
take care. Let's see, we'regoing to go now to Mark in Houston.
Hello, Mark, how are youdoing, sir? I'm good,

(01:54:31):
I'm good. What's up? Yes, sir, I was wanting to know
what what can I use to getrid of the dollar we've I've got it
really bad and if but before Iforget, I'm nervous. That's what I
also need to know. I alsoneed to know if it would be pet
friendly for my dog to go onafter I treat it. Well. Yes,

(01:54:58):
basically you're going to be spraying thefolded with the treatment and let it
fully dry, and then you knowpets can be out there on it.
When you mow, you know,you typically cut off most of the upper
leaves on dollar weed, and thereare still some down in the turf,
of course, but I want totalk about culturally. The first step in
dollar weed control is to keep thatarea as dry as you can. When

(01:55:23):
it stays soggy like a swamp,dollar weed is in heaven. It loves
it. And if we you know, our turf needs about an inch of
water a week only, and soif you you know, give it a
turf watering and then it dries outgood. That's what you want. Now.
We can't control the rain, ofcourse, but a poorly drained area
is going to be a dollar weedproliferation mess. But as far as products

(01:55:46):
that will control it, there isone that met sulfurn is the ingredient,
but you'll see it. You canbuy it locally in something called ms M
turf ms M turf, but yougot to be careful with it when you're
using it around trees and tree rootsand things. Don't overapply it, don't

(01:56:09):
apply it right before a rain.Apply it when you know we're gonna have
some dry weather, and just getenough to wet the foliage and put a
spreader sticker on it. If youwherever you buy your products, say I
need a spreader sticker and they canpoint you to the product you need.
And here's why. Dollar weed isa very waxy leaf and you don't want

(01:56:29):
the spray to roll off. Youwant it to spread out and stick to
the leaf. Okay, all right, So do I use to apply it?
Do I just use one of thosecans like past control your guys use.
No, you mix it up inwater and just spray it. Get
a little pump up sprayer and justspray it on the on the weeds.

(01:56:50):
That's how you do it. Mixit in water. I'm gonna give you
another product it's gonna be a littleeasier to find, and that is a
fertil and weed free zone. Wouldwork pretty good on that. But on
that fertiloan product, when you getinto really hot weather, it's going to
damage or not even hot hot,it's going to damage your Saint Augustine.

(01:57:10):
So don't spray that when the temperaturesare in the upper eighties and above.
If you get up in the morningand do it early in the morning,
it'll be dried by the time thetemperature really starts rising and you'll be fine.
But don't delay and be careful.When we get into hotter and hotter
weather place, fertile loan f ER T I l O M weed free

(01:57:36):
zone, WEAD free zone. Yeah, thank you very much. Yeap,
good luck with that. And Ijust know we never eradicate dollar weed.
We just manage it, and soall of those things are ways that we
bring it down. But you're nevergonna get rid of all of it.
So should I wait after I treatit in white like a month and then

(01:57:57):
rehit it to where it Yeah,yeah, you could do that. You
could absolutely do that. Just again, be careful as if things heat up.
Some of these things are pretty hardon our our Saint Augustine, so
we don't want to get into thatthat category. Okay, all right now,
thank you by the way too.If you go to my schedule online
at gardeningwith Skip dot com Gardening withSkip dot com, there's a couple of

(01:58:24):
schedules, one about fertilizing and oneabout dealing with pests and weeds, and
the pest and weed one gives youa list of things you can apply to.
Uh. It doesn't have the MSMturf on there, but it but
it has some other things that willwork pretty well on dollar weed. Yeah,
I've got a pretty big area.I've got a cover to our I'm
want. Is there anything that's likethose pellets that you put in one of

(01:58:47):
those spinners that pose it that wouldbe easier. You're not going to get
good results with that. That kindof application on your dollar weed, You're
just not I would go with theliquid. I know you. I we
don't want to do that, butthat's what I would do. Hey,
thanks a lot for the call.Mark. I got to run, but
I appreciate that. Good luck withthat. Nelson Plant Food has two products

(01:59:09):
for summertime fertilizing. The first oneis called Bruce's Brew. It's a mostly
immediate release fertilizer, but it hastwo kinds of slow release in it,
so it's gonna spread the nutrients outover time. I would do it about
twice during the summer season. Slowand Easy is a second product. It
has several types of slow release nitrogenin it, and it's going to feed

(01:59:33):
your lawn all the way up tofall. You don't need to fertilize again
until fall if you use Slow andEasy from Nelson. Two quality products are
part of their turf Star line.All right here, I'm going to go
to Delinda and Katie and Delenda.It looks like I've got about ten seconds

(01:59:53):
before the music plays, but we'lltalk into the music. Okay, I
have steep bugs on my tomato plantsand they're kind of sucking the life out
of them. Yeah, you better, So what can I do? Well?
There are a number of products thatwill kill stink bugs a problem if
you can catch them when they're young. They don't have wings, and they're
susceptible to sprays more so than whenthey're adults. They tend to be in

(02:00:15):
a herd when they're young, andit's easy. You can knock them into
a pail of soapy water when they'rein a little herd. But spraying early
in the morning. When you dospray, they're a little more sluggish.
As the day heats up, you'rerunning all over the place trying to find
stink bugs to spray because they're here, there, and everywhere, hiding underneath
the foliage. The earlier you start, the better. Okay, what do

(02:00:40):
I spray them with? You canuse on organic side, you can use
a pyrethern type of spray. Whenit comes to the other side of the
synthetic, some type of a syntheticperrethroid. If you will go to an
ACE hardware store and ask them whatthey have. You got two great aces
out in your area. Sorry,but that we run out of time,

(02:01:02):
all right, thanks you bet.Welcome to kt r H garden Line with
Skip rictor it's shoes Brasy here justwatch him as well. Thanks to Sup

(02:01:27):
by Gas. Again we're not asign credits, So welcome to garden Line.
Welcome back to garden Line our lasthour of the day of the weekend.
As a matter of fact, wegot some things that we can help

(02:01:49):
you with. We're happy, happyto do that. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. A Cinemalt is your
source of holiday mulches and other productsdown south of Houston. I like to
refer to them as a place whereyou get the brown stuff in order so

(02:02:10):
the green stuff that's the plants thrive. They carry all the fertilizers I talk
about on garden Line at Ciena Molts, they carry a lot of other products
as well too. They have thingslike the leaf mold compost for top dressing,
like a roast oil or a vegetablemix or things they have just plain
old composts. They have mulches.They sell stuff by the bag, they

(02:02:31):
sell stuff by the bulk. Theydeliver within about twenty miles of their location,
which is FM five twenty one nearwhere Highway six and two eighty eight
come together. But it's FM fivetwenty one cenamultch dot com. That's the
website. They're open Monday through Fridayfrom seven thirty to five, Saturday seven
thirty to two, and close today. Closed on Sundays. If you live

(02:02:53):
anywhere down in that area from theBrasisman Steak Park, Pomona, Iowa colony
Manvil, that roast sharing that wholeregion down there, seeing a plantation,
of course, they're your place.They've got it. And I just tell
you this. When you go thereand come home with the products I just
talked about, you're going to havea foundation for success and your plants are

(02:03:13):
going to like it and they're goingto respond accordingly. I want to go
now out on the phones to Markin Pasadena. Hey, Mark, Thanks
Jim. How's it going. I'mdoing well. How can we help you?
Great? Well, I'm having anew sad took down. And you
know, of course I've been tobig watering it in, But I didn't
know if it being new and itbeing in shock for the first couple of

(02:03:36):
days, how long should I waitbefore I add any kind of products to
it to help establish it. Yeah, the most important thing when you lay
nu sad is to start watering itimmediately. And I laid side this spring,
and I before I finished ling sad, I was already watering the first
part that I put out, Becauseif you leave it long enough you know

(02:04:00):
where it actually is drying out,it really sets it back and in fact
can kill it if you left itseveral days that you didn't get the water
on it. It has no rootsto begin with, I mean, just
whatever thin layer of clay soil itcame with. That's the only place roots
can be. So that frequent wateringtwice a day the first week, probably
once a day the second week,and then backing off to twice a week

(02:04:25):
or once a week eventually that isfor it ada or anything that has to
grow it not establish. When didyou say you put it down just a
few days ago, Well, youknow it's supposed to be put down to
day or tomorrow. Oh okay,yeah, Well I would get that.
I think that the sixteen oh twoMedina has to grow. Supergirl plus would

(02:04:45):
be a good one because you canrun over the yard real quick with hose
in sprayer and do that. Butdon't apply it until that side has been
in at least a month. Uhit first of all the first parts,
or it needs to get roots inthe ground and it's go. I have
plenty of nutrients to get that initialgrowth done once it's got a good root
system, and that's going to take, you know, a couple of weeks,

(02:05:08):
three weeks even to get a goodsystem. Going down into the ground.
You'll find that the side usually comesI don't know where you're buying it
from, and it kind doesn't matter, but if you're if you're purchasing side,
usually it comes with nutrients already downin that soil. And I've had
some sod that I put in amonth and a half ago and it still

(02:05:31):
looks good, and I haven't startedfertilizing it yet. It's about time now
to start, But don't get ina hurry on that fertilizer. Initially there's
no roots to take it up.But then because there is a charge of
a fertilizer in that it's going tobe fine for a while. Okay,
Well, about the time that theroots are established will be in the hotter

(02:05:51):
months for sure. So I didn'twant to put anything down that's too strong.
Yeah, recommending that, Yeah,that's right. And if if you
want to go to a granular youknow you hear me talk about a lot
of them. If you go tomy website gardening with Skip dot com,
print out my lawn care schedule orjust look at it on the screen and
it lists all the fertilizers and tellsyou exactly when to apply them. Now

(02:06:15):
with new Side, you know,you're jumping into the calendar there in the
middle of things, so it's alittle different. But as far as ongoing
fertilizing, you would use those sameproducts and you would just use them at
the times that are on the schedule. Makes it real simple. Okay,
Okay, Well, thank you verymuch, sir. All Right, I
appreciate your call. Thank you verymuch. All yeah, have good day

(02:06:36):
you as well. Good luck withthat New Side. The bee supply out
in Dayton, Texas is the placeto go if you want to learn about
bees, whether you're just curious aboutlearning about bees, going out and doing
the kind of what they call thehoney tour out there, or whether you're
serious about Hey, I think Imight like beekeeping. They're beekeeping classes start

(02:06:57):
at nine thirty in the morning,going too three thirty in the afternoon.
You get the classroom part, whichwill blow your mind all that they teach
you, and then you get togo out and have a hands on experience
doing hive inspections, weather permitting,if it gush and rain on that day.
But there's a lot of good educationalprograms out there, and they know

(02:07:17):
what they're talking about. They canreally set you up for success. And
it doesn't bother them for you tocome in and ask them a question or
call them and ask them a question. They want you to have success.
Now. They have their b Rentalprogram, which means anyone who has five
to twenty acres and lives within fiftymiles of Dayton, Texas, they will

(02:07:40):
bring bees out and they will putthem there and they will tend them for
you and you can use that asan AG exemption. That'd be keeping is
one of the things that counts asan AG exemption. They know how much
there's a lot of bees that don'tput out there, but just go to
the website and find out more aboutthat. Thebsupply dot com thebes supply nine

(02:08:01):
three six seven seven six seven threenine to go now to Jackie and Galveston.
Jackie have about a minute, butwe can hold you over after break
if we need to. Hi,good morning again. Our question is about
snap dragons. They were really niceand red, and about a month ago
they started looking dry and limp theirimpots as well. Any advice something went

(02:08:26):
wrong in the roots. You know, it's been a wet enough spring that
I kind of would eliminate drought,but soggy conditions and the roots can be
a problem. It also is possiblethat they had a root rot disease or
a stem disease that killed that andtherefore everything above it turns dry. If

(02:08:46):
you see any webbing on them,maybe you had something like spider mites that
came in and worked on them there. I think that's the most unlikely of
the causes. I think it's goingto be a disease related thing. Of
course, we're kind of running tosnapdragon season here, so I wouldn't recommend
replanting them right now, but whenwe get back in the fall season,

(02:09:07):
again. It's snapdragon season again.Okay, perfect, thank you so much.
Having heard the rest of the day, you bet, Jackie appreciate that
call. All right here, we'regoing to take a break seven one three
two one two Katie r H.I'd like to give me a call Inspines
Revival Bullum. Thanks this all themthings and the piece of ground. Welcome

(02:09:35):
back to garden Line. We tryto help you make your garden grow successfully
by giving you advice and suggestions forfor having that kind of success. Chicking
out the email. We had aconversation earlier today with Angie and she had
roses with with a webbing on themand the branch had died. And thanks

(02:09:58):
for sending those pictures. There.There's one picture that actually gave me the
answer to the what we were lookingat. You have some type of a
caterpillar on there, some type ofa webworm caterpillar. It is not the
fall webworm that you see up inmulberries and pecan trees and things. It's
not that I don't think it's thegenistic caterpillar either. That is one that

(02:10:20):
we see in Texas here on MountainLaurels, for example. It is some
type of caterpillar there, and itkind of doesn't matter which one it is.
What I would recommend you do isyou go down to the base of
those canes and you prune them offwhere they attach because they're dead, they're
gone, or they look to beget those and with all the caterpillars,
there's gonna be caterpillars inside and atleast in some parts of the planet where

(02:10:45):
there's still leaves to feed on,and just get them out of there.
Then you can spray the bush itselfwith either a spray of BT bacillistheringensis or
better than that, I would gowith spinosaid sp I n os a d
spin no sad. Both of thoseare organic products, natural based products,

(02:11:07):
and so BT and Spinosa spinosi beingmy first choice. And you may want
to repeat the spray again about aweek later because there are probably some that
have crawled out from that area mightbe on your rose bushes. Just want
to be careful. It's very unusualthough I can't at that stage of the
caterpillar's life identify which one it is. It doesn't matter because we still treat

(02:11:28):
them the same way whatever the caterpillaris. But yeah, boy, that's
a very unusual way. I havenot had a picture like that sent in.
So congratulations you played stump the chump. It didn't quite stump me,
but it was a new thing atleast like that. You are listening to
Guarden Line, and we do havean open lines here if you would like

(02:11:50):
to give us a call, nothave to wait. If you talk quick,
you can up in Montgomery A andA Plants and Produce is It's a
great place to visit. They alwayshave a good selection of plants. They
carry every fertilizer that I talk abouton guard Lane, and I mean really
everyone. They talk about all thesoils out there. So if you want

(02:12:11):
nitroposs or Nelson's or microlife, orif you want airloom soils or Nature's Way
resources, leaf mole compost. Ifyou're looking for the new product from Medina,
the Medina Supergirl Plus, they gotthat there as well. An A
Plants and Produce just on the eastside of Montgomery on Highway one oh five.

(02:12:31):
It's also a great place to getgarden bling. You know what I'm
talking about. I'm talking about theyou know, the signs, the decorations
in the garden. Maybe a metalarchway Chimin. As for the backpaty,
all that whole category of things.They have a lot of great stuff like
that too. You need to checkthem out. I'm going to go back
to the phones now. We're goingto talk to Jeff in clear Lake.

(02:12:52):
Hello Jeff, Yes, high Skip, thanks for taking my call. I
have a curious thing. Got somefairly mature pitu swarm in my front yard,
and they've done well for years.But I look down in a small
area maybe a foot square, andit looks like the leaves are dying back
with a bunch of black stuff kindof on the edge of the leaves.

(02:13:16):
There's also these white nodules on thebranches, and I don't know if that's
a I would have thought scale maybe, but when I see the black I
don't know what it is. ButI'm trying to figure out how I can
treat that. Very interesting. Thisis one I'll give you. I'll take
a shot at it, but thisis one where me seeing a good close
up photo would be helpful, andI don't want to. I don't want

(02:13:39):
to even halfway guess what's going onin the black could be city mold that
falls on plants, or that occurson plants where you have an insect that
produces a honeydew, which is asugary eggs. You date if it's do
it, white flies do it,mealybugs do it. Scale that some types
of scale do it, and sothat could be. So you may be

(02:14:01):
seeing a scale and just seeing someof the honeydew from it. But as
you describe the black and the leafand the white bump and stuff, I
just need to see it to bereally sure, because we don't want to
have you wasting time and money onsprays that are the wrong. Thing is
how do I forgive me? Howdo I get a photo to you?

(02:14:22):
Yeah, I'll put you on holdright now and our producer will pick up
and give you the email address andyou can send me those photos. Okay,
yes, sir, yes, sir, Thank you skill you do it
pretty quick. I might be ableto get it done for the end of
the show today. All right,Okay, thank you for the call.
Yeah. For those of you listening, Uh, I am not able to

(02:14:43):
just answer all the emails. Iwould get typing at the computer. That's
all I would do every day.And so what what I do ask is
that if you're going to email,uh, you know, attach a photo,
but then give me a call tofollow up on it, and that
way. If we do it theother way around, you can call the
producer and just ask and say Iwant to send skip a picture of or

(02:15:07):
something, and we'll we'll do itthat way. But just I wish I
could answer them all and just kindof do that. But just the volume
is impossible, absolutely impossible to keepup with. So I appreciate you being
patient with that. You are listeningto Guardline and our phone number seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour. Nitrofuss is super turf. The

(02:15:30):
silver bag needs to go out now. If you have not put out a
slow release fertilizer to carry you throughthe summer season. Nitrofus super Turf has
a significant portion of the nitrogen init in a slow release form that'll that
will release out three or even fourmonths out from now. It is a
very very good release. It's designedfor our southern turf grasses along the Gulf

(02:15:54):
coast here. The way that thenutrientch release, the way they feed your
lawn, You're going to have successwith that. Whether it's Saint Augustine or
bermuda or zoisio grass in this hotand humid climate. Nitrofoss superturf, the
silver bag really works well and thatslow release means that you're not creating a
mowing mess, that you're not pushingthe grass into top growth over root growth.

(02:16:18):
Nitrofoss Superturf's widely available, like Nitrovossproducts are. You're going to find
it at Hiden and Feed on StubnerAirline, the bearings hardware, both Bissonette
and Westheimer. You're going to findit in Channing Forest and in Channing Gardens,
both out there in the Richmond Rosenbergarea. All right, see here
where we're going to go to.I say, I may even have time

(02:16:39):
for a couple of comments that Iwant to make. Yeah, I think
I do it. This is thetime for summer color. To get that
summer color established. You can planta lot of things in the summer heat
and keep them alive, but whenyou put a new plant in the ground
has a very confined root system,and you've got to keep that wet or

(02:17:01):
moist in order for it to beable to pump the water. It needs
to survive. Now outdoors that inthat location and get in while it gets
a root system established. That's whatI'm trying to say. So if you
do it now weather it's a littlemilder, then when summer comes, you've
got a bigger plant that's well onits way to growing and being beautiful,

(02:17:22):
the reason you purchased it. Sojust keep that in mind. Now do
it sooner rather than later. Let'sgo now to Jane and Conroe. Hello,
Jane, I scap, good morning, Good morning. I've got an
orange tree that's infested with whitefly,and I think it's been happening a while

(02:17:46):
and the pollen must have sat there. Now the leaves are coated in black.
I've sprayed with dawn in water,thinking that might soften it, and
then sprayed with a powerful nozzle.That's not all very fast. Okay,
I'm not sure that we'll get ridof the white fly. Yeah, but
you are sure that it's white flybefore we go. Yeah, there's a

(02:18:09):
ton of little white flies flying around. Okay, white fly. Yeah.
White flies are a challenge. Theyhave natural enemies. And what happens is
when we spray with something that willkill the white fly, it kills the
things that are helping us with thewhite fly. And so then we end
up with an outbreak that's even worse, and you sort of get on a
treadmill that way as much as inwater. Yes, you can do that

(02:18:37):
if you do it early in themorning for the temperature heats up. A
horticultural oil spray directed upward from underneaththe plant. The white fly pupa are
underneath the leaves. They look likelittle tiny fish scales underneath the leaves,
and so spray it upward from underneath, so you coat them. That would
be another option for the white flycontrol, in addition to like you were

(02:19:01):
using the soap spray, which Ithink the horticultural oil is better, not
dormanoil, but horticultural oil. Youcould do an em oiled if you wanted
to do that either way, butyou're going to need to stay with it
with periodic sprays. But in timeI find that the white fly populations subside
as beneficials begin to build up,because the white fly is their food source

(02:19:22):
if they're the right kind of beneficial. So is that horticulture or going to
help this black layer come off?No, it tends to dry, crack
and peel off or wash off andtime on its own. So I know
it's ugly, but it will goaway. The soapy sprays should have helped

(02:19:46):
with that too, Okay, allright, appreciate it, all right,
thank you. What about doing thespray in the evening when it's cooled off,
so it would be there during thenight the sun hits it, so
yeah, but it's not hot earlyon the evening is you know, four
o'clock's the hottest time of the day, and so you go out at about

(02:20:09):
six or seven o'clock and it's stillpretty warm, especially when we get into
summer. But yeah, you know, right now, I guess you could
do that and it'd be okay,but as we get into summer, I
wouldn't do that. Okay, allright, I appreciate it, all right,
thank you, Jane, appreciate thatcall. Have you been to Enchanted
Forest out there in Richmond. There'salways something going on that Enchanted Forest out

(02:20:33):
in the Richmond Rosenberg area all thisspring. Boy, they've been all kinds
of programs going on, educational programThey're a great source of plants for butterfly
adults and the larvae as well.In fact, when you go out there,
typically they've got some of the butterflylarval plants on the plants they're selling
you, and they'll let you takethem home, so you get a head

(02:20:54):
start. It's kind of like gettinga sour dough starter from your neighbor when
you're gonna bake bread. You geta butterfly starter with your plant. So,
whether it's a go friddle area ona passion vine or a pipeline swallowtail
on a pipeline, what's someone I'mtrying to think of, Oh, monarch
on milkweed. Of course, youcan get set up with all of that.

(02:21:16):
They have beautiful flowers, beautiful vegetables, a very extensive selection of herbs
too, by the way, wonderfulhanging baskets, lots of shrubs and trees
and chinned. Forest is a funplace to visit. It just is,
and it's easy to get to whatyou do as you go. If you're
in Richmond Rosenberg, I'll direct fromthat way you go up towards sugar Land
direction and it's off to the righton FM twenty seven fifty nine. Twenty

(02:21:41):
seven fifty nine. Here's the websiteEnchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.
Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dotcom. That'll get you there and you
will. You will see what I'mtalking about when you head out there and
enjoy talking around and talking to thewonderful staff too, very knowledgeable, very

(02:22:03):
helpful as well. That is veryimportant here. We talk about that all
the time. One of the thingsabout our hometown, our mom and pop,
our independent garden centers is you getthe plants that need to grow,
You get the service that you needto get here. Those things are very
very valuable and very important. Uh. It wastes a lot of money to

(02:22:26):
plan something that doesn't grow. Itwastes a lot of money to get bad
advice and your plant dies. Doyou see what I'm saying. It wastes
a lot of money to buy aproduct to kill a pest that doesn't work
on that past or that wasn't evenwhat you had. Knowledge is important.
We're going to take a break forthe news seven one, three, two,
two, fifty eight seventy four.Take it, say take it,

(02:22:52):
say, don't let the sound.You're welcome back to Garden Line. Can
happy with us today? How arewe going to help? Just give me
a call, identifying a plan,identifying a problem, making suggestions for caring
for things. That's what we're here. For remember as you listen to garden
Line. At least my goal isto help inform your thumb because that turns

(02:23:13):
on green, doesn't it? Itabsolutely does. We're gonna head out now
and talk to Matt in Houston.Somewhere in Houston. Hey, Matt,
Hey, how's it going to you? Oh? Well, call you bet
Yeah. Hey. So I havea very large bed, probably a couple
hundred square feet that I've planted dwarffrom mondo grass and the grass is doing

(02:23:35):
fine. It's it's slow growing,but I expected that. But I'm struggling
big time with weeds. So question, I guess the first question is is
can I put down a pre emergentin that bed and expect it to work
and not hurt the mondo grass?And then any tips with something that will

(02:23:56):
kill it's mainly clover, will killthe clover, but but not the mondo
grass. Okay, well that's thatwould happens to be pretty easy. The
broad leaf weed killers that are apost emergent will kill the clover. We
have a number of different options outthere. If you go to my schedule,
there's several listed on there that Iwould recommend. Uh, like a
turtle of the weed for you wouldwork weed for your zone. Yes,

(02:24:20):
but those things, uh you know, as the temperature heats up, they're
kind of stressful to some plants,like our Saint Augustine. But I think
you'll be okay in the mondo.Uh. The pre emergent, yes,
you can put that down. Justput it down ahead of the season.
So if it truly is clover,that was a cool season planned. It
sprouted probably last fall uh and hasbeen around uh so other than hand pulling

(02:24:46):
it out in amongst the mando,uh, the spraying and then just again
on my schedule. If you goto gardening with skip dot com, the
schedule for for that tells you whento put the pre emergence down in the
fall season. Okay, Now,if you just follow the same schedules as
the turk grass, yes, followthe same schedule, because the schedule is

(02:25:07):
about timing the sprouting of the weeds, and so whether they're sprouting in your
lawn or sprouting somewhere else, thetiming is the same. Uh. You
just if you have other weeds inthere, then we may have to take
a different tack, like if youhad some warm season broad leaf weeds or
grassya type weeds, then we wouldbe applying it a little different time.

(02:25:28):
Okay, So do you think it'sworth putting premerton down now or just wait
so to the fall. It's worthit now. If annual grasses have been
a problem in your blue grass alot of problem, well that that's again
a fall application, but it wouldtake something you know, like a grasper

(02:25:48):
that's a summer grass that pops up, but a crab grass, which is
a warm season grass. We typicallyput those down in February to get ahead
of the sprouting, but then sometimeswe do a second application in the summer
and that's it's on my schedule thatway. Okay, great, because then
can I fertilize that the same wayas I would say in Augustine as well?

(02:26:11):
Sure could? Okay, great,absolutely, Yeah, And that's a
good that's a good turf substitute inshady areas. Yep, yep, great,
Okay, appreciate it all right,Matt, Thanks appreciate your call very
much. All Right, we justhad this storm season blast through in a
day. Well, we got alot more storm season to go. Hurricane

(02:26:33):
season is going to go from Juneall the way to November. Quality Home
Products of Texas carries the Generaic generators. There's a wide variety of them.
The folks at Quality Home they willhelp you get the one you need.
What do you need to protect?You know, we're just trying to keep
the freezer and the refrigerator food fromrotting when the power goes out. Are

(02:26:54):
we trying to maybe we work fromhome and we need twenty four or seven
and basically protection of our electricity,our personal electricity grid that comes out of
the Generaic generator. They can setyou up at the right one. They
work with your HOA if you haveone, to get the permits whatever is
needed locally. With all of thatkind of thing, they put the pad

(02:27:18):
down, they put the generator down, they get it set up, and
that's where quality really begins to shine. Also because they follow through twenty four
seven, three sixty five customer service. People love them. They absolutely do.
Eight times. They've won the PinnacleAward, which is the Better Business
Bureau most prestigious award for customer service. They focus on that quality products and

(02:27:43):
quality service for a quality life.That's their logo or excuse me, that's
their motto, and it's true quality. TX dot Com is a website Quality
tx dot com and if you wantto call them, just all seven to
one three quality. That's easy.Seven to one three quality quality. It
takes time for the process of gettinga generator put in, so don't delay,

(02:28:05):
even if you schedule something further outinto the summer, go ahead and
call now and start that process.Let them show you the products they have
and get you the idea of whatwe're looking at in terms of which product
and how long this is you know, going to take to get through all
the hoops that you got to jumpthrough with one of those. But Quality
Home Products of Texas is the onlyplace that I would buy a generator.

(02:28:28):
It absolutely Uh. The service afterthe sale is that that alone is worth
a price of admission. As theysay, we got a little time left
in the day and we got awide open screen here. So if you'd
like to ask a question, ifyou talk quick, uh seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy fourseven one three two one two five eight

(02:28:50):
seven four. You know Southwest FertilizerBob at Southwest Fertilizer has built this reputation
in the community, the later Houstoncommunity of having whatever product you need and
I mean that I have not evernamed a fertilizer, a pest control of
fungicide for disease control, a weedcontrol product on gardener. I've never named

(02:29:15):
one that he didn't carry. Evenwhen something new comes out, Bob's got
it. You know, some ofthese things that we don't talk about a
lot, but they're important. He'sgot them right there. Southwest Fertilizer,
Southwest Fertilizer dot Com knowledgeable staff too. Listen, you walk in with a
weed. You know, you seea weed in the yard and you need
to control it. Take it withyou, go to Southwest, show it

(02:29:39):
to them. They know what they'retalking about. Bob and the whole team
there, aaron, all of them. They can look at it and they
can put the right product in yourhand and tell you how to use it.
For example, they've got a sweetGreen, which is Nitrophoss's natural product.
It is a eleven percent nitrogen productthat's based on the molasses and and

(02:30:00):
microbial activity in the molasses. Sowhat happens is when you put that on
the ground, that dissolves away andit is carbon for microbes. Microbes need
a good carbon source to thrive andsurvive and it does that. It releases
it's eleven percent nitrogen to cause yourplants, your grass plants in this case,
although you could use it on somethingelse to thrive as well. You're

(02:30:24):
going to find it at places likeAce Hardware and Sinco Ranch or the Katie
Ace Hardware up there has it aswell. Growers Outlet up in Willis has
it, and Shades of Texas inthe Woodlands as well as all spices up
in the Woodlands area all carry ofthese nitrofost products. We are now going
to head to Crosby and talk toGerald. Hello, Gerald, good morning,

(02:30:46):
how are you doing. I'm well, sir. How can we help
the a's am? I Can youput that down anytime? Anytime? Yeap,
Because you're not putting it down tomake the grass grow like you would
a nitrogen fertilizer. You're putting itdown to get the nutrient bank account in
the soil so day by day theroots have access to it. Okay,

(02:31:09):
So you can put it down justanytime. Yes? And what was that?
I heard you mentioned something before aboutsomething that is called sweet something,
sweet green, sweet green? Whatis it? Sweet sweet green green?
It's a nitrophos fertilizer. It's elevenpercent nitrogen. It dissolves the way into
the soil. It helps stimulate biologicalactivity, and it releases those nutrients to

(02:31:31):
your grass and people like smells good. That's a name. Okay, So
I can put it down the sametime I put the age and might.
Now you could just apply them separately, don't mix them together. Particle size
is different. Oh my yard sick. Okay, all right. Well that

(02:31:52):
drought, that drought last year,it just really lifted up things, and
so well, good luck getting itback in shape. Don't forget to go
online to gardening with skip dot comand download my two schedules that will help
a lot with timing and what toapply. Gerald, thank you, thank
you for the call. I gotto run for a break again. I
appreciate you. Bet. When wecome back from break, Kenyon and College

(02:32:16):
Station and Steve in Baytown, you'llbe the first two up. This was
the last time you heard the Doobiebrother that don't get your blood flowing.

(02:32:37):
Welcome back to garden Line. Goodto have you with us today. We're
going straight out to the farm tothe phone. We are in our last
segment of the day. We're goingto go to college station talk to Kenyon.
Hello, Keny, Hello, thanksfor taking a call. You bet.
I've got an oak tree in thebackyard and I've been having some problems
with grass not growing underdea have enoughsoil erosion that I had a top soil

(02:33:03):
in the wall trying to help regrowgrass underneath. There was just looking for
tips on a type of grass oreven help help trying to keep the soil
erosion down. Yeah. Yeah,Well, if it's not too much shade
Saint Augustine, I would try thevariety called Palmetta palmetto as being one of

(02:33:26):
the better ones for shade. Butwhen it's too much shade for Saint Augustine,
then we got to switch to somethingelse. There's a couple of very
fine textured zoysias that do pretty goodand a lot of shade like the Saint
Augustine would, or switching over tosome other clumping planting that helps stop the

(02:33:46):
soil the water from sheeting across thesoil and eroding it. I've seen people
plant a lot of oriopy to havejust a big, little, taller ground
cover monkey grass. Some people thatdo that in small areas. You can
do Aztec grass, which is right. Yeah, I have some patches throughout
the yard and I was able toget those back. Okay, yep,

(02:34:09):
I think I may have lost youthere. Juga groundcover would work in an
area like that. There's just anumber of different things. A holly fern
looks pretty good if you're having touse College station water on it, the
holly fern may not be real happywith that high sodium water, I agreid,
all right, well, good luckwith that. That's our canyon.

(02:34:33):
I'm sorry he's looking at the wrongones. We're going to now go to
Delunda and Galveston. Hello, Delnda. Hey, it's Belinda Bulin. But
right, yeah, another oak tree, oak tree question for you. So
I've got this beautiful old oak tree. The base is probably around four and
a half, you know around butI've got some roots coming up and every

(02:34:54):
time I'm over them, you know, they're sticking about three four inches.
One's about ten feet out, one'sabout two feet out. I was wondering,
is it okay to either shave thosedown or to cut some of those
out? What's the best way toWell, you can you can do either
one. The oak roots, youknow, they don't tend to grow.
Well, they're not like a cypersneed that's just gonna shoot back up straight

(02:35:15):
for the sky. So you couldshave them down. You could if you're
just cutting at one root maybe ata time, one a year or something
like that. There's no problem withcutting roots that you need to get rid
of. I just did a bunchof that in my yard because I put
in a new sod and I hadto get rid of all that stuff to
get the grass back down on somethingbetter. Okay, great. And then

(02:35:35):
the mulch, I know, you'reonly supposed to put like about an inch
or two underneath each year. Howdeep can't I go with that mulch?
You're talking about multure soil, moltmulch. Okay, yeah, no,
you can put malts through four inchesdeep and let it be composed. I
mean, you go into a forestand there's six inches of leaves piled up,

(02:35:56):
you know, over the soil,So there's no problem. That thick
enough to do the job of blockingweeds and protecting this aill surface, but
not so thick that you're spending alot of extra money. Okay, all
right, all right, I appreciateit, all right, De Linda,
thank you for the call. Appreciatethat very much. We're going to head

(02:36:18):
up to Cyprus now and talk toWayne. Hey, Wayne, Hello,
their skits. How can we helptoday? Question for you. We go
around as volunteers and we clean upafter the storm, So we'll be in
the Cleveland area, you know,mucking and gutting and pulling all this stuff
out, getting it off there.Wall. Is there a kind of a
cheat sheet we can leave them ora way to like how to clean up

(02:36:41):
after a storm, to get allthat nasty stuff off their grass after we
pull all the debris and stuff offfor them, Tell me kind of what
you're talking about when you refer tothe nasty stuff. What are we trying
to deal with? Well, likeI say, water's been sitting on there
for a week or two, andthen after we get everything off, you
know, we've got to pull allthe stuff out of their house, fucking
gut it, you know, soyou've got to brief it on graft for
sometimes two or three weeks, maybefour weeks before the city picks it up.

(02:37:03):
Okay, what's the best way tohelp them recover that? Boy?
Well, if it you know,if you've got stuff blocking the light for
several weeks. You're probably gonna losesome grass underneath there. If it's Saint
Augustine, some of the others area little more able to bounce back as
far as you know, just rakingthe materials out that you can get out
of there. If it's got ifyou got like the film of dirt from

(02:37:26):
flooding, or if you've got afilm of whatever, you can just rinse
that off. But of course rightnow it's so wet you probably don't want
to add water to it. Butanyway, Yeah, and then just to
begin to mow on a regular schedule. Initially you're gonna have to cut it
back a lot because it's not beencut because there's junk all over the lawn

(02:37:48):
and we can't mow the lawn.So going back to my mowing schedule,
you could you could print out myschedule from gardening with skip dot com my
lawn care schedule. As you whento fertilize what with It tells you about
watering, how much to water throughthe summer months. It tells you also,
of course, about the mowing schedule, and that is one of the

(02:38:11):
most important parts of good lawn care. Now initially or generally, I would
say return your clippings when you mow. That's important to do that. When
you get overgrowth like you're going tohave in those lawns, I would go
ahead and bag those and then throwthem into flower beds for molts or whatever.
You know, you recycle those nutrientsand your property. But then go

(02:38:33):
to the regular schedule where you're cuttingabout a third of the leaf plate off.
But that's all in my online scheduleat gardeningwith Skip dot com. So
we'll leave those tips with people thatas we clean our homeside of how to
get there in order. Yeah,appreciate it. Well, thank you for
doing that. That that is agreat service. I appreciate that. Thank
you. Take care, you takecare. All right. You're listening to

(02:38:56):
garden Line. Our phone number isseven to one three two one two five
eight seven four. I'm going tohead out now to the Conroe area and
talk to Barbara. Hey, Barbara, you got on fast. Yeah,
I did, thank you. Allright. Look, I've got a lot
of clay in my yard and it'shot from when they built my house,
and I'm having trouble with my SaintAugustine growing. Okay, which and I

(02:39:22):
don't know. Yeah, what youwant to do is you want if you've
got clay top dressing with a materiallike the fine leaf mole compost or finely
screened fungal composts. Nature's ways justdown down the street, the street being
I forty five from you up therein Conroe. They can deliver a book

(02:39:43):
to do that. You can hiresomebody to come out and do a quality
aeration. The folks at Greenpro willdo the quality aerration for you, or
you can try to do some ofthat yourself. It's not an easy process,
but you can do it. Punchingthrough that clay, getting organic matter
down in it. That is allpretty important. A lot of times when

(02:40:05):
building and things, you end upwith a clay that's really a crummy clay
too. So yeah, yeah,we need to do that. All right,
Thank you so much. You betgood luck with getting that lawn back
in shape. Follow my lawn fertilizingschedule too when you're on there, and
I think that will help you aswell. All right, thank you so

(02:40:28):
much. Have a blessed day youas well. Thank you very much.
All right, you're listening to gardenLine. We're sitting here communicating with my
producer for some reason. The phonelights up when I'm twenty seconds away from

(02:40:48):
getting out of here. You knowthat we're available every Saturday and Sunday six
to ten am. That's what wedo here on guarden Line. You can
listen live. You can listen liveon the iHeartMedia app. A lot of
people put the phone in the pocketand go out gardening and just listen to
the radio in the morning. Allright, we'll do that. You can

(02:41:09):
also listen to podcasts the iHeartMedia appor your other podcast app. Just look
for garden Line and you can listento past shows that way. Maybe you
heard me say something today is like, what was that that you said?
Go check it out. It's goingto be there on the podcast. We'll
glad to have you with us.Look forward to coming back again next week.
Just in the meantime, remember brownstuff before green stuff. Get out

(02:41:31):
there. Also, remember it's betterto get those summer plants planted now.
They'll be beautiful in the summer,but give them a little bit of a
head start. They work a lotbetter that way. Get your summer applications
of slowly fertilizer down to feed yourlawn all the way through the summer and
return your clippings every time you mow. That also puts a lot of good

(02:41:54):
nutrients. That's the way nature willmake it work. Put it back in
this yeah,