Lemon tree troubles!

Skip takes your calls all morning!

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to kat r h Garden linewith scamp Ricord's sho crazy trim. Just
watch him as many give things toseep bats not a sid Good morning on

(00:39):
a what's going to be a goodSunday. Really look forward to today.
Uh we are we're entering the hotseason of the year, there's no question
about that. Uh, but ourmornings are still wonderful times to be outside.
Grab a cup of coffee, walkout, walk through the landscape.
Uh. You know, they saythat the best fertilizer is the footprints of

(01:00):
the gardener, and I would addthe best pest control as a footprints of
the gardener as well. And thereason is the more you're out there and
you notice things, the more youtend to be taking care of your plants
and not letting things get away.For example, a pest infestation, when
you catch it early, you usemuch safer. We'll see softer products,

(01:23):
meaning not as harsh, not asmuch of a backlash, negative effect on
landscapes, you know, killing beneficialinsects or other things like that. And
it just it all starts with youbeing out there noticing things early on.
So take advantage of these cool hoursto walk around and look. You know,
I like to also when I drivearound town, I look at landscapes.

(01:45):
Of course, all the time,being horticultures, I can't help that,
but a lot of times I'll seethem and I'll ask, why do
I like that landscape? What aboutit do I like? Is there?
Is it the curves of the layoutthat are very that actually pleasing? Is
it? Axit? For example,the use of certain kinds of plants and

(02:05):
how they laid it out, ormaybe I see a plant, it's like,
what is that? Find out moreabout it? Learn about that one.
And the more you do that kindof thing, the more you kind
of know what you want to haveat your house, and whether you do
it yourself or whether you hire somebodyto do it. Always having some pictures
on hand to kind of remind youto give you some inspiration as you go
out shopping. Those are good ideas, and so I would encourage you take

(02:30):
advantage of that. It's always good. Different times of the year. I'll
do a walk through and just kindof look at things. After that season,
you know, the end of summer'sOh, it's a great time because
that's when you find out who's awimp and who's a hero and the landscape.
Plants that can survive are warm,let's just say blazing hot instead of
warm, are blazing hot summer,the sultiness of the humidity and everything else.

(02:54):
Well, at the end of summer, you kind of get an idea.
You know, you see that areaof the yard, you know,
I am trying to keep that grassalive over there. I don't even use
that as a lawn area. Really, maybe I should install some more drought
tolerant plants, some native plants,things that might have a better chance of
surviving and thriving, not just survivingin that area. So just the thought,

(03:16):
it's always good to kind of getahead of time. Fall planting season
will be here and we can stillplant things now, So this is a
good time to do that kind ofevaluation. Well, welcome to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter.We're glad to have you with us.
Our phone number is seven to onethree two one two k t RH

(03:37):
if you'd like to give us acall. I'm gonna talk about a couple
of things this morning that I've kindof been thinking about regarding regarding plants and
horticulture and planting and things like thatwhenever we're trying to establish a plant.
And I had a number of peopleI talked to yesterday out at the Langham

(03:58):
Creek Ace Hardware. By the way, thanks for inviting me out. It
was a blast. We had agood time. I think, I hope
everybody that came did. We werecutting up and just really learning a lot
of things and having fun in theprocess. But while I was out there,
I talked to a number of folkswho had recently planted something or were

(04:18):
in the process of trying to dosome kind of planting. And I notice
a lot a lot of times thatyou know, I always talk about fallbying
the best time to plant because itallows the most time between planting and the
weather we're experiencing right now, whichis very stressful to plants. You can
plant any plant any well, youcan plant anything that's a perennial that'll live

(04:42):
here here after year, any monthof the year. Okay, So you
could put trees in now if youif you wanted to, if it was
a reason to go ahead and getthat head start. Just when you plant
things now, you have to inyour mind picture that you just put the
pot in the ground with the plantand what that will duty you if you
picture that is, you'll know nowwhen I need to water it, where

(05:04):
would you put the water well?Where all the roots are in the pot?
Right? And early on in plantingwe have a little bit of a
touching go like that where you knowit's very hot outside. We get the
plant established and we get it wet, make sure the root ball is well
saturated with water, and then wehave to maintain that by continuing in small

(05:26):
doses to water it each day aswe gradually expand that root zone. We'd
like it to happen fast, butas it happens, for example, in
a tree three years down the line, we are still building, you know,
a very resilient root zone or rootsystem year after year. So as
you apply that water in small dosesand then gradually expanding the wedding area and

(05:49):
just what you need to get downand feel the soil, dig down about
three or four inches and feel it. And if it's wet, don't water
because of clay soil and weather withus, water water water, and it
ends up being an underground bathtub,and that is very detrimental to roots.
Drought is detrimental completely submerge. Nooxygen for the roots is detrimental. So

(06:13):
that's the touch and go that wedo. But it can be done.
But she just kind of get involved, not just you know, turn on
a sprinkler, walk away and forgetit. Well, let's let's go ahead
and jump in to some calls thismorning. I'm going to head out now
to Cyprus, Texas and talk toKatie. Hello, Katie, I need
to get a connection here to Katie. Get naughty. I'm gonna put Katie

(06:38):
back on hold, and if youguys can try to get her on the
line, that would be good.We'll come back to you, Katie.
If you're trying to talk to meand I can't hear you, this's just
hang on. We'll be right back. See that all right? Check back
here? Do we have Katie?All right? Back on hold? So

(06:58):
I was talking about planting and makingsure that plants get established. Well,
if you take a container in agarden center or in a grower field,
they've got the containers. They're waterin those things every day and in most
cases depends on the plant and thepot size and the location in the garden
center, but they're watering them oftenbecause it only takes about a day or

(07:24):
two for a pot to dry outin hot, hot weather and full sun
especially, and so that frequent wateringmakes sure that completely confined root system has
a chance of surviving. And thething you need to remember when you're water
plants, whether it's a container fullof tomatoes or something that blooms, is

(07:47):
when that plant goes into drought stress, you probably you probably when it goes
into dashes, you probably water prettyquick and it bounces right back and it's
like, oh, dodge that bullet. Well, yes, and no the
plant you dodged it. In theplanets that alive, But when you let
a tomato go into a drought stress, it's going to be more likely to

(08:09):
abort fruit the fruit that it has, or not going to develop the full
size that they potentially could develop.And when it comes to flowers, they
just quit flowering in many cases whenthey're going through those stresses. So those
are just some things to consider,and we want to avoid that kind of
stress at all costs in order tobe able to maintain not just a live

(08:30):
plant, but a productive plant aswell. We're going to take a quick
break here, Katie. I'll getto you first. When we come right
back, get the stretch, allright, welcome back to guard Line.
Good to have you with us.You know, I've been talking about planting
and how we can still plant inthe summer season, how to make sure
where our plants do well, andit's all just about making sure we alleviate

(08:52):
any kind of stress that we can. I'm going to go back. I
believe we got Katie connected in ourYeah, Katie Cyprus connected. Hey Katie,
welcome to the show. Good tohave you. Hey, good morning,
thank you. I have found twonew guinea flatworms in my flowerbed,
and from what I'm reading, itis not good. How can I get

(09:13):
rid of them? Oh? Boy, that's a good question. I doubt
you're going to find anything on agarden shelf that says for treating new guinea
flatworms. You know, the labelthat tells us what something will work on
and what we're allowed to use iton. I don't want to look into
that a little bit. This isa for those listening. It's an invasive

(09:37):
species, fairly new to us here, and it just happens a lot around
the world where one pest or creaturefinds its way to a new environment and
now it typically becomes a problem whenyou when that happens because they don't have
all their and I send you video, Yeah, you can send me video.
It's to double to confirm, likegood care for animals, like the

(10:01):
rat lung worm that it carried.I know you're crazy. Yes, you
can send me a video. I'mnot an expert on that, but I
can probably figure it out what itis, and I'll give me a reminder
to see if I can find youwhat you can do about it. There's
probably not going to be a lotthat you can do about it. When
when you have those kind of things, you know, it's not like they're

(10:22):
eating the leaves of your plant,so you spray the leaves of your plant
and the poison gets in the pest. This is going to be the kind
of thing that you've ended up nukein a whole area to try to kill
it, and that has its ownnegative effects of course, But can they
completely destroy my plant? Let melet me see it. Let's get identified

(10:43):
and then we'll go from there.I don't. I don't think so.
But I'm going to put you onhold, Katie, and the producer will
give you my email address so youcan send me the video or if you
have a close up photo too,that would be very good. Oh yeah,
when something, if you have astill photo that's close up in sharp

(11:03):
focus, that's the best way forme to be able. Okay, all
right, okay, Well this isa fun thing to share around as you
go visit family and friends. Here'sa photo, the photo of my exotic
invasive species that I've got here.All right, thanks you very much.

(11:26):
I hang on just a second,here we go. Yeah, you know,
we get these new oh gosh,these new species in and sometimes it's
not a big deal. Sometimes theycreate great alarm that never pans out,
and other times they you know,it can be I don't know, a
new problem that we have to dealwith, Like I've got things like the

(11:48):
emerald ash borer, and what wasthe one that we became so alarmed with
not too many years ago, thethe oh murder they called the murder hornets
up in Washington State, and wewere all worried they were going to appear
here, and a lot of ourcurrent existing WASP family members were immediately assumed
to be murder hornets when people foundthem in the lawn and in the landscape.

(12:13):
But they're not they're not here.That's one we can relax on if
you do have pasts in your landscape. Nineer fives has a product called bug
out Max and it really is ideallydesigned for use in the lawn for things
that live in the lawn. Notjust pests of the lawn like a chinchbug
or a sideweb worm, although itwould kill those, but things like ants

(12:35):
and fleas and tics. You know, yesterday I was talking with someone out
at Langham Creek Ace Hardware about controllingfleas, and we talked about the different
aspects of effective flea control, butone thing was dealing with things out in
the lawn and landscape that are inthe thatch. And do you know fleas
they lay eggs that hatch out intolarva that become people that become adult fleas,

(13:00):
and so out in the thatch ofthe landscape you can have that going
on. You know, the dogthat the fleas are hopping off the dog
and hopping onto the dog as theyrun around the landscape. And that's part
of that big cycle that we haveto break and Nuchruss bug Out Max can
do that sort of thing for you. You know, when it comes to
effective pest control. To put aproduct like that out to get it spread

(13:22):
over the area so that it's goingto do what you need it to do
in terms of effective control and effect. Nice even coverage is important. That's
what I'm trying to get to andsay, nice even coverage is important.
You water it in and within fortyeight hours it's doing its work, and
then it's going to last all throughthe summer. It's a persistent product that

(13:43):
will be in that thatch of theturf down at the base near the ground,
and you're going to have ongoing control, so you don't have to apply
it three times over the summer season. You can ply it once and you
get your summer season of control.You're going to find that product did a
task asda Ace Hardware. You're goingto find it down in Lake Jackson is

(14:03):
called Light Hardware Clute and you're goingto find it at Jim's Hardware Montgomery,
as well as many other other places. If you'd like to give us a
call and talk gardening, our phonenumber is seven one three two one two
kt r H seven one three twoone two kt r H. Be happy
to visit with you and see ifwe can help you have help you have

(14:26):
a more bountiful garden and a morebeautiful landscape. That is what it's about.
That that's one of the enjoyable thingsabout gardening is not only the visual
appeal of beauty and design and justwhatever you like the looks of that that
beauty, but also just the multicentury enjoyment a fragrance of flowers, of

(14:52):
the sounds of birds and water.The smells meant well, I said,
fragrance of flowers and one week createthe environment that brings in or we bring
in both plants and animals, creaturesthat we're interested in, whether it's pollinators
or butterflies or whatever. It justmakes our outdoors a relaxing place to be.

(15:13):
It's a very therapeutic thing to getout and do that. One of
the keys is we're going into thesummer season to keep in our plants healthy
and just really doing the best theycan do. As I was talking about
earlier, with production of flowers andfruit or just a nice dense lawn with
covered is making sure that we provideadequate water, but in any bed areas,

(15:37):
also making sure that we have amulch on the ground. Mulch is
what nature does. Nature mulches thesoil. Nature puts dead organic matter on
top of the soil, whether it'sfallen leaves in the fall or or you
know grass blades shriveling up and beingin a meadow to help cover the coat.
The surface of the soil covered up, keep the sunlight out of the

(15:58):
soil. And that does several things. Number one, the easy thing off
the top is down cuts down onweeds. When you don't have mult When
you have bear soil, nature woollplant weeds in that area to cover up
the area. Second thing it doesis moderate soil temperature, and that is
huge. We don't think about this, but you have you walked out well,

(16:19):
I know, if you go barefootin a summer on asphalt, you're
about to step into it and yourealize you've made a big mistake. Even
on a white concrete driveway, itgets so hot you can hardly walk on
it. Well, our soils aredark and they really absorb a lot of
the solar radiation and get too hotfor the roots up near the surface top

(16:41):
three inches even becomes inhospitable for rootson a hot, direct shining summer Sunday,
and so mulch stops all that andkeeps it very moderated and cool.
It helps conserve moisture and protect thesoil from eroding well. Landscaper's Pride has
a lot of different multi They havea number of different ones. For example,

(17:02):
they have a cedar mulch and acypress mulch. Both of those a
cedar has a nice aromatic smell.They both I think are very attractive.
The cypress locks down really well,stays in place when it's wet. Very
light colored mulch. Pine Bark's oneeverybody knows about. That's one of the
most popular multches there is. Fromthe Landscaper's Pride. They've got the shredded
hardwood. And then they have blackvelvet. Black velvet is not dyed,

(17:25):
it is molts. It is naturallydark in color, but it's very velvety
and dense. And all of these, whatever you use of these, get
it down, get it in athick enough layer to do its job,
to block the sunlight, to holdin the moisture that may be about three
inches deep. On some of them, you can go a little shallower,
that's okay. But Landscaper's Pride hasall these and they're everywhere. You can

(17:47):
go to the website Landscaperspride dot comand look at the store locator and you
will see so many dots you cango well, I can probably walk from
here to where I can get Landscaper'sPride products because they're that ubiquitous. I
want to head out now. We'regoing to go to Orange, Texas and
talk to Susan. Hello, Susan, Hello, good morning. So I

(18:08):
live in Orange and I'm moving tothe sam Rayburn area. I have Amarillis
bulbs that have been in the groundfor twenty years. I want to take
them with me. What is mybest way to do that to achieve success?
Is there any green foliage on themright now? Yes? Okay,

(18:29):
So all you can do is digthem up. And there's a couple of
approaches. Why is just dig themand let them dry out. I mean,
don't leave them sitting in the fullsun all the time. But let
it go ahead and shrivel. Thebulls will do that and it will come
back. Sometimes when we do that, it kind of throws them off of
a bloom cycle and stuff. ButI am Maillis from where they naturally live.

(18:52):
Have late summer droughts that are partof the bloom setting and cycle.
So that's very very effective. Butthe other thing would be to try to
dig them and repot them and tryto maintain that foliage and you sort of
create a little potted bulbs to carrywith you. That's a little more work.
It's essential to keep them alive andgoing. But that's an option.

(19:15):
Uh, Susan, I'm gonna haveto go to a news break right now,
but if you want to, I'mgonna put your on hold. If
you want to hang on for morequestions on that, that's that. That's
happy to do that. All right, folks, it's time for a break.
Seven one three two one two ktr H. Go back to the
guard line. Good to have youwith us. We're going to head back

(19:36):
to the phones. And let's seehere. I believe we were talking with
Susan. Hello Susan, Yeah,hello, Skip. So if I lift
the bulbs and I want them todry out, to cut the tops off
now, just they'll shrivel up.You don't have to cut them off and
just put them in a spot wherethere's good air circulation. You know,
of course, don't put a bunchof sawdust around them in their current state

(20:02):
and where it's warm, but there'sbut the air moves through easily, but
no direct sun shining down on them. Okay, okay, And then when
would be the best time to actuallyput them in the ground. I would
put them back in the ground,probably September. I think I would hold
them until then. You could pulpthem right away and that'd be fine.

(20:25):
But I'm just sort of thinking abouttheir natural cycle and and oh yeah,
yeah, typically I used to oneof my mentors used to say, you
take amarillis and containers and you justlay the containers on their side toward the
end of summer and let them dryout and go to that dormant dry state
and then set them back up andstart watering them and they take back off

(20:47):
again. And so when do youhave to dig them and move them now?
Yes? Okay, yeah, it'sa long time for them to say,
but I think that's what I woulddo with them. Okay, Okay,
great, Thank you, Skip,love your show, all right,
Thanks lot, appreciate the call verymuch. Let's see here. We're going
to go now to West Houston andtalk to Ron. Hello Ron, good

(21:11):
morning, Skip morning. I I'vejust moved into a new location and the
flower bed has been abused with dyedmulch for quite a while, and I
wanted to know what do I needto do to remediate the soil so that
things will actually grow again. Yeah, well, there are a lot of

(21:37):
things that can mess up the soil. You know, I'm not a I'm
not a fan of dyed mulch.That's a whole nother topic for me.
But it's it will also decompose intime, you know. It's just those
dyes are It's not like they've ruinedthe soil and you can never grow there
again without excavating everything that. It'snot that way at all, But I

(21:59):
would, I would just if youwant to rake some of the old stuff
out, you could, in thiscase get rid of it and then just
put some fresh compost down, mixit in a little bit in the surface.
Is if it's around existing plants,you're not gonna be able to mix
it much. But then put aregular mulch of your choosing above on top
of that and you'll be fine.Okay. Would any amendments like Medina has

(22:23):
to grow be beneficial for that area. It's always helpful to have things that
are that stimulate microbial activity and whatnot. I don't know exactly the condition of
that soil. You know, Isaid, just put some composts in the
surface and mulch on top. Ifit truly is a poor soil condition and
you're going to truly completely renovate thatbed, I would take advantage of that

(22:45):
time to amend the soil into itsbest condition. That might be bringing in
a bed mix. That might meanputting some if it's a heavy clay,
putting some expanded shale down and mixingit in as you're doing that mixing to
get a longer term benefit. Okay, yeah, I was just I know

(23:07):
I've been listening to the Garden Linefor quite some time, and I know
that Randy had a very strong opinionabout diagmol from the poisons that it puts
into the dirt well, and that'swhat I was concerned about. You know,
it's not something it's not something thatthe beneficial creatures are going to be
excited about in the soil. Natureis just so resilient run I don't want

(23:34):
to downplay, like, oh,there's no concern, don't worry, don't
you know totally, But at thesame time, nature is extremely resilient.
When you think about the fact thatwe can have an oil spill on the
ocean and their bacteria that eat itup. That's that's resilient. And so
no matter what we do, natureas a way seems to work around us

(23:56):
and reheal the situation for plant growth. So that that's kind of how I
feel. But yeah, I would, I would share Randy's lack of appreciation
for for for it. I justyou know, everybody has their opinions.
Some people think silk flowers are beautiful. I see them and go, that's
not real, that's fake. Idon't like that. You know. There's

(24:19):
a lot of things that are thatare that way. I can't stand the
little tiny cacti you see for salein certain generally not plant centers, but
other places that have been dyed likenavy blue or purple. You know,
to me, it's just fake andI don't like the looks of that.
So that's how I feel primarily aboutit. I would We could go on

(24:40):
about the specifics and things, butfor me, it's it's mainly just an
aesthetic preference. And I think mulchshould be there to decompose and feed the
soil because that's what nature does withmulch on the soil, and so that's
why I'd rather rather do it witha natural product. An unna Unnow,

(25:04):
So if I go on a programof using medina has to grow after I
rake off the diamulch uh spread downwith medina has to grow, put compost
on top of that, and thenmulch on top of that. How soon
could I plant right away? Thatyou plant it right away? You should.

(25:26):
The only thing that I was talkingabout before is there is a physical
condition of the soil in addition toany chemistry or microbial or any of that.
There's just a physical condition. Andif you've got a really tight clay
bed, getting in there and improvingthe physical structure of the soil would be

(25:47):
important as in addition to you're talkingabout you know, chemical issues or microbial
issues and whatnot. So anything youcan do to improve that would would be
very important to Okay, all right, thank you very much. You're welcome.
All right, I appreciate appreciate thecall. YEP. I know a
lot of people have a lot ofopinions about things like that, and not

(26:10):
everybody everybody definitely agrees on it.There's some people who like that look.
You know, there's also people wholike painted grass. Have you ever seen
painted grass? It's not beautiful color, so we spray it with a dye
and it looks a very weird bluegreen. To me, not real fond
of the color. But other peoplelove it, So I don't know what

(26:33):
do they say? Yadis tirkin ziineblizzerin every creature has its pleasure. There
that was worth the price of admissiontoday. Hey, you're listening to guardline
seven one three two one two kt RH seven one three two one two
k t r H. Give usa call. We'll talk about the things
that interest you when it comes toa beautiful landscape. If you want to
talk to someone who knows what they'redoing and can do it, and someone

(26:57):
who is just so versatile in themany services that they offer, that would
be Peerscapes. Peerscapes creates landscapes fromscratch. Peerscapes renovates landscapes that over time,
maybe they need some redoing, redesign. You don't like the way that

(27:17):
something looks, call Paerscapes, havethem come out and fix it. They
can do hardscapes unbelievably beautiful hardscapes forthat outdoor patty you Maybe you want to
lay some brick in a porous typehardescape landscape. They can do that.
Do you have irrigation issues, maybethe heads aren't aligned, the pressure's not
right, the system just wasn't designed. Well. Call Peerscapes. They do
landscape maintenance as well. They areoutstanding in their landscape lighting. Go to

(27:42):
the website and see what I'm talkingabout. They are magicians when it comes
to designing, installing, renovating,and certainly also caring. They do a
quarterly maintenance program. Maybe you likewhat you got, you just need some
help taking care of it. Well, have them come in fertilize it and
weed, inspect the irrigation, doany aeration, any seasonal color changes,

(28:03):
and he multing that bed might need, any trimming that bed might need.
On a quarterly basis, they justabsolutely keep your place looking good. That's
go to piercescapes dot com. Piercescapesdot com. That's the website and when
you get there you'll find out howto contact them if you want to do
that. You'll see some really inspirational, inspirational landscape installations. You realize you

(28:27):
got professionals on your hands with veryBy the way, also this I think
this is an interesting point and worthmaking, and that is that they've got
employees that have been with them avery long time. You know that over
ten years. The longer longest tenuredemployee I believe now is over twenty six
years that have been with them.And when you have that kind of experience,

(28:49):
you just know how to handle thingshere in our area. I'm going
to take a little break here now. It's time for us again and I'll
be back. Our phone number ifyou'd like to call seven three two one
two kt r H. All right, hey, welcome back to garden Line.
We are going to go back tothe phones right now and talk to

(29:10):
Mike in the Woodlands. Hey Mike, Hey, good morning Skip. I'm
moving into a brand new home that'sbeen vacant for a couple of years.
People that move We're going to moveinto it. They had some unfortunate circumstances,
but they've got it looks like bermudagrass, and I've never seen this

(29:33):
type of bermuda grass before. Itjust seems seems to look different. And
I'm just wondering other different strains ofbermuda many many look different. Yeah,
many different strains. If you've got, for example, like everything from a

(29:56):
golf course green which is a verydwarf strain, up to common coastal bermuda
in pastures which gets knee high almost, it's a it's a a lot of
things in between. There's some thatare a little finer texture leaves than others.
There's a little variation there as well. Uh So, bottom line is,
yeah, you get you a lotto pick from when it comes to

(30:18):
bermuda grass. Okay, I don'tknow if you saw the pictures that I
sent in, Yeah, idea,okay, Yeah, it just looks just
look different. I thought it wasbermuda, but it just just seemed to
look be a different strain though whatI was, yeah used to. I
know it's some about Yeah, there'sa variation like that. But no matter

(30:41):
what it is, the more oftenyou mowed it, the better it looks.
I don't care what kind of bermudayou buy. If it's a dwarf
type, you got them it reallyoften, or have the kind you have,
you probably get way away with aonce a week mowing at about a
two and a half inch height.I think would be pretty good based on
what I saw. Okay, yeah, I've been looking around for a real

(31:03):
mower, but things like all that'sonline is just the manual push behind.
Yes, and if you want to, if you want to really go hogwild,
you can buy one that's motorized.It's about fourteen Yeah, yeah,
there you go. Yeah, Iknow, you know with with Bermuda,

(31:23):
that's not very super dwarf. Ifyou mow it regularly with a sharp propeller
blade mower at about inches two anda half inches high, it'll make a
decent line. The shorter you get, the more you're going to need that
real mower to be able to dothe real tight cut, and the more
often you're gonna be yeah too,right for there was also a picture of

(31:45):
a weed that is growing in thebackyard. Yes, if you saw that
or no, that's called ragweed.There's a whole bunch of different species of
ragweed. But that is a speciesof ragweed that has grown out there.
You know, if there's a wholelot of it. If there's not a
lot of it, just hand pullingit simple. If there is a lot

(32:06):
of it, it's difficult to control. Now because it's so hot, and
without hurting your turf. I don'tknow the label on I would need to
check a product, a lawn weedcontrol product that contains two four D would
be an option for controlling ragweed.But I just need to check and make

(32:27):
sure that your bermuda is on thatlabel. Meaning I know Saint Augustine.
In the summer, two four Dcan be pretty rough on it as the
temperatures get hot, and so youdon't want to cause problems by what you
use to control the ragweed, Sowiper applicators, because that ragweed is going
to come up higher than your bermudapretty fast, So you don't mow for

(32:49):
a few days, you can getto the ragweed touching the bermuda. That
that's an option. But it maybe that there there's one out there that
you could just spray on the bermudaand there wouldn't be a problem. Okay,
but it's gonna have two four Din it. Two four D it's
one of the herbicides. It's oftenused in lawns to control weeds. Been

(33:13):
an old, old product, beenused a long time. It's got its
pros and cons. But in thiscase, with this weed in this setting,
meaning a Bermuda lawn. I thinkit's going to be the thing you
need to use. Okay, there'sother weeds in the yard. They seem
to be broad leaved. Should Ijust go ahead and individually spray those if

(33:36):
you with yes? Yes. NowI noticed the grass is kind of stressed.
It looks like it's been through somedrought or something like that. The
densities is not there. So asyou mow, water and fertilize, that'll
that'll get denser. But when itcomes to the weed, it is pretty
actively growing. It seems to bepretty happy, and that's important for you
active control. If you've got ragweedthat's drought stressed and stunted sort of,

(34:00):
you're not going to get good controlwith these products. It needs to be
happy and growing actively. Yeah,it looks like it's growing very happily.
Okay, thanks a lot, andI appreciate the call. Take care all
right, thank you, skip bybye, bybbye. Have you been at
plans for all seasons? Plans forall seasons is where see if you're going

(34:22):
to up Tombo Parkway two forty ninthswhere Luetta crosses over, so you just
if you're going north, just crossover Luetta and Plants for All Seasons is
right there on the right hand side. It's easy to get to. I've
been around since nineteen seventy three,and this family nursery has an outstanding selection
of all kinds of things that youmight want. If you want to go
in and get some inspiration on doingcontainers, if you just want to maybe

(34:45):
you want to do it do ityourself combo, they can help you with
that. Do you want to justpurchase a baskets, It's ready to go.
You got people coming over tonight fora gathering. Hey, you can
just go in there and get theinstant color and it really will do well
in your landscape because they choose plantsthat do well here and they advise you
on how to take care of them. They also help if you've got problems

(35:05):
you want to take a sample inor a picture in to have them help
you with it. They are expertsat that, which is definitely, as
I like to say, worth theprice of admission. You can go a
lot of places and buy things,but when you go to Plants for All
Seasons, you've got a very educatedstaff that can guide you in the right
way. You're not wasting your timeand money on plants and products that are

(35:27):
not going to work here for you. Plants for All Seasons dot Com is
their website if you'd like to getMcCall to eight one three seven six sixteen
forty six to eight one three sevensix sixteen forty six. Remember it is
still a good time to be planting. We got three months of summer ahead
of us, and why not havea colorful one with plants that laugh at

(35:51):
the summer heat. Go buy plantsfor all Seasons and ask them they can
help you do exactly that. We'regoing to go now to John in Spring
Tech says hello, John marin Skip. I lived in my house just over
thirty years in the Spring area,and we're looking at doing some repair on

(36:12):
some drainage that we have that's beeninstalled, but also in some of the
wee drain lines and from the backyardto the street. I was worrying if
you could recommend a company to dothat, I would recommend Pierce Scapes.
They are the best company I knowfor doing just that. I hear the
music playing in my ear here.I'm going to give you a website,

(36:35):
Piercescapes dot com, and then I'mgoing to give you a phone number two
eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. Go to their website peerscapes dot com.
There's a section on irrigation and there'sinformation on drainage that you can read
about on there. It's very veryhelpful. In fact, they just hay,
thanks a lot. Yeah, theyjust had something on their Facebook page.

(36:57):
I think it was like how tochoose an irrigation a drainage contractor some
of the key points. Thanks alot for the colle s. All right,
folks, will be right back.You want to get on the boards
and be ready to go. Sevenone three two one two k t r
H k t r H Garden Linewith skip rictor it's just watch him as

(37:25):
again not a sign. Welcome backto the guard line. Good to have

(37:47):
you today. If you looked outside, it is beautiful. The sun is
shining. We've got a clear sky, and I think this is going to
be a good day. I'm lookingforward to today this afternoon. I've got
a couple of things I want toget out and do a few things I
need to take care of. AsI'm puttering about, I do need to
stop by. I had some variousproducts I need to pick up. I
kind of went to the cupboard theother day to do some gardening and found

(38:12):
that, yeah, I need somemore of this and some more of that,
and so i'd swing by and getsome of that done too this afternoon.
I just want to remind you thateven though it's getting hot, it's
still a good time to put outplants, and there are all kinds of
plants that can take this summer heat. It was out at Nelson Water Garden,
which is nursery and water garden actuallyout in Katie by the way.

(38:35):
If you've not been out there,that's your West Houston Garden center. And
you just sat out to Katie andturned north on Katie Fort Ben Road,
and it's just a hop, skippingor jump down down the street and when
you get there, you're going tofind a lot of plants and go like,
well, I thought this place wasjust water garden. Not at all.
They've had a very nice nursery lotsand lots of different kinds of plants
there. But when we get intosummer heat and we start griping about the

(38:58):
fact, okay it's getting hot,well you just need a water garden,
that's what you need. Meaning doyou want a little maybe a waterfall in
the landscape that creates that beautiful beautyvisually and the sound of it. Would
you like one of those large containers, those urns that are glazed pottery that
the water spills out of the topof and goes down into a rock bed

(39:22):
where it just recirculates. That's calleda disappearing fountain. And they are so
cool, they're so beautiful, andthe birds and beneficial insects, well,
thank you for that too, bythe way, Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens
out and Katie's got all of thatand then some you just need to go
and take someone with you. Thisis a destination place. It's the kind
of place where allow yourself a littletime to just go back among the many

(39:45):
water features that they have on theproperty. There back behind the plant nursery
part of it. It is shaded. It is beautiful and you would just
enjoy the therapy. In fact,they had a charge in emission just for
audio therapy that you get when Isit by water. I enjoy so much

(40:05):
the sound. It's relaxing, itsjust and it's also just beautiful anyway.
Nelson Watergardens dot Com. Nelson watergardensdot com. That's a website, easy
to find them, easy to getto, and when you get there,
you'll be surprised and you really enjoyyourself. I know you will, because
I always do when I go outthere. We're gonna head over to Kingwood
now and talk to Joe. Hey, Joe, good morning, Skip.

(40:29):
I had to dig up three Sunshinethe gustrooms that are planted in a bed
near my house, and they're inabout seven gallon containers and I'm watering them
every day and I'll be replanting themall in about a week and a half.
My question is when I replant them, what should be the frequency for

(40:51):
watering. I assume start off heavyand then taper down. And then would
it be helpful to use medina hasto grow for plants, and how many
times? And then after that medinagrowing green fertilized organic fertilizer. How often
should I apply some of that?Yeah, so first job is going to

(41:12):
be to get them a root systemagain, because they lost about ninety percent
of it no matter how much youtried to dig. And so I would
get them in the ground to keepthem adequately moist. And so you know,
saying how often or how much towater. I can't tell you because
a lot of factors a factor intothat. But that root system that they
have where it's all been cut off, is going to start re sprouting new

(41:35):
roots. And you want that soilto be consistently moist, not soggy,
underwater, not dry. You wantit to stay adequately moist. So water
is needed for that. And Ihave to get my hands involved in terms
of you know, dig down andfeel the soil a few inches below the
surface, and that's how I getto literally get a feel for how much

(41:57):
water I need to put on themedina. Haster grows, the drench would
be good. I would probably drenchit right at planting. I'd probably do
it again about ever two weeks forseveral more applications, and you would it's
just doing a lot of good thingsfor the plant root system because of the
various things in the concoction of themedina has to grow. As far as

(42:20):
going to the dry fertilizer you mentionedgoing to a medina a fertilizer granule,
you could do that. I wouldwait at least six weeks after planting,
and in the short term go withmore of a gradual feed through. You
could use their seaweed product, theirfish and motion products, any of the

(42:42):
products like that there. They're verysafe to use on the new plants.
But job number one is getting aroot system in and at least six weeks
later then beginning to put granule fertilizerout is good. I just I guess
what I'm trying to say, Joe, is that it's not nutrients that's their
number one need right off the bat. The number one need is consistent moisture

(43:05):
in the root system. That soundsgreat. Skip on the Medina haster grill.
You said every two weeks for severaltimes. Yeah, I would probably
do it over two weeks for threeor four times even. Okay, watering
it in at planting very you knowvery well. But then yeah, a
couple of weeks, just do itagain, do it again, and I

(43:27):
think that that will go a longway to help him. Thank you much.
I appreciate the help. All right, Jim, thanks a lot too.
We're going to go to Austin nowand talk to Robert. Is this
Austin, Texas, Austin County?What are we doing here Robertas County?
Okay, we need to know what'sthe best way to get stickers? Are

(43:51):
these the stickers that are look sortof like grasp but they come up way
above the turf with little seed headson top. They get that all getting
your feet. Yeah, okay,the grass that's a grass burr and that
particular kind of stick arette. It'shard to spray and kill the plant if

(44:12):
it's in your lawn. Is thatwhere it is in a in a grassy
lawn or where are you seeing those? Yeah? So what would kill the
grass burr plant will also kill yourlawn. So what we generally do with
those, Robert is use pre emergentherbicides like a barricade application by nitroposs.

(44:32):
You can put that down. Ihave a schedule online and if you go
to my website gardening with Skip dotcom, you can find the schedules there
for free. You are I'm goingto say, you're a little north of
us, meaning it's a little cooler. Spring arrives a tadbit later for you
than it does for us. Notmuch, just a tadbit, so you

(44:54):
can bump. You can bump theschedule just a week or two later.
It tells you exactly when to puton a pre emergent herbicide like barricade,
and you would want to it's foryou. It's going to probably be I
would say mid to late February thatyou need to get that down okay and

(45:15):
a really good well, thank yourid of them. Just be ready to
also, by the way, beready to repeat that application about sixty to
ninety days later to continue that protectionon into summer against the scrasppers. Thank
you, sir, Thanks for thecall. Appreciate that you take a good

(45:36):
day. All right, We're goingto take a little break here. I'll
be right back seven one three twoone two k t R H give us
calls today. We are here tohelp you have a more bountiful garden and
a more beautiful landscape. I liketo put it that way, because you
know, the enjoyment of plants,of horticulture, of the gardening world is
getting out and creating beauty and enjoyingbeauty. I think we all, wondergree

(46:00):
or another, have a creative processin us. When you make something,
when you do something, when youbuild something, when you create something,
it's a sense of satisfaction and youenjoy it all the more. You know,
they say that no vegetable states asgood as the ones you grow,
and that's really true. No flowersis pretty is the ones you picked in
your yard and brought in and putin a vase. So get active in

(46:22):
gardening, release some creative juices.Make your place a place you just love
to come home to. We've beenworking at our house these past few weeks
and we'll continue to on enhancing ouroutdoor sitting area. We've got a little
area in the back where we enjoygoing out and sitting. So there's issues
like what are we going to doabout the mosquitoes, and we're working on

(46:45):
that. We've got some beautiful plantswe've been putting in the area. I've
got some work I need to dosome more. There, got a flower
bed about to go in. Butthe whole idea is to go out there
and be able to sit down andenjoy it. We just added a little
water fountain out into that area,and oh my gosh, you walk outside
and it's like you just the soundof water is just so therapeutic. Love

(47:06):
that, love that very much.Of course, having a beautiful lawn is
very important to people, and forthose of you who are looking for a
very high concentration of nitrogen in anorganic product. Nitrophos has a product called
sweet Green that is eleven percent nitrogen. It's a molasses space product, and

(47:28):
we know any organic gardener can tellyou whenever you add molasses to the soil,
it stimulates microbial activity. The goodguys that are down there making roots
happy, if you will, theyrelease nutrients to roots. They protect roots
from diseases. Did you know that? Do you know that there are microbes
that protect roots from getting sick?So that's true. There are microbes that

(47:50):
help fight pests as well, andmany benefits. And when you put on
sweet Green, you not only stimulatethat microbial activity, but you got that
eleven percent nitrogen. What I wouldrecommend at this point in the season,
because you don't want just a sudden, huge flesher growth, is take get
your sweet green, put it downin a little bit lower rate, and
then about two months from now,six weeks two months from now, do

(48:14):
it again at that same rate.And so what you've done you sort of
split it up and spread it outa little bit. And while in and
of itself it's not a slow releaseproduct, you can by putting small doses
out accomplished essentially the same thing andMicrolife sweet Green is very effective and wonderfully
scented. I mean that molasses baseis just absolutely delightful. If you will,

(48:39):
I love the smell of it.You're going to find it at places
like for example, Plants for allSeasons up on two forty nine will carry
if you're up in the Woodlands,aspa Ace hardware up there in the Woodlands.
Another place you can get screen sweetgreen, or go out to Brenham
the Plants and Things. They've gotit out there as well. Sweet Green
an organic type product from the folksNitrofoss. You're listening to guard Line and

(49:02):
we're here to help you have abeautiful place and help you have more enjoyment.
And sometimes when I talk to gardeners, and I love talking to gardeners.
And by the way, all ofyou who came out to Langham Creek
Case Hardware yesterday, thank you andthank you for your patience. I know
that was a some some of youhad a little bit of a weight,
but we had a good time andwe were we were out there. When

(49:24):
I when I talk to gardeners,sometimes with some folks, I pick up
a sense of what should I say, Uh, fear is a little too
strong of word, but maybe hesitationor anxiousness about trying to grow things and
failing at it, you know,like, well I want a garden,

(49:45):
but I don't know how, orI planted something and it died and I
don't have a green thumb and allof that. And you've heard me say
there's no brown thumbs. There's onlyan informed thumbs. And so if you
want a green thumb, well let'shelp you turn your thumb green. That
and gardening is to be fun andit's not rocket science. We follow some

(50:06):
principles, and those of you whocame out yesterday, we'd here, you
know, I'd have a sample andwe talk about it. And it wouldn't
be just like here's a problem,here's what to kill it with, or
here's a problem, here's what tospray on it. It's more of the
whole cultural thing and how you makeplants happy so that the number of times
you have to control a pastor diseaseare reduced. Overall, it's not just

(50:27):
about you and a spray one keepingplants alive. And as you begin to
learn those principles, you know plantsneed sunlight. Some need lots of sun
to do well. Plants need goodsoil and good drainage, you know,
the brown stuff that comes before weput the green stuff the plants in.
There's just a lot of principles andas we begin to learn about those and
how to make plants happy, thenwe have better success. And there's a

(50:51):
quote that somebody talking about I spentmost of my life learning to see things
from a plant's point of view.And that's a good way to put it.
When you know what plants like andyou give them that, they thrive.
And that's why grandma could grow anything. And she seemed to have a
quote green thumb. Well, grandmawas doing the right things because she understood

(51:12):
how to keep a plant happy,how to have success with it, probably
through experience as well as learning maybefrom her grandma. But gardening is fun,
so have fun doing it. Don'tbe afraid of failing. Listen,
we have rototillers, we have hoe, a garden hoe that we can chop
out a problem of weed or somethingmistakes we made with and there's no shame

(51:34):
in that. One of the besthorticultures in the country years ago said uh
to be a great horticultures. Shegot to kill a lot of plants,
and so give yourself permission to experiment. Now, do you want to buy
stuff and kill it? Of coursenot. But if you go to a
good garden center, one that knowswhat they're talking about, okay, and
you get the right plants and youget their advice, and hopefully listen to

(51:57):
garden line as well, we canhelp you have success with that and you
have more fun. But the mainthing is just recognize that, don't worry
about failing. You don't fail unlessyou give up, then you fail.
But as long as you're trying,no shame in it. I've tried a
lot of things. I wonder ifthis would work, and it didn't,
and so I learned and I movedon. And you just get to be

(52:21):
a better and better gardener as yougo. Have fun. That is important.
Don't sweat it. Don't get uptightabout whether or not you're going to
succeed. All right, Well,there was a little speech for you.
Our phone number is seven one threetwo one two k TRH. I didn't
realize I was droning on, butI don't know thinking out loud there.
Hopefully that was a little bit helpfulfor you. Ace Hardware. I was

(52:44):
out at the one at Langham Creekyesterday. You know, they're all over
Houston. There's forty stores in theGreater Houston area that are part of the
ACE group, and it's easy tofind things. At ACE Hardware. They
have every fertilizer I talk about ongarden line. If you've got pest diseases
or weeds, they've got a varietyof products to work on that. Again,

(53:04):
at the appearance yesterday, we were, you know, talking about different
problems and looking at the shelf andhere's some of your options for controlling it,
and they had a lot of them. They've got a lot of them.
ACE is a place if you needfireant control, I'd recommend starting with
bait. That's the number one waywe manage fire ants. If you need
to fertilize, of course, they'rethere. If you need mosquito repellents,

(53:25):
if you need BT in the formof mosquito dunks or mosquito bits, the
little granules, they've got that atACE Hardware. Bragging about Microlife fertilizer while
ago. You know, ACE hasa lot of different forms of it,
and you know microlife we think aboutthe green bag that's the standard lone fertilizer

(53:45):
for microlife, and I get thatthat is that's like fertilizer number one from
them. But what about things likeBiomatrix. That's a liquid. It's an
orange label. Biomatrix is seven toone three fertilizer. I use it in
transplanting all the time. I useit in watering house plants. You shake

(54:07):
it up, mix a little bitin water, just follow the label.
Trial easy. And not only doesit have the seven to one three ratio
of nutrients, it also has thirtynine different strains of beneficial bacteria. It
has its base with things like aminoacids and fish protein and calcium and kelp
and humic acid. It's all thatgood stuff in it. It's not going

(54:27):
to burn your plants, but itwill help them grow and it also will
help them get established very very wellmicrolife. Biomatrix is just one example of
many of the liquid products that areavailable for microlife. I want to head
out now to Willis, Texas.We're going to talk to Sherry. Hello
Sherry, the Hi, skip,how are you? And well? Thank
you? Yes. We leave everysummer for five weeks mid July to mid

(54:54):
August. We're leaving in two weeks. And last year it was kind of
a disaster because our rainbird system wasnot set up will be watering enough,
And so I was wondering what youradvice is on how to set our rain
bird. We have sane arcistine grasswhole meadow, mostly because we have quite

(55:14):
a bit of shade, but notall stay. And so what would you
advise. I would advise unless yourlawn has some disease issues, like take
our root right where the plants arestruggling a lot, the lawn grass plants
are struggling a lot, I wouldwater with one it's good right now,
Okay, I would give it oneinch of water, and I would do

(55:36):
it once a week at one time, and in a series, all one
time, in a series of applications. Huh that Now, if you want
to, if it makes you uncomfortable, you can do it twice a week.
But you go from one inch tohalf inch each time. So okay,
Well, how do I know howmuch is a half inch? Because
I just have duration? That isa good question. And anything that has

(56:00):
straight sides, like a tuna fishcan, a cat food, can,
a pinto bean can you know?You can put those around the yard,
or you can get rain gauges likepeople use and stick them out there,
turn on your system and record howlong it takes to capture an inch.
In most cases, Sherri, youcan't put an inch of water on without

(56:21):
runoff. So we do something calledcycle and soak. But first you got
to figure out what rate it's puttingit out. So let's say it after
x amount of time you applied toa third of an inch, Well,
that would tell you three times thatmuch time is how long the system has
to run in total to apply aninch. So that's how you determine.

(56:42):
Because everybody's sprinkler heads maybe a littledifferent in their arrangement and everything. So
that tells you, for your lawn, how long do I have to water
it? And then you measure thatonce and then you know you don't have
to keep checking it. I woulddo cycle and soak, which means the
irrigation let's say after a third ofan inch of vrogation has started to run

(57:04):
off. I'm just making that up. Then you would have it go off
for about forty five minutes and comeon again to apply another third of an
inch and go off for about fortyfive minutes and then come on again to
play the third third of an inch, and that what's the soul volume,
very deep believe, and that createsa good resilient root system. Because you're
not watering every day and keeping thetop saturated, you're allowing oxygen to come

(57:28):
into the soil. And that oncea week's schedule is a good one because
you mentioned a lot of your lawnis in the shade now in full sun,
and a lawn that hasn't been weanedoff of frequent watering twice a week
would be the way to go ahalf inch each time. Okay, yeah,
because the part of our lawn isfull sun, not a lawn.

(57:49):
Okay, yeah, well that myrecommendation. Listen, I've got to go
to break, but if you wantto hang on, I'll step we can
come back and keep talking about this. We'll be right back, folks.
Good to have you with us.We were visiting with Sherry up and Willison.
We're going to continue that discussion.Hey, Sherry, thanks for hanging
on. Hi. Yeah, sothat's very clear, and I understand.

(58:12):
I guess the follow up question ishow long into the fall should this watering
routine go. So if you goonline, if you have a pin or
paper handy there, if you're rightdown gardening with skip dot com, that's
my website, Gardening with skip dotcom on there is the lawn care schedule,
and what I've put on the lawncare schedule, there's a blue bar

(58:35):
going across it in the watering rowand it I have the historical average inches
of water that your lawn is goingto need per week in the absence of
rainfall, for each month of theyear. So you can look and from
from May through August it's one inch, by in September it's three quarters of
an inch. In October it's ahalf inch. And so you know,

(58:59):
you can kind of head your betthere if you need to kind of land
somewhere in the middle, that's fine. But generally we begin to get rain.
Do you happen to have a rainswitch on your system? Sure,
it's supposed to all it's supposed toalter based on rain, But I don't
know exactly how that works, youknow, I guess it knows when it

(59:22):
has rained. I don't know.Well, there's usually a little device it's
attached to the eaves of your houseor someplace, and when rain falls in
it, it swells up and itcuts the system off. So even though
the system the clock is going,it won't let the valves be notified to
come on. And that's called arain saw. We have that, so

(59:42):
I would do. I would setthe schedule according to what I have online
at gardeningwiskip dot com, and thenI would not worry about it because if
it does rain, the switch isgoing to take care of that, so
you don't end up wasting water.All right. Then, I don't remember
what we were doing last year,but when we got back, it wasn't

(01:00:05):
good. In fact, this guywas so dry. This guy was coming
over and watering with a hose,like dragging it around. Yeah. And
then and he also does all thefertilizer and we got really bad brown packed.
I mean he got in the fall. It was so bad, and
so I want to avoid that.Yeah. Good, Well, sounds like

(01:00:25):
you got a plan. And Ihope you're going to someplace cooler, that's
for sure. Go to New Englandevery year. Oh my god, thank
you? Do you hear how manypeople you just caused to have severe pain
knowing that you're escaping to cool weather. Well we we continue to bake well

(01:00:45):
well when he spent twenty seven yearsup there and raised kids up there and
still have kids and grandkids. ExYeah, no kidding. We'll have a
great trip here. Thanks a lotfor the call. Thank you so much.
Bye bye. We're going to gonow to full and talk to Clint.
Hello, Clint more skip. WhatI got about a one hundred and
ninety six feet fence line. Theplane of wax myrtles, okay, and

(01:01:09):
about two years old. First yearthey end too well. The second year
they have blown up and they arehuge. The issue I have now is
you're getting so thick that they're comingtaking up too much my yard. What
is the best time of year toprune them back? Is it okay?
Now? Is it not too late? Really throughout the year, primarily in
the warm growing season, starting inspring and going into you know, I

(01:01:31):
would say probably September or so.I'd stop pruning them somewhere in there.
But the thing with them you gotto watch for is you need to make
sure all areas of that shrub getgood light. And shrubs notoriously want to
grow top heavy. They want thetop to grow out more than the bottom

(01:01:51):
does, and the top ends upshading the bottom. Then and now you
have like an umbrella with foliage ontop where the umbrella is, and it's
all sticks and twigs down below.So if you continue to keep the top
narrower than the base a little bit, that think of a trapezoid kind of
thing where the top is shorter thanthe base and the slides slope out a

(01:02:15):
little then that maintains that. Butyou're going to do a lot more cutting
in the upper third of the shrubthan you are in the rest of the
shrub, because that's where most ofthe regrowth, most of the regrowth will
occur. And so I would doit. I would start it in the
spring, early spring. I wouldcontinue it periodically as needed. The more

(01:02:36):
often you hedge them, the denturethey'll be perfect. Thank you so much,
All right, man, have fun. I just was remembered just noticing
him clench from Fullsher. One timeI was out at Fullsher and I somewhere
in that countryside around there, Isaw someone who had pruned yo ponds like
little animals, you know, likethere would be a I don't know,

(01:03:00):
one that looks like a pet ora dog or a bird or something and
they were Look when I drove by, I thought, well, and now
I know where doctor Seuss lives.But anyway, it was there were pom
poms, and I mean if theygot creative, and you know, that's
fun. Hey, it's your yard, remember I said, well, ago,
don't worry about failing at gardening.Just have fun. Well, it's

(01:03:22):
your yard. Have fun. Ican tell you how to prune a shrub
brunna however you want. I'll tellyou what happens if you don't prune it
right. But the more you createa sculpture with a shrub, the more
often you have to prune. Sothose junipers that are a nice upright spiral,
they're very beautiful, but you gotto maintain that. The shrubs that

(01:03:42):
have like a little trunk sticking outand then a pomp pom meatball on it
and then it goes up further inanother pom pom meatball. All that kind
of pruning requires maintenance, and ifyou don't, you'll lose the structure and
it's hard to get it back onceyou lose it. And top heavy shrubs
is an example of that. Onceyou lose the foliage down low it's hard
to get it back. In fact, sometimes you have to just go cut

(01:04:04):
everything way back and kind of startalmost from knee high or lower to rebuild
you a structure on the shrub.But the more often you the more particularly
you prune, the more shape creativedesigning efforts you make on that, the

(01:04:25):
more often you're gonna have to doto maintain it. That's just something to
think about when it comes to pruningshrubs. Plants respond to branches being pruned
by sending out new growth. Youknow, you cut a you cut a
little let's save a little tree that'ssize of a broomstick. You cut it
off it head high. It's gonnasend out shoots all up near the end

(01:04:49):
where you cut it, and they'regoing to bunch of shoots. You are
going to replace what was one trunk. And so that is the effect of
hedge pruning on a shrub. You'rejust cutting off the ends of branches.
When you do that, you endup with a proliferation with If you're making
a hedge is a good thing,that is for sure a good thing.

(01:05:10):
If it's a great myrtle, stopit. Don't do it that way.
We'll come back in just a momentand talk about that a little bit more.
Our phone number seven one three twoone two k t RH. I'll
be right back. There's no escapingto welcome back to the guard line.
Good to have you with us.We are gonna talk about a number of
different things. They go going intobreak, talking about various aspects of gardening

(01:05:33):
and hope, hopefully trying to encourageyou to get out there and have fun,
enjoy, don't worry about it,continue to learn. You know.
One of the things about gardenings thatkeeps us young, in addition to mental
health benefits and physical health benefits,is just the fact that with gardening,
there's always a new season, there'salways a new hope, there's always something

(01:05:54):
new to try to do. UhAnd with every change of the seasons,
gardening changes, and it keeps uson our toes and we I enjoy that.
I think that's a wonderful aspect ofit. You know. A while
back, we had those storms thatcame through here, and I mean devastrated,
devastated trees and landscapes. We lostpower. Over a million people lost

(01:06:15):
power during that lift storm. Andthat was I think in May before hurricane
season June to November's hurricane season.Quality Home Products of Texas will set you
up with a generat generator that fitsexactly what you need. Do you just
need something that you know keeps thefood and the fridge and freezer from going
bad? Or do you have ahome work from home business where you need

(01:06:38):
to be on the internet all thetime and you need access and you can't
have a power outage in the process. They'll come in and do that.
Listen. When I think a QualityHome, I think of a standout organization.
I think about reliability, integrity,honesty, transparency. The way they
treat their clients is why they areso successful. That and the fact that

(01:06:59):
they're generation generators are one of thetop on the market. Really right now,
there's three hundred and fifty dollars offall the generators and a free tenure
warranty on the air cooled units fromQuality Home. They completely engineer, they
install, and they and they monitorthe products that they have, and that
is a rare thing in this business. Most people are like, here's a

(01:07:20):
generator, good luck. Now.They work with you in every aspect of
the process. The way they treattheir customers and the quality of their products
is why In twenty twenty three.Last year, the Houston Chronicle called them
one of the very best of thebest in the home contractor category, the
best of the best. I justwant the best of the best the home

(01:07:44):
contractor category. Qualitytx dot com isa website and for phone number seven to
one three quality. Simple as thatqualitytx dot com or call seven one three
quality. Listen. There's a longseason storm season ahead, and it doesn't
take a heart hurricane to have astorm. You need to give them a
call and start that process. Findout more. What would this cost,

(01:08:04):
how do we go about it?What are the steps? I think you'll
be very impressed, and by thetime we hit this fall season, hopefully
you'll be ready to go with yournew generator that gives you that protection and
sustains life as we go forward,whether it's our food that we're protecting,
whether it's our businesses we're running,or just being able to keep the lights

(01:08:25):
on. Let's go out to Spring, Texas now and we're going to talk
to rich Richard. Hello, RichardAldi, how are you? I'm good,
sir, how are you this morning? I'm running around to play racket
ball, but I had a questionabout a tree in my front yard.
It looked like this since I boughtit six years ago. The trunk kind
of splits almost immediately, but it'salmost dead in the middle, but the

(01:08:49):
rest of the tree looks awesome.I mean, it's in my front yard.
I live in Legends Ranch up inSpring, Okay, and I just
seen office of something and I gotto replace or if there's something I can
do to help this tree. Okay. So when you say the trunk splits,
is it like you have twin trunkscoming up beside each other. I'm

(01:09:10):
talking about it. It's definitely onetree. It's one tree, but it's
about six inches off the ground.You kind of get an opening, okay,
that wide about eight inches and thengoes back to the tree or about
four feet. Yeah. So thosenarrow, side by side trunks are problem
because as each one gets bigger indiameter, it's like they're pushing each other

(01:09:33):
apart, and that's essentially splitting thetree. That that pressure. You know,
if you if you had super strengthand you grabbed them and pull them
apart, it would split down themiddle. And uh, I can't see
the tree, so I can't giveyou the you know, the final word
on it. I mentioned that it'salso black in that area. Yeah.

(01:09:56):
The reason it's before yeah, yeah, the reason it's black is because the
bark that when you push bark upagainst bark, it doesn't heal over and
join together. It just rots insidethere. And typically when a tree splits
and you lose a them, usuallyit's because it's a narrow angle, and
usually you see that black decomposing barkin that narrow v angle that is formed

(01:10:24):
by those If I were you,I would contact Martin spoon Moore over at
Affordable Tree and have him take alook at it. You know, I
can sit here and say that doesn'tsound good, or you know, I
don't know whether to tell you thata bolt in there would be helpful,
or a cable across there, orif it's needed, or if one or
the other trunk should just be takenout. But Martin can come out take

(01:10:45):
a look at it and give youa professional assessment on best next steps.
And they called Affordable Trees. Isthat what you Affordable Tree? The the
do you have a pen or pencil? Handy? I and give you the
phone number? Go ahead, Yeah, it's seven one three six twenty six
sixty three and the website is af F Tree service dot com. A

(01:11:12):
f F Tree service dot com.Tell him that you listen to guard Line,
marg says busy because he does agood job and that helps you kind
of move to the front of theline. Uh. And uh, I'm
sure he'll do a good job foryou. Always does great. Can I
get that number one more time?I got seven one three six two six
six three? Thank you very much, all right, good luck with that.

(01:11:35):
Yeah, and and do something soonerrather than later, because you know,
after a storm, it's a littlelate, uh to to repair what's
lost. Yeah, you never knowwhen that's gonna hit. So this is
one I wouldn't put off too long. All right, I'll give him a
call Monday. Thank you, Richard. You take care good to visit with
you. Uh, we're gonna gonow out away. We're gonna go to

(01:11:57):
Houston, Texas and talk to Aliciaand saying that right, all right,
welcome to Guardline. Thank you.Hi. My and my question what can
I do for snails? Blook inyours? They have been all porchside.

(01:12:25):
I have tried different things, slowbeg and coffee break. Okay, thank
you? Okay, what what youneed to do is you need to get
a product that is a bait forsnails and slugs, and there's more than
one on the market. One exampleis, oh gosh, I just went

(01:12:47):
uh, I just went ba onthe product name. What is slug O
slug O s l u g gO And it's a bait. It's an
iron based bas They eat it andthey essentially get a terminal case of constipation
and it gets rid of them.That way. You need to get a
good fresh bait and put it out. You put it in little trays around

(01:13:11):
the area or sprinkle it around.You just want them to get plenty of
it, and it works really well. It works kind of naturally actually.
But slug O there's also a slugO plus that I think has They have
spinosa don it or something in additionto that so that it controls some things
other than just snails and slugs.Okay, thank you, we're can I

(01:13:31):
buy it anywhere you go. AceHardware stores have got it. You're going
to find it at our feed stores. You probably find it most of our
garden centers. But wherever you arein Houston, just go to Ace Hardware
dot com and you'll get a mapof all the stores, and I know
there'll be one near you. Okay, so much, all right, thanks

(01:13:53):
lot, appreciate it. Well,you've been listening to guard Line. We
just put an hour in the booksagain. Gonna take a little break here
for the top of the hour andwe will be back with garden Line.
If you would like to call andget on the board, so you're first
up when you come back. Sevenone three two one two k t r

(01:14:14):
H seven one three two one twok t r H. I just want
to remind you again, I stillrun into people all the time that listen
to garden Line, but I haven'tseen my schedules. Go to gardening with
skip dot com and the schedules arethere. There's other information there. I
keep adding to it all the time, so check it out. Garden Line

(01:14:36):
with Skip Rickards trip just watch himas many the Club of Welcome back to

(01:15:05):
Guardline. Good to have you withus, definitely good to have you with
us today. We've got a lotto talk about. We're going to be
going through a number of different thingstoday. First of all, I wanted
to remind you that if you havenot done your summer lawn fertilization, now
would be a good time to getit out and put it down, water
it in and let nature take careof it from there and nitrophas the silver

(01:15:29):
bag that is nitropas superturf. That'sa good, slow released product, excellent.
It's designed for our soils, it'sdesigned for our climate, and it's
designed for our turf grasses that wehave down here. And when you put
on nitrophs superturf, half of thenineteen percent nitrogen that's in it, which
is a lot of nitrogen, halfof that is going to be gradually released
over time, so you don't havean over application of nitrogen. You don't

(01:15:55):
have nitrogen that is causing a lotof fast hop growth. So your more,
your watering more, your root systemis more limited. Did you know
that when you have excessive nitrogen ona lawn, it actually limits the root
growth compared to the top growth,and then you have a plant that's less
resilient. So nitrofoss superturf is designedto avoid that, to spread that feeding
out over time. And that's handytoo, because then you don't have to

(01:16:18):
worry about At this point, Iwouldn't worry about fertilizing again until we get
into our fall fertilization season. Youknow you can find Nitrofoss Superturf at Hiding
and Feed on Stubnor Airline. You'regoing to find Nitrofoss Superturf at D and
D feed in Tomball, Texas,as well as Fisher Hardware, both the
one in South Houston on Southmoor andthe one in Laporte on Broadway Street.

(01:16:41):
We're going to head back out tothe phones now and talk to Mike in
China, Texas. Hello, Mike, Hello, I am having a problem.
I have a jungle growing in myyard. It's I think they called
it giant ragweed. Ah, yes, okay, tell lem me gets about
the size of your arm. Itcan. I mean we have there's a

(01:17:02):
I don't know, have to likeseventeen different species of ragweed around the world.
I believe I may be wrong aboutthat, but there's a lot.
Let me put it that way.And this stuff grows six seven feet tall.
I live close to railroad tracks andthey don't maintain it, and it
encroaches into my yard. I'm justtrying to stop it so it throws over
the fence at you. Huh right, Okay, well, uh, ragweed

(01:17:27):
of course really shows up as itwarms up. If we could control it
much earlier, it's better. Ouroptions are better. Is this then?
Would you be spraying it in yourgrass? Is that where you're share that
that? I don't mind the grasson that side of the dances and a
ride away So it's okay they useit for a driveway anyway. Yeah,
so yeah, I can't put anythingnear anyway, so the railroad on twenty

(01:17:48):
five feet of it. Yeah,Well, products containing two four D are
very effective against ragweeds of all types. The earlier that you get them on
the utter, and the ragweed needsto be in a state of growth,
not like drought stressed on hold forthe product to work its best. So

(01:18:10):
you've got a number of different productsthat contain two forty There's one group of
combo products called Trimac that you canput down and it will, uh,
it will provide you with you know, the combination including two for dy.
You can also go to just astraight two four D type product and depending

(01:18:33):
on you know, you're you're nottoo far away from Beaumont over there,
So M and D supply on CollegeStreet and Beaumont is going to have the
parking lot right now, waiting foran open All right, we'll bang on
the doors. I'm for crying outloud. I got problems at home.
I gotta I don't have time tosit here. Now that's funny. Yeah,
well, good for you, becausethat's a good place to get M

(01:18:55):
and d's. We have a scenehere in Beaumont and M and D hardware.
If you can't buy it here,you can't find it. All right,
there you go. I believe thatwell, so a two fourty type
product would be probably your best bet. There are other broad leaf we controls
out there. I just don't knowoff the top of my head that they're
going to be effective against ragweed.They may well be, but two forty

(01:19:18):
is what one I know that workssure. I don't guess called a bind
or something to make it stick tothe leaves or spray at the roots or
no, just spray it on thefoliage. That's the most important part.
To do it early in the morning, when it's cool. You can get
a product a Turbo, which isa spread spreader sticker. There are other

(01:19:39):
brands of spreader sticker, and theymake sure that the droplets adhere to the
leaf, that they spread out sothat the most coverage of foliage possible is
what you achieved with your spray.Okay, all right, I appreciate your
ill. Yeah, do it inthe morning when it's also still too by
the way, because and two fortydrifts any broad leaf plant your landscape is

(01:20:03):
in trouble, so don't don't allowit. I would not pump my sprayer
up too much because when you createa lot of pressure, you create a
fog that drifts across the yard.And so yeah, be careful with that.
There's nothing back there but chinaberry treesand that stuff. So two forty

(01:20:26):
maybe the best thing that could happento it. I can do it.
Yeah, that's just kidding. Yeah, all right, thanks, appreciators are
all Yeah, growing up, Ican tell you that chinaberry trees, with
their brittle limbs, are responsible formore broken collar bones on young boys than
any other plant on the planet.Probably. Seriously, they have their advantages.

(01:20:50):
I know that I get the beautyof them, having grown up and
been a young boy at once.In fact, some people would contend that
I'm still growing up. I cantell you that if you've got a sling
shot and a China berry tree.You can hold off the whole neighborhood until
the berriers run out. Do thatwith this you wish. Let's go to

(01:21:15):
Houston talk to Georgietta. Hello,George Eda, Hello, good morning.
I'm calling with reference to a fiftyyear old oak tree that I have in
my yard here in Houston area.And it is a big tree. It
has a lot of shade to it. But I live out of town and
I come here to take care ofit at their wind's house, and it

(01:21:41):
is losing its bark in places.It's kind of spotty, and I'm having
someone come out and cut the limbsand things back because it's very shaded under
it, and some of the limbsare so big they're touching the house.
Okay. Is the bark falling offthe trunk or the main branches too?

(01:22:02):
It looks like the trunk that's notreal bad. But there's one piece that's
a little smaller than my hand.But it's coming off in little splotches.
Okay, all right? And uhso is it coming off mostly on one
side of the tree or is itall around your seeing these splotches, it
looks like on one side. Okay, all right? Now, last question.

(01:22:25):
Do you know if it's a northor the south or south east west
side of the tree? Can youtell? And looking at it, it's
more toward the west side. Butit's the tree is shades its trunk so
much, you know. Okay,I don't know how much sunny gets up
under there. All right. Well, well George and I've got a break
right now. I'm gonna have totake a hang on. When we come
back, we're gonna we're gonna talkabout what to do. All right,

(01:22:46):
Thanks a lot, appreciate that ourphone number seven one three two one two
kat r h. I'll be welcomeback. Good to have you back with
us today on a lovely Sunday morning. Well you look outside, that is
that's what we're looking looking for agood day to be out and about.
Got a real still not a lotof breeze blowing right now, but don't
pick up a little bit as theweather warms up. Today. We're going

(01:23:08):
to go back to Georgetta in Houstonand Georgeta we were you were talking.
Go ahead and continue on with whereyou were, please. Well, I
just didn't know if I mean therewas something I could brave the tree with.
I have the film and coming outto cut back the tree, and
he said he would look up inthe breech of the tree because the limbs

(01:23:31):
are so big to see if itwas holding water or something like that.
I know last year the lit thedrafts and everything. I watered, but
my sprinkler didn't get up in thatarea. Yeah, but I did try
to water the tree because of thebad conditions. Well, yeah, there's

(01:23:54):
different things, Georgetta that can causebark to pop off like that. Typically
we look backwards at past hard freezecold times where we can do some damage
to the trunk. There is physicaldamage that can occur from it being bumped
by something and the bark gets kindof crushed and starts to die back in

(01:24:17):
an area. There's a lot ofdifferent things that even some more unusual,
like a lightning strike or whatever.I think in this case, if it's
just patches here and there, Iwouldn't worry about it a lot. I
would clean out all the dead barkin that area to expose the inner wood,
because what's going to happen is thetree is going to start to create

(01:24:38):
callous from the sides of those areasthat close back over like a little lava
flow coming in from all sides toclose it back over. So what's most
important is keeping the tree in goodhealth so that it is able to continue
to callous and close at as fasta rate as possible. As trees get
older, they tend to like us, I guess, they tend to not

(01:25:01):
be as resilient. They don't bounceback as fast as when we were younger,
you know, and trees can bethat way. So making sure that
it has adequate water during extended heatand drought conditions, that would be one
thing that's in your control other thanjust cleaning out the dead bark to open
that area up. Okay, Well, I planted that tree when I could

(01:25:25):
put my fingers around it, andnow I can't even put my arms around
it. The special tree to me, I would like to keep it healthy,
no kidding, no kidding. Howmany areas do you think the bark
is coming off like that? Yousaid the size of your hand or something.
I believe high towards the breach isabout the size of my hand.

(01:25:47):
The other pieces probably are about maybetwo inches by maybe two by two is
a max. Okay, but it'skind of popped in areas where it is
Are you seeing any sawdust hung upin the bark? No, but there
is a pine tree and a houseacross the street. Two of them are

(01:26:10):
dead, and I know pine barkedbeetles will do that right, and they
won't get in your oak though.That's that's good news for your tree.
So yeah, I would Is itbleeding? Is it leaking? Sap?
Is it wet or white foam comingout? Okay? I think you know
what I just said is pretty much. I believe your tree is okay.
I don't know what initially did.It could have been a lot of things,

(01:26:30):
but bottom line is the tree indecent health, which it sounds like
yours is, will heal that overor close that over rather with callous tissue.
So you just got to get thatto happen as soon as possible,
so the inner wood is not exposedany longer than it has to be.
So you're suggesting to kind of pickoff the loose bark that's around, it's

(01:26:53):
already right as the damage looking is. Yeah, don't worry Georgia a whole
lot about trying to get all thisout. It's just that when you have
a big piece of dead bark sittingover interior wood that holds moisture in so
the decay rate is increased in there. It gives bugs a place to hide
and whatnot. So we like toclear that out. Anything that's dead and

(01:27:15):
loose. Just pull it off andthe tree will take it from there.
Okay, well, thank you somuch. I'll take that in the heart
and I'll keep an eye on thetree. All right, good, good,
Thanks for the calle George, takecare, bye bye. Our phone
number is seven one three two onetwo k t R eight seven one three

(01:27:36):
two and two k t RH.On July, for those of you who
are history officionados, on July first, in the year nineteen o seven,
here in Houston, Texas, somethinghappened that has changed Houston for the better
and many many ways. And whatthat is is Star of Hope Mission,

(01:27:58):
a christ centered commune to hear inHouston that's been helping the homeless now for
one hundred and seventeen years as ofMonday tomorrow, one hundred and seventeen years
in the Houston community, changing lives, turning hopelessness into hope, changing the
lives of not only into our families, but specifically too, changing the lives

(01:28:20):
of kids who are growing up insituations that are just really tough, that
don't give them a great opportunity fora future. You know, your small
donations to Star Hope make a difference, like two dollars and eighty cents pace
for a meal, and Star Hopeserves about six thousand meals a week.
They don't just feed people, Theyhouse people in one of several different centers.

(01:28:44):
They train people how to get andhold a job. They provide the
skills necessary for various kinds of jobs. They help deal with substance abuse.
To get that monkey off your backif you will, where you actually can
get out there and create a futureand hope for you and your children.
Star of Hope has been around nowone hundred and seventeen years. Happy birthday,

(01:29:08):
Star of Hope. By the way, I would urge you to consider
supporting Star of Hope. My wifeand I do. It's because we believe
in it, and I know whena dollar is given to Star Hope,
it is a dollar that would bevery well spent and will not only change
the lives of those individuals that receiveit, but change our greater Houston community

(01:29:29):
as well, because every time someone'slife that's heading in a bad direction gets
turned around into a good direction.It benefits us all as a community as
well. Put your compassion to work. Will you put your compassion to work
with me? Starofhope Mission dot org. What a great way to do it.
And again, hey folks, congratulationsand happy one hundred and seventeenth anniversary.

(01:29:55):
Appreciate that I visited there. I'vetalked with them. I've been of
the programming where people got up andtalked about what Star of Hope has meant
to their life. And oh,my gosh, the stories I'm telling you,
it's what do they say, it'smade for TV stuff. It's the
kind of thing that would be grippingand a heartfelt, feel good, exciting,

(01:30:18):
wonderful movie to have those kinds ofstories made into movies. Because starhar
makes a difference, They really do. Southwest Fertilizer is on the corner of
Bisonett and Renwick, and you guyshave heard me talk about them before.
Southwest is the place where you goto get anything you need to manage pests,

(01:30:40):
to manage diseases, to manage insects, to manage weeds, anything you
need for fertilizing your lawn. Everyfertilizer I talk about on Guardline is at
Southwest Fertilizer. Do you need productslike from Medina or from Microlife, or
from nitrofoss or from Nelson. Doyou need funge of sizes like copperfunt based

(01:31:01):
funge sides. Or you an organicgardener and you want all of the above,
but you want it in an organicform. Southwest Fertilizer has it.
Bob prides himself and whatever's new comingout, he's on top of it.
And whatever works that has been outfor a while, he's gonna keep it
in stock. Do you need afertilizer spreader? Do you need a little

(01:31:24):
hand carried worthybird to put out fire? Amt Bait? Do you need the
fire at bait? Do you needtools? Eighty foot wall of tools?
Do you see what I'm saying.It's just everything you need is there.
If you can't find it as SouthwestFertilizer, you don't need it, because
if you need it, they willcarry it very responsive and staying up the
date. It's easy to get inand out corner abys Ut and Runwick.

(01:31:45):
You can go to the website SouthwestFertilizer dot com. If you like.
They're open today, by the way, you need to go buy this afternoon
and get you some products. They'reready to go, and their staff knows
what they're talking about. You cantake them a picture, you can take
them a sample, bring it inand say, what is this? How
do I get rid of it?Do I need to even be worried about
it? And they can answer thosequestions and make sure you have success.

(01:32:06):
That's what they're there for, isto help you have also a more bountiful
garden and a more beautiful landscape.Always like going in to Southwest Fertilizer this
week, getting back to my landscapeand getting some things done. I've got
some more planting to do, youknow, I keep telling you just because

(01:32:27):
it's summer doesn't mean we have toquit planning at all. We absolutely can
keep going. And I've got anumber of things that I'm still setting out
in the landscape. I've got arosemary, by the way, that I'm
putting in a big old container,beautiful container, by the way, glaze
pottery. Rosemary is one of themost drought resistant shrubs you can plant.

(01:32:49):
Yeah, I probably don't think ofit that way, but that's what it
is the trailing types can spill overa wall or over the sides of a
container, or along the ground.They bloom by than the upright types.
Both types will bloom. The trailingtypes will provide that extra bloom which benefits
pollinators, but the upright types that'skind of putting in the container. Lots

(01:33:11):
of good varieties out there, lotsof good varieties of rosemary. I enjoy
it because we use it for cooking. There's one culture bar called barbecue skewers,
and it's called it's called that becauseit has long, straight, little
thin woody shoots and you just stripthe leaves off and slide your art don't
strip them off, and slide toyour kebabs onto the rosemary stick. Put

(01:33:36):
it on the grill. What acool thing, And grill your shish kebabs
of meats and vegetables or whatever youwant to put on them. And that's
barbecue skewers. Others can be usedin the same way. But that's one
of the things I'm doing is pottingthat up with a good quality potting soil,
and I'm going to be sitting itin a spot where there's a clay
soil. Now, if you havea pot. My pot just has one

(01:33:59):
hole in the very bottom of it. So if you set that on top
of a clay soil as the organicmatter underneath it, maybe it's grass or
something decomposes away. Now that clayon the bottom essentially is plugging the whole
of your drainage, and so it'simportant to get it up. I'm putting
mine up on a little bit ofa two three raised brick type masonry structures

(01:34:23):
that we'll keep it up off theground so it drains well. Well,
let's take a break here as timefor the news seven one three two ktrh.
I'll be right back guardline. We'reready to go again here with your
gardening questions. I want to gostraight out to let's see, we're going
to head out to Katie. IfI can find the button here, there

(01:34:45):
we go. I'm gonna talk toRalph. Hello, Ralph, good morning,
Hey, good morning. Skip.Have a very quick question. It's
time I guess to treat or pretreat for chinch bugs and sod web worms.
I have both products, the nitrofoss bug out and the cynara I

(01:35:08):
can't pronounce it, sin arm.Do you put do you put them?
Down together no or after one another, or how do you know? The
bugout max is a granule. Youput it down, you get it wet,
and that the chemicals on it,the chemical on it synthetic perithro.
It soaks out into the thatch areaand so pests that are crawling through there

(01:35:30):
are going to be exposed to it. It's persistent, it lasts a good
while, and so we say putit out now and you don't have to
worry about it again through this summerseason. It gives you continue to care.
The cyanar max is typically something youmix up in a spryer or attached
to the end of a host,depending on how you buy it. And
I bought it, so you attach. Yeah, So you just go out

(01:35:53):
there and you just essentially wet yourgrass with it and it coats the grass,
but then it also soaks down aroundthe runner and in the thatch as
well. Probably for the chinchbugs,either one is going to do it or
really not. Probably definitely either onewill do a really good job. If
you're going after just the sod webworms, the bugout max will work on them,

(01:36:14):
but because they come up at nightand feed on the grass blades,
the larva. New that having thatif you used the cinara, you could
then essentially be spraying those the foliageof your grass plant. Uh and and
it probably would work a little bitbetter on that particular pest. But either
way to go, we we expectcoverage as those sod webworm larva crawl back

(01:36:38):
down in the thatch. If you'vedone a good job with the bugout max
that you're probably good to go there. So either way you're okay. Okay,
but you don't have to use both, is what you're saying. You
do it both? No, No, they are both very effective if you
get both their synthetic perihids. Ifyou get either one out into the ground,
it's gonna kill insects. Okay,great, thanks so much. All

(01:37:00):
right, you take care of Thanksfor the car Ralph appreciate that a lot.
Let's go to Dickinson and talk toAnnie. Hello, Annie, a
niece. I'm sorry, Yes,do you have me? I do?
I do? Okay? Hi?Uh? I called you like a month
ago. I guess about by abird paradise and just simply will not bloom.

(01:37:27):
Well it's still not blooming, butI'm continuing with my color star feedings.
Okay, and it just keeps layingthere. You know what, how's
the plant growth? What are theIs there a lot of new foliage coming
on? Yeah, it's gotten getsyou folage. So it's a beautiful,
healthy plant. Okay, it justwon't bloom. Okay. So I was

(01:37:51):
gonna ask you about magnesium. HNow, I've used that before on crazy
myrtle that was stubborn about blooming becauseof the weather, and it worked great.
Can I use that on a birdof paradise? Well you can,
but the question is do you needit. Magnesium is a positively charged element,

(01:38:14):
and whenever we overdo a positively thecharge element, for example, it
can affect the uptake of other positivebelief charged, crowding it out in the
soil, if you will, ina sense. Yeah. Well what I'm
giving it now is not doing thejob. And it's good stuff. Yeah
yeah, color show is awesome.You can you get good foliage? Right?

(01:38:35):
I mean good? Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah that's the sun.
Lots of sun. Yeah, Igot lots of sun. Well,
I tell you, they say theydo better when they get a little crowded.
You can't crowd them overnight, butthat is supposed to help a little
bit. It sounds to me likeyou're doing what you should do. I'm
sitting here trying to think what elsemight be in your power to get this

(01:38:57):
darn thing to bloom other than justgetting a little crowded. Let me think
on it a little bit. Idon't have an answer right now of another
thing. You're doing the things Iwould suggest. So if I come up
with another thing, I'll talk aboutit on the air. But thank you,
thank you very much. Adequate moisture, not too much, and then
a good quality nutrient. I justwould maybe watch that if every time you

(01:39:20):
fertilize, your applying a little bitof nitrogen, and the nitrogen is volatile,
and maybe back off a little bitnow and give it some time,
because sometimes when we push with nitrogen, we end up getting vegetative growth at
the expense of bloom production. Andand so you try, just you fertilized
quite a bit, You're good.The nitrogen will tend to cycle out and

(01:39:44):
go away. And see if that'ssettling it down a little bit doesn't help.
That would be my next suggestion forit. Okay, I'll seed it
like every two months instead of oncea month. Oh yeah, yeah,
that would be a good idea.Let's see that if that works. Okay,
all right, okay, well,thank you very much. All right,

(01:40:05):
thank you. I appreciate the callvery much. Talking about different kinds
of feeding and fertilizing and stuff.You know. The color Star is an
excellent product by Nelson by the way, Nelson Plant Food. Nelson has a
number of different lines. They've gotthe color Star line, but they also
have the nutri Star line, andthe nutri Star would be individual canisters of

(01:40:28):
specific types of plant food. Forexample, there's one for palms and ornamental
grasses. There's another one for roses. Outstanding for roses, the Bougainvillia.
Bougain Villa is a neutral star typethat works well on any kind of a
flowering vine. So if you've gota flowering vine, the Carolina jessamine,
you know, butterfly vine, honeysuff, or anything like that, it'll work

(01:40:49):
really well for those. They havethe create Myrtle line, which is good
for any blooming tree, and ofcourse the Slow and Easy, the super
slow release turf Star line that willfeed your lawn from now up until the
fall when it's time to do fallfertilization. Great way to get from here
to fall. Let's take a littlebreak and we will be back and we'll

(01:41:10):
talk to Doris and Doc when wecome back, and welcome back to the
Garden Line. I'm your host,Skip Richter, and we're here to answer
your gardening questions. How can wehelp you have a more bountiful garden and
more beautiful landscape. That's what we'rehere for. So give us a call
at seven one three two one twok t r H if you've got a
question you'd like to ask about gardeningto help you have more success. We're

(01:41:34):
going to start this hour by headingor this segment by heading out to Friendswood
to talk to Doc. Hello.Doc, Hello, welcome to the neighborhood.
Thank you. I am oh wellsorry, I'm having troubles with a

(01:41:55):
I'll try to of some sort somesort of small could be or whatever.
I know it's not fleas, butsomething comes up and attacks me if I'm
about the knee down when I goout into the backyard or even to the
front, and I'd like to spraysomething to kill whatever that bug is and

(01:42:15):
maybe get an idea of what thebug is. Yeah, it's a good
question. So you're you're walking aslet's say, with shorts maybe on,
and it's getting you on the legsor is it coming up you dos legs?
Okay, well it's coming up onlywhen my legs are uncovered and really
just a little blow of the kneeadd down. Interesting. Well, I

(01:42:39):
was going to say, if youeliminated mosquitoes, I'm sure you have.
They're definitely out and biting this rightnow. There are fleas that can come
out of the lawn in the thatchand jump up and bite you. If
you're not seeing fleas, then wecan eliminate that one as well. I
know it's not fleas. I'd recognizethem, they hope. Yeah. And

(01:43:00):
there's some little creatures sometimes around thebeach areas. You hear people talk about
no sums. They're a little gnatlikethings, but boy, they got a
set of dentures on them. Theycan bite, and they could be that.
We also have chiggers that come outof the grass, but those take
a while before you notice the problem, and that would expo Tiggers would explain

(01:43:20):
also at being low on your legsbecause it takes them over they're tiny.
It takes the while to crawl up. Typically people get chiggers, though not
because they crawl up all over them, but because we lay down in the
grass and they get on us,And so that would be a possibility.
The only thing that I would suggestfor those kinds of things would be some
sort of insecticide treatment to try toshut down whatever it is out there,

(01:43:44):
because it's gonna be a really tinyinsect that you don't just see like you
would a flee or a mosquito.I agree, but I don't know what
would be appropriate. If is yourlawn bermuda grass by any chance, uh,
Augustine, Saint Augustine, Wow,Because that that also helps reduce eliminate

(01:44:05):
the chiggers from being the most likelyculprit. I would probably get a hoose
end attached product called cyinara, andand uh just follow the label and go
over the lawn with it. Uh. Follow that, I don't follow the
label, you know, don't doubleup on it, don't go outside the

(01:44:27):
label. Uh, and just applyit and let it allow it time to
dry off before you walk back outthere and see if you still notice them.
If spraying cinara across the lawn isnot helping with this, then it
is something flying in from somewhere elseand then we're up a creek. Then
then we're left to things like tryingto put a repellent on us like we

(01:44:48):
do for mosquitoes. So I havenoticed that repellent does work. Okay,
if I if I sway that onmy legs before I go out, then
it's not a pro Yeah, well, doc, I think you know,
try the cinara. That would beyour best option to just get everything out
of the way, or just resortthen to the repellents, because it's going

(01:45:12):
to be something flying in, andyou know, spraying your a lot of
control mosquitoes, right, So I'msure also that it does not fly in
because I can stand out on mypatio. Oh okay, no problem.
It's only when I walk out intothe grass that I'm attacked. Then I'm
about ninety percent sure the hose endattached bottle with cinara is gonna do the

(01:45:34):
trick. I shall get it.And you shouldn't have to do it real
often either, because if these thingsare residing in the grass, you you
know it's not I can't just spraythis twice a week. Keep going,
it'll last a while, all right, all right, sir? Thanks a
lot. Appreciate you call very much. Appreciate it a lot, and you're

(01:45:56):
going to get products like that ata place like ACE Hardware. For example.
ACE Hardware's are all over the place. There what forty stores in the
Greater Houston area. You can goto Acehardware dot com and when you go
in the fertilizers I talk about manyof the saw products that I talk about,
and certainly disease, pest, insect, we whatever control is going to

(01:46:17):
be at ACE Hardware. Like theproduct I just talked about, Synarra the
hose end attached. That is justan example. There are other products that
will work on this, but that'san example of one, and you're gonna
find it at your acehard Infact,I saw some just yesterday when I was
out at the Langham Creek Ace Hardware. They had some signar on hand out
there, so that worked pretty good. Acehardware dot Com for and go to

(01:46:41):
the store located to find the onenear you. There's lots of them around.
Makes it easy to find anything youneed for your lawn, your garden,
and your landscape. We're gonna seenow here, Okay, who's next
in line? Doris in Austin County. Hello, Doris, good morning.
How are you. I'm good today. What's up? Well? Nut grass?

(01:47:03):
My yard is becoming a nut grassterritory. And I've tried two products
and it won't kill it. Canyou tell me what you've tried? Well,
one is a nut sedge killer andthe other one is a weed stop
for lawns. It says kills yellownut sedge. Yeah. Well, there's

(01:47:28):
yellow and there's purple. And Ican describe how to tell the difference between
them, but it's it has todo mainly with the tips of the leaves
out pointed. Okay, hello,the bloom in this, I'm sorry I
had to sneeze there, pardon me. The blooms and the seed head on

(01:47:51):
top are different on the two,and it kind of matters which you have
because some products work on one butnot all. I'll tell you the truth.
I have both then, okay,you're over it, I know.
And the ones that have the littleknobs on top it is very very thin

(01:48:12):
lead. Yeah, and then atthe bottom it's kind of red. That's
kylinga. That's kylinga that you're seeing. You just describe with the knobs on
top, and then leaves. Uh. You know what may be good is
if you could take a picture orpick off some of the little bloom heads
on top the seed heads and thingsyou see up there and lay them on
a piece of paper and take apicture of them, or lay them on

(01:48:34):
a dark counter surface. Uh,and send me those pictures. Let me
make sure I get the right productfor you. There's one called sedge ender.
There's one called uh sedge hammer.Uh. There there. I've tried
to sedge hammer on this and itdon't work. Wow, that's one of
the best products that's out there forit. I didn't find what kind of

(01:48:56):
ress. Okay, Well, IDoris, I could suggest products. You
can go out buy more stuff andtry it again. Or why don't we
start with looking at it and letme know exactly the weeds you got.
If there's more than one kind,take pictures of each one. I mentioned
one. You've described it and Isaid it's sounds like kay linga. Another

(01:49:19):
one is some type of nuts edge, and may have both types. Let
me see pictures of them so thatI can prescribe something that I know is
going to work, rather than justgiving you the next thing to try.
Okay, does that sound okay,okay, all right. When you apply
them, you need to add somethingthat helps it stick to the slick nut

(01:49:42):
grass foliage. That's called a swatterturbo. Okay, you have been using
that too, No, okay,all right, well let's let's let's get
the right idea. I'm putting youin hold now. The producer will give
you my email address and then wecan go from there. Does that sound
good? Sounds good? All right? Thank you. We will be back

(01:50:05):
here after a break. Martha andMansfield. You will be the first one
up and we come back. Thanksfor waiting. We look forward to visiting
with you more when we get pastthe top of the hour. Ms.
Thanks again to the folks at LanghamPregate's Hardware having us out yesterday. We
had a real good time. Andthink those of you who came out,
well, I've never seen so manysamples of sick plants, bugs, diseases,

(01:50:29):
weeds, insects. I said,I felt like the Statue of Liberty.
Remember the Emmer Lazarus poem, bringme You're tired, You're weary,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. This was kind of like, bring
me your disease you're infested your weedylawns, yearning to have a diagnosis sound
free. It was a good timethough. Always good to know what you're

(01:50:53):
fighting so that you can choose theright product to do it. To KTRH
guarded line with skin rictor trip justwatch him as the world. There are

(01:51:14):
so many good things to spray again, not a sign sun, welcome back
to the garden line. Good haveyou today on a lovely Sunday day.

(01:51:36):
Beautiful. I've got some clouds inthe sky, so give us a little
break here and there as they passedby from the sun. But a good
day to get out and about thisafternoon. We are still enjoying some really
good weather. I think you knowit is summertime and go deal with summer.
But hey, we live here.We're used to this, right.

(01:51:56):
I hope you are. I hopeyou are. It's part of the changing
of the seasons. Remember everywhere youlive, there's trade offs in terms of
do you have a long, hardwinter, do you have a long hot
summer, or what other kinds ofthings do we deal with. That's okay,
that's right. We can do alot of good fun stuff around here.
And those of you who are nearthe coast, have a little extra
benefit of being able to get downthere and enjoy yourself as well. I'm

(01:52:19):
going to go straight out to thephones this hour and we're going to go
to Mansfield to talk to Martha.Hello Martha, Good morning Skip. I
was calling you about my pear tree, which my husband planted about maybe six
years ago. Never have buried anypears, and lately he planted a peach
tree next to it, and itwas loaded with peach with plums. I'm

(01:52:43):
sorry. And this year we gotabout five pairs off the tree. Some
of them fell on the ground andthey brought it. I got I may.
They got about three good ones offof it. Wow. So I
want to know what can I doso I can have more fruits. So
you the par produced well in thepast, but this year not so much.
Never did never did, oh,never never did. I'm sorry,

(01:53:06):
I misunderstood you. Okay, Well, pears, is it getting good sunlight?
Is it full sun? The tree'slots of sun on it. Oh
yeah, it's in my backyard fullsun. Okay. What is the trunk
diameter of the tree up about waisthigh? Like? Is it the size
of a coca cola can, orbigger or smaller or oh it's tall,

(01:53:30):
it's it's about maybe two or threecoca cola can. Okay, so it's
a big one. It's a bigone. Yeah. As pears get older,
they still should produce. Though sometimeswe see a little bit of a
year where you have a real goodyear and then not so good year,
but you're just not even you're tryingto get to the first good year that

(01:53:50):
you have. I would say,be careful that you don't overdo the nitrogen
when you fertilize them. If youfertilize them, if you haven't fertilized all,
I would probably give it a littlebit of a turf type fertilizer,
but just in a moderate amount.Probably. Oh, let's say, maybe

(01:54:14):
I'm still trying to do the trunkdiameter in my head. Here are we
looking at? Therefore, coquinees,are you looking something like those those big
coffee cans, the large sized coffeecans we used to buy coffee in it?
Yeah, okay, yeah, Iwould probably give it probably two pints
of a quarter fertilizer. So,however, you want to measure it out

(01:54:36):
a quarter fertilizer, and I wouldspread it in an area from the trunk
out as far as the branches reachin all directions, and then watered in
really good. And do that nowbecause your pear tree is going to be
setting its blooms for next year duringthe mid to late summer to fall early
fall season, so you want toget it in as good health as you

(01:54:58):
can right now. If we gointo an extended drought where it's going to
stress the plants a lot, Iwould make sure it gets a good soaking,
just periodically though, just to avoidthe stress. Other than those two
things, I think that's what's inyour power. And the rest is the
trees got to settle down and grow. It may be a variety that just

(01:55:19):
doesn't do so well here, butI think we can give it every effort
to try to bring it forward.And a little bit of a moderate amount
of fertilizer done right away, don'twait until later to do it. And
then today watering as needed, butjust get your good lawn fertilizer to do
that. Okay. And one otherquestion about my our is potato my husband's

(01:55:42):
planets for the first time in thegordon. Instead of the vine growing straight
up, they're growing like across allthe roads. I mean they it's not
and it's Irish potatoes. Correct.Usually the Irish potatoes we plan in ring
and then they come up and bythe time we get to this season,
those vines are turning yellow and brownand shriveling up on us. Uh.

(01:56:08):
And then we do it again inlate August for a fall crop. Uh.
Do the vines look healthy? Well, yes, they look healthy sitting
then some of them are turning alittle yellow as they vine across another road
that there's nothing planting in it.That's interesting. Would you mind sending me

(01:56:30):
a photo of what you're seeing,Uh, just kind of a picture of
it as a group, and thenmaybe get up close and show me some
leaves up close. Okay, I'llbe happy to do that. Yeah.
And my last question go ahead.I'm gonna have to put you Whenever we're
done, I'll put you on holdand the producer will give you the email.
Okay. Well, my last questionis about my roses. I bought

(01:56:51):
three little roses. They're really beautiful, put out gorgeous roses, and they're
growing so tall and about to reachthe top of the ouse. Do I
cut him down? You can cutthem back at this point in the season.
H maybe when let's say, whenwe get toward late August, I
would I would trim them back.That allows them to put on some new

(01:57:15):
growth for a good fall bloom.We're about to go into the really rough
summer season. I hate to doprune them too heavily right now. Okay
they might, they might do okaywith it, but I don't want to
take that chance. Yeah, andthen when we get into winter, the
February, early February, late January, that's your time to get a good
If you need to do a bigtime pruning, get that done then and

(01:57:38):
follow it up with a little bitof a lighter shearing a little later on.
Got it. Thank you so much, my pleasure. Good to talk
to you. Uh. You know, we've we've got these clay soils around
here. We talk about them fromgardening stampont all the time. But the
klay shrinks and swells when it getsdry and when it gets wet. It

(01:58:00):
shrinks when it's dry, it swellswhen it's wet. And that movement,
because we do go from dry towet pretty often, that movement is powerful,
powerful enough to crack the foundation onyour home. Powerful enough to heave
your driveway or your sidewalk up whereyou know triple trying to walk across it.

(01:58:20):
Well, Fix my slab foundation Repairby Tie Strickland. That those folks
know what they're doing. They've beenin the business a long time. Listen.
They're all about customer service and doingthings right. If you want something
on time, priced, fair andfixed right, that's fix my slab foundation
repair. Whether it is a sidewalk, a driveway or a home foundation,

(01:58:41):
they can do it. Here's thewebsite, fix myslab dot com, fixmslab
dot com, or you can callTie two eight one two five five forty
nine forty nine two eight one twofi five forty nine forty nine. Walk
around the house. Take a lookat the bricks for cracks, look inside
at the sheet rock for cracks ordoors sticking. Any of those are signs

(01:59:01):
that you don't need to delay.You need to have somebody look at it
soon, because it doesn't get better, it only gets worse. Fix my
slab fix myslab dot com. We'regonna take a little break here, Heidi.
You will be our first up whenwe come back. The number seven
one three two one two k tR h if you'd like to call in
friends, are nice to do,get nice going back to burn line.

(01:59:26):
Good to have you with us today. Looking forward to talking to you about
the things that interest you. Ifyou'd like to give a skull seven one
three two one two k t rH. We're gonna head now over and
talk to Heidi. Hello, Heidi, Hey, good morning, skiff.
How are you doing. Is thisHeidi from T Research Farms? Yes?
How How are things out there atthe farms? Very hot? Okay?

(01:59:50):
Well, yeah, we've been workingon production and trying to keep things watered.
Okay, you're looking good, butI think it's another rain. All
right? Well good, Well,what what's the what's the uh? What's
the call? The lady? Theycalled about the pear tree. Yes,

(02:00:14):
it's possible. It's a high chillpair. It is. We don't have
a lot of choices of pairs thatproduce down here, and a lot of
people. My sister was given aplum tree and was all excited, and
I said, do you know whatvariety? And she said no, oh,
yes she did, there was.It was purchased at one of the

(02:00:36):
box stores and uh, it wasa very high chill plump. And I
said, well, you can havea pretty green tree, but it's never
going to bloom and never going tofruit. That's a good point. I
think I mentioned in the call thatdepending on the variety she had, but
that that is really true, anda lot of people make that mistake.

(02:00:56):
So it's good. Fortunately around Houstonhere we got a lot of folks that
provide locally adapted fruit trees. Oh. Absolutely, you very good one.
There's some very good ones, butmostly with your apples and your pears and
plums and peaches. I guess it'sstill you have to have your low chill

(02:01:18):
or medium chill. Yeah, downhere, that's true. But something most
people don't know. I have toexplain to them. And I know that
that's right up your alley, Butjust I needed to just call in and
say hi and throw that out.Well, Heidi, it's always good to
hear from you, and glad tohear things are going good at it.

(02:01:38):
I need to swing back out.There's been ages since I've been out there
to that place. It sure hashe now that you're not in Travis County.
Yeah that's true. Okay, Well, hey, thanks for thank you
very much for the call. Iappreciate that having no problem. In fact,
I'm going to drone on about chillhours here in a little bit.
I think if I'm I have timeto you, that's a very good point

(02:01:59):
to bring up. You take care, Bob. We're going to now,
let's see, we're going to goto West Houston and talk to Tom.
Hello, Tom, Hi Chip.A couple quick questions. How do I
kill prade myrtle suckers about six feetfrom the mother plant? Six feet a
sucker from a You're pretty sure it'sa sucker attached to a root, and

(02:02:23):
maybe not a seedling coming up outthere. Well, I get I'm not
the xp one. I guess itcould be either. I mean I would
say that either are four to sixfeet and then we eat them and they
just come back in a week.Yeah, that far away. I don't
know. It could be attached toa root, but it's also possible it's
a ceiling. The difference, thereason that's important is if it were its

(02:02:45):
own plant, I could recommend youapply a certain type of a herbicide to
the trunk that will kill it.But if it were attached to the mother
plant, we wouldn't want to dothat because then that product gets into the
mother plant as well, because they'reconnected. So that would be the first
thing is figuring out if these thingsare on their own or not. If

(02:03:09):
they're if they are attached to themother plant, you just have to dig
down and try to remove them withas much of the root as you can
to get them out of there becausethere's no spray in them. If they
are not attached to the mother plant, you can cut off the crape that
you want to get rid of nearthe ground and immediately dab a product on

(02:03:31):
the back cut surface that contains aningredient called trichloe here t r i clo
p y r that is sold aspoison ivy killer. It's it's sold as
brush and stump killer. It's gota lot of different names that it goes
by, but Triclo piers the ingredient. You're not spraying it, You're putting

(02:03:51):
drops of it out. Get yourlittle foam paint brush with the little tiny
foam brushes and take the tricle pairright out of the container straight and dabit
straight onto that fresh cut surface.And it works wonders, and you've applied
just the most minuscule amount of productout in the environment as you can tyclo
clear triclo peer. Huh, that'sthe ingredient. And you're you were in

(02:04:15):
West Houston, so I don't knowhow far away from Southwest Fertilizer you are,
but Bob has definitely got tricle peerand more than one form there at
Southwest Fertilizer and the corner of Bismettand Man. What about these products called
like sucker stopper and some of theother spray on. So if the sucker

(02:04:38):
is coming off the bottom of thecrate myrtle, you cut it off as
close to the trunk base as youcan and then you spray the sucker stopper
or the what's the other one,not sucker ender, there's another it's got
sucker in the name. But anyway, you spray those right on that cut
surface. And what it is,it's a hormone. And whenever we print

(02:05:00):
a plant, it stimulates regrowth.When you spray the sucker stopper on there,
you're hormonally telling the plant there's nothinggoing on here, you don't need
to regrow, don't worry about it. In other words, you're suppressing that
sucker regrowth. If it's a onecoming up six feet away. Then if
you sprayed what you cut off,it would suppress it there. But if

(02:05:24):
it's its own plant out there,you're probably still going to get some suckers
coming off the base of it.And it's hard to get down to the
cut surface if you cut it belowthe surface of the soil. So I
appreciate that. I got one quickquestion about a peach tree. It's four
years old and it's been very healthy, but it's dropping about twenty or so
yellow leaves a day now. Imean it looks helt except for a few

(02:05:45):
yellow leaves or anything to be concernedabout. Well, yellow leaves aren't good
on a peach tree. Peaches willget yellow leaves when the roots sit in
soggy, wet conditions and can't getoxygen. They'll get yellow leafs when they
go through a drop period where theycan't get enough water and the tree just
starts to kick off some of thoseolder leaves that would do it. Is

(02:06:09):
the are the yellow leaves also associatedwith any spots on or holes in the
leaf? I haven't noticed any.I mean, I'll look again, but
my recollection from this morning is thatthey're just yellow leaves dropping. And yeah,
again, it's about twenty a daythough, so I think this has
happened last year. So yeah,I know it gets enough water. Now

(02:06:30):
to a question about it, doesit get too much or too little?
You know, it's kind of hardto say. It's got to sprinkle around
it. How old is this?How long has the tree been in planting?
It's five years old? Five,you know what, Tom, Just
to be sure, I would geta little hand trowel and the end of
a garden hose and I would digdown around the base of that tree and
try to wash it out a littlebit, so you can examine the base

(02:06:51):
of the trunk at and just belowthe surface of the soil and look for
anything that might be strangling the trunk. Sometimes root going in a circle can
do that. Sometimes a plant tagthat drop down where it's not being photodegraded
by the sun becomes a strangling pieceof plastic around the tree. But let's

(02:07:12):
just make sure that's not going on, because it's possible. I've seen that
in peaches before. And if youcan eliminate that one, I would just
say, let's get it a littlebit of fertilizer and a consistent so moisture
without excess have you fertilized it thisyear? I have, but I've just
used long fertilizers out nine. That'sa perfect I use long fertilizer my peaches

(02:07:36):
all the time or on fruit treesand other things. Yeah, that would
be fine. So if you've alreadyfertilized it, you probably don't need any
more. The only other thing issometimes creating a larger moulted area around the
tree helps keep moisture consistent, keepsthe roots cooler, and helps the tree
to thrive also. So those area few tips for things to think of

(02:08:00):
about. Well, thanks for yourhelp, all right, sir, Good
luck with that mine, sure,bye bye. Wild Bird's Unlimited is my
favorite store to go to for anythingrelated to birds, and it's because of
two things. You know, you'veheard me talk on garden Line about companies
and things and service. Knowledge ofthe people that are knowledge on the on

(02:08:24):
the part of the people who arehelping you is critical. You got to
have people know what they're talking about. Secondly, you've got to have quality
products that is very very important.And service, of course is very very
important. And wild birds you're goingto get all of that. Yeah,
if you want to bring birds toyour yard. They can help you.
They have the products that are necessary, whether there's bird feeders, bird houses,

(02:08:50):
bird baths for water. They havethe feed that is high quality feeds
such as right now you should stillbe putting out the nesting super Blend because
we're still in nesting season right now, and the birds often go through molts,
and whenever birds are molting, they'reshedding their feathers and getting new feathers.
They don't fly around a lot becausethey don't have the whole system set

(02:09:11):
up there, you know, interms of making it easy to fly around.
They stay kind of close. Theyfind cover where they can take cover
and fly less, hang around areliable food source and nesting super Blend is
a outstanding product that has the kindsof protein, it's got calcium in it,
and it just does well. Thebirds are able to thrive with that
kind of a blend, especially atthis time of the year. You're going

(02:09:35):
to find that if you're going togo on vacation, you want to get
a seed cylinder from wild Bird thatis a compacted round cylinder of seed,
solid all the way through, justlike just like one of those big old
candles you pull on a table andit takes the birds a while to peck
it out of there, and sothey don't just fly up, grab a
seed and fly away. You getto watch them for a little bit longer,
which is what we like to do. Also, if you go on
vacation you're going to be gone fora couple of weeks, put one of

(02:09:58):
those out there. When you comeback, the birds still be working on
it. It lasts a good while. WBU dot com that's the website.
You need to go to WBU dotcom Forward slash Houston and it'll show you
the six Wildbirds Unlimited throughout this areathat you can go to and get these
kinds of supplies. It's always inspirationaland fun to go out there. I

(02:10:20):
talked earlier today about things were doingfor the birds in our landscape and how
much we enjoy getting out and seeingtheir antics and hearing their songs. We
just put up a new feeder theother day and the blue jays found it,
and boy are they ever going crazyout there at the feeder. Anyway,
Wildbirdsunlimited dot Com, Forward slash Houston, you need to check them out.
My favorite store. When it comesto backyard birding, you're listening to

(02:10:46):
Gardenline. Our number is seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four
seven one three two one two fiveeight seven four. Uh. We're about
to take a little break here forthe news. As we hit the nine
thirty break, I want to remindyou that this summertime is the time to

(02:11:07):
get your lawn fertiliza and done.So, if you haven't done so already,
I'd recommend you get your slow releasefertilizer. Get that job done so
you don't have to worry about itagain until we come back until in fall.
And in the meantime return the clippingsnature' z owe slow release organic fertilizer.
It's a grass clipping. Why wouldyou ever bag it up for somebody

(02:11:28):
to haul away. We'll be rightback back to the guard line. Good
to have you with us. Weare here to help you have a more
bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape. That is certainly our goal. I
tell you there's a new product byMedina that definitely can have you have a
more beautiful yard, and it's calledMedina Has to Grow Supergrow Plus. It's
one of their has to Go line. You know, there's regular has to

(02:11:50):
grow. There has to grow forlawns. Well. This is Supergrow Plus,
which is also for lawns. It'sa sixteen zero two fertilizer, but
it also has keylated iron to helpwith that yellowing that occurs in your lawn.
About a fifth of that nitrogen init is a slow release form of
nitrogen. It's got seaweed extract init, it's got molasses, it has

(02:12:13):
humic acid in it. It's quitea concoction to do all the things that
are necessary to keep a lawn healthyand growing. One bottle of it hooks
up to a garden hose and coversabout four thousand square feet and you can
do it about ten minutes to yourwhole four thousand square feet a yard.
That's simple. Medina has to Growworks well, and Medina Supergrow Plus part

(02:12:35):
of the has to grow line isjust outstanding for the lawn. Now,
I say for the lawn, youcan spray it on your tomato plants and
the vegetable garden or flower beds orwhatever you want to spray it on if
you wish. It's a good product. It's gonna work. But primarily we
think of it as a lawn basedproduct, and I encourage you to try
it out. It's easy to find. It's available in a lot of garden

(02:12:56):
centers, a lot of feed stores, our feed in Guardline, You're gonna
find it in Nace hardware stores.You're going to find it at Southwest Fertilizer,
down a bus net and Runwick.It's just a widely available product and
an excellent product. I would highlyrecommend super Grow Plus except to a hose
from Medina. We're going to gonow to Memorial and talk to Jeff.

(02:13:18):
Hello, Jeff, Well, Hello, how you doing today? I'm well,
sir, thank you. Okay,So I have a couple of years
ago I went and bought two lemontrees and two lime trees from a local
nursery, not a box store.And one of my lemon trees gave me
some fruit last year, and ithas fruit on again. This year's got

(02:13:43):
five lemons on it. But theother three trees have never shown any indication
of bearing any fruit at all.Okay, and I guess my question is
we're all entertainers, and they're alllike similarly situated in terms of getting moisture
and in terms of getting sun andshade. Okay, and I don't know

(02:14:05):
what the difference is between those threeand the one why I keep getting food
off of one but not the others. And they're all the same cultivar of
lemon, all the same species.Well, two of them are lines,
and the two lemons are Myer's limits, So I don't know. So the
two lines beyond that and the twolemons, and they're supposed to be okay.

(02:14:28):
Yeah, well so you probably havemost of this already in place.
But to have success with citrus,you need adequate soul volume so that it
doesn't get droughty all the time.You know, you forget to water it
for a few days and all ofa sudden you're coming back, and that
that stress period will affect bloom andfruit set and everything else. You need

(02:14:50):
good sunlight, full sunlight, ifpossible at least six hours for it to
do its best, and of coursekeeping it adequately moist, a moderate amount
of fertilizer in the mix, agood well drained soil mix, and the
container. Those are all the components. Now, if all that is being
done and or at least equal betweenthem all, So why are some doing
good and others are not? Idon't know. Where we go past that

(02:15:13):
this is not going to be dueto a pest an insect. It's probably
not going to be due to adisease. And so you know, of
all those things, can you thinkanything that might not be happening sunlight,
adequate moisture, adequate soil volume,fertilizer or anything. Well, well,
the curious part is, you know, Okay, if it's an absence of

(02:15:35):
water, then I mean they allget the same amount of moisture, the
same the same amount of water,they all get roughly the same amounts sunlight,
They're all have roughly the same Imean, they're all in the same
kind of containers, so they allhave roughly the same soil volume. Okay,
And I guess maybe what it isis that you know, I don't

(02:15:56):
particularly spend a lot of time wateringthem, and you know, so maybe
those three just need more water,or need more sun or something. I
guess, Yeah, you know onewho's getting I'm sorry, I'm talkue to
Jeff. Jeff. There's a lotof factors in the watering. How big

(02:16:16):
is the container, the type ofsoil you have, is you could start
off with a real good soil mix, and over time it just decomposes a
way and gets a little mucky.You know, it may be too chunky,
and it's straining too well, notholding water or vice versa as possible.
Uh. And just even though they'reall in sun, there's always gonna
be some differences. But I tellyou, when citrus is young, production

(02:16:39):
is often less, and the treeswill often bloom and set little tiny fruit
and then abort the fruit. Uh. And while they're a little just tiny,
tiny little citrus fruit. And soas the tree gets established and settles
in, we usually see better productioncome on. So that would be something
I would suggest think about in themeantime, watch that watering and then give

(02:17:03):
them a little bit of nutrition,a little bit of extra There's some of
our fertilizer sponsors produce things that arefor fruit that do really well for fruit.
I often use a low fertilizer onmine, but you could get one
specifically designed for your fruit that woulddo well. Also. You just want
moderate nutrition and then they just needa little time to grow. Because I

(02:17:26):
have it in the past head centristhat did a lot of a boarding when
the plants are very small and didn'thave the good strong root system yet okay,
all right, well, thank youvery much. All right, good
luck with those. I appreciate thata lot. Now we're going to go
talk to Robert in Cyprus, andsounds like we're all on the same subject,
Is that right, Robert? Yes? But my question is is I've

(02:17:48):
got two lemon trees I've had forthree years. They're growing, ones at
eight foot the other one's nine foottall. They've never bloomed. And I'm
wondering about the grab. Is itis every tree different? Does it have
to be grafted? It doesn't haveto be, but they almost all are.

(02:18:09):
Uh, And they're grafted to oneof specific mostly one of two different
rootstocks here in the Greater Houston area. Uh, that's too long. I've
never heard of one. I've neverheard of one. Good Sunlight on the
leaves to make carbohydrates are needed toform the bloom buds and then also to

(02:18:33):
form the fruit. Uh. Andso it sounds like you're getting that adequate
so moisture so it doesn't go intostress is not excessive amounts of nitrogen,
but it shouldn't go as long asyou described without fruiting at all. That
that's very peculiar. On do youknow, is this a is some mere

(02:18:54):
lemon or is it some of thelemon tree a barn from the nursery,
And you know it's just like Idon't understand. Yeah, myers are good
lemons. They do just fine.Well. A tree, like a lemon
or other fruit tree sets fruit becausesunlight shines on the leaves, carbohydrates are
made and it just gets the abilityto set the bloom buds and then the

(02:19:18):
fruit. Are your trees blooming andnot setting or are they not even blooming?
I've never seen a flower on them. To be here with you on
garden Line, I'm your host,Skip Richter and our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventyfour. We are going to now run
out to let's see, we're goingto Huntsville, Texas and talk to Charles.
Hello, Charles. I've heard alot of discussions this morning about bark

(02:19:43):
stripping. And I've got a peartree that it went from the bottom clear
to the top and I ended uplosing about four or five branches that became
dead. And a local landscaper lookedat it and said wrap it with burlap.
And I'm wondering if the rash nowwas the same that existed ten or
twelve years ago, that every timeyou had something sought off you had to
spray it with that black tar likesteps just as a protection. And now

(02:20:09):
that's gone completely out of style.Yeah, do you have comments about that.
I don't. Wrapping is not goingto be helpful or needed. In
fact, it actually could work againstyou. I'd like to clear away any
dead barks, to expose the innerwood that is there. That way,
when we have a rain or something, it gets wet, it dries out
quickly, and the bark, thecallous that will form on the sides of

(02:20:35):
a wound or a dead area andbegin to crawl back over. If you
will like a lava flow to closeover and protect that interior wood, that
callous can be seen and it cango ahead and do its job. Well,
I've seen that callous form and sinceI gave up one spring. But
at one time that was the answer. Oh spray, and I assume that

(02:20:56):
was a black tar like substance yousprayed on it. Yes, yes,
absolutely, black black tar like substance. But I don't recommend doing that at
all. Didn't Well, that musthave gone out of style. Yeah,
it has gone it's it's been disproven. I won't go into all the details
of why, but it doesn't help. There's only one time when we use

(02:21:16):
those pruning paints, and that isif here in Texas, if you have
oak wilt in your area and youprune an oak tree, the paint is
on there, not to help itwound healing, but to stop the bug
from getting in and infecting with thatdisease. So that's all right, all
right, Charles, thanks, thankyou, appreciate your insight. You bet,
thank you for the call. I'mgoing to go now to Kathy in

(02:21:41):
northwest Houston. Hello, Kathy,Hi, very good callers today. The
guy with the bar problem. I'vegot oak trees out here and they slop
off bark every so many years.So it's a common thing in trees.
They need to remove old bark inorders for the new bark to expand,

(02:22:05):
the tree to expand in its girth. Then the other thing was the guy
with the lemon problem. Lemons limessometimes the type of lemon or lime it
is, they come in male andfemale. There. I'm sorry, Kathy,

(02:22:26):
but there there's not a male andfemale lemon or lime that one is.
That's not accurate. The really,yeah, because it's not we have
that's what I had been told.Well, we have a few fruit that
can do something like that, likeper simmons can have male and female flowers
that are separate, not separate treesmale and female. Oh well that might

(02:22:48):
have been I mean it was yearsand years and years ago that I learned
that. Yeah, and there aresome fruit Papayas have male and female trees
that are separate, or trees thatare both. Actually, but yeah,
we got red plum. There arered plums that are male and female.
Awesome. Actually, I'm sorry thatthe plums, peaches, per simmons,
I mean plums, peaches, pears, apricots, stone fruits, palm fruits

(02:23:13):
like apples and pears, all ofthose are they have perfect flowers, they
have male and female parts on theflowers. But okay, but there are
other things that will cause the lackof fruits out that we've been hearing about
today. Well it's just true.Okay. Well I smoke then, and
thank you for updating my information.Well, thanks for calling in. I
appreciate that, and thanks for beinglistening to Guardenline. Appreciate that a lot.

(02:23:33):
We're going to go now to Pleasantville. That's a nice, pleasant sound,
and we're going to talk to Deborahhy Deborah, Well, I skip
the weeds over here are pleasant.Now I'm restarting a Saint Augustine yard.
I can't do it all at onetime. So half of the yard is
waiting for me to put salt on. It is full of nut stage and
Virginia button weed. Okay, couldI spray something like image or sedge hammer

(02:23:58):
on there? Wake them within ahalf and we saw it? Or should
I just lay that saw right ontop of it, let it grow and
then hit it. Well, wheneveryou lay side, you want to lay
it on bare dirt, so whateverit takes, not on old dead grass,
because you want the sad bottom totouch the dirt and root right in.
Really well, I would definitely controlthe button weed and the nut's edge

(02:24:20):
in the meantime because you can usethings, and you can do a better
job of killing those weeds without hurtingyour lawn while you're in between lawns,
if you will, so, law, Yeah, get your sedge hammer,
get those nuts edges killed. They'regonna come back again one application. You
know there's nuts underground that haven't sprouteddeath that will, you know, and

(02:24:43):
so do that. As far asVirginia button weed would there's a lot of
different ways you can go about itwhen you don't have to worry about what
you're spraying it on. But ina lawn, we would use celsius,
which is a herbicide to kill thebutton weed. It's very effective. If
you don't have a lawn, thenwe can and try it. You can
try other things. Okay, yeah, right there on the half of the

(02:25:05):
lawn is I resaw it that theother half doesn't have anything on it,
But yeah, weeds that's going intomy bare dirt. Yeah that's right.
I'm trying to smother it with cardboardthe natural way. Yeah, it's crazy.
Well, you know, and nutsedge can hold its breath a long
time, so cardboard is not goingto really get those nuts out of there.
It'll kill it sticking up above theground, but they'll poke through it.

(02:25:26):
So but your instinct is right,get that completely weed free from those
perennial, pernicious weeds like nutsedge andbermuda grass and Virginia button weed and dollar
weed, anything like that. Now'sthe time to clear it up. Even
if you spray it a while.You watch, and you wait and give
it some water to encourage re sproutingof anything still there, and spray it

(02:25:48):
again, get it cleaned out,and then when you lay your lawn down,
it's much easier than if you laylawn over a weedy spot. Okay,
all right, thank you so much, thanks a lot, appreciate appreciate
your call very much. Wow.What do they say? Time flies when
you're having fun? Here we areit is time for music to be playing.

(02:26:09):
We're at the end of the hour. Star of Hope is celebrating their
one hundred and seventeen anniversary Monday,July first, that's tomorrow. Can you
believe that since nineteen oh seven theyhave been making a difference. They've changed
the lives of thousands of homeless men, women and children. I hope you'll

(02:26:31):
join them in their journey. Mywife and I support Star Hope. You
can go to Star of Hope missiondot org. Sh mission is actually it
don't spell out Star Hope soohmission dotorg. And we're going to be posting
some stuff about this on our Facebookpage for Guardenline. I hope that you
will follow us on Facebook too,because we're always putting things up that are

(02:26:56):
helpful here and there, letting youknow about things going on in the gardening
world around out. Star of Hope, Mission Boy, whatever here I can
find a better consy. Hey,thanks for listening to us this weekend.
We'll be back again next weekend.Remember we're available by PI