Gardening After All the Rain

Skip talks with callers all morning and gives advice on dealing with pests, removing weeds, tree care, and too much water after a few weeks of heavy rain.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to KRH Guarden Line with ScampRichter. We're gonna be talking about a
lot of things regarding gardening right now. We've got a lot going on,
you know this, we've kind ofbeen through a lot of rain lately and
that has brought some interesting things toour gardens, good and bad. And
as a matter of fact, ithas helped in many ways our plants to

(00:25):
just really thrive. You know,plant, there's no such thing as too
much water with a plant. Holdon, hold on for you. What's
the problem with too much water islack of oxygen in the roots. So
if you, for example, here'sa good example, you put a plant
in a vase of water and dropon those little aquarium stones in the bottom.

(00:46):
That's bubbling the water up, theair up through the water, and
that plant will do just fine.I mean, as long as the roots
can get oxygen, they're going tobe okay. But when you sit in
stagnant, not moving, no oxygenbeing added water in the ground in a
clay soil, plants struggle. Anda lot of our plants have been that
way. And what does that Whatdoes that mean in terms of what does

(01:08):
a gardener do and what do welearn from that. Well, one thing
we learned from it is to sayover and over again the mantra brown stuff
before green stuff, and what thatmeans. Basically, for those of you
who are new to garden line haveheard me go on and on about it,
brown stuff before green stuff means getthe soil right and then put in

(01:29):
the plants, and the plants willthrive. That's how that works. So
what does get the soil right mean? It means raised beds so excess water
drains away. I'm going to puta couple of peach trees, which hate
soggy wet feet. I'm going toput them in a spot in my yard
that is notoriously poorly drained, butI'm putting them in raised beds. I'm
getting them by a foot up offthe ground, and then I'm going to

(01:52):
work with amending the soil around there, and I'm going to do a little
bit to improve drainage. But I'mgetting the plant roots up. At least
a majority of them I can upout of that out of that water,
and they'll do fine drainage. That'simportant. Secondly, the content of the
soil when it comes to organic matter, the more organic matter you have there,

(02:13):
The soil tends to go from justa sticky mass of clay into something
that's crumbly when it's moderately moist,and that is good. Crumbly soil has
structure. Air can move down,water can move down. Your plants are
going to do well. So that'sorganic matter, and that would be also
expanded shale. Expanded shale. Ifyou don't know what it is, the

(02:37):
easiest way I can describe it isremember the old gray kitty litter, the
dusty stuff. Well, imagine thatgray kitty litter that's been fired in an
oven with steam and the little particlesswell up and are very pitted in portous
like lava rock on a barbecue pit. That put in the soil at a
decent rate, not just a sprinkling, but at a good amount of it

(03:00):
mixed in holds the soil particles openand it creates an ongoing benefit there.
Now with the compost that adds thenutrients, it helps stimulate microbial activity because
they love organic matter. They lovecarbon and decomposed organic matter. There's a
lot of carbon in it, andthat helps your soul structure as well.
It decomposes over time, so youhave to continue to add some But what

(03:23):
have we fixed? We fixed thedrainage with a raised bed, and we
fix the soil itself internal structure withexpanded shale and organic matter. And then
finally it's the nutrients. Nutrients arecritical and nutrients are essential for the plant
to grow, but in order forit to be healthy and for it to

(03:45):
perform well, they're absolutely essential forthat as well. For example, with
your lawn, Nitrofoss Superturf is aquality fertilizer that gradually feeds over time.
And if you haven't fed your lawnby the way, now's the time to
get the slow relief summer application on. If you go to my website gardening
with Skip dot com, there's twofree lawn care schedules there. One of

(04:08):
them includes about fertilizing and what touse and the products we would recommend.
Now, Nitrofos Superturf definitely on thatlist. You're going to find it in
a lot of places in Chanty Forestdown to Richmond, Rosenberg Growers Outlet up
in Willis and RCW Nursery on TomboParkway. They all carry the Nitrophos superturf.
You put it down now and itwill feed your lawn for three or

(04:30):
four months to come quality product.So we've improved the drainage of the soil,
we've improved the internal structure of thesoil, and we've improved the nutrient
content of the soil when we addthe nutrients as needed, and after that
you get you a good quality plant. Take decent care of it, and
you're going to have success. Butto PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared

(04:55):
plot, yes, that's a tonguetwister, is just it's amount to plant
abuse. The Society for the Preventionof Cruelty to Plants needs to have officers
stationed at all plants sell counters,and they need to follow you home and
make sure you're you've prepared your soilbefore you put that poor little plant in

(05:15):
the ground. Okay, I'm joking, but you get the idea. I
can't over I cannot over emphasize becauseit is so important to get the brown
stuff right before you do the greenstuff. What was the last time you
went up to Arburgate. Arbigate Nurseryin Tomball is one of the premier nurseries
in this whole region and Arburgate isthe kind of place where I like to

(05:41):
say, just make sure and allowssome time because you're going to want to
wander through there. There's so manykinds of plants. There's all these little,
you know, gift shops and buildingsyou can go through. There's lots
of landscape bling, but plants,plants, plants and staff that know what
they're talking about. And Arbigate knowsabout brown stuff before green stuff because they've

(06:01):
got their one two three easy system. The one two three easy system is
a fertilizer for anything that has roots. It is a soil that also includes
some of the expanded shale, anda compost that also includes some of the
expanded shale. And when you takethose three together and then you bring your
plants home with it, you're settingyourself up for success. Now, Arbrogate's

(06:24):
got a brand new parking lot inthe back. I've been talking about it
for a while, but you needto try it out. It's easy to
get in and out of. Allyou do is turn down Trisha Road either
before or after Arburgate and swing aroundthe back. And that all weather a
lot. I could rain ten inchesand you just drive right in there.
It's a really cool new porous designthat absorbs the moisture. But oh gosh,

(06:46):
that back access that's all I usenow. I used to drive it
front all the time. Nope,not anymore. Back access is so easy,
easy and easy out at the arborgate. And you know when you
get in there, you're going tofind people that know what they're talking about,
that won't steer you wrong. It'llmake sure you get the right plants
that are going to thrive where youlive. We're going to take a little

(07:06):
break on a garden line. Youknow it would help. Since this is
a call in show. If Igave you our number seven one three two
one two KTRH, go ahead andcall now, get on the board and
you'll be first up. Pierce Capes. Pierce Caapes, they're the professionals that
can do it. And Pierscapes notonly will do landscape renovations, they can

(07:26):
do hardescapes, they can do landscapelighting. They can improve poorly drained areas.
Yes, they will make sure thatwater goes somewhere else. They know
how to do that. They canalso check your irrigation system so it's running
efficiency efficiently. We're about to startand needing at big time, so now's
the time to give them a call. You know, if you go ahead
and get on the schedule. Listen, a good landscaper stays very busy,

(07:48):
so give them a call. Don'tdelay, even if you don't want the
work done right now. I mean, just give them a call and get
on the schedule. Piercescapes dot comtwo eight one three seven oh fifty sixty
pierscapes dot com two eight one threeseven oh five zero six zero and ask
them about their quarterly maintenance service.That also is a really cool thing that

(08:13):
takes the worry away from you andthey make sure it keeps looking good.
We're going to head out to talkto Jeff. Now, Hello, Jeff,
Hello, how are you? I'mwell, sir, How can we
help? Well? I grew sometomatoes in ten gallon pots from sea.
They you know, all the greenparts grew very quickly, got some nice

(08:37):
tomatoes on them. But I wouldsay the top three quarters to about five
six to the tomato is red.But the bottom of the tomato just looks
like it has a black cap onit, right, almost like if you'd
taken a little bit of black paintand put it in a saucer and dip

(09:00):
the tomato. It's black and I'mwondering what has caused, what do we
do wrong? And yeah, howto fix it going forward? The most
common cause, especially as you thismay progress into full fledged decay what you're
seeing, but a blossom androt iswhat we often happen on our have happened
to our tomatoes, and it's causedby a lack of calcium reaching the end

(09:22):
of the fruit, which is thebottom of the fruit. Uh. And
so typically it's water level fluctuations likevery dry to wet or soggy wet to
dry. Those fluctuations will cause that. There's also something that can happen internally
where cells begin to break down andyou start to get that darkening and collapse

(09:43):
on the inside. That shows upas black on the out side as well,
And that's more physiological in general.If I would I would check the
water levels in the swot they're stayingtoo wet to soggy, wet or fluctuating
like I described, Then if youcan fix that part, that would be

(10:05):
step one. There are sprays thathelp get calcium to the tomato, but
they're not by the time you seethe problem, it's a little late.
Really for them, and it generallyfixes itself as we move on into the
season. However, right now you'retalking about a lot of fruit that's already
been lost, and so there's justnot a magical wand to take care of

(10:26):
it. Did you tell me ifthis isn't a container or not it is,
it's a ten gallon container. Yeah, So the problem with the containers
the roots are limited to that spotand they dry out easy, they drive
fast because it doesn't have the extensiveroot system, So fluctuating soul moisture is

(10:46):
almost inherent to growing in a container. You've got to be a little extra
careful with that. And then secondlythat the container drain holes drain properly if
they're plugged up by sitting on thesoil, you know, and the drains
in the bottom. You can geta backup of water logging from that as
well. What would you recommend asfar as consistency of water? How many

(11:11):
times a week and how much waterfor you know, like I said,
it's in a ten gallon container.The plant itself is probably about yeah,
three feet tall, you know,Jeff, I can give you a while
stab at it, but it dependsso much on the kind of soil mix,
is it chunky or is it mucky? The certainly the volume, the

(11:33):
size of the tomato plant, becausethe bigger the plant, the more water
it's going to pump. The location, How many full hours of sun,
I mean, the very the optionsare so endless when it comes to recommendations.
In general, all things being prettynormal, a good amount of sun,

(11:54):
a good mix, and so on, I would say you ought to
you probably ought to be one utteringthose about every other day with about a
gallon of water. But it's itmay it may be that you have to
water more often than that if thereare in a lot of sun and the
temperature really gets high. Okay,okay, I don't think. Well,

(12:16):
Skip, I appreciate, I appreciatethe advice, all right, enjoy your
share chartle listen every week. Sothanks, thank you so much. I
appreciate that. Appreciate that very much. Thanks for call. Nature's Way Resources
is having a summer sale. Infact, I was just talking to Ian
yesterday. They have thirty percent offof most of their plants. Now that

(12:37):
excludes one thing, that is thenative sun perennials. Native native plants that
are perennials for sun that is excludedeverything else thirty percent off through July first,
So this is the month if you'regoing to get them. If you've
thought about putting out native plants orpollinator plants, they've got a huge selection
of those. And every time Iwalk through there and I was looking at

(12:58):
their plants of the day, andI'm always surprised at some of the things
they carry. They have just someplants that's like, Oh, I didn't
know that was even available on themarket. That is really cool. Now
what they really are about it,Nature's Way traditionally has been soil, but
don't forget that they have those plants. They also have twenty percent discount on

(13:20):
all composts, mulches, and soilblends twenty percent off. But listen,
you have to tell them that youheard about them on garden Line in order
to get that twenty percent off.Now, the twenty percent off is for
bag products and their bulk products.Nature's Way is up there on Interstate forty
five where fourteen eighty eight comes inalmost all the way to Conro forty five.

(13:43):
It's real easy to get to getin and out Nature's Way resources.
You need to check them out theirmaterials are high quality and you're not going
to go wrong. I'd like togo out to Jersey Village and now we're
going to talk to George. Hello, George, Yeah, good morning,
Skip you again. I love yourprogram man, Thank you. So I've

(14:03):
got some squash that's really going good, except that the vine borders that digging
into them pretty well. So isthere any hope to saving the plant?
And if I start over again,there is a way to prevent them from
coming back on new plants? Allright. So depending on the degree of
damage, you know, you mayhave like three or four vine bores in

(14:24):
a vine. I mean, theycan attack that heavily, and when you
hit that point, it's very difficultto keep the things alive. Some types
the squash will root at the nodewherever the vine goes and there's a leaf
coming out, they'll put a rootout there, all right. And so
if you can cover that up withjust a little bit of soil and get
them rooting down the vine, thenwhen they are disconnected from their own root

(14:48):
system, they still can keep going. So's that's one thing. Beginning to
spray regularly with BT and getting it, making sure you're getting it on the
vine around the base of the vineand a long the vine. That is
important. If you don't have alot of squash, you can check them
over for vine bore eggs. You'renot going to find them all, but
I was in a planting the otherday and I probably found six or seven

(15:11):
vine bore eggs on one plant.And when you find you can just pick
those little things off and smash themwith your fingers. I mean they're tiny,
bout size ahead of a pin,but that would be an option if
you're going to grow some more,I would grow it underneath a netting.
There is a garden netting. Thinkof it as a windows screen that's soft
as a bedsheet, very tiny squaresand garden netting. Some people use roe

(15:35):
cover fabric. I like the gardennetting a little better. But if you
can't get it, get the roecover fabric, cover it all the way
to the ground, and the mamaviin boor can't get to them to lay
eggs because they've been out laying eggs. Well now as you know, terrific.
Yeah, And then what happens iswatch your squash. They typically start
with male blooms and then begin toalso add the female blooms, leave the

(15:58):
cover on until the email balloons appear, and then you have two options.
You can pull the cover off andthe vinebergers you're going to find them,
but you're going to get a decentharvest. Before those vines are the eggs
laid, the larva hatch out,they tunnel, they do the damage.
The vined eyes. You got alittle window there. The other thing you
can do is lift them up.If it's not many plants, just take
a little brush hand pollinatum, aqute tip and pollinatum. Sometimes I'll pick

(16:22):
a mail bloom, pull the pedalsoff and use it as a dammer to
pollinate, and then put the coverback down again. That's a little more
work, but it's a higher percentsuccess. It's a worth it all right.
Thanks t Hello, appreciate it.Good luck with that, George,
appreciate the call very much. Aand A plants and produce. Those of
you who live up in Montgomery,you know about them. You got dry

(16:44):
pass it practically every day. It'sright there on the east side of Montgomery
on one oh five, so it'sreally close to all the lake neighborhoods.
Just your backyard basically, not justa short drive from Conro as well.
They always care a good supply ofeverything you need, including the fertilizers I
talk about on Gardenline. So ifyou're looking for a product from nitrofost or

(17:07):
Nelson or Microlife, if you're lookingfor a soil from Heirloom Soils or Nature's
Way resources, they've got all ofthat up there. Their landscaping crew also
serves the area around Lake Conroe.You might want to contact them about getting
some work done. If you'd likea little help with some of the things
you're doing out there, they canhelp you with that as well. Seven

(17:30):
days a week from nine to five, So basically they're always open. That's
one way to put it. Aand A plants and produce up in Montgomery
Shed. Give them a good hardlookover. They really do a good job
and they have that the Microlife,Yeah mentioned that, that's one of the
things they carry. They have thatpurple bag. That's the humans plus.

(17:52):
And when we're fertilizing, we alwaysthink about the three numbers Nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium. Those are important andthey're the three numbers on every fertilizer
bag. Sometimes you get an extranumber two for some other things. But
basically ever bag has got those threenumbers, and with microlife it's a six
' two four, which is athree one two ratio. It works excellent.

(18:14):
But in addition to doing the fertilizing, I would suggest you begin a
regimen of at least once a year. Once a year'd be fine. The
purple bag microlife humts plus. Ifyou take composts and you concentrate it down
into little granules, that is whathumts plus is stimulates. Microbial activity helps
with soil structure. It's basically avery high carbon material and microbes just really

(18:40):
really go nuts with that. Theyneed an external source of nitrogen to survive
all from microlife. If you wantto know where to get it, I
will go to a NA Plants andProduce or go to Microlifefertilizer dot com and
find out all the places you canfind it here in this area. We're
going to go now to Paarland andtalk to Mary. Hello, Mary,
bye, good morning, good morning. My question is several months ago I

(19:06):
had in my backyard resold and whenI'm mowing it, I'm seeing the moths
fly out in this in the eveningwhen I'm mowing and I know that that's
not good. That's not a goodsign, and I don't know what to
do with how to treat them.Well, we are way on the early

(19:27):
end of sid webworm. We canstart getting them. If you look at
my schedule, I have the sidewebworm. It's something we're watching for starting
in June. But it would bea little unusual for that to be what
the moths are right now. I'mnot saying it isn't. But if you

(19:49):
could capture some and put them ina little jar, stick them in the
freezer, freezer, and then takea picture of one and send it to
me, I can tell you ifthat's what you got or not. I
need a moth to be able tosee it. There's a lot of different
kinds of moth that you'll find.So I tear what Mary, Let's hang
on. I'm going to go toa break and I want to continue this

(20:10):
discussion with you if you don't mindhanging on just a moment. All right,
here we go. We'll be rightback. Let's see we got you
live here? Mary? Are youthere? Yes, sir? All right,
there we go. Thank you.Well, we were talking about moths.
There are other moths that could beflying up, so if we could
identify it, that would be veryhelpful. If they're little tiny moths and

(20:33):
they as you walk across the lawn, they fly up out of the lawn,
stay down low, and go backdown into the lawn. That sounds
a lot like sideweb worms. Butit's not the only moth that can do
that. So if you notice thathabit, that flight habit of them as
you walk through, they're probably moreon the larger side. And then they

(20:56):
fly away. Okay, they don'tgo back down. I would put about
an eighty percent chance you don't havesodwb worms out there, but I'm happy
to look at one. If youcan catch one. They're flying away.
It's gonna be hard to catch anyway. But yes, if you get my
schedule, if you go on lineto gardening with skip dot com, there's
a free schedule called the Lawn Pest, Disease and Weed Management Schedule, and

(21:21):
it takes you January through December throughinsects, diseases, and weeds. What
happens when and if you look June, July, August, and September or
potential sod web worm months very unusualto happen. This early, but it
could happen, okay, And sowhat do you recommend it if it is,

(21:42):
Yeah, if you're going to treatfor them on the schedule, I
have it color coded so insects areyellow. So you go to the bottom
and if you look at yellow,it says chinchbugs and sodweb worms. And
there's a couple of products on therefor those. There's a nitrofossbug Out max
us bug Out Max, and there'sanother product called Cyanara. Like what is

(22:04):
what a cyanari means? See youlater? I don't I don't know I
should know that, But anyway,Nitropos bug Out Max is one you might
want to try. It's a granulefrom Nitrofoss and basically you spread it out
there and within forty eight hours it'sdoing what it does and taking taking out
the insects that would be that youare your target, and that could be

(22:26):
fleas ticks. I mean, itcould be chinchbugs, it could be you
know, any kind of a pestinsect that is out there in your lawn.
And that would also include the youknow, the sod web worms as
well, and would that heart frogsand lizards and all My good stuff.
Well, it is. It isan insecticide, and used properly, we
don't worry about that. But thereis always the potential with an insecticide to

(22:52):
have damage to something. If youwanted to go with something that is more
organic on the sod web worms,you could use either BT or spinosid.
Now, bt LA's only a dayor two, and so you're gonna spread.
You're gonna probably spread a week later, probably spread a week later,
you know, just continuing to staywith it. Spinocid is going to last

(23:15):
a little bit longer. But don'tapply those until get out there in your
lawn. You may have to dropdown on your knees and look close.
When you see leaf blades being chewedup. That's when BT and spinosid should
be applied, because these pests havethey have to eat the BT. Okay,
yeah, so if yeah, ifyou spray it on, the mad

(23:36):
is not going to do anything,right, Okay, that's true. You
know, I mean I have somany good little critters. I don't want
to get rid of them. Okay. Well, I mean, you know,
people range in their thoughts and opinionson all of it, but that
I can respect that. That's fine. You have, you have many options.
Okay, yes, sir, allright, thank you so much.

(24:00):
I enjoy your show tremendously. Ithink you're doing a great job and I
appreciate it. Thank you, Mary, thank you, cal You take care.
Yeah, that night, Fusz bugout Max. It's it's it is
an insect to site. If it'san insect that's going to kill it,
that basically is what happens. Andit and it sticks around at last,
it'll it'll basically work for the entireseason out there. Now that would include

(24:22):
you know, if fire ants crawlingthrough it, they're gonna they're gonna get
controlled by that that it's not goingto go down in the mound, but
it's going to kill the ones thatcrawl across that product out there in the
thatch. Uh and then chinchberks andside web worms too. Uh. And
you can find it like all areMicrosoft products. I mean, they're available
just about everywhere you would go,especially like places like Ace Hardware stores Katie

(24:45):
Ace Hardware for example, Ace HardwareCity and Memorial. Uh. You're going
to find them at Stanton Shopping Centerdown in Alvin as well. They carry
that. All right, Well,we had somebody on the line there was
about to click on it. Theydisappeared, so they who knows what happened.
I had been talking about soil thismorning, the importance of getting that

(25:07):
right and everything that. The issuewith water and why too much water is
a problem on our soils. Wecomplain about rain, too much rain,
and then next thing you know,we're complaining about not having seen rain for
three weeks, and it's one hundreddegrees every day, and that's just kind
of how the weather goes. Ifit was easy, anybody could do it.

(25:30):
But actually gardening is not that difficult. You get you well prepared soil,
you take care of it, youmake sure that you know it has
the nutrients it needs, and you'regoing to find it. It's not that
difficult to guard here. Let's goto the woodlands and talk to Warren.
Hello, Warren, heyre you doSkip? I'm well, thanks, say

(25:51):
Skip, I've got a I putin much of a sod for those rain
floord square feet whole palette and it'sthis. It's this shade tolerant s Bermuda,
not Bermuda. And I did everythingthat practiced right. I killed tail

(26:11):
till they all all your prescribed procedures, and I watered it every day and
it just took all through it reallywell. Then then we had those heavy,
heavy rains, and I think itmust have gotten over water because it's
starting to dine back. Okay,and now I've got sprigs. There's a
lot of little streaks growing up thatit really wasn't that full lush coat.

(26:33):
So I'm wondering. I put somefertilizer in some also some roots stimulator.
What else can I do? Allright, I've got about thirty seconds for
a break if I need to carryover, if you're willing to wait.
Basically, if the shade is toomuch, that's not an unusual result.
I've got some zoiza. It's thesame kind of thing and sun it looks

(26:56):
great, and in shade it's gettingthat spriggy sparsely to it. It could
also be a disease take all rootrots possible a little fast for take all
after sodding, but it also couldbe something called gray leaf spot. If
you would like, I'm going toput you on hold here for our commercial.
If you would like, the producerwill pick it up and give you
my email and then you can getup real close to it and take me

(27:21):
some good, well focused pictures andI'll be happy to, you know,
take a look at them and seeif I can diagnose the disease there.
But for right now, I'm gonnahave to put you on hold and run.
I'll come back to if you're stillaround after break, all right,
folks, we'll be right back,hey, Warren. So we're talking about
your siding and the issues that you'vehad with it. Gray leaf spot is

(27:48):
it loves shady areas, and itloves moist moist conditions, and especially excessive
fertilizing too, it makes it evenworse. That's one that rots the leaves
of uf. Generally the grass willcome right back. The problem with shady
areas is, you know, wepick a grass that is shade tolerant.
That doesn't mean it wants to bein the shade. It just means it's
more tolerant than others with the shade. But the less sunlight you have,

(28:12):
the less energy you can get intothe plant. And so therefore regrowth and
density and filling back in is alot slower. Are you there, uh,
warrant, you are cutting out alot on us here. Let's let's

(28:33):
try to get we may. Let'sgo ahead and try again. Yeah,
I tell you what we're not.We're not I'm not able to I'm not
able to understand it all. Uhjust hang up and call back in and
our producer will put you right upthe top here. Okay, thanks,
all right, sorry, but ohwait, are you there still? I'm

(28:56):
here? Okay, suddenly you gotclear as of Well, go ahead,
let's continue this. So what Ireach, stimulator, No, because it's
not a lack of roots that's theproblem. I think if you want to,
you know, take those pictures andsend them, email them to me.

(29:18):
Let me look up close where Ican see as if you know,
my eyes were like six inches awayfrom the grass runners or something that that
kind of or maybe a picture ofthe whole area too, would be very
helpful, And let me look atthem because I can sit here and guess.
Because there's a lot of possibilities,but we need to get you nailed
down to the specific cause and thereforethe specific treatment to get out out of

(29:41):
that situation. I got your emaildress now, okay, good, all
right, Warren. Well let's takeit that way. I think that's going
to get your better answer. No, I thank you. Appreciate it,
you bet, you bet, yeah, that something to think about the when
it comes to grass, Saint Augustineis about as shade tolerance you're going to

(30:04):
get. And there are some SaintAugustine's that do a little bit better than
others in the shade. It's notnight and day, but it's you know,
it's a little bit better. Wesay. You know that palmetto,
for example, is one that's toutedis being a little more shade tolerant.
But the bottom line is light intensity, you know, because think of it
this way. Think of grass leavesas solar panels, and think of the

(30:27):
energy that a solar panel produces asthe carbohydrates the food that drives the grass
plant. So if you take asolar panel and you put it in fifty
percent sun, you're going to geta lot less electricity out of it.
Right, if you take a grassblade and you put it in fifty percent
shade, you're going to get alot less carbohydrate production, which drives everything.

(30:52):
It drives growth, it drives density, it drives health. And so
we can get launs to hang onin the shade. But how shady is
shade, you know? Is itfull sun? For six hours and then
it goes completely pitch dark shade oris it a dapple shade all through the
day that's very bright. You see. Again, it's just like a solar

(31:12):
panel. The more light that youget, if you can get a decent
amount of light all through the day, then you can grow in quite shady
areas because the shade is so bright. And that's how that works. So
you know, it's not we liketo say, well your grass needs six

(31:33):
hours of sun. Well that's agood guess for Saint Augustine, but in
general it really there's a lot ofdifferent kinds of shade, as I just
pointed out, So when you can'tget enough energy, it's not going to
fill back in. It may lookokay, it may hold on, but
when something starts giving it problems likefoot traffic or disease or anything like that,

(31:53):
then it declines and it just isn'table to come back to where it
was. That's been my experience withit. When shade is too much,
so you can brighten the shade removinga tree, removing limbs. The problem
with pruning to brighten is the treatiseregrows again and so you end up pruning

(32:14):
your tree in ways that are notthe best way to prune, and oftentimes
but also you end up with itjust being a temporary fix, and it's
not inexpensive to go in and doenough pruning to actually improve the light levels
down at the ground level. AllRight, some things to think about there
while Bird's Unlimited is it is absolutelymy favorite place to get things related to

(32:37):
birds and whether it's a quality feeder, whether it is you know, a
book to learn more about birding,whether it's just walking in and talking to
the folks there and getting good adviceon birding, it's the place to go.
But I tell you, when itcomes to the seeds, the feed
for the birds, they have blendsfor every kind of bird. They even

(32:58):
have seasonal blends. The nesting blendis one we've been putting out a lot
at our house. The nesting blendis a product that is going to help
them when they're trying to raise young, when they're trying to, you know,
go through that process. And whatI find is that Wildbird's Unlimited Seed
is all bird feed. It's allbird feeding. It all goes in a

(33:21):
bird unless it has a sunflower haulon it. They're going to kick that
on the ground, but they're notgoing to pick through the seed and kick
some they don't like out. It'sall going into the bird. So when
you buy a pound of wild birdseed, you get a pound of feed
that goes into a bird. That'skind of how I like to look at
it. Wilbird's unlimited six stores inthe greater Houston area. Just go to
WBU dot com forward slash Houston youcan find the one that's going to be

(33:45):
closest to you. We're going togo now to Tomball and talk to Ken.
Hello. Ken, Hey, Skip, Hey, morning morning. You
were just talking about shady areas.I've got an area like that that I
have difficulty getting anything to grow there, and I've noticed that I have had

(34:10):
like a little bit of moss thathas grown there. Is that something that
you've heard of. Yeah, mossoften grows in a shady area, especially
if it stays moist moist it doeswell, and you know it's in the
way of grass trying to root inand stuff like that, so there's a

(34:32):
little battle going on between the two. But if it's so shady moss is
growing, I think you're gonna havea little difficulty getting a good dunse lawn
in that area. That's offer.It's a very uh, it's not travel
traveled area. In other words,people don't go there on that side.
So is there a moss that Icould get to grow over there? Oh?

(34:55):
So you're looking for moss? Yeah, it was. I was just
wondering since I've got something that issurviving there. Yeah. Ken, to
be honest, I think I've seenthings like that for sale and garden centers,
but I am not a not agood moss expert. In other words,

(35:16):
moss you would want a plant you'rein Tombol, just give them a
call over at the Arborgay talking toBeverly or Kennon and just say, do
you sell any kind of a littlemoss material that could be used in the
ground. I think they might orthey're going to have plants like that that'll
put up with a lot of shade, But as far as which particular one,
I wouldn't be able to tell youthat. All right, Thank you?

(35:37):
All right, Ken, thanks alot. That's good. That's turning
lemons into lemonade. We love tovisit new garden centers new to us.
That is not necessary brand new gardens, but new to us, and I
just like going and seeing what's newat a garden center. You know,

(35:58):
in Chanted Gardens is one of thosekind of places. It's a destination.
It just absolutely is. When yougo to Enchanted Gardens, you know you're
going to have an outstanding selection ofquality, quality plants. You know you're
going to get people that know whatthey're talking about. You know that whatever
kind of gardening you're interested in,they're going to be able to show you
and sell you and provide advice onthat kind of gardening. That's how that

(36:22):
works. Do you want summer colorplants, they got it. Do you
want containers? And you should wantcontainers. There's so many beautiful container options
and you can change them out.They can show you how to put a
container together. They can give youa selection, like here's an idea for
four or five plants. Give ita try. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.

(36:43):
They're on the Katie Folscher side ofRichmond. You got to get out
there. You got to visit it. Today wouldn't be a bad day to
go do that. Well, you'vebeen listening to garden Line. We're going
to take a little top of thehour break here. We will be back
with your gardening questions if you wouldlike to give a call now. That
way, when we come back fromthe break, you'll be the first up.

(37:06):
That's always a good way to go. Things tend to get kind of
busy once we get rolling again.Appreciate you being a listener. We're going
to turn it over to the newsright now and I will be back.
Oh, I want to remind youone thing June fifteenth. I'm going to
be at the Wall Birds Unlimited inbel Air bel Air, Ye, Southwest
usteron June fifteenth, two weeks fromnow eleven am to one pm. You

(37:29):
need to come out and see me. We're going to have some giveaways and
we always have a good time.Entering our seven o'clock hour, second hour
of the day, ready to answeryour gardening questions. Always enjoy visiting plants
for all seasons up on two fortynine on the way to Tomball Tomball Parkway.
You know, the one way Ilike to think about things is when
it comes to plants for all seasons. That is is that if you have

(37:52):
a brown thumb, if you walkin there, they'll make it green.
How about that? Meaning now you'veheard me say before, there are no
such things brown thumbs. There's onlyan informed thumbs. That's how they make
it green. They give you theadvice that you need, they sell you
the plants that will grow here,and they give you after the sale service
that is worth its weight in gold. Right there. Plants for All Season

(38:15):
has been around since what nineteen seventythree? The Flierty family. They know
the area, they know the plants. They are experienced in every way,
shape and form with how to havesuccess with things. They're gardeners themselves.
For crying helloud, you can takea picture in there for diagnosis. You
can take a sample in there,putting all a plastic bag, especially if
it's got some creeping crowd on it. But Plants for All Seasons dot com

(38:38):
is their website if you'd like togive them a call. Two eight one,
three seven six sixteen forty six.If you've never been there before,
crawl out from under that rock andgo up Highway two forty nine, exit
Luetta and just pass Luetta on theway toward Tumble. You'll be right there
at Plants for All Seasons dot com. We're going to go now to Baytown

(39:00):
and talk to Steve Hello Steve,Good morning. I have a question.
I've got some live oaks in myyard that are twenty five years old,
and I have the aero of Excepticsystem. Two of the trees that were
sprayed pretty i mean like daily bythis system. Now I have a bark

(39:20):
where the bark is deteriorated and rottingoff where the waters hit them constantly.
Yeah, I've obviously moved the sprinklerheads when I've discovered the problem. I
found it on the first tree fouror five years ago, and I removed
all the rotten bark and you know, there were ants living under it and

(39:44):
that stuff. Yeah, it seemsto have kind of recovered and it's healed
over on the leading edge. Butonce I continue to kind of rode away,
and now I've got another tree thatseems to be having the same problem
developed, even though I've stopped thewater it years ago. What do you
recommend you just feel back the rotand help it comes heels. Yeah,

(40:07):
you know, you just get theold dead material out of there so that
that interior wood that is now exposedto the elements can dry out after a
rain when it gets wet. That'llslow down the rotting. If it's allowed
to fully dry out between rains.Just keep pulling it back. Well,
take back the loose bark. There'sno funge side or anti canker spray to

(40:31):
put on it if it were acanker going on in there. Generally,
a healthy tree with some health toit will start to create callous to close
that area back over as I thinkyou refer to the leading edge. It'll
start closing it back over in time. Now, if a tree is very

(40:52):
weak and is not able to dothat, or if you got an active
canker that is continuing to eat away, the only thing in your power is
try to get that tree healthy.And that would be you know, during
summer extensive drought in terms of lotsof hot, lots of dry for a
long time. You're giving your treesome rescue treatments with water would help.

(41:14):
Certainly nutrients can help too. Butnow they're super healthy, they are great
shape except for this issue. Wellthen they auto callousat over again. What's
the trunk diameter roughly on that tree? The biggest one the diameters probably two
feet and the other ones probably twentyinches. Okay, well, they're getting

(41:37):
kind of where they're reaching they're closerto their full size than they were when
they're planted, for sure, sothey're slowing down a little bit. And
that is okay, that is anokay thing. I think your trees ought
to wall it off and be fine. A good healthy tree just has a
way of shutting that down, aswe say, walling it off and then

(42:00):
beginning to call us back in toclose over. Should I go ahead and
take it back to where there's solidgood growth? Are just the loose?
Well, take take the loose back. The only my only hesitation in saying
yes to that question is don't rewoundthe tree in taking it back, you

(42:20):
know, yeah, just be carefulnot to significantly overdo it. Yeah,
okay, okay, okay, thankyou very much. All right, Steve,
thank you for the call. Iappreciate that. And you know,
talking about trees, Affordable Tree Servicehere in Houston, that is the one
that we talk about all the timeon guard Line. That is the one
that I'm happy to have as oursponsor. Affordable Tree Martin Spoon Moore.

(42:45):
They know what they're doing. Andlisten, today starts hurricane season. When
the wind blows, we have havocon our trees. And you need a
good, strong, well pruned treeto do that. Any dead limbs for
crying out love, those have gotto come out, but also just good
pruning to create a structure that holdsup well during the wind. You don't

(43:07):
want a tree to fall on anythingvaluable. I can't express enough the importance
of proper tree care going into theseason. We are now entering the storm
season doesn't even have to be ahurricane. Call Martin spoon Moore at seven
one three six nine twenty six sixtythree. Say that again seven one three
six nine nine two six sixty three, or go to Afftree Service dot com.

(43:32):
Martin's a professional, he does goodwork, and he stays busy.
Don't delay. Go ahead and callhim now. Get something set up so
he can come out and give yourtrees a lookover. He's gonna charge one
hundred and fifty bucks to come outand look at a tree. But if
he says, well, this iswhat I think you need and you hire
him to do it, that onefifty goes right into that. So essentially
it didn't cost to have him comeout. Martin spoon Moore at Affordable Tree

(43:55):
I'm going to head out now toAlice. Hello, Alice, good morning
morning. I have a well,I've kind of had a white old tree
about thirty years old in our backyard, and when Harvey came, it kind
of damaged that little and I keptit prune really good where the air would

(44:19):
flow through it. And but yesterdayI had part of it just salves.
Okay, so I'm having I'm havingit, yeah, taken down completely today.
All right? Do you want toreplace it? Right? I want
to replace it, but I don'twant a big tree like that. Well,

(44:39):
I'm seventy eight, so I saidit's time to be it. Yeah,
don't have to worry about big trees. It was beautiful shade in my
patios. And I'm going to havenothing but done out there. All right,
let me let's do this. I'mgonna put you on hole. We
got to run a little break here. When we come back, I'll give

(45:00):
you some suggestions for trees that woulddo well for that area. Thank you
so much. All right, Oh, we're gonna go back to Alice and
Alice. Let's see, we werecutting we cut on it. We're cutting
down an oak tree and we needsomething a little smaller to replace it for
shade on the patio. Is thatcorrect? Yes, alrighty, well you

(45:21):
could. There are a number ofcrape myrtles that achieve a pretty good size
actually that will spread out and providea shade. Plus you get the blooms
when they're young. You get themwhen they're older, but they're up high
and you don't see them. ButCraig Murdle be a possibility. There is
a tree called Chinese fringe tree.Chinese fringe has beautiful white fringe john like

(45:45):
the like friend f r that's it. That's it. Chinese fringe that has
beautiful shaggy white blooms in the springthat have a nice little fragrance to them.
And it doesn't grow real fast,but it doesn't get big either.
You know, it's gonna probably ifyou get around twenty five feet in time,

(46:05):
but that that's that's in time.There's certainly a lot of other trees
we could put out there, butif you're you know, it's kind of
here's the trade off. We're tryingto get you some shade soon, but
we're trying not to have a bigtree, and that combo is a little
a little hard to come by.You know, grow fast and don't get

(46:27):
too big. But my neighborhoods createmyrtles, and I was thinking about that,
but I don't know how. Yeah, you know, well I'll probably
go with that. Yeah you can. Here's what you need to take.
Go online and do your Google orwhatever search you use, and write and
type in type in crape myrtle,and type in Skip Richter all in a

(46:50):
Google search, and you will finda chart that has crape myrtles from three
feet to thirty five feet high.Is that a little picture? I mean,
Skip Skip Richter like the earthquake scale. That's my name, Skip Richter,
Hatch and also put I just wentblank. There a great myrtle and

(47:13):
Skip Ricter. You're going to finda chart and it'll have all sizes and
have a little picture of them.It'll tell you if they're disease resistant or
not. And you just want toget one that's going to get big.
Natchez is a good one. Natchezhas white ballooms. It'll get thirty feet
in time, but it has beautifulcinnamon colored barks, so when you're sitting
on the patio looking at the treetrunk, it's even pretty. Okay,

(47:35):
okay, all right, thank youthere all right, Thank you appreciate it.
Thank you for the call very much. We're going to go now to
Mike in the Woodlands. Hey Mike, Hey, good morning Skip. I
sent you some pictures of a grassyweed that I have. Yes, looks
it looks a lot like Saint Augustine, but it's not. Yep, that's

(47:57):
right. That is called doweed,doveweed. It loves wet conditions. Welcome
to Houston. Just infiltrates in thegrass if you use a pre emergent herbicide,
and if you go to my scheduleon my website, the website's Gardening
with Skip dot com, there isa two free, two free schedules on

(48:22):
there. One of them is thePest Disease and Weed Management schedule. That's
the one you want to look for. It tells you about the pre emergent
herbicides and the post emergent herbicides.So a pre emergent herbicide like barricade by
nitrofoss would be something you would putout to probably. I would do this
in mid February mid February in yourarea to prevent the doveweed and other weeds

(48:47):
from sprouting. The post emergent whichis where you're sitting right now. You
want to get a product called celsius. Celsius like the temperature celsius, and
you can apply it when the weatheris a little warmer like it is getting
now, and it is effective againstdoveweed. And if you shop around you

(49:08):
should be able to find it.Okay, Yeah, I did a pre
emergent back in February or March,and then I called you and you told
me to wait probably till still likeJude or so, to reapply. Yes,
but it didn't seem to help much, so okay, yeah, I
just need to kill it now.Yeah, kill it now. The thing

(49:30):
about pre emergency is, you know, you got to get them on at
the right rate. You got toget a good even spread of them.
You got to get them watered inand stuff. And not every weed is
equally controlled by any herbicide. Youknow, there are some some weeds that
a particular herbicide may not work against. But anyway, celsius will knock it
out. But do so soon beforeit starts going to seed, because then

(49:52):
you just have a whole lot moreseeds for next year. Yeah. Yeah,
Also, I've got a crate myrtlethat probably I've probably planted it six
or eight years ago and it's stillnot blooming. And I heard you a
couple of weeks ago say, youknow, just wait, but I'm not
seeing any type of bloom blooms onit at all, you know, where

(50:17):
it's even sprouting out. So yeah, I'm just wondering. We get that
on crapes every now and then.I always, first of all, start
with is a getting full sign thatthey want lots of sign in order to
bloom. Well, some varieties area little slower to start blooming than others.
That's a factor, but you know, by now you are to be

(50:37):
seeing at least it's putting buds outwhere it's going to open up and looms
pretty soon. Yeah, I don'tknow. I'm not go ahead, I'm
not seeing that at all, butyeah it probably it gets sun from early
morning till probably three o'clock in theafternoon. Yeah, well, I don't
know. Time is really the onlything I know to say on that.

(51:00):
There's not something you put on acrpe myrtle that makes it bloom. It's
not lacking some nutrient. You know, if the plant is growing, it's
getting the nutrients it needs. Soyeah, it looks real good. You
know, it's very green and noproblems. But it's just not there's no
seed pods coming out yet, rightor pods. Yeah, I get that.

(51:20):
Well, so I guess my mysuggestion is just kind of wait and
give it some time and see iftime heals a wound. Hopefully it would.
Should I should I try to putsome crate myrtle fertilizer on it.
You could do that. It wouldn'thurt. Yeah, you could. You
could do that. Yeah, I'vedone it probably two or three months ago.
But oh okay, we reapply it. You know, it's probably okay.

(51:44):
I it wouldn't hurt to add someI just wouldn't overdo it. You
know, we're not trying to pushit with too much nitrogen and so on.
But hopefully that that'll give you anidea. Yeah, I used a
crate myrtle food, so hopefully that'llthat would help. Okay, well,
I'll give that a try. Tryto find out Celsius. Do you think

(52:06):
ACE would have it? Uh?They probably would, most ACE hardware stores
do. Yeah, okay, yeah, I would, I would try.
I would try ACE all right,Mike, thank you? All right?
Yeah, for those of you outthere listening. You know Ace. We
say ACE is a place. It'sa place for you fill in the blank.
It was a place when we hadstorm damage and we were looking at
cleaning up. It was a placewhen we had Christmas lights to put up.

(52:30):
It's a place all the time rightnow. It's a place to get
your fertilizers and your herbicides. Theyif I talk about a fertilizer on Guardline,
they carry in at ACE. That'skind of the arrangement we have with
them because you need to know whenyou go there, you're going to get
what you want to get. Andif it's on the schedule, they should
have it there at ACE Hardware stores. And Celsius, by the way,
is on my lawn pest disease andweed management schedule, and ACE is going

(52:53):
to have that. There's like fortystores here in the Houston area. Ace
Hardware dot Com. I would recommendjust bookmark aceharbord dot com, look at
the store locator and bookmarket because thenyou can see all the little red dots
all over the area. It's easyto find an As fact, if you
walked out in your front yard andthrow a rock, if you got a
halfway decent arm. You probably couldhit an ace from wherever wherever you are.

(53:16):
We're going to go now to Westburyand talk to Anthony. Hello Anthony,
Good morning, sir. I havea sago palm. It's about four
feet high four feet wide, andit came with a home and the little
palms used to come out of thetop in bloom, not bloom, but

(53:37):
you know, grow really nicely.However, right now, just notice there's
this pine cone looking thing growing upout of it, and right now it's
about twelve inch tall and looking totake over the area where my palms palms
will come out. What can Ido about that? Is that? Okay?

(53:58):
Or all right? Tell me aboutYeah, so it's I assume it's
kind of narrow and upright, likea rocket in its shape. Right,
it's not a round bowling ball,okay. That's the male pollen structure of
the sego. Segos are male orfemale. Their separate plants male and female,
and the females get this little likea bowling ball type round thing in

(54:20):
the middle. The males produce thatcone. Basically, that's a cone,
pollen producing cone on your sego.Nothing to worry about, nothing to do
about. It'll do that and it'llkeep growing. Okay, you can do
once. Once it dies or whatevergoes away, you's got it. Prongs
will continue to come out like itused to. You should Yeah, you

(54:40):
make it. You may end upgetting a multiple bud split up at the
top where you have more than onetrunk come out like a side shoot or
something. You just have to watchit and see. It depends on several
factors. But I'll just tell youthis nothing to worry about. Your Sego
palm will live on super Thank youfor your time, SRK you bet,
thank you. I appreciate. Iappreciate your call a lot. Nelson Plant

(55:02):
Food has a couple of products thatyou need to know about in summer.
Bruce's Brew. We normally think ofit as their faster release fertilizer, and
it is faster release, but ithas two different kinds of slow release also
in it. So it is let'ssay it's front loaded with Bruce's Brew.
You're going to get a lot ofthe nutrients out soon and then some that

(55:25):
are provided over time, providing foryour lawn. Slow and Easy is the
one that's backloaded. You got someimmediate nutrients, but slow and Easy is
going to give you four months ormore of fertilizing over time as we go
through the summer season. When youdo Slow and Easy now you do not
fertilize again until get my schedule inthe fall. When we say fall fertilization

(55:49):
time. That's the next fertilization thatyou'll do, and that's going to be
way down the line. Slow andEasy from Nelson widely available, high quality
products, several different types of nitrogenin it, so that it does gradual
release over time rather than just dissolveand wash away like a typical salt based
for leisure wood and immediate release wood. This one's going to give you a
very extended release over time, gradualfeeding. It's acidifying to the soil,

(56:15):
and it's just a quality product.I'm gonna set out here. I lost
track of all the time. Here, let's see, we're going to go
to Jim and Clearlay. Hello,Jim morning. I want to just I
wanted to ask how effective I hadnoticed some gray spot and a few places

(56:35):
on the lawn, and I gotthe ego out immediately and did that on
Tuesday of last week. Then Ihad some spots that were starting to brown
and I had some brown patch ncrofossand I placed that. But we've had
these torrential rains since then. I'mwondering if any of that's left in the

(57:00):
long to do any good. Well, rain does wash these away. You
know, anything that can be dissolvedin water is going to be able to
be moved away by rain. Youknow. I hate sending people out to
do and redo, you know,product applications, because you know, a

(57:20):
little bit is good, a lotis not good. And Egle is a
systemic fungicide. It's got Michael buttanillin it. It works very well,
but you don't want to overdose plantswith it, or with any that's the
side product for that matter. SoI would watch it a little bit and
see how long before the rain didyou say you got the Eagle down.

(57:44):
I put it down about eight inthe morning. I think we started getting
rain at about four or five thatafternoon. Yeah, that's that is a
tough call. I think if itwere mine, I think I would redo
it. I believe I would.That is an awkward question for me because
I'm not you know, I don'tknow exactly how much rain you got and

(58:07):
the rate that you put it outand everything, but in general, I
think I think that I would redoit. That that's not quite enough time
for it to fully soak in anddo what it needs to do. And
then the brown patch I put downon areas where I've had brown patch before,
and I and I, rather thando more aggressive with the June feeding,

(58:30):
I was doing a white brown patchin those areas. I bought some
aged leath mole compost put down ontop of that. Would I would it
be principle to lightly add the brownpatch again before I put down the You
could do that. If you liketo do that, you can do that.

(58:51):
Hey, I'm up against a breakhere. I hope that helps,
but that leaf more compost will alsodo you a world of good. Thank
you, Jim. I appreciate yourcall very much. It's time for the
news our number seven one three twoone two K t R H. Give
us a call. We'll talk toyou about what interests you. We're going
to head to Seabrook and talk toLisa. Hello, Lisa, good morning.

(59:14):
I have a question about caterpillars.I was awake for a couple of
days and I came home and Iwas shocked some push starred was just destroyed
by caterpillars. So, I don'tknow, I've never had this problem before.
Is it something I need to putin the soil or what what should
I do? Okay? Uh?You cut out when you told me what

(59:36):
the plant was that they were eating. What was it? Okay? And
it was some kale okay? Uh. Those are going to be either cross
striped army worms or cabbage loopers.Could be both. I've seen them both
on the plants at the same time. Products that contain BT and products that
contained spinosad are both excellent organic optionsfor caterpillar control. BT is probably the

(01:00:02):
less toxic of the two. You'regoing to need to spray it on the
leaves that they're eating because they eatit, and it's a disease. It
only affects the caterpillar. It doesn'taffect lady beetles or grasshoppers or you know,
anything else. It's a natural diseaseof caterpillars, so BT, basilisther
and Gensis just it lasts about aday or two out in the environment,

(01:00:24):
So spray it and two or threedays later check it for caterpillars and spray
again. If you need to butthat is the simplest, safest way to
go ahead and knock those out.And are there any brand names you know
that sell that or what they havethat at ACE? Oh my gosh,
they're going to have three different kindsof BT at ACE. Yeah, they'll

(01:00:45):
just go in and say I needBT caterpillar control and you'll see that.
Yeah, it's it's real easy,easy to easy to do. You just
know this that it's it's an organicSo when the caterpillars are young, it's
very effective. When you get acat a pillar that's so old it's about
to make a cocoon, the BTis not going to be as effective,
but it still is I think thebest way to go. Someone had missed

(01:01:12):
seven dusts. What do you thinkabout that? Seven dust is a synthetic
product that will kill the heck outof caterpillars and any other insect including beneficial
insects. So nothing, nothing,you know, seven has been used for
decades. It's an old time product, but it's going to last a long
time. I said, BT breaksit down in a day or two.

(01:01:35):
Seven dust a week later is stillout there toxic and doing what it does.
So if you're going to bring thatgreen and to eat the foliage,
you need to wash it really good. If it's all right. Seven,
yeah, thank you all right,Lisa, thanks a lot. Appreciate,
appreciate your call. RCW Nurseries,which is the nursery there where Tampa Parkway

(01:01:59):
Highway too for you nine comes intoBeltway eight. RCW always has stuff going
on. They've always got great plants. They've always got I call it bling,
you know, the metal signs andthe various kinds of things that you
got to add to add to yourgarden. They've got that. They're known
for their roses, I mean,gosh, pages and pages of rose options

(01:02:21):
that they can bring in for you. They carry the fertilizers I talk about
on garden line. Rcw's easy toget to. It's two forty nine belt
Way eight. If you went overthe bypass there kind of went over from
one to the other belt wait eightto two forty nine. Privately, even
didn't see it. It's right downthere underneath, easy, easy to get
to. Now. RCW is gonnahave plenty of color plants. They're going

(01:02:43):
to have things like hibiscus, thebeautiful Cajun Hibiscus series. They've got those
there Boogain Villas. They've had allkinds of things there, and a really
good selection of trees as well.Go to RCW nurseries dot com RCW nurseries
dot that's how you find out everythingyou need to know. Get the phone

(01:03:04):
number, give me a call,do you know, just main things.
Just go by. Now's a greattime to stop by RCW Nurseries. We
are going to go to Chris inJersey Village. Hello, Chris, are
you there? All right? Chris? I'm gonna put you on hold and
I'll be back. We're gonna nowgo to Dr Burke Williams. Hey,

(01:03:28):
Dr Williams, good morning, Thanksfor taking my call. Yes, sir,
how can we help Well, whenI moved into the house that I'm
in six years ago, one thingthat we noticed right away is the crape
myrtles were twenty plus feet high andthey were growing in the shade of pine

(01:03:49):
trees and oak trees. Well,now two of those oak trees have died
and we're going to take them down, and those crape myrtles are gonna get
plenty of sunlight, okay, SoI would like to cut them back considerably,
you know, so that they willflower and really look nice. How
far can I take them down there? And like I say, they're twenty

(01:04:10):
plus foot high and they only bloomat that height of there because that's the
only place where the sunlight gets tall. Yeah, I get it. So
what do you recommend? Well,and answer your question, how far you
can cut them off with the groundand they're going to come out sprouting with
multiple shoots if you wanted to startover, which is probably a legitimate thing,

(01:04:32):
because here's the thing. When yougo way back and cut them,
let's say you cut them down toten feet high or to five feet high.
Now you got this fence post flattop stump that is going to re
sprout, and it's going to bewhat we call a crow's foot. It's
just all these shoots growing upright.The top of the trunk is bare wood,
and it's easy for them to breakoff in a storm. You could

(01:04:58):
do that, but I would seriouslyconsider taking it to the ground and if
you want to make let's say athree three trunk tree out of it,
cut everything off, but the threethat are going out away from each other
in kind of directions, you like, that look good and healthy. And
then as they get up a littlebit. You can tip prune those and
they'll branch, and so you endup a beautiful krete. Myrtle typically comes

(01:05:23):
out of the ground with one tothree trunks, and then there's a y
fork in each of those at hopefullydifferent heights. It makes it look a
little prettier. And then those eachfork again, and so you end up
with a beautiful candelabra of branches thatis nice and healthy, and you don't
have all those stubbed off dead endsand things. So I don't know if

(01:05:45):
that you just have to cut everythingon when you cut the ones you're not
gonna leave off though. If youdo this bert you need to you need
to make sure and cut them rightup against where they attach, because you're
gonna have some suckering going on fora while. But you just diligently cut
it back like you're just doing surgeryand removing the base of that, just
almost gouging it out of the ofthe place where it's sprouting, because you

(01:06:10):
don't want more buds to just resprout right there. I'm thinking about cutting
them in January. Does it soundlike an appropriate time? That's fine,
I mean you could do it then, or I mean you could do it
now and begin the process of startingto rebuild and give you a big head
start, because when you first dothis, it's going to be a mess
for a while until you start rebuildinga plant. The trunks on these things

(01:06:32):
are three to four ranches, andthere's three of them. Yeah, yeah,
they're about six six feet apart.Well, the alternative is to come
down to where there's a side branchif it's an acceptable height. But I'm
telling you they're just not a prettyway to get out of what you got
other than starting. Yeah, yeah, all right, well, thank you,
all right, you take care,appreciate appreciate that call time first to

(01:06:56):
run again, take a little breakcare. We will be right back with
your calls. Asmite is a mindproduct. It's mined in Utah out of
the ground, and it contains tracemineral elements. What are trace minerals.
They are minerals that are just asessential to plant growth and development and health
as the big ones like nitrogen,phosphorus, potassium. Trace minerals are just

(01:07:20):
needed in tiny amounts. Trace Youjust need trace of them as might goes
a long way, and asmite,for example, you got a forty four
pound bag it'll cover six to twelvethousand square feet of your lawn if you're
using it in a garden, whichI'd recommend you do by the way.
You want your vegetables to have afull complement of all the different nutrients and
compounds that help keep us healthy.Ten pounds per thousand square feet in the

(01:07:44):
garden. So azmite is not difficultto find at all. You can go
to azimite Texas dot com. Oursponsors carry it. You go to a
garden center, feed stores, acehardware stores, you know, Southwest Ferdlight.
You're gonna find azmite at all kindsof places like that. Widely available,
easy to find. You don't needto apply a lot of it.
Just follow the label very carefully,you know, always follow the label.

(01:08:06):
I'm a broken record on that one. That's important. Follow the label.
Let's head out to sugar Land.We're going to talk to Greg. Hello.
Greg, All right, how areyou doing. I'm well. I
had my two trees planted last Friday, and my watering schedule. I wanted
them Friday and a little bit Saturday. But being we had all this rain,

(01:08:33):
am I need to do? Ineed to back off watering? What
schedules I go from. Now,yeah, you do. So here's the
bottom line on tree watering. Idon't like to recommend schedules because every soil
is different, every situation is different. But if you keep the root zone

(01:08:55):
moist, that's how much you water. So if you dig down, you're
going to take your hand and alittle trowel or something, dig down about
three or four inches and feel thesoil. If it's moist, you're okay.
Now that root zone, that cylinderthat came out of the pot,
the roots are all still there,and so you could have wet soil all
around it, but it's not goingto wick into the root zone fast enough

(01:09:20):
to supply it on a hot,sunny summer day, and so you have
to make sure and put your waterin that root zone. Of course,
you don't want the soil around itto be dry. But if it were
still in the pot and you justput the whole pot in the ground,
that's basically what you got right nowbecause you just planted it. And it's
going to take months, even yearsreally to fully extend and make a beautiful

(01:09:43):
root system. So for the firstsummer, I would say in general,
probably a couple of times a weekis what you're going to need to do
for the first month. First month, it probably is going to be a
little water in that area about oncea week. Do you remember how big
the the pots were? How manygallons were the tree when you bought them?
Twenty five twenty five? Okay,I'd put about five gallons of water

(01:10:09):
on that twenty five gallon root ball. I would do it once a day
or every other day, and thatgives it a good soaking. But just
watch that if it's getting too soggy, you back off because that's not good.
Okay. And how I measured atthe water that I'm putting on me.

(01:10:30):
I noticed when I let the holesrun on it, it feels all
the way up to the top,and then I'd say, about three or
four minutes later it soaks down.So is the tree drinking the water properly?
Yeah? I think so. Ioften will put a little doughnut of
soil around it, a little bermof soil, you know, fill it

(01:10:51):
up with a couple of inches,and then they all have to soak right
down in that cylinder. That's agood way to go because sometimes when you
use a hose runs off to theside. I tell something that affordable tree
folks do patrick in a tree,they put a PBC pipe straight down in
the ground beside the root ball.Make it as deep as a root ball
that was as deep as a hole. You dug and let that pipe in

(01:11:14):
there, and then you can putany kind of a stick, like a
yard stick or something down in thatpipe. Go to the bottom and pull
it out and see is if it'slike wet for six inches deep, you
got standing water and you need toback off. But that's right to make
sure you don't overwater. That's whyI don't like the word schedule, because
you know clays oil, sandy,soil, full sun parts on. You

(01:11:39):
see what I'm saying, right rightright, Okay, that sounds like playing
and I'll stick to it my sayingAugustine that I put around it's already got
green all the way through it.So just good. All right, Okay,
thank you so much here, allright, thanks for call Greg.
Appreciate that Browns. The most importantthing you do to have success with plants

(01:12:02):
is get the soil ready first.It is. It is the foundation.
It's like you want to build ahouse. So I'm going to go out
here on the beach in Galaston,and I'm going to start land two by
fours on the ground and start buildinga house. How does that turn out?
Right? It's the same thing witha garden. You create a foundation
for success, and that foundation includesquality mulches, It includes composts, It

(01:12:27):
includes anything it takes to help thatplant have success, includes nutrients. Ciena
Mulch down south of Houston in Siennaarea, just north of roach Sharing by
the way, they're on FM fivepoint twenty one near Highway six and two
eighty eight. Ciena Maltch is theplace where you get the brown stuff.
Right when you drive in there anddrive out, you're going to bring out

(01:12:49):
things like quality soil blends. Theyhave a wide variety of different blends.
You're going to find some of theAirlin soils products that they carry there as
well. At Cnmulch. Now youcan find things in bags, you can
find things in bulk. You're goingto find all the fertilizers I recommend on
garden Line, including that asimite Ijust talked about a minute ago. You're

(01:13:10):
going to find those there at Siena. Now, if you need a lot
of it, you don't have away to bring it in. They deliver
within about twenty miles of their areafor small delivery fee. But it is
a one stop shop for homeowners.You go in there, when you drive
out, you have everything you needto make a well drained, quality internal

(01:13:30):
drainage, raised bed, loaded withdecomposing organic composts that are going to feed
your plants, and you're going tohave the fertilizers to top it all off.
After that, you just get agood plant, put it in the
ground. This can be very veryhappy. Cienmulch FM five twenty one.
They're open Monday through Friday seven thirtyto five on Saturday seven thirty to two,

(01:13:51):
so after the show today you gotfour hours to get that foundation prepared
for success with your plants. AtCnmulch. By the way, they also
have some outstanding selections of rocks andstones. So if you need a little
river rock for a drainway, orif you need flat stones for a patio,
or you just fill in the blank, they've got a really good selection

(01:14:13):
there too. We're gonna go nowto Jersey Village and talk to Chris.
Hello, Chris, do we havea Chris there? All right, I'll
tell you what I'm gonna put youon whole, Chris. I will be
right back to check on you.Southwest Fertilizer corner of Byssinette and Renwick is
a place where you can get everythingyou need to control pests, to control

(01:14:38):
diseases, to control weeds. Theexcellent selection. If I talk about it
on guardline, if I have iton my schedules, Bob's got it at
Southwest Fertilizer. Eighty foot long wallof tools. So what do you need?
You name the tool. Bob's gotit for your gardening. It's there.
They have fertilizer spread there is thateverything you could possibly need. Like

(01:15:01):
I like to say, if Southwestdoesn't have it, you don't need it,
because that is exactly the truth.And they're gonna have it. Southwest
Fertilizers on the corner of Businet andRenwick. Businet and Renwick. So when
you go there, you just swingin, you grab what you need and
you're off to have success when you'rein there. By the way, ask
Bob about the kneeling bench. That'sthe product probably the best new prile let's

(01:15:26):
say, top three best new productsI've seen in the in the last three
years. Outstanding outstanding. You canuse it for kneeling, you can use
it for sitting. You can whenyou flip it over for kneeling. You
got two handles. It makes iteasy to get up. And if you're
north of forty you know what I'mtalking about there. But they've been around
since nineteen fifty five at Southwest Fertilizerthe website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. We

(01:15:49):
are gonna now go, Chris,We're gonna if you're there, are you
Hello? Hello? All right,we're going back on hold. We're going
to have to take a little breakhere. We are just hitting the time
where I should start hearing music aboutnow, I believe. Anyway, we
are going to take a break forthe top of the hour. We will

(01:16:11):
be back. When we come back, we'll be back to your gardening questions.
Chris will be the first up.If you're around at that point,
I want to remind you that twoweeks from today, I'll be at wild
Birds Unlimited in bel Air. Thisis your excuse to come to Wallbirds Unlimited
in bel Air and let's talk aboutgardening. They're experts on everything bird.

(01:16:34):
I mean you know that you hearme brag about them all the time.
You can see these feeds that Ikeep talking about that are so quality when
it comes to bird feed, justsuper high qualities. But also bring in
plants, samples, bring in photoson your phone, will diagnose, will
identify well, answer your gardening questionsand help you have success. Wildbird's Unlimited

(01:16:58):
in bel Air Saturday, June fifteenth, two weeks from today, eleven thirty
am to one pm. I hopeyou can make it out. I always
love to visit with listeners. Welcomeback to garden Line, entering our third
hour of the day. Looking forwardto visiting with you about the things that
interest you. Listen. If youhave not tried Sweet Green by Nitrofoss,

(01:17:18):
you ought to give it a try. Sweet Green is a product made from
a molasses base with microbial activity thathas turned it into eleven percent nitrogen natural
fertilizer. It's going to dissolve awaylike you would expect from molasses based product,
move into the soil, and microbeslove it. That's why organic gardeners

(01:17:40):
use molasses in their gardening practices becausethey know it's a stimulation for the microbes
that need carbon. They need thatsource of carbon, and Sweet Green provides
that it is going to give youa good green up. It's not immediate
fast, fast release, but itis a quick release fertilizer. It's not
going to lock last around for along time. So you can do a

(01:18:00):
light fertilization now. You can comeback in another month or two or three
do another fertilization if you feel likeyour law needs it. With the Sweet
Green Sweet Green being a night frostproduct, it's gonna be widely available.
You're gonna be able to find itin a lot of different places here around
the greater Houston area. For example, you're going to find it at all
your ACE hardware stores. You're goingto find it at Southwist Fertilizer. Southwast

(01:18:25):
Fertilizer carries the Sweet Green as well. We're going to run back from out
of the phones and check in onChris. Hey, Chris, are you
around all right? I'm gonna putyou back on hold here. If you're
talking, I can't hear you.Let's go to Richmond and talk to Pat.
Hey, Pat, Hi skip,thank you for taking my call.

(01:18:48):
I have a question about an oaktree. The tree in my yard is
a five year old I'll say buildersgrade live oak. I have no idea
what kind it is, and it'sdoing very well, beautifully shaped, but
it is full of those little beeround galls. And now there's started to

(01:19:08):
be moss on the tree. Okay. And the second thing is when you
look from under the tree to lookup, it is just so full of
branches you can't see anything. Okay. Is it okay to get it thin
down, trimmed up, Yes,it's a young tree. Trim out all
the twiggy stuff inside, kind offocus on the branches, leaving the branches

(01:19:31):
that are going to be permanent partsof the tree. It's hard for people
to do this pat because your treemay have two branches that are like six
inches apart. Well, think aboutwhen each of those branches is almost the
size of the steering wheel of yourcar. They have long since grown together

(01:19:51):
and are pressing on each other ownstuff. So you kind of have to
look at it with the long term. That doesn't mean you need to only
leave branches a foot of part rightnow, but just realize that what is
going to be a permanent branch,You know, if it's if it's head
high, that is way too lowfor the long term permanent branch. Because
you're not gonna be able to mowunder it by the time it reaches out

(01:20:13):
and SAgs down. So I wouldanytime a branch gets i'd say bigger,
any before it gets as big asa golf ball. If it's not permanent,
I would remove it. Okay,So you're you're you don't want to
prune every branch off and take youknow, seventy five percent of the foliage
off. It needs that foliage.But as things get about the size of

(01:20:33):
a before they get the size ofa golf ball, go ahead and take
them off, and that way that'llheal up quickly and the growth will go
back into the other branches that areout there on the tree. But yes,
you can as far as the lowballs. Are these the ones on
the leaves or are these the oneson the twigs? It's on the branches
themselves, and then sometimes on theunderneath of the leaves there's a little fuzzy

(01:20:58):
thing. Yeah, those are all. Those are two of several kinds of
gulls that we see on live oak. In general, they're not a problem.
And if the tree were super weakand we're just overloaded with them,
well yeah, they're probably bothering it. But trying to control them is difficult
because a little wasp is laying anegg inside the leaf or inside the twig

(01:21:18):
or whatever that those grow into,and so by the time you see them,
there's no sense in spring them.It's not going to accomplish anything.
I would print out the branches thatare overloaded with them. Those wasps have
natural enemies. As long as you'renot blessed in the tree with insecticide all
the time, those natural enemies willbring it back under control. You know,

(01:21:39):
the oak Houston is one giant liveoak for us, It really is.
And no one is going around springgalls on all these live oaks.
Okay, so don't worry about that. Okay, all right, thank you?
All right. One last thing.You want to measure the trunk diameter
about chest high, and for everyinch of width us the trunk, you

(01:22:00):
want to give it one or twocups of a good quality lawn fertilizer,
not anything with wheat controlled, justfertilizer, one to two cups. Okay.
That's going to help and inspire thegrowth for it to kick in and
grow a little better for you to. You want to hang a hammock in
it soon, and we're trying tohelp you do that, Okay, to

(01:22:21):
spread this fertilizer around through the dripline of the tree. Yeah, well
yeah, the whole area. Ifyou imagine the tree, you know,
if the sun was at high noon, where would the shadow be evenly spread
the fertilizer through that area and wateredin? Really good? Okay, all
right, okay, thank you,all right, appreciate the call. Thanks
a lot. All Right, Well, I think we've lost track of Chris.

(01:22:47):
Chris, if you for some reasonare trying to reach us and unable
to just just try to call himback in, we'll give it another shot.
You know, we have really alot of good gardens in the greater
Houston area. This is just Ithink it's the best place in Texas for
finding an outstanding, an outstanding selectionof garden centers, places that are just

(01:23:11):
something to write home about. Andone example of that would be our West
Houston Garden center that is the NilsonWater Garden and Nursery. They're not in
Katie, which is just a stonethrow outside of Houston. Nelson Water Garden
and Nursery is an outstanding place forall kinds of plants. Their plants selection,
you'll be surprised when you get outthere. It is. It is

(01:23:32):
really really good. Pretty much everythingyou can imagine you would want, they're
going to have it there, orthey'll be able to get it there.
When it comes to water, ohmy gosh. The plants for water like
a lily pads, that's the oneeverybody thinks about. But a lot of
other plant species, the fish thatgo in water, as shabunka and the
koi, for example, they've gotthose there. The beautiful disappearing fountains,

(01:23:57):
you know, those giant ceramic urnswill walk flows over the side, so
beautiful. By the way, thebirds and beneficial insects will appreciate being up
to get a little drink of waterfrom those as well. But anytime you
have moving water, you have thatsound that is so soothing. And Nelson
Watergarden and Nursery has been a nationaland i'm not exaggerating, a national leader

(01:24:17):
in quality water gardens for a veryvery long time. As far as the
nursery itself, it's it's a destinationplace and you need to get out there
and see it. It's in Katie. You just head out ten turn north
on Katie Fort ben Road. Here'sthe website, Nelson Watergardens dot com.

(01:24:38):
Go check it out. You'll bevery impressed. We're going to go now
to Southwest Houston and talk to Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, good morning morning.
I need to know what's eating theleaves so my Chinese broccoli. It
looks like if they're eating what Icall the soft part of the leaf,
okay, not the spam and notwhat I call the rib, that is

(01:25:00):
a caterpillar. And it could bea inch worm, a what we call
cabbage looper attacks broccoli or all thatwhole family of vegetables. It could be
something called a cross striped army worm, but it doesn't matter what its name
is. You want to spray somethingthat has BT or something that has spinosid

(01:25:21):
in it BT or either one,and you want to spray upward from under
the leaves. Those pests like tohide under the leaf, So what you'd
want to do is you want thatleaf to get wet with the spray,
and then when the caterpillar takes abite, it's like given the caterpillar the
bubonic plague, it kills them andit doesn't If a grass operate the leaf,

(01:25:45):
it wouldn't kill it. If abe del eate the leaf, it
wouldn't kill it. If a beneficialinsect runs around the leaf, it won't
hurt them. It just goes afterthose caterpillars, which is what you want
to do. But don't delay.The bigger they get, the harder they
are to kill. Okay, andnow that's to the BT in this spinosa
is what you use for the forthe webworms too. Yes, you could

(01:26:05):
use that for webworms, and thenyou know, for the webworms, you're
not eating the things that webworms areon by and large. If we're going
about trees and shrubs and things,yeah, on those you could also switch
over to. There are a numberof synthetic piretheroids that will also work on
webworms. They're not organic, andso I wouldn't I'd rather not spray those

(01:26:29):
on things I'm eating, like thelike the broccoli or coal crops and things.
Oh okay, but they're not hardto go. Just got it.
For the webworms, you got toget the spray of whatever you choose.
You got to get it to theplants leaves and the webworms web will block
sprays from getting inside to the leavesand they got to eat it to get

(01:26:51):
sick. So take a pole,break it up, take a strong stream
of water. There's some little hosinggadgets that'll shoot a straight stream a long
way. And if you can breakthat web up first, then any of
those sprays are going to work.Well Okay, okay, great, thank
you, Thanks Carolyn, appreciate thecall. Thanks a lot. Well,

(01:27:13):
it's been a wet spring. Andwhen we have a wet spring, our
clay soils soak up water and theyswell that they literally get bigger if you
will. Then when it gets dry, they shrink. And we have cracks
in the backyard large enough to loseyour little fufu dog or toddler in I
mean the giant cracks in the yard. Well that shrinks. Well, Rex
havoc on your sidewalks, on yourdriveways, and most importantly on your home

(01:27:38):
foundation. Fix my slab, Fixmy slab. That's the company you need
to remember. Fixmslab dot com.Is it? Can you get any easier
for a website than that? Fixmslabdot com. You need to call Ty.
He's been doing this twenty three years. He knows how to take care
of things. Walk around the house. Do you see cracks in the brick
running up through the brick wall.Go in. Do you see cracks and

(01:28:00):
sheet rock? Do you have doorsthat are sticking? Those are all signs
you need to have somebody come looknow fix my slab. Tell them your
guardline listener, and they'll give youa free estimate as a result. The
thing I like about him is,first of all, Tie is a native
Ustonian. He's fifth generation Texan,and he built his business about showing up
on time, giving you a fairprice, and fixing it right. No

(01:28:27):
hesitation at all to tell you fixmy slab. Foundation repair is who you
need to call. Two eight onetwo five five forty ninety nine two eight
one two five five four nine fournine. With all this rain and boys
that ever rained at my house,when I go outside, I tell you
the mosquitoes come, and I swearif they would all flap their wings in

(01:28:48):
the same direction, they could liftme off the ground. There's a danga
many of them. Mosquitoes love rain, They love standing water. And do
you know that in a teaspoon standingstagnant water, mosquitoes can breed and complete
complete that part of their life cycle, the larva, and come out as
adults. So you have a ifyou have a saggy gutter, the little

(01:29:09):
drain basins underneath your plants, thedog bowl, the bird bath, you
got to you gotta wash that outand get that out of there, or
put a mosquito dunk in it.You know, Mosquito dunks cover about one
hundred square feet of water. It'sa little doughnut, floats on the water,
dissolves away for about a month.It's a disease of the larva of
the mosquitoes. Just like bet,the regular BT kills caterpillars, Mosquito dunks

(01:29:32):
are a different BET that kills mosquitolarva. Is that cool or what I
mean? Birds can drink out ofthe water. You can drink the water
if you want your dog, yourcat. I mean, it's not toxic
to us. But the mosquito larvait shuts down. So when you have
stagnant standing water, maybe you gota little pond out there, Maybe you

(01:29:53):
have a tree with a hole init and it's got you know, water
gathers inside there. Just toss adunk up in there. Let the take
care of it. Rain gutters,all kinds of things. Mosquito dunks very
safe and by, by the way, they are so widely available. Every
independent garden center I've been in,that's part of our garden line team.
They carry them. Feed stores,they carry them, ace hardware stores,

(01:30:15):
they carry them Southwest Fertilizer, theycare them. Mosquito uncture easy to get.
But you need to get ahead ofit because I'm telling you they are
breeding right now and they have ameal planned and that meal is called you
don't make them happy. Don't makethem happy spot. I need to I
tell you I need to get also, just be a good thing to pick

(01:30:38):
up as a fogger, to getout there and just knock down the ones
that are already out and about flying. Just have a chance to sit outside
and enjoy that area. Well,we're going to go now and talk to
Jenet. Hello, Jenet, hi, Hi. I have a new mulberry
tree. It's a young mulberry treeand it has to tiny white worms in

(01:31:01):
netting hanging on some of the branches. Looks like you know, tan netting
in the in the wormed are littlewhite wormed. Okay, what should I
do about that? It is calledthe fall webworm, and even though its
name is fall, it occurs startingnow really all through the summer season off
and on, but especially in thefall it gets really bad. The ones

(01:31:25):
you have now aren't as bad asit can get. What you need to
do is if you can break thewebs apart, use a pole, use
a stream of water, a littleblast of water out of a garden hose
or one of those little applicators.It'll shoot water like a pencil straight up
into the air. Break the websapart because they're feeding inside. When you

(01:31:45):
break them apart, wasps will getin there and start hauling them out.
Wasps love to eat those things.Birds some birds will eat those too.
But breaking the web apart is stepone. If you want to spray,
there are a lot of different insectssides that will kill webworms. You got
to get it to the foliage insidewhere they're feeding and then that web.
If you just have a little mistof a sprayer going out there, it's

(01:32:08):
not going to get inside the web. Oh okay, okay, So if
we take them out, we've alreadydone it, really, but now it's
starting again. Yeah. Yeah.When you first start to see them,
they don't have those big webs.They're just little caterpillars out there. On
the leaves and they're start spinning theweb to protect themselves. And when you
first start seeing them, just justhave some have some BT or spinosid on

(01:32:31):
hand. That's the safest stuff youcan get for controlling them. You can
also use a lot of other insecticidesthat are very effective in controlling them.
They may not they may be organic, they may not be. But I
like to just suggest BT and spinosidas being Okay, well, BT or
what is the next Yeah, I'msaying it fast s p I N O

(01:32:55):
s A D spin O sad.That okay, all right, but remember
they got to eat the spray,so get it on the leaves where they're
feeding. Oh okay, all right, all right, okay, good,
okay, thank you very much.You met yep boy. We've got a
lot of questions on those. Infact, I did a post. If

(01:33:15):
you don't follow garden Line on Facebook, you need to do that. Sign
up guarden Line on Facebook, followus. I did a post yet to
scroll down a little bit because weput quite a few posts on there.
But if you scroll down a littlebit and you'll see the webworms read it.
I wrote out quite a bit onit, but it gives you the
whole picture and tells you what todo. That is what we try to

(01:33:36):
do when we have problems pop uparound here. Landscaper's Pride is a purveyor
of quality mulches and quality products forthe soil. Really twenty seven different products
that they carry, so it's it'seasy to find Landscaper's Pride products and it's
easy to find them near You goto Landscaperspride dot com and you're going to

(01:33:59):
find all the places where you canpurchase their products. They sell by the
bag. They also have bulk aswell, but they have things for summer,
for the heat that go on topof the soil. That's called malt.
And when I'm talking about that,I mean the black velvet that is
a beautiful, velvety black molt.It is not dyed. I hate dyed

(01:34:20):
mulch. I hate dyed malt.Landscaper's probably black velvet is naturally dark,
very beautiful hardwood malts, hardwood based. I was in a store I shall
not mention that sells hammers as wellas garden things, and I just happen
to look at some of the mulchesand I could tell when you look into
the bag. It's like they groundup palettes to put in there, and

(01:34:43):
people do that. They do that, not Landscaper's Pride. This is true
hardwood ground up mulches. They havea pine bark mult one of the most
popular ones, very pretty pine barkmoltch decomposes very slowly. Their pine based
blend called Gardener's Magic Soil has humusand screen, pine accomplished rice holes,
and a chicken pellet fertilizer that willlast up to three months. All of

(01:35:04):
these places, all of these productsrather you can find as part of the
Landscaper's Pride selection of products. Againlandscaperspread dot com find where you can get
it near you. We're going togo now to Ralph in northwest Houston.
Hey Ralph, good morning, agood day. Well, yes, my

(01:35:25):
Gordon, I have my tomato plantsand I've tried not to spray them,
but but then think bug got allover them, and what is the best
thing to hit tim thing with?You know, Ralph that once stingbugs become
adults and have wings, they're hardto control because first of all that you
may spray, and then later inthe day they're flying back in from somewhere

(01:35:45):
else and there are If it's anorganic product, it's going to be a
prairethrine based product to knock them down. Synthetic it's going to be there's a
number of products that are labeled forvegetables that are synth parihrooids that will kill
the stink bug. You got toget out early in the morning when they're
a little bit more sluggish and spraythem. Then by in the heat of

(01:36:08):
the day. We number one,you don't want to be out there.
But number two it's it's it's harderto catch them all there. Uh,
at this point in time when yougot the adults are difficult, very difficult
to control, and they are hardto get that thing. I always got
the right thing, but this yearand it's just terrible when you let them

(01:36:29):
get the best of you. Yep, that's that is true. That is
true. Uh. It's good talkingwith you than being on. Thank you,
Ralph, appreciate your call very much. Appreciate that very very much.
We're going to run up against thenews break. Here our phone number if
you would like to call and geton the board with our producer. You'll

(01:36:49):
be up when we come back.Seven one three two one two kat r
h and first two up when wecome back will be Mike and Marty.
Mike in Magnolia. Hello Mike,good morning to Skip. How can we
help? I played the nitroposs Imperial. Okay, in that four weeks were

(01:37:12):
some weeks ago a benches of rain. I was wondering if would be beneficial,
but maybe reapply some sweet greened abouttwelve year. Yeah, you could
do that now. The rain Imperialis a salt based furliz Imperial is a
cell based fertilizer, which you knowwe do for our quick greenups and things
like that. You can do iton through the summer in small doses and
you know, gradually apply the nutrientlike that. But when you get a

(01:37:35):
good rain, it's gonna dissolve andyou are likely when it's a heavy,
heavy rain, to get some washedaway. So I would go ahead and
do the next application. If youwant to use the sweet green, that
would be fine. All right,Well, good after it? All right,
Thanks, appreciate your call. We'regoing to go to Fairfield now and
talk to Marty. Hello Marty morning, Skip. I killed all my bermuda

(01:37:59):
or not my romita, all ofmy net grass and yay, with that
image and behind it in my flowerbed, I found a bunch of bermuda
grass against the width of what canI need to kill that? Can I
do the same thing image? BecauseI sprayed it? But I'm not seeing

(01:38:20):
any reactions. Yeah, that notthe image. Can you tell me what
kind of flowers you have in thebed? Well? I pretty much killed
everything, Okay, okay, sonothing to worry about. Well, okay,
what I would do if you gotdesirable broad leaf plants? You know,
flowers, most of our flowers,as long as they're not grass type

(01:38:43):
plant, you can use one oftwo ingredients that will kill grass and not
kill the broad leaves. Uh.And the two I'm gonna make it easy
by just giving you the first fewletters of them. Uh. And it's
one it begins seth the boy's namest h and that the ingredient is athoxidym.

(01:39:03):
But don't it's only if it killsgrass, and it begins with seth.
That's it. The other one thatkills grass begins with flu ass f
l u a z f l ua z. Actually it's flu as a
flop beautle. I believe it isa full name of it, but it
looks for seth or flu ass,and that it will give you a grass

(01:39:25):
only killer. Uh. And aslong as your flowers aren't a type of
plant that's too closely related to grass, you'll be fine. No, it's
for it's no the other thing.I have a Peggy Martin back there and
some speranza. Yeah, and youcan use those two on those plants.
Oh, very good. And ifI spree it in an area, can

(01:39:46):
how fast can I put down somein a in a grass area in the
lawn? How can how fast canI put down some zortia and some planted
stay in August? Team? Okay, So if we're in a lawn,
I would leave those things, givethem about five days of good, good

(01:40:09):
sunny weather to move down into theplant and start doing the work before I
would take the tops off and plantsomething else. In that situation, you
could also use a product like aglyphosate, which is round up brand.
Everybody knows when you spray it again, give it five days, but then

(01:40:29):
it's not there and the soil yournew side will not be affected at all
by it. But that might giveyou a little better control of it of
the bermuda that's out there. ButI tell you bermuda is insidious, and
you spray it and you kill allthe top and all of a sudden,
a week or two later you lookand here comes a spreag out. So
if you can be patient enough tokind of wait and watch, that might

(01:40:54):
be worthwhile too. Absolutely, withthe number of years that I've lived with
the nutgrond, hey it's dead,it's so dead. Well good, I'm
so excited. That's good. Thankyou so much. All right, Well,
you know, Marty, you canyou can eat the tubers from yellow
nuts edge I have there. They'llteach you that edible and palatable are two

(01:41:16):
different things. Chew on them.They taste a little bit like an almond,
h and then you have sawdust inyour mouth. So all right,
Marty, than fun facts. Andyou heard it here on Guarden Line.
We're gonna go now down to sugarLand and talk to June. Hello,
June. Hi. I was callingfor two things. One is, I

(01:41:43):
have some family coming in from Louisianaand wanted to know of some different purty
nurseries to go to. And ofcourse I go in Chanet Forest and in
Chane Garden all the time. Okay, but would you recommend what are the
would you recommend? Oh my gosh, huh, I know that well number

(01:42:04):
one, I don't. If yougot those two next door, that'll keep
you busy. And those are outstanding, beautiful nurseries. I mean, they're
a lot of fun. As youknow, if you need to drive away
to go someplace else. We havea wide range, you know, And
I'm not going to think of themall here, So here I go.
I always hate to be kind ofon the spot because I'll forget somebody.

(01:42:26):
But if you go down to theHeights as Buchanans and it's a little hide
away in the heights, very different, very different than the two you mentioned,
but a great nursery. If yougo way down to Seabrook Keema on
the boardwalk down that area Seabrook,Seabrook has got Moss Nursery. That's eight
acres, a seventy year old nursery, eight acres to wander around on.

(01:42:47):
It's very different, very unusual.Unuse. You can go and go get
you some seafood down there while you'reat it. Uh oh yeah. You
can go up to the Arborgate Nurseryup in Tomball. That's another good one.
That's a drive up the wad.Oh that's a good one. Okay,
that's enough. There is keeper busy. Yeah. Also, I have

(01:43:09):
a lot of nutgrass in my flowerbed and my yard guy, my landscape
is said to use sledgehammer. Idid twice, two applications and it's still
hadn't killed it. What else couldI use? You have? It's nutgrass?
Yes, sedgehammer kills nutgrass. Idon't know something is going wrong either

(01:43:33):
it's not nutgrass or I don't knowwhat else to say that it's sedge hand
that's the only thing. It's sedhelp because it's nut said right, right,
said yeahedge? I got okay,Well what's it growing in again?

(01:43:56):
My flower bed? But I justplanted like dwarf bottle brushes and stuff,
and they're still small and I canwork around them. Yeah. And also
I made a little homemade weed wiper. It's got sponges on it that you
can squeeze it over the nut sedgeand pull it up the nutsedge plant and

(01:44:18):
it wipes the product and it keepsyou from getting it on your desirable plants.
Because some things like image. There'scertain plants that you get a lot
of image on the soil and washit in and it'll mess with those other
plants. But such hammer is good. There's one called sedge ender. There's
image, there's you know, there'sseveral product options we have out there,

(01:44:43):
but just stay with it. Idon't know why such hammer would not have
given you results because it's very effective. Well, it's turning brown. Okay,
they are turning brown. But it'sbeen like a month and a half.
Yeah that's too long, but Icould see it taking a couple of
weeks, you know, to reallyfeel like, oh it's dying that month
and a half yeah, too long. But anyway, try those make you

(01:45:06):
a little homemade wiper. I've seenpeople take the little like barbecue tongs,
you know, but yeah, realcheap okare and cut a kitchen sponge in
half and I don't know, boltedor grew it to the two sides.
However, you can get it tostay on there and just put your product
down the sponge. And this ishands and knees, you know, but

(01:45:26):
you can get on right. Ohthat's okay, because I was almost hands
and knees with my sprayer. Okay, all right, so I didn't mind.
Okay, Well, then I'm usingthe right product if it is not
good, but it is it hasthe nut in the middle and then the
shoot goes around and okay, Ithink for sure my landscape guy said it

(01:45:49):
was okay, we'll assume. Okay, okay, thank you so much for
your help. I appreciate it.Bye bye, Thanks for the car.
Appreciate that. You know, we'retalking about garden centers, and you know
we had to call June and Sugarland. I want to tell you about a
little bit about some garden center here. In just a moment, it's time

(01:46:09):
for us to run take a break. I will be right back ed.
You'll be first up when we comeback. Talking a while ago about garden
centers. Had to call from Juneand sugar Land looking for someplace to go,
and just it kind of cracks themup, you know, they say
that from what what is the dealwhere you're around something all the time and

(01:46:29):
so you almost don't see it anymoreor whatever. Anyway, living done in
the Richmond Rosenberg area, you justhave these outstanding garden centers and it's it's
interesting, and I know, yougo to a place and you've been there
before and it's beautiful and you seeit and you won't try something else.
And that's good. But I tellyou, if anyone, maybe maybe we
got someone on the other side,the other side of town that wants to

(01:46:54):
drive somewhere, you should go toJenne and Forest out there in the Richmond
Rosenberg area. It's the If you'rein Richmond Rosenberg area and you're going north
towards Sugarland, it's off to theright. It's on FM twenty seven fifty
nine. Now, if you wereto interview one thousand different butterflies because you
want to get a good sampling,and you were to say, where's your

(01:47:14):
favorite place to go? What's yourfavorite place, They're going to tell you
Enchanted Forest and Richmond. They havegot every kind of plant that butterflies like
to be on. And I'm talkingabout all kinds of butterfly plants. So
you got your swallowtails and golf fritillariesand monarchs and queens and everything like that,
the buckeye and all those butterflies.And then what about their larva,

(01:47:36):
Well, that's a different set ofplants. That's a different set for golf
fredillary. It's the passion vine thatthey love that monarchs we know like milkweed,
for example, so on and ondown the line. They've got all
those plants, and if you gothere, you're going to see these butterflies.
In fact, most of the time, if you'd like to take home

(01:47:56):
a caterpillar with your plant, likea pipeline swallowtail with your pipeline plant,
they'll just let you put a calpillaron there. If there's not already one,
take it home. It's kind oflike having a sour dough starter to
get gone. You got your ownbutterfly farm beginning. Well, they do
much more than that, you know, I was noticing recently. They have
an outstanding selections of yarrow, andyarrow is an underutilized plant. Yarrow makes

(01:48:20):
a ferny mat on the ground,which in and of itself is a beautiful
different kind of texture, and thenthese blooms rise above. They can be
white, or they can be goldand yellow, or they can be kind
of a rosy pink color or justyellow. Yarrow's a great plant, and
those blooms, being simple, littletiny blooms, are very popular with many

(01:48:43):
of our beneficial insect pollinators, likelittle tiny parasitoid wasps and whatnot. You
always want to include plants like thisin your landscape because you're keeping the good
guys around, keeping them happy,and in turn, when you have pest
problems, you've got benefits there.And Yerow is just a good plan for
doing just that. All of that. Of course, Enchanted Forest Garden Center

(01:49:06):
they have an excellent supply. Theyare on FM twenty seven fifty nine just
outside of Rechmond. Here's the websiteEnchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.
Enchanted Forest Richmond, t X dotcom. We're going to go now and
talk to Ed and friends Wood.Hello Ed, Hi ski All, I'm

(01:49:27):
good sir. How can we help? We have about a six foot Sla
Maria. It's a tin gallon bucketand some of the leaves are turning yellow,
and the yellow is turning to brownon the on the on the leaf,

(01:49:48):
and eventually they're falling off. Isthat normal now? It sounds like
a disease or a you know,I can't quite picture. Is it happening
in spots that the yellow or isit just a general yellowing of the leaf.
It's happening on each heat branch ofthe plumeria. Okay, but when

(01:50:11):
you look at an individual leaf oryou seeing spots of yellow on the leaf
or is it just a general yellowingof the leaf. It's a general general
yelling. But I'm looking at someof the leads. I'm looking at it
right now, and there's uh,some of the leads there's white spots,
white spots. Yell, that's strange. I don't know what we create a
white spot. We have plumeria rustwhich you see on the undersides of the

(01:50:36):
leaf. You rub your hand underthere and you get kind of an orange,
rusty looking powder on your hands.That's one possibility, but that doesn't
sound like what you're describing. There'ssome other fungal leaf spots that will often
have yellow halos around the fungal spots, but that's a brown spot. Ultimately,
Uh, there, you know it'swhite. I'd almost need to see

(01:50:58):
it. I tell you what,let's do. I'm gonna put you on
hold and I'm gonna get you tosend me a photo. Take some good
photos up close where I can reallysee the spot, maybe the top of
the leaf and the bottom of theleaf. Will you email those to me
and let me look at them,because, uh, it's not sounding like
any common plumeria problem to me.With the white spot is what threw me.

(01:51:19):
But anyway, send me a picture. I'm gonna put you on hold.
The producer will give you my emailand I'll look forward to seeing those
pictures. Okay, thank you somuch, Yes, sir, thank you.
I appreciate very much you providing thosephotos. That always helps. We're
gonna go now to John in theWoodlands. Hello, John good More.

(01:51:40):
Yeah, I got some honeysuckle vineson the back wall, four of them.
Yeah, the web worms are sittingin. Just want to know if
there's a simple remedy for that simplething is on something like that. You
can reach break up those webs witha broom, with a stick, with
whatever, break them up. You'regonna see wasps coming in taking web worms
out. Now that's I mean notgonna be enough in and of itself,

(01:52:01):
but they will be a beneficial predatorof webworms. I would squirt those leaves
with something containing either BT or spinosesaid, those are the two safest products
to kill caterpillars on the foliage.But you got to get it on the
foliage because the caterpillars will build webbingaround it. So you break up the

(01:52:23):
webs, go ahead and spray itbecause that night they're going to rebuild webbing
to protect themselves from predators, andif they feed on a leaf that's been
sprayed with spinosid or with BT,it will kill them. Okay, great,
yeah, that sounds sounds good.I'll get that done, Thank you,
sir. All right, thanks appreciatethat call. All right, we're

(01:52:44):
putting another hour in the books.Just a reminder, I've got two schedules
online on the website Gardening with Skipdot com Gardening with Skip dot Com.
I need to go on there andadd some more stuff. I always add
a few timely things to it.But the longcare schedules there, the lawn
test disease and weed management schedules thereJanuary through December. It's a big old

(01:53:08):
chart, big old checkerboard chart.And for example, on the lawn care
schedule, fertilizing, mowing and wateringand air raiding and doing trace metals,
we're all on there. For theother one insects diseases, preventing weeds,
killing existing weeds the bottom or alist of products organic or synthetic, you
got options, They're all on theschedule. We are going to take break

(01:53:30):
for the news and we'll be rightback our phone number seven one three two
one two kt rh. Nice temperaturestoday. You know it's a little warm
side, but hey, it's okay. It's okay to get outside, get
a little work done, catch upon some things. This is a great
time to be doing a lot ofthings out there in the garden. It's
a good time to be making surethat your lawn has been fertilized for the

(01:53:55):
summertime. A good slow release probablythe best way to go. You can
use an idiot release if you cutit in half and do it twice.
That's one way to look at it. So you just don't put as much
down. You don't put all youreggs in one basket and then get a
gully wash of rain, have itwash away. Just put a little bit
out and later put some more out. Maybe put some more out. Do

(01:54:17):
that about once ever six weeks,and you can go on through the summer
with an immediate release. I thinkit's easier to take a slow release and
put it down something that's been designedto graduate release over three or even four
months. These products are they're excellent, excellent products, and they cut down
on a lot of the work.You don't worry about getting this flush of
growth, and now you have extramowing to do. And also, when

(01:54:43):
you overdo the nitrogen at any onepoint in time, your grass grows top
heavy. You get a lot ofbig green growth, mommo, and your
root system actually is less. Didyou know that when you overdo nitrogen you
end up with top growth at theexpense of root growth. Now why is
that important? One? In summer? Don't you think we need some roots

(01:55:03):
to take up water? Absolutely?What if some grubs come along and chomp
off a few roots, Well,you had fewer to begin with. You
see what I'm saying. It's gradualfertilizing. And whether you do it by
taking an immediate release and you graduallyapplying it over the months, you can
do that. Just make sure yousplit it up or taking a slow release

(01:55:24):
easier way to go, I thinkthe better way to go, and just
applying it and being done until probablywe hit the fall season works pretty well.
Night Frost, by the way,has a product called bug Out Max.
I talked about a little bit earliertoday just in passing with one of
our callers. But bug out Maxis an insecticide that within forty eight hours

(01:55:45):
of putting it down. It haskilled the insects that you put it down
for. It works very quickly.Also, it's going to last all summer.
You apply it once and it's goingto carry you through chinchbug season,
sod webworm season. If there areany crawling around up there, it's going
to get those as well. Ifyou've got fleas or ticks. By the
way, do you know fleas gothrough a pupa a life cycle in your

(01:56:09):
thatch of your lawn, and thenwhen they're adults, they just hop on
the pit as it comes outside,so they can take a free ride into
your house. Well, night Trussbug Out Max helps the fleas as well.
You're going to find it at placeis like Ace Hardware at Single Ranch
You're going to find night Fuss BugoutMax and a Tasca Sita, Ace Hardware
and Lake Hardware include as well asJim's Hardware in Montgomery. Yep, Easy

(01:56:33):
Easy works very very well. Wewill go now to the phones. We're
going to talk to Andy. Hello. Andy, Oh hi, I've got
a quick question for you. There'sa there's eighth coon trees only a lot
and the seven in the front yardsare constantly dropping big limbs. I mean

(01:56:58):
big limbs. How big what's thediameter of the bottom of the lomb?
Oh no, no, much biggerthan that. Okay, the last by
we're probably about three inches across.Okay, wow, all but the one
in the backyard doesn't drop any limbsat all. Oh that's interesting. Well,

(01:57:25):
Pecans are notorious for dropping little branches, and it's not unusual, especially
if we go in the summer season, to have a large limb just fall.
And it's weird because it's like there'sno storm the night before, it's
dead still, and all of asudden you go out and they call those
widow makers for a good reason,but they just boom. It comes out

(01:57:45):
of the tree and hits the groundand there's nothing you can do about that.
There are different speculations as to what'sgoing on and why that spot would
be weak and cause it to break, but it's just the way it is.
I have heard of difference in thevarieties of pecans when it comes to
the branch dropping, but I don'tknow as to why it's happening in the

(01:58:09):
front and not the back. Iwould just have to speculate and I'd probably
be wrong. Yeah. No,these are definitely widow makers. No if
ends the bots about it. Yeah, but okay, well, you know,
I don't mean to make light ofit, because it's a serious thing

(01:58:30):
when they fall. But the goodnews is you got you can do your
summer barbecuing. Now. They're justputting the branches right down there. For
we went through that breeze about threeyears ago. It's going on the firewood
pile. But there you go,there you go. Yeah, well,
and the truth of matter is thosebranches that fall have too much juice in

(01:58:51):
them to put on a barbecue bit. They need to dry out a little
bit. Yeah all right. Yeah. We went days without electricity and all
we had was the tar place andwe were down to our last piece of
firewood. There you go, thereyou go. Well, nobody wishes for
the branches to fall, but Iguess you can make lemons out of lemonade,
as they say, that is great. You knew if there was some

(01:59:15):
kind of possible disease or a treatment. Not a disease, not a treatment.
Sometimes when you get up there,you'll see that the branch was wounded
and decay got into the wood,and that is the more and there when
you look on the end of thebranch it fell. You'll see some brown
decaying in there, but a lotof times it's not. It's just like
it's snapped off. And again youcan read about it, and they go

(01:59:40):
into these things, but none ofthe what they go into has any bearing
on what you can or should door anything like that. Yeah, we
got a tree service coming out nextweek to clean up the canopy and maybe
take some weight off the limbs.Okay, all right, Well, you
know, Pecan's our state tree.They've been around here along time doing really
well. That is one of thethings that about Pecan that makes it not

(02:00:04):
the best in the top ten yardtrees. But I understand why we want
to have them. That's true.Thank you, sir, appreciate to call
you. Take care Buchanans Plants andthe Heights. When was the last time
you went to Buchanans. Oh mygosh. They they just stay stocked up.
They are always something cool going onwhen you go to Buchanans. Love

(02:00:27):
to go visit it. By theway, I've said this before. Go
to the website Buchanansplants dot com andlook at the educational materials that are on
there that you got videos, you'vegot lists of plants. I mean,
you're looking for let's say you needannuals and you need them to be a
shady area, and you need themto be I don't know, so high

(02:00:48):
or tall or whatever. You canselect those things in Buchanans list will pop
up and it'll tell you all thesegood plants that you can plant. By
the way, right now, Junesecond, June second. It is the
what they call the Gardener's Reward Pointredemption period. So when you go to

(02:01:10):
Buchanons, when you buy for everydollar, you get a dollar for every
thirty dollars you purchase, and youcan redeem points from up to half of
what you purchase during a particular purchaseyou make. Get the newsletter. Sign
up for the newsletter, find outwhat's going on. We're in that period
right now. Excellent house plants toBuchanans. Just I could just go on
and on and on. No matterwhat you're looking to grow, no matter

(02:01:34):
what, you're gonna find what youneed there at Buchanans Plants, and you're
gonna find people that can advise youand that can guide you. And if
you're looking for natives, it's thebest place in the whole region of the
state for native plants. They havean outstanding selection and it just keeps on
coming. I'm always surprised when Isee, Oh, I didn't know you

(02:01:56):
could buy that plant on the marketplace. Yep, I should just go to
Buchanans. That's where you're gonna findit. Let's see, we are now
going to go to trying to findthe next person up. We're gonna go
to Buddy. I tell you what, Buddy, I'm sorry I pulled up
the call. I'm gonna have toput you on hold because we went a
little late on that particular read,and you will be the first up in

(02:02:18):
Lorenzo, you'll be second when wecome right back. Hey, you know
how they have those emergency alert systemswhere you have that horrible sound that gets
your attention. Well, I don'tthink they'd like me using that sound,
but I have an emergency alert.Heirloom Soils has a fifty percent off clearance
sale and it only goes until tomorrow. Today and tomorrow is all the two

(02:02:41):
days that are left in it.Here, here's the deal. You like
cactus and succulent mix, Do youlike the Works? The Works is an
excellent potting soil. They also havethem available both in the half cubic foot
bag and the eight court bag.You know, if you're doing potting soil
and you're not doing a bunch ofplants, a little court bag is really
nice. So instead of fourteen forthe half cubic foot bag, seven dollars,

(02:03:05):
instead of ten dollars for the courtbag, five dollars each. Those
are high quality soils. Whether you'regrowing cacti or succulent, you need a
good draining mix and cactie, cactusand succulent mixes out for the potting soil.
The works, it is an outstandingI've used it on my pot plants,
my houseplants. Well I shouldn't sayit that way. Wow, okay,

(02:03:30):
scratch, can me go back mypot plant my house plan. I'm
sorry, that's funny. Well,they're in pots five dollars each for the
a quirk. That is an excellentmix though, really for both the works
and for the cactus and succulent mix. But today and to morrow only.

(02:03:50):
That is at IIRLM Soils, Warren'sRock and mult out in Porter Texas on
Highway fifty nine up there in PorterTexas and here's the phone. Just give
them a call to eight one threefive four nineteen fifty two eight one three
five four nineteen fifty And the reasonI'm giving you the phone number is I
want you to call them because thisis as supplies last, so just make

(02:04:13):
sure they still have some available.I mean, this stuff is going like
hotcakes, and so Heirloom Soils ofTexas, and of course go to airloomsalsof
Texas dot Com and find out aboutall their other great products, both in
bulk and in bags. All right, buddy, we're coming back here.
Let's see here. You had aquestion about cleaning out underbrush. I believe,

(02:04:34):
is that right? I have aboutten twelve oak trees throughout my yard,
and I'm having a real problem withthe oak small oaks coming up and
growing up underneath and cut them back. I don't know how to keep that
from happening. I haven't done agood job of maintaining that tree bit,
and so I kind of need toknow what I need to do to keep

(02:04:57):
that, get that all cleaned out, to keep it from having that roaths
back, and what the best wayto okay, you know, topped it
out. Do you know if thistree was planted or if it just came
up from an acron there any Ibelieve it was planted because I'm a second
homeowner there. So it's all inline, okay, And you're getting a
whole bunch of little sprouts pretty closeto the base of the tree. Is

(02:05:20):
that it correct? Okay? Sothere's two things that can make this is
a live oak, yes, okay. Two things that can make sprouts on
a live oak. One is theacorns. They come up, and those
things are dropping the acorns obviously underneaththe tree canopy, so you're gonna get
a lot of sprouts under there.The other thing is root sprouting, and
there's live oaks are not all equal. There's a live oak along the southern

(02:05:45):
Gulf coast that tends to just makesingle trees. There's a live oak over
in the hill country area that iscalled the escarpment live oaks, and it
tends to do clumps of trees orwhat they call them motts out there in
the country out west of Austin.You'll see these. Well. Tree growers
can get acorns from me the place, and sometimes if they come from the

(02:06:06):
source that's more in the hill country, you end up with a tree that
tends to do a lot of rootsprouting mot forming, and that may be
what you have. And if that'sthe case, you just have to kind
of dig down as far as youcan cut them off and keep them cut
off. I've seen people put avery heavy landscape cloth down and then cover

(02:06:27):
it with something with weight, notjust a loose light mulch, but like
almost a gravelly kind of material.But you need a good fabric that's going
to last to do that. Thatwill kind of hold them down, keep
them from coming up and getting light, and they just won't thrive. If
it were just acorns, you couldspray them or dig them either one and

(02:06:49):
get rid of them. But ifit's attached to the mother tree, and
from the description that you gave meand where they're located, I think they're
probably attached to the mother tree,right, So if you spraying that would
that would harm the mother tree becausethey're connected, it would translocate down in
the roots, and to some degree, depending on how many sprouts and how

(02:07:12):
much you sprayed, it would havea very negative effect on the mother tree.
All Right, I appreciate it,Thank you so much. Thank you
appreciate the call. That's a littlebit of a complicated one, but hey,
it is what it is. Unfortunately, we're going to go now and
talk to Lorenzo. Hey, Lorenzo, Hey, good morning, Good morning.

(02:07:33):
I have a river birch tree withtwo trunks kind of split in two,
kind of like in a ornamental kindof way. With some branches are
dried up and on either side,on both sides, i should say,
with some are higher, some orlower, and one of the one of
the trunks has broken off at thehalfway point with some winter storms or windstorms

(02:07:56):
and money note, is that treeon its way out? Or is there
kind of a remedy for this situation? You know, river birks is a
little persnickety in our area. Sometimesyou see them doing really well. They
like to be with a consistent supplyof moisture. That's why have a name
river birchs, because that's where youfind them growing. And when you're growing
on a river bank, you getyour reached down, there's gonna be a

(02:08:18):
water table right there to get moisture. When we get them in a landscape
and they're allowed to dry out,and boy, last summer was a brutal
one hot hot for a time,but almost no rain sprinkler systems were broke
last last summer, So I didit suffer? Yeah, that alone could
explain what you're seeing. There maybe more involved, but that's possible.

(02:08:41):
Also, they are hardy trees.But what's happened to some of our plants
here is two decembers ago, wewent into a cool season and had a
freeze that was early, the kindof hard freeze. It was early,
and the plants weren't hardened off yet, and so we saw damage on things
that should have been adequately hardened off, but they weren't. So that might

(02:09:05):
have been a play in there too. But I'm thinking the lack of dependable
moisture, which is what they reallyneed. If you've got a split trunk,
it may or may not heal backover, depending on how big the
split is. Uh, there's nothingto do to treat it. You just
watch and at some point you mayhave to saw it off down low.
They tend to reach sprout up.You may get some more trunks coming up

(02:09:28):
from around the base. Its possibility. Uh. And as far as dead
limbs, when they're dead, justprune them out where they join another limb.
Okay, and some of the deadlimbs is con that have a smaller
leaves, whereas some of the otheryou know, other limbs have larger leaves.
Is that part same problem too,But that could be due to a

(02:09:50):
limited flow, could be a limitedflow, something weak in it like that
other possibility, just to throw thisout there. Uh, sometimes when they
use we control products around the baseof the trees, there can be damage
to the roots or it could beyou know, in a case around up,
if there was a little sprout orcoming off the base of the trunk
and you killed weeds around it,that round up could get into the tree.

(02:10:13):
That that I'm not just picking onthat one product. I'm just saying
there's different ways sometimes that herbicides canweaken a tree. And you may see
some unusual coloring of the leaves,the development of the leaves, the size
of the leaves, and so on. Okay, and so again you know,
a spit trunk and I'm kind oflooking at them as twins that one
is acting different than the other.That's yeah, one of my so yeah,

(02:10:37):
okay, well I'll keep an eyeon I'll put some of the dead
branches and I'll keep an eye onit. Yeah, and when we get
into summertime, gets you a waterout there. There's a little device that
goes around the tree and it's likea hinged sprinkler that goes around the base
of the tree, and you canturn it on and water as far out

(02:10:58):
as you want, but it'll wetthat area through that region, and especially
on the side that's not doing aswell, providing some extra water. Once
we get into hot weather and we'vegone let's say, two weeks without any
rain at all, you might giveit a good soaking, just one good
soaking about an inch or soil ofwater and just to kind of supplementally help

(02:11:18):
it out like that. Sure,okay, and it's called tree Hugger sprinkler,
the device I was talking about.Okay, yeah, pretty widely.
All right, Thanks Lorenzo, Thankyou, Bye bye. Yep, yep,
yep. River birds can be alittle persnickety sometimes I wish they weren't.

(02:11:39):
I love that tree. Gosh,the bark is beautiful. You know,
when we plant trees, we thinkabout things like how big does it
get, how fast does it grow, what's the canopy size or does it
bloom or things like we think aboutall these things about trees, and we
should. But one thing we don'tthink about a lot is tree bark.
And you know, when you lookat a river birch and the way that

(02:12:03):
bark peels off, papery peeling off, it is beautiful and so even in
the winter time, that is avery nice feature in the landscape. Some
crape myrtles, like Natchez, whichgets real big and has white blooms,
and several other varieties have a cinnamoncolored exfoliating bark. It's not just the
regular putty colored crpe myrtle bark.It's it's a beautiful cinnamon colored xfolioning bark,

(02:12:26):
very attractive. We have other plantsthat do things like that, and
so just another thing to think aboutwhen you're planting plants. Some of these
plants don't get so large, butthey would be nice around a patio and
you're sitting there close by and enjoying, enjoying the beauty of the form of
the tree and the bark and thetrunk. Just something to think about.
Time for news break. Here's ournumber seven one three two one two KTRH.

(02:12:52):
Right now, we've got open lines. If you'd like to get on,
here's your shot. To Carla inRichmond. Hello, Carla, it
seems like our neighborhood is just overnightand inundated by the webworms and the trees.
Yes, and I don't know whatto do about it because some of
them are really high up where theycan't be reached. I can't cut the

(02:13:13):
branches out, so looking for recommendations. Well, if you can reach it,
you can control it. If youcan't reach it with a spray or
a pole to break up the websor something, then you're not going to
be able to the good news iswebworms don't kill your tree. Now,
if year after year you completely defolia, did the tree more than once a

(02:13:35):
year even, well, yeah,you're going to weaken the tree. And
there are the potential issues that couldbe contributing to the decline of the tree.
But webworms in and of themselves,trees bounce right back to them.
Just part of nature. They're ugly. I understand that, but I would
say everything you can reach, goahead and protect it or break the webs
up at least let wasps in.And what you can't. It's kind of

(02:13:58):
like close your eyes and don't lookat it because they go away. Yeah,
they go away. They have aboutthree generations a year here in the
Houston area. South Texas has four, North Texas has two. It depends
on the year. But so we'regetting a generation, you'll see them again

(02:14:18):
and then the worst generation is almostalways in August September when they get the
worst. So that's that's where youwouldn't want to get ahead of it as
much as you can. But thisseems to be a bad year, especially
for these early generations. We'll seehow it pans out for the others.
Anything to spray sprays, you haveoptions. The organic end is b T

(02:14:43):
and spinosaid are the two ingredients thatare effective. If you want something that's
going to last longer out there,then a synthetic pirethroid. There are a
number of different things. The syntheticpirethroids can tell them. Because the last
four letters are t h R In Thren. That's fine, that's five

(02:15:07):
letters. The last five three byby fen threns si Okay flu Thren resme
Thren. Those are all threns.Those are all synthetic. Now, the
one that's organic is pyrie Thren pyrethri. That's the only one. But I
would say if you want a littleyou know, if you're gonna have to
rent a sprayer or something like that. Then you don't want to use the

(02:15:31):
organics because a few days after youspray them, they're no longer working.
So I got you. Okay,well, thank you for that. At
least there's hope on the horizon.Yeah, yeah, there is. Well,
it's it's nature. Being nature doesn'tdoesn't always suit our taste. But
yeah, the good news is it'snot gonna kill your tree. Okay,

(02:15:52):
thank you so much. You bethappy, happy to do that. We're
gonna go now to Glenn and Tomball. Hello, Glenn, good morning.
How are you? I'm good,sir. How can we help? I
was I just had some new landscapingput in in the front by professional landscaper.

(02:16:16):
They came in, they cleaned itall up, and then they put
in composted leaf, mold and newdirt, and then they came back with
a layer of well, they putthe new plants in. It's about thirty
five different plants, and then theyput in a natural mult around it.
It really looks nice. And twoweeks two weeks later, here I look

(02:16:41):
and the nut grass is popping uparound in the front part. And I
went to pull it and somewhere inmy mind says, don't pull that nut
grass. And I've you in thepast, I've used is it sledge swimmer,
sedge hammer, Yeah, sedgehammer withthe yeah, with the surfact and

(02:17:05):
and right, I don't know whatwould kill that stuff? Yeah, And
I was looking for some it's abrand new bed and it wasn't cheap,
and I want to get that nutgrassout where it won't come back. Yeah.
Yeah, sedgehammer is good depending onwhere the nuts edge is growing.
Uh it. You know, there'sdifferent products that are labeled for use in

(02:17:26):
that area. Image we often usein the lawns, and you can use
it in flower beds. You haveto read the label because there's some plants
you shouldn't use it around. That'sthe image. But sedgehammer, sedge ender
is another one. And I'm forgettingsome others that are out there on the
market. But gun you're up therein Tomball. So if you head out
to Arbigate Nursery or D and Dis a feed store out that same twenty

(02:17:50):
nine to twenty going out, they'regoing to have products like that for it.
Handy and plants for all seasons isright now on the road. I
mean, they have a very goodselection. Of those two you're going to
find different stores. One may carrysedge ender and another sedge hammer, you

(02:18:11):
know. But I was just intoplants for all seasons the other day and
Sherry had a whole bunch of thingson the wall, and I noticed some
nutsedge controls there. So just gogo talk to them, get a hold
of somebody there like Sherry that knowswhat they're doing, and everybody there does,
uh, And and have them makesure you tell them I want this

(02:18:31):
for a flower bed, or Iwant this for a lawn, or I
want this for a rose bed.To make sure they give you a product
for use in that area. Okay, good deal. I'm going there this
morning to pick up Nelson's fertilizer forthe front. Okay, well they've got
that, yep. Good, Okay, all right, thank you very much

(02:18:52):
to day and just be ready onthe nut sedge. Stay with it.
You don't get it all at onetime. When it reached sprouts. After
it gets maybe three to five leaves, you need to have applied something to
it. Don't don't let it pullit. You can pull it, but
a nutsedge tuber has like seven tonine buds on it. So you when
it sprouts a shoot and comes upand you see the shoote and you break

(02:19:16):
it off, it just laughs andsends the next one up. I mean,
it's God that does not. Theone thing that does is it prevents
it from getting sunlight and carbohydrates toreplenish the nuts. So it's not that
it's bad, it's just that it'sa false hope. So you gotta it's
better to get a product that willtranslocate down into that tuber you and then

(02:19:39):
the daughter tubers. But if youlet it sit above ground catching sunlight for
four weeks, it's going to alreadyhave daughter tubers that are producing. So
you've just multiplied the problem before yougot around to spray in it. So
don't three or five leaves, getsome spray on it. Okay, all
right, I'll do that, Thankyou very much. You bet. Sometimes

(02:20:01):
I feel like Patten. You know, we're at the beginning of the movie
Patent. He marches back and forthtelling the troops how they're going to have
to win this war. You're you'reup for a war with nut said,
and you got to face it theright way. We're gonna take a little
break we'll be right back. Patrick, you are the first up when we
come back. Our phone number sevenone three two one two kat rh six

(02:20:22):
am to ten am. You cantell your friends and neighbors to listen to
garden Line. Maybe that guy thatwon't take care of his lawn, you
can get him listening. Who knowsthe neighborhood might be a little pretty your
place to live. Ice hardware storesare the place you go for all the
things that you need to have abeautiful lawn, landscape, outdoor patio area.
I mean, they've got it all, from barbecue pits to strings of

(02:20:43):
beautiful lights out there for the mosquitocontrols yep, the dunks and the mosquito
foggers and all the things that makelife livable outside. Right now, with
the flocks of mosquitos that we've got, they've got fire in control, and
this is a good time to dothat. Throw a potato chip out there
on your lawn and check back fiftyminutes and check back whenever you find fire

(02:21:07):
ants on that potato chip. Isa good time debate now. When it
gets ro hot, fire ants willbe out during the middle of the day
as much, but earlier or laterthey are they like that temperature time,
that's the time to put your baits. And ACE Hardware has the baits that
you need. Ace Hardware carries allthe things that you need for your gardens,
for your lawns, all the fertilizersI talk about. Go to Acehardware

(02:21:30):
dot com find the store locator.There's forty stores to choose from in the
greater Houston area. You ought tobe able to find two, three or
more not too far away from you. Certainly worth a trip over to get
stocked up. We're going to gonow to Missouri City and talk to Patrick.
Hello. Patrick, Yeah, I'vebeen seeing these big fucking account pillars.

(02:21:50):
Yeah, me inch and a halftwo inches long and about half a
dozen our plants all seen it.What are they do? The birds like
them? Well, there's a lotof caterpillars out there. The salt marsh
caterpillar somewhat fits the description that youjust gave me, So it may that

(02:22:11):
may be the name of it.It kind of doesn't matter what it is.
If it's a caterpillar. First ofall, there's a good chance a
bird might be willing to eat it. Typically a big fuzzy thing crawling on
the ground not as much, butthat would be an option. But anytime
it's eating your plant, which iswhat caterpillars do. They eat foliage.
You just need to spray the foliagewith spinosa or bt either one. And

(02:22:35):
when they eat it, they getsick and die. Yeah, what are
they when they grow up? Differentkinds of different kinds of moths. You
know, we'd have to I'd haveto know for sure what it is,
but you might. Why don't youdo this? You write down salt marsh
caterpillar. Go do a search onlinesee if that's your caterpillar, and when

(02:22:56):
you do that, you'll be ableto see what the moth looks like.
Okay, and what do you know? What to pick cabbage anytime you want
from one. It's a size ofa tennis ball. The one that's the
size of an almost bowling ball.It doesn't ripen. The heads just get
bigger depending on growing conditions and dependingon variety. There's some types that stay,

(02:23:16):
you know, a little bigger thana softball size, and then there's
some that get on up much largerthan that. So it doesn't any any
stage you want to pick it isfine. And what do a fireants eat?
They eat proteins and oils, sothey love to eat caterpillars. Fire

(02:23:37):
ants are When they first arrived here, of course we all wish they hadn't,
but then we noticed that ticks andflea populations were lower because they're out
there eating the larvae of ticks andfleas or you know, fleas, uh
and ticks, and they were helpingkeep those down for us. So protein
sources, the afforts to efforts.Pardon it, freaks. They will not

(02:24:03):
eat daphits. Nope, they donot do that. Yeah, hey,
Patrick, I got to run.I got some callers and we're about running
out of time today, but thankyou for the call. I really appreciate
that Medina has got a lot ofquality products and their has to grow line.
There's a regular hash to grow,there's a has to grow for lawns,
for example. But they now havesuper grow Plus super Grow Plus by

(02:24:24):
Medina. It's a sixteen zero twofertilizer in a quart bottle with a hose
attachment. You hook it up.You can cover four thousand square feet with
that quart. Takes about ten minutesto do that whole area, and it
has got the nutrients that you need. It's got sixteen zero two, which
is a good blend for most lawnsthat we have. It's got molasses in

(02:24:46):
it, it's got humic acid init. Part of the nitrogen is slow
release. It feeds the soil andit feeds the plant. Medina super Grow
Plus highly recommended. I love thatratio sixteen zero too, because most of
our lawns have enough phosphorus, andthat's why our number in phosphorus are a
little bit low. We don't almostnever need to add more for the lawn.

(02:25:09):
But supergrow Plus excellent product, easy, easy to use. You can
use it for a quick greenup.And it's got a little bit of slow
release action as well. We're goingto go now to Carol in Sugarland.
Hey, Carol, good morning.I have a little apricot drift roads In
every couple of nights, something eatsall of the leaves from it, so

(02:25:33):
it has bare stands except for thethorns. Okay, and there are roses
but known leaves. And I've triedMeme oil. It doesn't seem to help.
So I'm wondering should I try BTor spinosa? You know, you
could guess. Spinosa would be thebest guess because it kills both beetles and

(02:25:54):
caterpillars. BT kills just caterpillars.So if you're going to do a wild
guess, I'd do spinosid. Thereare certainly some other more potent insecticides and
synthetic parihoids, a number of differentingredients like that that would would last a
little better. I would go outwith a flashlight at night. A couple
of times. We got to catchthese guys in the act to see what

(02:26:15):
they are, right, I haven'tbeen able to see anything. Yeah,
the fact that they're nocturnal. Idon't know. I'm thinking caterpillar. But
you know, there are a lotof things that eat leaves, but spinosa
should be a good a good firstguest. Let's give that a try and
see if it shuts it down beforeyou run out of leaves. I'll try
that. Thank you, Thank youvery much. I appreciate the call.

(02:26:37):
Tim from Baytown. You're our lastcaller of the day. We got about
a minute left. How can wehelp? Okay, how are you doing
this morning? I'm good, sir. I think I have a Saint Augustine
lun and it's always been thick lustthan green, and I noticed it had
a yellow spot. And what Idid at rake it all out and put
some compost tops on there. Andand I see some moreres did the same

(02:27:01):
thing. So I rate all itout and put some uh both so and
I put some sad there some therethe other day. What what do you
think that was? Is it afun us or if it if it's just
if it's just yellowing, it couldbe an iron deficiency and those are typically

(02:27:22):
temporary. But an iron keylated productwould help with iron deficiency. If it's
literally turning yellow and then dying out. That is take all root rot,
and take all root rot is onmy schedule. Since I'm out of time,
I'm just going to tell you goto Gardening with Skip dot com.
That's my website, Gardening with Skip. I've got my schedules on there,

(02:27:46):
and look at the one for pestsand diseases and weeds. It will tell
you what to do for take all, what product do you use and when
to apply it and everything like that. Okay, Tim, okay, thanks
for all right, sir, Thankyou for the call. Appreciate that.
WOA. There was a busy day. All right. We'll be back tomorrow
morning, six am. Don't forgettwo weeks from today, June fifteenth,

(02:28:09):
come to Wahbirds Unlimited m bel Air, Texas, Southwest Houston. Wawbird's Unlimited,
bell Air, I will be makingan appearancer from eleven o'clock in the
morning to one o'clock two hours thereanswer your gardening questions. You can bring
me samples, you can bring mephotos. Just come in and say hi.
I'd like to meet folks that listento garden Line. If you haven't

(02:28:31):
seen me at an appearance anywhere thisyear, you need to come out.
I want to meet you. Whileyou're there, you're gonna find lots of
cool stuff at Wallbird's Unlimited, alwaysa fun store to shop there. All
right, we're putting it in thebooks. See tomorrow morning at six am.