gardening with trees

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt
r H Garden Line with Skip Rictrim.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Just watch him as many thanks to.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
See what.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
They're not a sign.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
Well, well, welcome, welcome to Garden Line on a lovely
Sunday morning. We're glad you're with us and looking forward
to talking about the things you're interested in. I want
you to have a beautiful, bountiful garden and landscape, and
there's a way to do that. One of the things
that I like to say is that there's no such

(01:00):
thing as a brown thumb. There's just an uninformed thumb.
And the words if you understand some of the basic
principles of what plants want, well, then you can give
them what they want and suddenly it looks like your
thumb turned green. That's really that is really the way
it works on this kind of thing. It's just a

(01:21):
matter of given plants what they want. Well, I bet
you have dealt with weeds that are problematic, but they're
growing right next to a plant you like. In other words,
if you tried to spray it, you would get it
on the plant you like and cause collateral damage. Well,
there's a couple of ways to avoid that. One is
to use a shield, something like a board that you

(01:42):
put in between the desirable plant and the weed, and
then don't pump up your sprayer too much, because when
you do pump it up too much, you create a
mist that drifts off target, and that's a problem, and
you can use that technique to avoid getting the spray
on a desirable plant. Another one is to create a
wheed wiper, and I've done one of those for you.

(02:04):
I looked online, I've looked in stores and things, and
I just don't see many weed wipers available in the
gardening trade. So I created one homemade that you can
make yourselves very inexpensive using a grabber tool, one of
those things you used to get a jar off a shelf.
And so if you would like, you can go to
my website gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip

(02:29):
dot Com. It's one of the latest publications I put
on there, and it tells you how to build your
own weed wiper tool, and I love mine. It works good.
I can reach underneath the rosebush and apply a herbicide
to maybe a nuts edge plant coming up underneath it,
or if I'm walking through the yard and wild onion
is sticking up above the grass. I can use it

(02:52):
to get the herbicide, wipe it directly on the wild onion.
Do you have hackberries or maybe poison ivy coming up
in a fence line and you don't want to spray
something that's going to kill your grass around it, Well
you can use the weed wiper tool to do just that.
It's really handy, works really well, easy to make, very
easy to make. And I also have to go with

(03:14):
that a list of herbicides. It's a separate publication but
it's also on my website, and depending on the weed
you're going after, it tells you what to use. For example,
wild onion in your lawn, you're going to use image
for nuts edge. I know it says nuts edge and
it's wild onion, but that's what works on wild onion,
Image for nutst If you're going to go after to

(03:35):
let's say peppervine, I had some cause yesterday. On peppervine,
you can use something called tricl containing triclope here. That's
a herbicide, but it's all on that chart. You don't
have to worry about that. But for whatever kind of
weed you're going at, there's that chart that says put
this on the sponge. And the thing I like about
this weed wiper is you're not spraying pesticide all out

(03:56):
in the environment. You're applying it directly to the target
weed and that takes very very little pesticide to do that.
So check it out at gardening with skip dot com. Well,
we're going to just start right off this morning, going
straight to the phones and we're going to head out
to Kingwood, Texas and talk to Anna. Hey, Anna, you

(04:17):
get the Early Bird Awards today? Were you there? Yeah,
I'm here.

Speaker 6 (04:24):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 5 (04:25):
I can now? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (04:27):
Good morning, okay, h good morning, scip. I have two
questions about trees. The first one is we had we
have a lot of trees of our property and we
had them all trimmed before the hurricane, and now they're
starting to grow back where they trimmed the low hanging branches.
Is there something that should be done when they cut

(04:48):
a branch to keep a phone growing back?

Speaker 5 (04:53):
So, in other words, where they cut the branch off
around that cut, you're getting sprouts coming out. Is that
the case right? Well, those that is the result of
doing a significant prune to a branch and it's just
the it's the tree saying, hey, I was sending all
this energy down the branch, and now the branch is gone.
So I'm going to push out some buds that are

(05:15):
asleep all around that area and make them grow. So
that's kind of normal. Usually what you do is you
follow up with another pruning and settle those down. Other words,
take those out as they try to grow, and it
will settle down. It may have to do it once
or tries to do that. There are some sprays that

(05:35):
prevent sprouting and growing. Not real practical to apply in
a lot of tree situations, but there's one called sucker stopper.
There's another one. I can't think of the names of them,
but sucker stopper is I mean, the name it tells
you what it's going to do. It's going to stop
those sucker shoots from coming out and doing that.

Speaker 7 (05:55):
Okay, question, After the hurricane and we had some trees,
they came out and all these big logs are out there.
Is the city going to come pick that stuff up?

Speaker 5 (06:06):
That? I don't know. I don't know the rules out
there in Kingwood. In most cities there is a brush
pick up. But I just don't know in your particular
you'd have to call you, you'd have to call your
city public works department.

Speaker 7 (06:20):
Well, I know they've been around and they have picked
up a lot of stuff, but are they going to
keep coming around?

Speaker 5 (06:27):
Yeah? That again, that one, you would just have to
ask them and see that. I where I live, they
come by once a week. But I don't you know,
there's not not all places are the same.

Speaker 7 (06:41):
Is that like three one one to the city.

Speaker 5 (06:45):
No, I don't know. It's yeah, I just call our city.
Like if you do, go on Google or something and
do Kingwood City public Works or something, maybe that'll pop
the number of for you.

Speaker 8 (07:01):
Okay, thank you, I appreciate it, all right, an a
good luck out there.

Speaker 5 (07:05):
Okay, well you got here we go. We already hitting
the calls this morning, so we welcome you to call in.
Our phone number is seven to one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. That will get you right
through here to me. And by the way, let me

(07:27):
just here's a tip. Sometimes you get real busy here
on Garden Line and the calls really back up. I
do everything I can to get as many as possible
h on air and to solve the issues that people
are calling about. But as we get toward the end
of a show, that's when oftentimes it get gets busy.
Not every day, but oftentimes it does. And those of

(07:48):
you who are listening early on, if you got a
question early on is a time it's easy to get through.
There's not a big backup of a bunch of calls
sitting waiting at that time. So if you're trying to
avoid having to sit or wait, you know, there's your tip.
Early on is a good idea for that. Out in

(08:09):
the lawn, I know everybody seems like everybody has a
lawn that they care a lot about, and for good reason.
Lines of the carpet, of the landscape. There's some things
we can be doing right now, And when we come
back from break, I will get right on that and
start talking about a few tips for what do you
do right now on your lawn. We'll be right back things. Well.

(08:31):
One of the things you need to be doing is
if you have not fertilized this summer, it's time to
put on something that will provide a gradual release of
nutrients over time. Now Nitrophoss is designed a product called Superturf.
It's their silver bag. It's a nineteen four to ten fertilizer.
You may think, well, nineteen that's a lot of nitrogen. Well,

(08:52):
it's a lot in the ratio, which is okay. You
just don't put as much on when you have a
bigger number like that, you put less on. Take about
five pounds of nineteen four ten per thousand square feet
to cover over your lawn and it's going to gradually
release those nutrients until it's time to It'll take you
all the way up until you're going to put on

(09:14):
a fall fertilizer. And my schedule online at gardening with
Skip dot com. It tells you when to apply and
what to apply and all of that. You're going to
find Nitrofoss's Superturf at many places. Kingwood Ace has it,
The arbor Gate carries it up the Shades of Green, Texas,
up and down in southeaston on Genoa, Red Bluff. Those
are all places that you're going to find Nitrofosh products

(09:36):
such as the super Turf. I want to back out
to the phones now and we're going to go to
Northwest Houston and talk to Matthew. Welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 9 (09:44):
Matthew.

Speaker 10 (09:46):
Hey, skip be a longtime listener. Somebody knock on my
door at six am and woke me up and told
me I need to listen to your show and wasn't
happy at the moment.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
I don't shore. How do you just start saying that again?
I haven't said that. You're funny? All right, what's up?

Speaker 11 (10:09):
So you know?

Speaker 12 (10:11):
I followed my wife. She has been a longtime gardener.
In fact, she has terraformed our whole house. And now
I've gotten into gardening myself.

Speaker 9 (10:22):
And I'm looking at it is it is. And now
I am.

Speaker 12 (10:29):
Looking to put in a raised garden bed in our
backyard and kind of do some kind of home garden
things crops, edibles, herbs, peppers, onions, things like that. And

(10:50):
the the problem I'm facing is our backyard, which is
the only place I can really put it faces west
and it just gets at Texas heat. And I'm looking
for any advice you have before I put this in,
because you say brown step before green stuff.

Speaker 9 (11:12):
I want to I want to plan this.

Speaker 12 (11:13):
For success, so I'm looking for anything, like.

Speaker 9 (11:22):
Any advice you have on positioning this thing.

Speaker 12 (11:27):
I want to put in a large raised bed and
put in some uh I guess crops.

Speaker 9 (11:35):
I guess you would say.

Speaker 12 (11:40):
In any advice, you would have kind of planning for this.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
Okay, Well, first of all, I would make the raised
bed at a height that suits you. If you're putting
it on top of soil, it doesn't need to be
as high as if you were setting it on a
concrete patio, for example, where the only soil the roots
can get is in the bed. But I would do that.
I have mine. I try to keep mine about seventeen

(12:08):
to twenty inches high somewhere in there. That's a nice
height for not having to stoop so far when you garden.
If you have a little seat or something, it's you
can sit down and kind of work at a nice level.
But the plants don't care if they're in a raised
bed or not. But raised beds improve drainage, and so
you choose the height. I like Vego Beds, which is

(12:30):
a company just down the road from you, up in
the Klein area in North Houston. That Vego Beds are handy,
They put together modulely, and they work. You can build
your own. I mean I've seen people stack up cinderblocks
to make a bed. It's whatever you want and whatever
esthetically you want to look at. As far as the content,
you need to get a good bed mix, and places
like Nature's Way Resources heirloom soils, they will provide a

(12:55):
something called a veggiean herb type mix. You just tell
them I'm going to grow a vegetable garden. They'll give
you a nice blend that works for that, and they
can both deliver it or you can go get it
if you've got a trailer or a truck or something,
but you want to fill the bed with that. I
like beds that are about three feet or four feet
wide at the most. And the reason is if you

(13:17):
get like a two foot bed, well, you're you've got
all these you're paying for all the bedsides without much
growing area. But if you get past four feet, you
can't reach it halfway from each side. And you never
want to walk in a bed, and so you want
to be able to reach all areas of the bed
from you know, one side or the other at least.

(13:39):
And so that I like about a three or four
feet wide bed myself. And then as far as the
you know the size of it, that's up to you.
The mix is important, and getting it in full sun
is important. If you don't have a lot of full sun,
then give it as much sun as you can and
you'll end up planting your leafy crops where there's not

(14:00):
quite as much sun, and you're fruiting and rooting crops
where there is full sun you don't have.

Speaker 12 (14:10):
So my concern is more with the heat that it's getting.
Because it's west facing. I'm going to put it up
against like the back fence so that it gets a
little bit of that late afternoon shade. And because I've

(14:33):
kind of taken my hand at growing peppers this summer and.

Speaker 9 (14:40):
It's kind of like you say, you have to hit
it with.

Speaker 12 (14:42):
Water almost every day, and I'm wanting to kind of
try to avoid that. And I don't think I'm gonna
be all do that with the west facing bed. Will
I have success if I put in a raised bed
with that west facing sun and at late afternoon heat.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
Right well, you will? You will. And you know there's
some there are probably some bed materials that you know
would tend to heat up more than others. But I
know I've got bego beds and I've got beds that
are made out of treated wood, and I've made beds
out of cinder blocks in the past. And the bottom
line is you don't worry a lot about that. It's

(15:23):
the volume of soil we're talking about holds a lot
of moisture and plants are going to have to grow
and those warm temperatures. Now, if you're going to put
it up against a fence, then I definitely would probably
go to about a three foot with. You go two
foot if you want it, but about a three foot
with because you're can only be able to reach from
one side.

Speaker 9 (15:43):
Okay, okay, Now that's.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
You can grow anything you want to grow in a
bed like that, with soil like that.

Speaker 12 (15:52):
That's excellent information. And I will send you half of
what occur next season.

Speaker 5 (15:57):
That's it. That's part of the rule. Thanks a lot,
appreciate your call, Matthew. You take care well. Yeah, he
was referring to I used to say first thing in
the morning that if you look at your neighbor's house
and go and it's dark over there, go bang on
the door and tell them they're missing garden line, and
they will rise up and call you blessed that Actually,

(16:19):
they tend to rise up and call you something else initially,
but anyway, just having some fun there. But it isn't
a bad idea to tell people about garden line. You
know that neighbor that won't take care of his yard,
maybe if he listened a few times, he would suddenly
start to make that place right next to yours a
little more attractive. So that's another perk, I guess tell

(16:42):
them folks about garden line, talking about blends and bags
and different things like that. Landscaper's Pride makes some awesome
blends for garden soils. You can do these. It's just
a mending a soil that's already in your garden. You
can use them to actually create the garden. There's one
called Garden Magic Gardener's Magic. It's an organic pine based,

(17:05):
pine based blend. It's got like humus and screened pine bark,
very finely screened pine bark, composted dry cells and a
chicken pellet fertilizer and the chicken pellate actually gives you
a nutrient release from up to six months. It's really
good for raised and container gardens. Of course, they have
other sources like the healthy soil compost. It's really high quality,

(17:27):
very good for replenishing nutrients in an existing soil. It's
not the bed mix itself. Mushroom compost is another one
just like that, really really good at providing a boost.
Mushroom compost is like rocket fuel for plants. Black humus.
Black humus is a very dark, rich mix of composted
bark loamy top soil. It would be good for an

(17:50):
established bed or a new bed most growing conditions, I think.
For you know, if you're looking at putting in a
new bed, maybe the gardener's magic may be the best
way to go for something like that. But however you
go about it, get good quality soil and Landscaper's Pride
can provide you with that as well. Landscaperspride dot com.
That's their website if you want to go look. They

(18:10):
have a lot of other products, including some really great mulches.
And by the way, we got to keep a mulch
on the soil surface for a number of reasons. So
when it gets thin, when you start seeing weeds coming through,
put more multch down, get it thicker. It does wonders.
Mult is like the miracle cure. Multing compost for example,

(18:30):
on malt're you're stopping erosion you're stopping crusting of the
soil from rainfall. You're moderating soil temperatures. Go outside on
a sunny day, put your hand down and feel the soil,
even three inches deep. Feel how warm that is. Roots
don't like that. Mulch helps with that as well. What's
time for me to take a little break here coming up,
if you would like to give me a call seven

(18:51):
to one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
give Chris. You can be our first up when we
come right out of break. Dard Line, welcome back. Good
to have you with us this morning. Congratulations you were
up right and early. That's always a good day, A

(19:11):
good way to start a day. I appreciate these early
morning hours. Is nice and quiet. At least if I
keep my voice down a little bit, it'll be nice
and quiet. Uh. The chance to kind of do somethink
and do some planning, get some things ready to go,
just kind of wake up for the day. Today is
going to be a nice day. I think I'm looking

(19:32):
forward to this afternoon, getting out a little bit and
enjoying some of the outdoors. I know it's warm, but hey,
you know, we live here. It's it's just part of
the package that goes here. At least we're not shoveling
three feet of snow every one or time, so we're
going to count that as a plus plus. We're glad
you're listening with us. If you'd like to give us

(19:53):
a call seven to one three two one two k
t r H seven one three two one two KTR
that's the number you need to reach out. Plans for
All Seasons is up on two forty nine. That's Tomball Parkway.
For those of you that are new here, if you're
heading up toward Tomball, it'll be on the right hand side,

(20:13):
so you exit Luetta if you're heading north and you
cross over Luetta and it'll be right there on the
right hand side. In other words, when when you're standing
at Plants for All Seasons, you're just staring at top
two forty nine right there in front of you, and
so it's easy access, easy to get to. But folks
that live in that region know that Plants for All
Season is the place to go for awesome plants and

(20:37):
awesome advice and all kinds of things that you need.
And right now it's time to get ready for fall.
I know it's hot, it's August, but fall is coming.
And we were talking earlier, you know, about putting in
a new bed with Matthew, and there's a there's a
lot of things we can be doing right now so
when fall comes, you're ready. And sole prep is an

(20:57):
example of that, because when if you wait, let's say
you're planning on putting in your broccoli and mid September
or something, transplants or late September, and you get to
that point and here comes a bunch of rainy weather. Well,
now how do you work your soil because it's all soggy,
wet and stuff. But if you build it now, you're
ready to go. And plants for all seasons, carries all

(21:19):
the products, I mean, you get to pick from all
these different soil products, composts and mulches and bed mixes
and everything, and you can get everything set up and
ready to go. Now. They have beautiful containers, gorgeous. I've
got one of the couple of their containers actually that
are just beautiful glazed pottery and we just really enjoy them.
They just gorgeous. And then of course plants, they've got

(21:42):
all kinds of plants. And remember we have several months
of warmer weather left. We got August, we got September,
and we got a good part of October where the
temperatures are quite warm. I mean around here, it doesn't
We typically don't get those frosts until much later. So
why not put in some color to carry you all
the way through up until the time when you're gonna

(22:03):
think about things like pansies and violas and alyssum and
other other flowers like that. Plans for All Seasons has
got all of that. Hey, The website is Plans for
All Seasons dot Com. The phone number if you'd like
to give them a call two eight one three seven
six one six four six two eight one three seven
six one six for six. They got good stock of

(22:25):
all the things you need to get ready for the
upcoming planning seasons or just to get out there and
get some color going right now, tell you what, Let's
head out to the Houston area and talk to Steven.
Good morning, Stephen, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (22:43):
Morning.

Speaker 13 (22:45):
Question is we're actually out on property in near Fayettville
and we get Johnson Grass and I'm looking for herberside
just to control the Johnson grass and not kill other stuff.

Speaker 5 (22:59):
What's growing around the Johnson grass.

Speaker 13 (23:03):
Bermuda mainly, and then weeds.

Speaker 5 (23:07):
So you're not wanting to kill the bermuda or or
the other things, right, is that what you're saying?

Speaker 11 (23:13):
Not really?

Speaker 14 (23:14):
I mean, okay, I'm not too worried about it.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
But how big is this patch of Johnson grass? I
need to kind of know just to kind of direct
for the right technique.

Speaker 13 (23:26):
We're on thirty two acres, so it could it could
be a lot.

Speaker 5 (23:31):
Oh, I mean, I've got.

Speaker 13 (23:33):
Yeah, it gets mainly trying to control it along my ditches.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
Along my road I see, and then in the entrance.
I'm not too worried about field. Okay, all right, Well, uh,
in that case, you're just going to have to try
to apply a spray to the Johnson grass and minimize
the amount that goes out all around it.

Speaker 9 (23:55):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
And if you use a little course droplet spray and
get close enough, you know, don't use a fog misty
high pressure spray that drifts off target. Just apply it
to the Johnson grass. You can you can do anything
from a general weed killer, which glyphosate is the example
that's been around for a long time on that. There's
also grass only killers. There's one that sutoxiden as dim

(24:20):
as the ingredient. The other is fluazephope, and I know
those are okay who wrote that down right? So if
you go to my website gardening with skip dot com,
I've got instructions for building a weed wiper, which is
not going to be practical for you using this huge,
huge amounts of Johnson grass, but with it is a
herbicide list of things to put on the weed wiper,

(24:42):
and depending on the weed you're going after, it names
the herbicide that you should use. Ok So those two
those two words that I just said for grass, if
you look over and it says grassy weeds, then look
across and you're going to see those two ingredients as
ones that you could use for the They translocate down.
They do a pretty good job of killing the rhizomes.

(25:04):
Johnsngrass has a lot of rhizomes underground, very thick, pencil
sized rhizomes, and so you got to kill those two.
So one spray may not get it all, but you
can come back and do it again, but it will
kill the bermuda that you get it on, so just
try to focus on spraying the johnsngrass. They translated. Thank
you all right, my bed Steven. Thanks for the call. Bye,

(25:27):
I appreciate that. Let's go now out to Richmond and
we're going to talk to Bernie.

Speaker 11 (25:32):
Hello, Bernie, Hey, hey, Skip, how you doing, man?

Speaker 5 (25:36):
I'm good? What's up?

Speaker 11 (25:39):
Got a promoted yard? Ties four nineteen chinch bug problems?
Never dealt with it in my life before. I've been
working in the yard for sixty years. I went and
got the bug out, Max and put it down, watered
it in. I've heard you say that chinchbugs are very

(25:59):
hard to eradicate. Is there a second treatment I need
to do with the bug out? And if not, do
I need to go back and lay some sweet green
down or something to try to stimulate the grass that's
still alive.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
Well, I mean, you certainly could do that. I don't
think of chinch bugs as being a pest of bermuda grass.
So I'm kind of wonderfully seeing when you look at
the bermuda grass.

Speaker 11 (26:29):
Well, a lots of patches of brown blades of grass.
There's some green interspersed throughout the backyard. The backyard's much
worse than the front. I have dealt with a fungus
brown patch two different times in the seven years we've
lived here, and I first thought that's what this was.

(26:52):
I put a funge aside down, and then it became
obvious with all that rain that we had in July
that I might have chinchbug problems. I did the chichbug
test where I took a tomato sauce can, took the
top off, the bottom off, punched it into the ground,
filled it with water, and we did see bugs float

(27:13):
to the top. So that's what they made me think.

Speaker 5 (27:17):
Did they look like chinchbugs?

Speaker 11 (27:19):
Is that what you Well, they're so small, they're so tiny,
it was hard for me to differentiate what kind of
bug it might be. But all right, at that point, listen.

Speaker 5 (27:32):
Bernie, I'm gonna it's break time. Let me Will you
hang on. I want to come back to this in
the meantime. I got a computer nearby. Go to a
website called Aggie Turf, and when you get there, look
at turf, grass, insects and chinchbugs and we'll be right
back and I'll talk about it some more. Whether you're
able to get there or not, we'll be right back
I'm good to good to have you with us today.

(27:52):
We're going to jump right back in to our call
with Bernie. Here if I can actually push on the
right button, go hey, Bernie, did you happen to have
a chance to look online or not? It's okay if
you did.

Speaker 11 (28:04):
Not yet I'm on my walk skip okay, oh okay,
that's fine.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Well, if you go to Aggie Turf website, there is
a publication on chinchbugs and you can see exactly what
they look like. They have a bunch of them. They
put on a dime so you can see how big
they are, the colors they are. I would check that
chinchbugs can feed on bermuda grass a little bit, but
they don't do big damage. It's Saint Augustine that they
really do the damage to. And I don't know what's

(28:32):
going on on the bermuda. I think it's something else,
and so I would you know, I I the only
thing I can suggest if you want to take some
pictures and send them via email, we could we could
take a look, kind of show me from a distance,
show me close up, and we'll see what else might
be going on out there. But I'm really doubting if

(28:54):
you're seeing significant browning, that that's a chinchbug thing.

Speaker 11 (28:58):
It's got to be a fungus, don't you think it.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Would be a fungus? Or it could be a you know,
drought related. It could be what else, something eating, you know,
feeding on the roots. It could be you know, a
herbicide or some product to use that burn the grass.
I mean, there are possibilities of other things. But I'd
like to see the pictures though, because the pattern of

(29:22):
the damage, the extent of the damage, and all that
kind of helped me narrow down who done it?

Speaker 11 (29:28):
Okay, I'll do it all right.

Speaker 5 (29:31):
Well, I appreciate that call. Thank you very much.

Speaker 11 (29:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (29:35):
B Yes, sir, you take care, Yeah night for us.
He was mentioning night frous bugout Max. That's an awesome
product for chinchbugs. I mean, it's a granule, you put
it out, you water it down, and it washes the
pesticide ingredient, the insecticide off the granule and into the thatch.
And that's where chinchbugs are hiding. That's why you have
to pull the thatch apart if you're looking for them

(29:56):
visually to get down there and see them. But it
works well within forty eight hours, it's pretty well done
its job and it continues to stick around for a while,
so you're not gonna have to treat again this year.
But it is chinchbug season, so you might want to
have some of the bugout Max on hand. You're gonna
find it at places like Stanton Shopping Center down in Alvin.

(30:18):
Lake hardbur Done in Angleton on Alasco has it, as
well as does Lake Harbar Clute on Dixie Drive and
Lake Jackson. We're going to go back to the phones
now and talk to Eddie and Kema. Hey Eddie, welcome
to Darnline.

Speaker 15 (30:35):
Thank you, thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 16 (30:37):
I've got an orange tree that I planted and I
got the instructions from moz over in Seabrook and it
said to use the original dirt and it said watered
every day. Well, when I dug the hole, there was
a bunch of pine roots and I think that is
what's keeping the tree from doing from growing because it's

(31:01):
not doing well at all.

Speaker 5 (31:04):
Okay, And what do you think is he getting a
lot of sun, Eddie?

Speaker 17 (31:10):
It is?

Speaker 5 (31:11):
It does get a long Okay. I would get a
fertilizer and Moss going to have several of them that
are options for a citrus. You know, Nelson's makes one,
Nitruss makes one, micro Life makes one. Uh, there, there's
there's there's plenty of options out there. I can't off
the top of my head. I don't remember what Jim
Carrey is there at Moss, but they'll have it. And

(31:34):
I would put it out according to the label and
watered in, and uh, I would do that now. I
wouldn't probably wouldn't fertilize again because we're going toward winter
and you don't want to push a lot of late
season growth. Citrus is kind of cold tender, and uh,
if you get real succulent growth, something that the tree
could have survived, will be very damaging because you created

(31:54):
that succulent late season growth. So now would be the
time to do it. And then just keep adequate moisture.
You know, it's hard to tell someone how much to
water because the soil type, the rainfall and everything else.
But I would just when you dig down around where
the roots are, not out from the tree, but where
the roots are, which is pretty much where you what

(32:16):
you put in the ground still, and if it feels
a little dry, it's time to water, but you want
to not let it dry out or keep it in
a swamp.

Speaker 16 (32:26):
So you don't think those are that you don't think
the pine has heard it.

Speaker 5 (32:33):
I don't think that tree has had time to get
roots out where the pine would roots would be. I
think the tree's roots are still primarily in the cylinder
you put in the ground when you pulled it out
of how long would you plant it?

Speaker 15 (32:46):
About two months ago?

Speaker 9 (32:48):
Two three months ago?

Speaker 5 (32:49):
Yeah, yeah, they're still primarily in that container. They are
venturing out. I mean you can cut some pine roots
around it. You know, you went three feet out and
did some roots to do that. Yeah. Yeah, But it's
just it's going into an environment where the soil is
full of wood would be in tree roots, and that's
displacing soil volume and it's having to compete there. So

(33:12):
but once you get it on its feet, it ought
to be able to do. Okay, you just have to
excuse me. You just have to make sure that it
gets a boost of nutrients and consistent moisture. Those are
the important things.

Speaker 15 (33:25):
Okay, thanks for your help.

Speaker 5 (33:28):
You bet good luck with that. I know, getting a
brand new citrus tree is a is a fun thing
to be able to do. Let's go out to Katie
and talk to John. Hey, John, welcome to Guardline. Hey,
good morning, Skip. I have a question for you. I
sent you some pictures I called earlier.

Speaker 18 (33:45):
And your producer gave me your email. I have an
oak tree in my backyard and it's got some it's
like split, like a fissure opening up, and it's either
a sick tree or it's a dying tree, or I
don't know what I should do.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Yeah, I had a chance to look at those pictures
and something split the bark a long time ago. It's
already callousing. You'll see this like lava flow of new
callous growth coming back in to close over that area. Yeah,
it could have been that when we went through the
really bad freezes excuse me, a few years ago. It

(34:23):
could have been that. It could have even been a
very minor lightning strikes. It's got a characteristic to it
that I couldn't eliminate a lightning strike from way back
when being part of the problem. Not a major one
that blows bark across the yard and kills the tree,
but just a minor one. But the thing is, it

(34:43):
is trying to regrow. So anything you do that builds
vigor for the tree, helps speed that regrowth. Get the
dead bark or tissues out that might be in the
way but where it's trying to close back over from
the sides. And how would I clean that out? Oh,
just pulling on loose bark or.

Speaker 9 (35:03):
Oh okay, I'd take a screwdriver in the.

Speaker 5 (35:07):
Yeah, you're not doing surgery. Sometimes I use like a
call hammer thing if I can't get my fingers on it,
you know, just kind of breaking loose. But you're not
doing You're not wounding the tree. I'm talking about just
taking out dead stuff that's in.

Speaker 9 (35:19):
That's okay, yeah, okay, yeah, I agree that.

Speaker 5 (35:23):
But the main thing is the tree's got to heal itself.
And anything you do that creates a bitterer that's fertilizing
and watering basically water and during during hot dry weather.
Thanks Jo, thank you, thank you. You bet good luck
with that. All right, folks, I hear music from you.
That means we're going to go to a break. When
we come back, Larry and Alben you'll be our first up.

(35:45):
And Andy in College Station you will be next. Don't
forget my website gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with
Skip dot Com. That's where you'll find the two new
publications on nuts edge and the two publications on the
weed wiper and the product that you put on the
weed by how to build one yourself. You just gotta

(36:07):
go see the thing. You look at him and go well,
that's simple. Making it easy.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Was advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H
Garden Line with Skip rictor.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Crazy Trip. Just watch him as world.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
That so many bird things to see, black crazy ways.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
Not a side crazy.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
Welcome back, Welcome back to the guard Line. It is
good to have you with us. We are looking forward
to talking to you about whatever is of interest to you.
We talk lawns, trees, shrubs, house plants, herbs, flowers, What
kind of plant issues do you have? What kind of
plant goals or plans do you have. This is a

(37:23):
great time to be planting your fall garden. Fall is
for planting. It is It is the best season overall
around the year for planting all kinds of things. It
gives the plants all winter to develop roots because they do.
You know, roots grow in the soil temperatures like above
fifty degrees or so I mean and it's out all

(37:44):
the time in the winter here. And so that plant
that you put in and let's say late October November,
whenever you put it in, is going to be ready
to hit the ground, run in when hot weather arrives
next year. Compared to a plant that you put in
in late spring. Now you can plant twelve months out
of the year here in our area, this whole region

(38:05):
of the country, you can plant twelve months out of
the year. Well I say region, I mean Southeast Texas region.
But the idea is to make it as easy as
you count on yourself and your plants and fall planting
is what does that. We're going to run now out
to the phones and head to Alvin and talk to Larry. Hello, Larry,
Welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 14 (38:26):
Good morning, Skip, Good morning. I got a question. I've
got a ditch in the front of my house. It's
about one hundred and fifty feet long, probably five or
six foot deep. Anyway, it's just been solid weeds. So
I killed the whole thing with round up, and I'm

(38:47):
thinking about planting red clover or crimson clover. What do
you think about that?

Speaker 5 (38:55):
It would look good for the season that it's growing,
But then when the hot weather comes in, it's gonna
all turn brown and then weeds. Arguing that because yeah,
there's there's nothing shading the soil. So I think you
need you probably need to go with something that's a
little more of a perennial, maybe an evergreen year round.

(39:15):
And that's gonna be a little bit of a challenge
in a spot like you just described.

Speaker 14 (39:20):
Yeah it's adiot. I won't get something that's gonna block
the weeds if nothing else, and I don't have to
weed date. It's real hard to we date.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
And yeah, yeah, well there's some good native groundcovers, but
the density is not going to quite cut it unless
you're out there watering it and taking care of it
a lot. And I know you don't.

Speaker 14 (39:43):
It's about three hundred feet after and a half. Greg oes, Oh.

Speaker 5 (39:48):
Boy, yeah, let's not do that. Oh boy, I tell you.
I was trying to think of something to be a
grasp but be lower growing U and that's kind of
getting into to more of a native grass that you
might I'm trying to think of what would be a
good good option for that. Everything's going to require mowing,

(40:10):
mow in or weed eating. That's the problem. And it
sounds like it's too steep to mow.

Speaker 14 (40:14):
Right, Yeah, yeah, you can't mow with you can't get
a mower down there, it's too steep. Yeah. What about
I kind of wanted something that was flowering. I felt
about wildflowers, but yeah, I don't know. And I saw

(40:35):
that that I can buy the red clover seed its
Stanton's here in town, and I thought wow that well
I didn't look on the internet.

Speaker 5 (40:47):
Yeah yeah, well yeah, of course. Uh so that would
be something that'll be a cool season. You know, playet
like we do our blue bonnets, for example, and it
comes up and the springtime is when it's going to
do its growth, and look, look we'll get on spring
cot early maybe early summer. Other than that, it's not
I don't know. That's a that is a little bit

(41:08):
of a that's not a yard question. So I'm not
thinking we need to call our local lag agent and
find out what is a native grasp, pasture grass or
something that would stay low that you wouldn't have to
be out there mowing all the time and weed eating.
I know there's some there are some aquatic plants that
will grow you see pickerel weed and others that grow

(41:29):
in standing water down in a ditch and they bloom.
They look good.

Speaker 14 (41:33):
Another one it's pretty much hard packed clay and uh
it's uh, it's it's full sun all the time. So yeah,
I thought that clover might be pretty nat because but
you say it don't bloom.

Speaker 5 (41:53):
Long, Well, it's it's a it is a like a
biennial that it s brought up in the cool season
and then it grows and doesn't. It doesn't continue. It's
not going to be blooming all summer and all fall
and anything like that.

Speaker 14 (42:08):
It's I that's not it's grow clover, because I get
that in the yard.

Speaker 19 (42:14):
You know.

Speaker 14 (42:15):
It's yeah, it's pretty yeah bees.

Speaker 5 (42:18):
Yet the problem with all everything that is coming to
my mind is it's is not going to have the density.
There is a native it's a weed. It's a low
growing groundcover. It's called huh gosh, I just went blank.
I was trying to say horse herb, and that's not
the one. I'm I'm trying to think of frog fruit.
It's called frog fruit.

Speaker 17 (42:40):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
You some will sell it it grows crazy, but it's
it's very low, very low, And I don't think the
density is going to be adequate. To choke out everything,
but that it might be a start. And it's it.

Speaker 14 (42:58):
I mean it, I around the bird bath and okay,
it's pretty it's pretty good.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
Now.

Speaker 14 (43:07):
I do have edge coming up in it now, but
so more that's only weeds that's come up in it.

Speaker 5 (43:16):
I mean that, I don't know that that's the panacea
for your question, but that that's about all the king
in mind the other thing. Let me just leave you
with this, Larry, you might want to call a company
called Native American Seed. They're in Junction, Texas, and they
sell mixes for all regions of the state, really the country.
They sell all over the country. But you can say, hey,

(43:37):
I'm over here, you know, in Alvin, Texas, south east Texas,
down Long not too far from the coast, and I
would like something I can put out in a bardetch
area that will grow. They probably have a blend that
you could at least give it a try, and it
would be They sell wildflower seed, but they sell pasture grasses,
native pasture grasses and other things, so that may be

(43:58):
worth a look. Or you can go online and look
at what they have. Okay, Native American Seed and Junction, Texas.

Speaker 14 (44:05):
Okay, I'll check them out. I have bought stuff from that, uh,
Wildflyers and Fredericksburg.

Speaker 5 (44:14):
Yes, while seed really well.

Speaker 14 (44:17):
To all I think.

Speaker 5 (44:20):
Okay, well, give give that a try. I'm gonna have
to run to a break. But good luck with that.
You came real close to stumping the chump on that one, Larry.
Thank you.

Speaker 14 (44:30):
Well, I've been because I just won't do stuff.

Speaker 5 (44:36):
All right, Well, you take care. I appre I appreciate
your call. Hey, we're gonna go to a break here.
Andy in college station. You are first up when we
come back, and just be a moment. With the snap
of your fingers, you head up now to College Station. Andy,
welcome to Guardline. All right, Texas, so long to get

(44:56):
to you.

Speaker 20 (44:58):
Oh that's okay, Skip, Thank you so much for taking
my call. I've kind of got I don't want to
grow something. What we want to do is is I've
got some Bermuda, not bermuna, Saint Augustine grass, and I
want to make an area where I can have some
crush grantitede.

Speaker 9 (45:14):
Uh do like a walkway out to a circle to.

Speaker 20 (45:17):
Put a fire fit out there and maybe my barbecue
grill and stuff.

Speaker 21 (45:22):
Uh?

Speaker 20 (45:23):
Is it the best way to uh use like round
up on the grass the way it is right now
first and then kind of let that that hot sun
kind of kill it out first. Or or what's what's
the best to keep the grass from coming back in?

Speaker 9 (45:38):
What's is it only sit out there? What's that?

Speaker 5 (45:43):
Yeah? Is it only Saint Augustine or do you have
other weeds or bermuda or anything mixed in there?

Speaker 9 (45:49):
Basically just Saint Augustine.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
Okay, So Saint Augustine is just it is all on
top of the ground. There's no rhizomes underground or like bermuta.
It can do. So if you were to take like
a gardening hoe or show and just scrape a half
inch under the soil surface, that it would completely get
rid of Saint Augustine. It wouldn't come back. It could
come in from the sides. That's always the case. That's

(46:13):
why we have to use edgeres and things in our
driveways and whatnot. But it's not hard to get you.
You can spray it if you want, but then you're
going to have the dead Saint Augustine material lay in there, uh,
And so you're probably gonna rake that out anyway. So
you choose which way you want to go yesh glif
as they would kill that. There are a couple of

(46:36):
grass only killers, septoxidam and fluezepholk or two. And if
you'd like to see what those are, you can go
to my website gardening with skip dot com and there's
a new publication up there and it's it's herbicides that
you would use with my weed wiper, and it lists
the herbicides by grass type. So if you go to
I mean by plant type, you go to grasses, you

(46:58):
can see three things one the two grass only killers
or the other two and you just go shopping for those.
So either way is fine. Just if you kill it,
you're gonna have to then rake it out, or you
can just you know, hoe it out, or run a
little rototiller over it and then rake it out, or
however you want to go about it.

Speaker 20 (47:18):
Okay, I'm going to put that barrier, what is it
a barrier? Cloths or plastic that's underneath it before I
put the rock down. Is there one that's better than another?

Speaker 9 (47:30):
Are they all about.

Speaker 5 (47:31):
Saying you need to get one that is a true
commercial landscape fabric. Some of the cheap oat things are
almost just like a rubbery, plasticky thing that doesn't hold
up at all. I don't know that you need that barrier.
The barrier would keep things from coming upward, up from underneath.
And again, if it's just Saint Augustine, that's not going

(47:52):
to be happening. What happens when you do the barriers
or anything is you get soil on top or seeds
land on top, and then they sprout anyway. So I
don't know that the barrier is going to help a lot,
but it's certainly not a problem to use. It keeps
your Decobo's granite from pushing down in the soil a
little bit. It kind of gives a little bit of
support for that Decombo's grantite is not the cheapest thing

(48:15):
out there, and some people will get a little bit
of a road based kind of material, put it down
and then put the granite on top of it. I
think if it's just a footpath like you're talking about,
you're not putting landscape stones and trying to create a
nice level patio. Uh, then it's probably okay just to
use a thick enough layer of decomposed granite.

Speaker 9 (48:36):
Right, thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (48:38):
If you just yeah, hey, Andy, if you decide to
get the landscape fabric, if you go down south Texas. Uh,
there is Site one has a soil yard. You've probably
seen it. Rocks and soil is right where six comes
back into Texas and they're going to sell a commercial

(48:59):
grade land kate fabric there.

Speaker 9 (49:02):
Okay, thank you so much, appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (49:05):
Yes, sir, you take care all right, folks our phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seven.
We've been trying to catch up calls all morning and
finally did that. Was that was a little bit of
a chore there. I you know, normally we don't have
that many calls early on. But that's fun. Makes it

(49:26):
more fun to do radio, and I think more fun
to listen to radio. If you haven't fertilized your lawn
in a few months, well Microlife has got you covered.
They have. They've got the green bag that is the
six two four. They've got the Purple bag that is
the zero zero four humates plus. The purple bag is
concentrated compost in a bag. The green bag a sixty

(49:50):
four nice ratio of nutrients for your lawn. Uh, Microlife
also has a number of liquid products that are excellent.
You know, there's a seaweed type product, there's a fish
emotion product called Ocean Harvest. Then they Biomatrix is the
orange label. That's a seven to one four seven one three.
I can't remember that last number anyway, it's a good ratio.

(50:12):
I use it for all kinds of things. You can
use it for houseplinch, you can use it for containers outside.
You can just use it to you know, spray and
water in things. Do FOLDI your feeding with it. It
won't burn. Microlife products are not salt based. They do
not burn your plants. But they're very effective and they're
widely available at Microlife Fertilizer dot com, Microlife Fertilizer dot com.

(50:34):
You can find them all over the place. And i'd
encourage you to try out some of these others. Maybe
I mentioned some you haven't tried yet. They all work well.
And I say that because I've used them, and that
is important. You've heard me say that before, but it's
important to me for you to know that I don't
just recommend a product because they want to be a sponsor.
We talked to our sponsors. We have had sponsors. We

(50:57):
don't take on Guardline because I don't believe products are
going to work. And if I have, if I'm talking
about it, either I've seen research on it working or
I've tried it myself and it works. That that's important
to me. I'm put my name on these things. And
so just know that when we talk about things on
guard Line, there are things that I have a reason

(51:18):
to believe you are going to have success with. Let's
go back out to the phones and we're going to
talk to Danny in Houston. Hello, Danny, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (51:27):
Yeah, good morning, sir.

Speaker 17 (51:29):
So my question, my question to you is I have
a pool that's about to be finished, and what the
pool guys did was they they put sand, you know,
probably about four foot out around the whole perimeter of
the pool, right and there's concrete around the pool as well,

(51:49):
and so I'm going to be hosing that of from
time to time, I'm sure. So I didn't know if
it would be best to just put sod there or
I have seen some people that have put like a
like an eighteen inch rock bed around the edge and
then they're grass.

Speaker 9 (52:10):
You know what you would suggest?

Speaker 5 (52:13):
Yeah, I generally like plants over hardscape just because reflective
heat and I don't know, plants, they do a lot
of things. You could do the Saint Augustine if you
feel like foot traffic is going to be running outside
that concrete around the pool, you know, and then in
time that grass is going to get pounded. Of course,

(52:34):
if it's gravel, they're not going to run their little
bare feet out there. But if you've got a decent
sized concrete pad around the pool for them to walk on,
then I would just bring grass up to it and
you can edge it and go with that. And if
you get some if you get some water blown over
that way, that's okay, it's not a big deal.

Speaker 17 (52:53):
Okay, Yeah, there's a four foot path of concrete around
the whole perimeter.

Speaker 5 (52:57):
Yeah, but if you if you want to go with
something gravelly, that's fine. Just gravel tends to get kicked
and knocked and bounced around and end up on the
on the and other things. So, uh, either way is fine.
It's the bottom line.

Speaker 17 (53:13):
Got you all right, I appreciate your half this morning,
Have a great days.

Speaker 5 (53:17):
All right, good luck. Uh, just you know, I can't
I can't ask you, uh, to bring me produce as
a result of this call. But I can say, let
me know when it's time to come swimming. If you've
got a margarita machine, we'll be there.

Speaker 9 (53:30):
Hey, it's yes, sir, all right.

Speaker 5 (53:35):
Got to have a little bit of fun here, card
a little bit moderate everything in moderation. Is that what
they say. Let's be speaking of moderation. The weather has
not been in moderation this year. Boy, that first storm
that came through that knocked out power. Uh family mine
done in Houston was out. I think they were the last.

(53:56):
My son is the last neighborhood to get power back,
which is crazy. It took forever and then Hurricane Barrel
comes through and here we are again. Well it didn't
take people long to figure out it might be a
good idea to have a generator. And oh my goodness,
there is a lot of interest right now in generators.

(54:16):
And that's a good thing. I mean, you know, we
have portable generators and things like that that people carry,
But what about the whole house? What about you know,
something that comes on that's automated that the minute power
goes off, the generator comes on. If you got a
work from home job and you need internet all the time,
you got it. If you need to take care of
that refrigerator and freezer, you know, if power's going to

(54:37):
be out for over a week, your food's in trouble. Right, Well,
the folks at Quality Home have got you covered. They
have Generaic and they have more than one branded generators,
but they're generat high Quality Generator. If you bring in
an old portable generator, they'll give you five hundred dollars
off your new generator that you're purchasing from them. They
have whole home generators standby power is how we call it.

(55:00):
But the thing about Quality Home is you're not just
buying a generator. What you're purchasing is the service and
the expertise that comes with it. And here's what I mean.
They talk to you about what do you want it
to do? How big is your house, what kinds of
things do you have? How big is the air conditioning
units and stuff. So you get a generator that will

(55:21):
service what you need it to service, and they design
it that way and they have a lot of technology.
I don't know if you heard the guy from Quality
Home on a few weeks ago. They were talking about
some of the ways that it just moves power from
one thing to another and it's cool. They pour the slab,
they talk to your city for the codes and the
regulations or HOA or whatever's involved and getting permission to

(55:43):
put a generator out. They do that for you. They
bring it out and then after it's done, they don't
just walk away. It's twenty four seven, three hundred and
sixty five days a year service. You can call them
now right now. They are getting a ton of calls
because everybody wants a generator. Be a little patient if
you call and have trouble getting through, they'll get back
to you. But when it comes to Quality Home, there's

(56:06):
a reason that they have over fourteen thousand five star reviews.
There's a reason that eight times they've won the Better
Business Bureau Pinnacle Customer Service Award because they take care
of their customers. And that's why, without a doubt, I
love to recommend Quality Home because I know the kind
of service you're going to get. We'll be right back.
When we come back, we'll talk to Paul over in Troy, Alabama.

Speaker 9 (56:32):
You are Old Houston's News.

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Stealing a page out of Trump's playbook. I'm Jarret Lewis
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This morning we have Gary Mack.

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A ten minute setback from the Shepherd Curve. All of
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Center k ter Range. News time is seven thirty one.
Our top story, Donald Trump is calling out Vice President
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(57:52):
is touring parts of Texas. Starting today, he will be
appearing at a fundraiser in Laredo. Then on Monday, he
will appear at events in both sant Antonia and here
in Houston. The Texas House Committee is set to study
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(58:13):
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(58:35):
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Speaker 33 (01:02:40):
No.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
Welcome back to Guardline. Welcome back. If you got a
question you'd like to discuss with me, you just doll
seven one three two one two k t RH and
we will see what we can do to resolve it
for you. We're going to head right now out to Troy,
Alabama and talk to Paul. Hello, Paul, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 34 (01:03:04):
Good Laurene Skip the young man that had been uh
the problem with the ditch. The only thing I can
think of, don't know what your thoughts is. I hear
you use beheld grace for that gets up about a
good high.

Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
And it's a good one.

Speaker 34 (01:03:21):
It covers it. So that's the only thing I can have.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
No flowers, you know, it would keep They actually did, Yeah,
I did think about. The thing is that the minute
after you mow it, it sends up those seedheads up
almost a knee high. And a lot of people don't
care for that. But boy it's tough. I mean, it
could be droughty, it could be poor soil, you know,
acid soil, or it's.

Speaker 34 (01:03:44):
Pretty rights they have to try to keep out of
his loan mat. But that's the only thing I could
think of. What I really called about on composts that
has points zero five or the piney soil has zero five?

Speaker 14 (01:03:58):
Is that too.

Speaker 34 (01:03:59):
Strong to plant seed into it? Or do you need
to mix it with some souls to get your seeds
come up.

Speaker 5 (01:04:08):
Point zero five? Like a nutrient content.

Speaker 14 (01:04:11):
It's almost it's got some nitrogen.

Speaker 34 (01:04:13):
It what I was looking at with black cow composts
the only thing I could find. And then there's a
potting soul says it's got the exact same thing in it.
But I was thinking it should be too strong.

Speaker 5 (01:04:28):
Well, your thoughts usually I don't usually I don't put
seeds in straight composts, but I don't I don't think
it would hurt them. The only thing is, you know,
if it's if it's not what we say clean, But
basically what we're meaning is it doesn't have weed seeds
and doesn't have diseases and stuff like that in it,
that that should be fine. Otherwise, you know, you could

(01:04:50):
get into a situation where your little ceilings come up
and they rot and fall over. It's called damping off.
It's it's a fungal disease. But I think it'd be okay,
I'm mix it. What what what kind of seeds do
you want to plant, Paul.

Speaker 34 (01:05:04):
I'm fishing some grass seed. I guess I could til
this into the soul that's there and that would weaken it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
It would work, Oh that stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:05:13):
I see, Yes, yes, mm hmm, I would uh. But
you don't need to tell it. You don't need to
tell it a lot. Just barely scratch the surface. But
working a little bit in would help. And then raking
it smooth and putting your seed down and watering it in.
Are you are we talking about behea grass seed?

Speaker 34 (01:05:30):
No not, I'm talking about loan seed. Like, uh oh, okay,
whatever kind I might come up, could be bermoodal ras,
something up. Okay, take make a solid loan. But yet
still I didn't want to that the seed to start
off with.

Speaker 5 (01:05:48):
Yeah, well that was all you is this long? Is
this long one in Alabama? Or is it? Okay? So, uh,
I'm not I don't know. Troy is that north, south east,
north central or south what.

Speaker 34 (01:06:03):
Bottom corner about a hundred miles from Georgia and one
hundred miles in Florida.

Speaker 5 (01:06:08):
Okay, good. So there's a number of good bermudas that
you could use. Auburn University has a good turf department,
and if you go online, uh, they probably have a
list of some of the bermuda's they recommend. I know
over here Texas and m we've got Aggie Turf is
the website and if you click on on types of

(01:06:29):
grasses and then Bermuda, it gives you a list. And
of course most bermudas are vegetatively propagated, but there are
seated bermudas, and it'll give you a list to some
of the varieties to look for that are going to
stay kind of semicompact, you know, for lawn as opposed
to being like something in a pasture, a very tall

(01:06:50):
rangy bermuda.

Speaker 34 (01:06:52):
What about cynipede that see you can.

Speaker 5 (01:06:56):
It is your soul sandy or clay or what do
you have over there? It's a mixture.

Speaker 34 (01:07:00):
It's not real real clay yet.

Speaker 5 (01:07:03):
Mm hmm. Centipede uh does okay in in a little
bit of a more acidic soil. It doesn't have to
be like something a blueberry grows in. It just has
to be, you know, not super high pH which I
don't think you have in that area. The the thing
about centipede is it never gets a deep green. It

(01:07:23):
tends to stay more of a we would say, sharp
truce green, whereas Saint Augustine gets emerald green when you
fertilize it. A centipede doesn't want to be fertilized a lot.
It doesn't do well with a lot of fertilizer. Once
a year is about all they recommend for centipede.

Speaker 33 (01:07:39):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (01:07:39):
Well, win.

Speaker 34 (01:07:42):
Zohia also there's here.

Speaker 5 (01:07:47):
Yeah, well, all three are fine. I'm just telling you.
On centipede. The reason we don't see it over here
as much is because one reason is, Uh, in the
winter time, it just turns straw brown, uh, tan colored,
whereas some of the Saint Augustine is going to enjoys.
You're going to give you a little bit of green
still through the winter, centipede just turns completely tan, and

(01:08:10):
some people don't care for that.

Speaker 34 (01:08:12):
I think we understand, certainly appreciate you. Thanks for the hell, thanks.

Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
For the call. All right, tell everybody in Alabama to
listen to garden line right off. Okay, boy, let's uh,
let's go to Spring, Texas now and talk to Ken. Hello.

Speaker 11 (01:08:31):
Ken, Hey, I'm calling about a peach.

Speaker 35 (01:08:37):
Yeah, can you hear me?

Speaker 5 (01:08:39):
All right, I'll tell you what. I'm sorry. I just
got a message. Well, let's go ahead, Ken, We're about
to break, but let's see if we can at least
get the question going.

Speaker 35 (01:08:48):
Okay, I got a red bear and peach tree about
eight years old, and it looks like fall. It's losing
all of us leaves. They're turning yellow. And I was
just wondering to is that too much water? Are what
the problem was?

Speaker 5 (01:09:02):
It could be too much, could be not enough. It
could be you know, drought. It could also be are
there holes in the leaves or are they not to
be begun? Okay, No, no, I would say, yeah, I
would say some sort of a stress. I don't know
what caused it, but some sort of a stress. You're
probably losing the older leaves turning yellow rather than the

(01:09:27):
leaves toward the end of a shoot. Is that correct?

Speaker 35 (01:09:30):
Well, it's all over, it's it's it's like totally losing
all of them.

Speaker 11 (01:09:36):
Huh.

Speaker 35 (01:09:36):
It's it's bare like winter upfront up around.

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):
Something is wrong underground, very wrong to dry to wet.
I don't know what else to tell you on that one,
but that it shouldn't be going completely like that. A
few older leaves, yes, but not completely. Something's very underground, ken,
I'm sorry, I have to run to break but I
can't tell you what it is. But I can tell

(01:10:05):
you this, it's happening down in the root system. You
might check the base of the trunk for sap and sawdust,
for borers cutting through the tissues and preventing water from
getting to the top. That would be the only other
thing I would suggest, Sorry, but I've got to run here. Uh,
we will be right back. Seven one three two on
two KTRH.

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Speaker 5 (01:11:13):
We are here to answer your gardening question. Seven one
three two one two k t RH is the number
I've talked to you before about Peerscapes. Peerscapes is a
company that does all kinds of things to make your
landscape beautiful and successful. And here's what I'm talking about.
Irrigation systems typically are not designed properly. They get misaligned

(01:11:38):
over time. There all kinds of things happen to make
it go wrong and you're spending money on that water.
They can fix that up for you. They call them
to come in, take a look at your system, do
any kind of repairs that are needed. Some areas don't
drain well, and you can't grow plants in a swamp.
Most plants can't take that. Peerscapes can cause that area
to drainway. They can do the French strains and other

(01:11:59):
sub surface techniques to get water out of there from
that area. Do you want landscape lighting? Do you want
hard scapes? Would you like a design of your lands?
Would you like put in some new beds, or would
you like them just to come in and do quarterly maintenance.
That's it, come in once every quarter, trim weed, fertilized,
check the irrigation, seasonal color changes, mulchz. They can do

(01:12:20):
all of that. Piercescapes dot Com is their website. Piercescapes
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do there. Two eight one three seven fifty sixty two
eight one three seven o five zero six zero. If
you go to the website, you'll be very impressed with
the kind of work Peerscapes can do. We're going to
head now out to Richmond, Texas and talk to Alan.

(01:12:42):
Welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 37 (01:12:43):
Alan, Hey, glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
I just had a live oak. I actually called you
about a couple of weeks ago that I finally had
taken down and the company left me with a bunch
of stump grind shavings. Now, can that be used in
any sort of way? Can I spread that out or
use it as malt, or mix it with compost or
anything like that.

Speaker 5 (01:13:05):
You could use it as malt, you could let it
pile up and compost for a while. It just with
a fresh wood in the soil ties up nitrogen because
the microbes that break it down they need nitrogen and carbon.
The wood is the carbon, so they got to pull
nitrogen from somewhere to do it. And so I don't
like to mix wood into the soil, but as a

(01:13:25):
surface that like a mult that would be okay.

Speaker 37 (01:13:30):
Okay, That's probably what I'll do with it. If I
were to buy some bags of mulch and are in
that mult but compost and mix it together with that,
would that help or it would still need to break down.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
Now it's going to just the fact that soil is
touching wood, the microbes are there. They're ready to go.
If you were piling it up in like a compost
pile or something, you want to break it down a
little faster, you could throw a little bit of nitrogen
fertilizer on it. Then you're providing the nitrogen. The carbon
is there, the microbes are already there. You don't need
to bring them in.

Speaker 37 (01:14:01):
Okay, well that sounds good. Might give those a shot.
Thanks for your help, all right, good, you bad.

Speaker 5 (01:14:07):
Thanks for the calling. I appreciate that very much. Ace
hardware stores I talk about them all the time. And
here's the deal. If you just go to acehardware dot
com and you find the store locator right there on
the website. In fact, it probably is going to say
can we use your location? To say yes, and you'll
get this map that has dots all over the place.

(01:14:30):
There's forty eight hardware stores in the Greater Houston, Aario.
Of course they're all over the country, but that in
our Greater Houston, Aario there's forty stores that you can
go to and when you walk into ACE, you're going
to find what you need to have a beautiful landscape.
A beautiful garden, a beautiful lawn. Do you need tools,
Do you need hoses and sprinklers? Do you need fertilizers?

(01:14:50):
They have every fertilizer I talk about on guarden line.
Do you need pest control products or weed control products?
They have all of those. So if you go online
and you see my weed wiper and that list to
herbicides that go with it for particular kinds of weeds.
It's set up so that if you have like peppervine,
it gives you a certain herbicide. If you got wild
onion gives you a certain herbit. You go to ACE

(01:15:10):
and they're going to have those. That's what they do.
They stock up and they carry the things they need
to carry, plenty of tools. Right now, I'm in my yard.
A lot of fireant mounts popped up. I didn't even
know where they're from. That rain that's kind of drove
them up to the surface to create those little mounds
at appear above ground. Get you a fireant bait. They've

(01:15:30):
got several options at ACE that work very well. Mosquitoes
popped up after the rain, the little buggers. Well, ACE
has got the mosquito dunks we talk about they've got
mosquito fogers, They've got mosquito repellents. ACE is the place.
What do you need? They got it. You want to
have a beautiful outdoor patio, backyard, barbecue area, strings of lights,

(01:15:51):
they got all of that, including, by the way, some
really sweet barbecue pits. We're talking like Treger, and we're
talking like Big Green Egg and Weber and all the
accessories to go with them. Acehardware dot Com. Just go
check it out. There's one near you. You are listening
to guardline and our phone number we're about to take.
We're about to hit the end of the hour here,
but if you'd like to get on the boards with Chris,

(01:16:14):
you could be one of the first ones up when
we come back from break. Number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. And I do
want to mention again, I know people kind of cut
in and then have to leave to go do something
and miss things. So I've learned the hard way through

(01:16:34):
the years. But people keep reminding me they didn't hear that. Well,
I'll say it again. Gardening with Skip dot Com is
my website on there there's some brand new publications. You
really need to go check them out. One of them.
Two of them are about nutsedge nut sedge. Also people
call it nutgrass. It's not a grass. There's a longer
publication that goes into great detail on nutsedge, so you

(01:16:58):
understand the the way that weed works and therefore how
to control it. People try all kinds of things and
say they don't work, and it's because they're not doing
it at the right time, at the right rate. They're
not following up. Bottom line on nuts edges, you got
to shut it down and never let it have a

(01:17:19):
chance to capture sunlight and replenish. So we say, by
the time nutsedge plant has three to five leaves, you
better be digging it, you better be spraying it, you
better be doing something to it in order to prevent
it from creating new tubers and just multiplying the problem
that you had. Do you know that by the time
you hit May, about May, maybe mid to late May,

(01:17:42):
one nuts edge tuber. We're gonna call it the mama
tuber from spring that popped up one plant, and you go,
I'll get to that later. By the time we get
to late May, it has eight or ten daughters. See
what I'm saying, a tenfold increase because you waited a while.
You can't do that. And in this publication it explains

(01:18:03):
the difference between yellow and purple nuts edge their products
don't work the same on those two types. Tells you
how to know what kind you have and what to do.
It's really thorough. There's another one that's kind of a
quick sheet, one page. Here's what you do. Also on
the website I put this up is the I call
it the Skip's weed wiper. You used to could find

(01:18:23):
weed wipers here and there in the trade. Now I
just find them really hard to find. And weed wipers
wipe a product onto the weed. Only you don't spray
it all over the environment. You don't get it on
things that are gonna that the curbside's going to kill
your good plants flowers and shrubs and trees and whatnot.
You just wipe it right on and I'll show you
how to build one. It's very inexpensive, but it's at

(01:18:44):
gardening with skip dot com. With that weed wiper. There's
another publication that has a list of the different orbicides
for each type of weeed, just to use as an example.
Wild onions and wild garlic coming up in your lawns
and above the lawn image is listed for those weeds
because that works best on those weeks. And you just

(01:19:07):
wipe that on to the weed itself. You didn't hurt
your lawn and you did what we would say a
little surgical application right to the weed itself. I think
these things are pretty cool. We spent a lot of
time putting them together. You can find them at gardening
with Skip dot com. And maybe we're gona take a
little break or I want to go check that out.
Tell your friends about it too, because I guarantee you

(01:19:27):
when it comes to nuts edge, everybody's got it, and
some people use language that just shouldn't poke out about
that infernal weed.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to k
r H Guarden Line with skin Gritter.

Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
Its just watch as so many good.

Speaker 19 (01:20:02):
Things to.

Speaker 5 (01:20:07):
Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back. It is good to
have you with us. We are going strong this morning,
answering your gardening questions, trying to help you have a
more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape. That is
the goal. Hey, if you have not fertilized in the
last few months, you might want to consider sweet green

(01:20:27):
from nitrophoss. Sweet green is a natural fertilizer. You call
it an organic type fertilizer because it has a base
of molasses, and organic gardeners know that molasses stimulates microbial
activity in the soil, specifically good bacteria. They need carbon.
That's part of that's what they eat. That's why they

(01:20:48):
eat organic matter and compost it and turn it into
compost is because of the carbon that's in it. Well,
sweet green is carbon. It's a molasses base and it's
eleven percent nitrogen, and you put it down and it
dissolves away and releases right into the soil. So it
not only is providing the nutrient eleven percent nitrogen nutrient,

(01:21:09):
it's stimulating the microbial growth, which is important. Now you're
going to find sweet Green, like other nitrofoss products all
over the place. It's very widespread. D and D feed
up in Tomball carries it. Lake Hardware down in Angleton
or Velasco. You can find it down there, Fisher's Hardware
out in Baytown, or go to Plants and Things up
in Brenham. All places where you're going to find nitrofoss products.

(01:21:34):
I'm going to head now out to League City and
we're going to talk to Suzanne this morning. Welcome to
garden Line, Suzann.

Speaker 33 (01:21:41):
Thank you. I need help in identifying a weed that's
grown in my Saint Augustine grass. It's it's low to
the ground. It's dark, dark green, and kind of star shape.

Speaker 5 (01:21:57):
The flower is star shaped, or the we it is
star shaped.

Speaker 33 (01:22:02):
Look, there's no flower, it's it's the weed itself is
like a it's loaded. Like I said, it's tight to
the ground, and it's dark, dark green, and it's kind
of star shaped. But it's gotten multiple leaves. I've never
seen it before, and I've lived here for forty years.

Speaker 5 (01:22:24):
Yeah, you are throwing me on the star shaped like
a five pointed star.

Speaker 33 (01:22:30):
Well, yeah, well it could be more than that.

Speaker 5 (01:22:36):
Okay, I'm sorry, I you know.

Speaker 33 (01:22:40):
Okay, well I didn't know if you I mean. Yeah,
like I said, I've lived here more than fifty years.
I've never seen it.

Speaker 5 (01:22:48):
Yeah, but I'm not.

Speaker 33 (01:22:52):
I'm not upset about it because it's the same colors
as Saint Augustine and it's this looks good.

Speaker 5 (01:23:00):
Okay, Well it's real. Send me a photo because.

Speaker 33 (01:23:04):
Well I'll try. I'm away from my home right now.

Speaker 5 (01:23:08):
Okay. Well, I mean there are some there are some
thistle kinds of weeds, you know that that can come
up and have a star shape to them. But that
that's unusual. You're not talking about each individual leaf is
star shaped. You're talking about the weeds.

Speaker 33 (01:23:22):
No, no, no, no, there's a whole bunch of leaves
that are just shooting out from the plant.

Speaker 5 (01:23:30):
Well, I okay, I'm gonna put you on hold.

Speaker 33 (01:23:37):
What email do I send it to?

Speaker 5 (01:23:40):
Just just hang on. I'm putting you on hold, and
Chris will pick up the phone. He's talking to another caller.
He'll pick up the phone just a second and he
will give you my email. Wow, that's interesting. I always
like to see the photo because when I see it,
it's gonna be like, oh, that's what that's what you're
doing about. All right, let's go up to Lee and Conroe.

Speaker 38 (01:24:00):
Hello, Lee, good morning to skip them. Thanks for taking
my call. I just sent down three pictures of a
couple of lantana plants that we've had the inside of
our entry do very well with some get developing, some
holes in in the waves that I can't see whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:24:24):
Yeah, tell you what I've got good good news for you.
Two bets of good news. Number one, that is so
little damage that I would not worry about it at all.
You are not. You know, if you killed every bug
that was possibly around doing that, you wouldn't benefit the
plants at all in terms of getting more blooms or anything.

(01:24:46):
That is a minuscule amount of loss of leaf area
compared to what the plants already have, So I wouldn't
do anything of it her mind. Secondly, when I look
at the holes, the edges around the holes are brown browning.
So that wasn't damage that occurred last night. That was
damage that occurred before, earlier on. And so I it

(01:25:08):
is very possible that those bugs are have already moved on,
or something got them and at them, or who knows what.
So I don't know that it's even a currently ongoing problem.
Are you there? Well, I think I lost him anyway. Yeah,

(01:25:28):
that and so my opinion now as far as what
did it, based on the shape of the holes where
they are and everything, probably a caterpillar, possibly a beetle
was the culprit in doing that. But I'm telling you
that is not that is not an issue that weren't spraying.
So I hate to go out and just spray because
you know, l Antenna's or there attract their flowers attract

(01:25:51):
certain things, and I'd rather not put a spray on
them if I didn't have to. We are folks. We're
having a problem with dropping this morning. I'm just I'm
watching people up here and disappear, so I don't know
what's going on there. If you know, I just one
or two, i'd say, well, people had to go do
something and they left. But that's kind of unusual. So
if you lost the car, just call right back in.

(01:26:13):
We'll get to you. Let's go to Northwest Houston and
we're going to talk to Marcy. Now, Hello, Marcy, I.

Speaker 26 (01:26:20):
Keep good morning. I have exactly the same problem as
the lady before you last call.

Speaker 11 (01:26:28):
I know what she's talking about.

Speaker 26 (01:26:29):
And it looks like grass, very dark, dark green, and
it blends really well with sant agustine. But it's very invasive, okay,
but it's really easy to take out. It's like almost
like a succulent. You take it out and it doesn't

(01:26:50):
have like guides, you know, like sant agustine. Is really
easy to take it out. But it's very invasive. I
don't know what is it. This is the first time
that I see it.

Speaker 5 (01:27:01):
You know what, As you're talking about that, now, something's
occurring to me. I bet it's a sedge. There are
some very low growing sedges. And there's also something called
ki linga that Suzanne. I guess it was it Suzanne
that had that question. Yeah, uh, Susanna, if you're still listening,
that may be kylinga, which is a sedge, and are

(01:27:25):
controls for it, kayling There are controls for it in
Saint Augustine. But I think Suzanne was happy just because
it's green, looks like grass, so she's happy to living with.

Speaker 11 (01:27:36):
But he's very invasive.

Speaker 26 (01:27:38):
So I can buy something to control that.

Speaker 5 (01:27:42):
Yes, yes, okay, look look for something called sedge hammer.
Sedge hammer, Okay, okay, it'll come out of a little packet.
It's not Yeah, it's not cheap, the low packet, and
I think it makes each packet probably makes about a
gallon of liquid that you don't need a lot of it.

Speaker 19 (01:28:02):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:28:03):
And there's another one called sedge ender. Like I'm going
to put an end to this sedge ender. It's the
same ingredient and both sedge hammer and sedge ender and
they will work and follow the label very carefully, very carefully.

Speaker 19 (01:28:17):
Okay, okay, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:28:19):
Thanks Marsy.

Speaker 39 (01:28:20):
Bye bye.

Speaker 5 (01:28:21):
Glad you're listening, and we got plenty to talk about.
We're going to head straight uh this segment to the
phones to West Houston and talk to Donald.

Speaker 6 (01:28:30):
Hello, Donald, How much water is too much?

Speaker 9 (01:28:33):
Water?

Speaker 5 (01:28:36):
Good question? What do you? What do we? What plant
were talking about?

Speaker 6 (01:28:40):
Well, like sunflowers and some other little weeds that actually
grow up with little blue flowers on them. I don't
know what they are. But the ground is rock hard.
But I water pretty much either in the evening or
early in the morning with a regular host, and this
spray around that it is every day too much.

Speaker 5 (01:29:00):
Well, here's the thing the answers to your questions is
keep the soil moist and so if you had a
sandy soil, you'd water more often because the water runs
right through it. If you had a clay soil, you'd
water less often. In the shade and in the sun,
your watering schedule changes. The goal is to provide enough

(01:29:22):
water at one time to wet the soil about six inches.

Speaker 14 (01:29:26):
Deep at water.

Speaker 5 (01:29:28):
Until it dries up enough you may go, you know,
in a lawn. I don't water even once a week,
hardly on my lawn because I've got a good deep
root system. I give it a good soaking and let
it let the air come back down and the soil
as it dries out. So that schedule can be you know,
it could it could mean water, and twice a week,
you know, once a week it could mean water, and

(01:29:49):
once every two weeks. It depends on the weather, the temperature,
a lot of things. But the real bottom line is
is a soil moistu or not. And if it's soggy,
that's not good, and you don't want it to be soggy.
So I would go by that kind of schedule. Donald,
I think that if you can check that out, and
if you, let's say, how a launch you said the
soil was hard, and that gave me an idea. You

(01:30:11):
can take a long handle screwdriver, a flathead screwdriver, and
if you water for a while and then the water
goes off and you take that screwdriver come back. You'll
give it a little bit of time soak in maybe
forty minutes, and push that in the ground wherever the
soil is moist it'll go straight in the ground, like
pushing it through soft butter. And when you hit the

(01:30:33):
dry spot, it'll be like you hit an underground sidewalk
of concrete. I mean, it stops, and that measurement on
your screwdriver tells you how deep you've wet the soil.
So screwdriver works really well. Now in a fluffy landscape
bed full of bed mix and stuff, that technique doesn't
work because it's already loose. But where you said the
soil is hard, a lawn or anything like that, the
screwdriver test will tell you how deep did you wet it.

(01:30:57):
And if you wet it deep enough, you don't have
the water all the time. And it's better because you
get more use out of the water you apply with
less promotion of diseases by wetting it frequently.

Speaker 6 (01:31:07):
Well. I actually have an am Leonard Horticultural catalog, a
gardening knife that has a measurements on it and six
inches long, And so if I stab that knife in
there that I can measure how I wouldn't think I
could put it in there more than two or three
inches editing day because it's really hard soil.

Speaker 5 (01:31:27):
Yeah, the sole knives are a little hard to put,
harder to push in. I like the screwdriver because it's
real skinny and it's.

Speaker 6 (01:31:33):
Well, that's true. I have plenty of those.

Speaker 5 (01:31:36):
Yeah, I've got soil knives too. I would not use
this so all knife for this test. If you got
good at it, I guess you could kind of figure
that out. But the flathead screwdriver, it just is easy,
and it'll tell you when when you hit dry, it'll
it'll tell you.

Speaker 6 (01:31:52):
Well, there's no point at which I can get it
mushy or sloppy. So if I water every evening and
I don't water an evening and then again in the morning,
but at least in the morning or in the evening,
I probably can't kill anything because I can't get enough
water on there to make it soft.

Speaker 5 (01:32:11):
Well, so what there If your soil sheds water, which
clays can shed, it takes about an inch of water,
by the way, to wet a clay soil that deep.
But if you water for a while and then you're
going to see runoff, turn it off and let it
soak for forty five minutes and then turn it back
on again to water for low on. That's called cycle

(01:32:34):
and soak, And by doing that, you can get that
full inch on and I'll use a straight sided can
or a rain gauge or in anything like a tuna
fish can's got straight sides that can be your rain
gauge and it tells you you know then if you
put an inch of water down or not. But you'd
like to get an inch down, and you may have

(01:32:55):
to cycle and soak to be able to do that
without runoff.

Speaker 6 (01:32:59):
Okay, I guess my big question I forgot to ask
is morning morning, so that you wet it down and
then the sun burns it off, or better to do
it at night so that stays wet the least overnight.

Speaker 5 (01:33:12):
You would like it to dry out as soon as
as possible when you're done watering, because the water sitting
on the plant leaves are the mult or that it's
not going to go in the soil. It's going to
evaporate away. So let's let's get that done sooner rather
than later. Leaf.

Speaker 6 (01:33:29):
So I water, If I water at night, I'm not
going to rot anything because it certainly dries out by
the next morning.

Speaker 5 (01:33:36):
Yeah, but you've got hours then that it's staying wet.
If you got up and did your watering and let's
just say six am to pull a number out of
the air. Then by the time that watering cycle's done,
the sun is coming up and it's going to dry
out faster. Because leaf wetness is the number one thing
that promotes foliage diseases on grass and on flowers and

(01:33:56):
shrubs and trees and vegetables and everything else, we want
to keep bit wet for as little time as possible.

Speaker 6 (01:34:04):
Oh so, okay, I thought I was thinking that the
longer it's wet, the better it is. But that's really not.

Speaker 5 (01:34:13):
True, Absolutely not true.

Speaker 6 (01:34:17):
Okay, good, all right, that's what I need to do, So
I'll do the six o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 5 (01:34:22):
All right, sir, you take care. Thanks for the call.
Donald appreciate that. I hope that is very helpful. Yeah,
water and properly is something that doesn't come naturally to us,
and sometimes it's counterintuitive the things that we have to
be thinking about. If you're looking for supplies for your
lawn or for your garden, whatever you have in terms
of plants that you're growing, Southwest fertilizer is stocked up

(01:34:45):
with everything. They really are. If the Southwest doesn't have it,
you don't need it. It's as simple as that. They've
got every fertilizer I talk about. They have every kind
of pest control, disease control, weed control. Are you an
organic gardener? They have it all inorganic as well as synthetic.
They carry and both. They got an eighty foot wall
of tools. They've got that really cool folding kneeling bench

(01:35:07):
that I like so much. I'm telling you, if you've
never seen one, go buy Southwest. Say ask Bob or
Aaron or someone there, just say show me the folding
kneeling bench. And I'm telling you, of all my tools,
it's top five favorite of every tool I have or
have ever had. I love those things. Southwest has that.
They have that and then some Do you need a
fertilizer spreader? Do you need a little hand a little

(01:35:30):
hand crank spreader to put out I don't know, fire ant,
bait or whatever. Southwest has all of that and more.
Southwest Fertilizers on the corner of Bisinat and Renwick in
Southwest Houston. You can go to the website Southwest Fertilizer
dot com. But you need to check it out because
whatever kind of supply you need, they're gonna have it.
Along with good advice. You can take them a plant

(01:35:51):
in there, you can get a baggy, you can take
them a photo and they'll identify, they'll diagnose, they'll get
you the product that's gonna work. That that's really important.
I always like going in there because there's always always
something new, you know, there's new products coming out all
the time, and I wish companies would tell me, but

(01:36:13):
they don't. But I wish they tell me, Hey, we
got a new product. Here's what it is. And that
way I'd have a chance to check it out and
see if it's something I'm gonna recommend or not, something
that works or not. In other words, but I can
go to Southwest, Bob's going to have the newest ones
and we can talk about them. I can try them
out if I need to purchase one and give it
a try and see if it's going to work. Well,

(01:36:34):
that's another option. Bob's got things like supergrol Plus, that's
the one from Medina. You know, Medina's been making quality
products for a very long time, decades and decades and decades.
They've got the has to grow line. There's has to grow,
there's has to grow for lawns, that's a twelve percent
nitrogen fertilizer. It's a very good one, by the way.

(01:36:56):
And then they have Medina supergrol Plus that's a sixteen
zero two. It contains keylated iron, so if your grass
is turning a little yellow, the keylated iron prevents the
soil from tying that iron up and it releases it
for the plant. It's got molasses and humic acid. It's
it's just seaweed extract. Another thing is in it's a
great concoction. You hook it up to a garden hose.

(01:37:18):
One quart bottle that hooks to a hose, covers four
thousand square feet, takes about ten minutes to do a
whole area. And I was telling some of the other
day to use it on something else. You don't have
to just use it on your lawn. You use it
in the vegetable garden. You can use it on flowers.
Can't remember what the thing was the other day we
were suggesting they use it on but there it use
it on plants. How about that plants. It's made for lawns.

(01:37:41):
Good for lawns, but if you've got a plant that
needs a little quick boost, it's good for that too.
You were listening to garden Line and our phone number
if you'd like to give us a call seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two five eight seven four. I was talking earlier

(01:38:04):
about the new publications that are online. You know you
need to check those out at Gardening with Skip dot
com Gardening with Skip dot com. And what are the publications. Well,
first of all, there is the two nutsedge publications, a
long version and a short version on how do you

(01:38:27):
control nut set? How do you control nutset? And there
is a science to it and if you just understand
number one what kind of nutset you have, and a
few other things about it that are in that publication,
it will help you have success with what you try
to do in controlling it, and that is important. There's
also the weed Wiper publication, a homemade, really cool little

(01:38:50):
device for getting weeds without damaging your plants. You welcome
back to Guardline. Glad you're listening with us. Hey, if
you'd like to give me a call seven two two
k t RH. That's the number seven one three two
one two k t RH. For those of you who
are wanting to have work donender your trees or those

(01:39:11):
of you who are wondering if you need work done
to your trees, you need to call Affordable Tree. Martin
Spoonmore has been doing this for a long long time
and he knows his stuff. When we're dealing with storms
that come through, there is a way that you can
do some selective pruning to help make your tree safer
when it comes to heavy winds. This doesn't mean somebody
goes in and butcher's everything up, and there are people

(01:39:33):
that don't know what they're doing that are out there
doing that. We're talking about a proper selective pruning to
be done. We're also talking about training your trees all
along their life to give them a good strong structure.
We're talking about providing help for trees during struggling conditions
such as drought. We're a good deep watering or deep

(01:39:53):
roof feeding. Those kinds of things can be helpful. We're
talking about knowing how to take care of a tree.
We're talking about a vice on things that might be done.
If you have a beautiful tree that you love, and
you're gonna do anything around the yard. You're gonna put
in a trench, You're gonna put in a driveway over
within the branch, spread of the tree, any of those
kinds of things. Call Martin first he comes out. There

(01:40:16):
is a charge for him to come out and look
at the situation. Consult. If you end up hiring him
to do something, that charge goes right into the the
cost of what it would have cost to get it done,
so you don't lose that money. You can give him
a call at seven one three six nine nine twenty
six sixty three. Say that again seven one three six
nine nine two six six three. I to just write

(01:40:38):
that down and keep it because you never know when
something's gonna happen. You need to give him a call
or go to the website aff tree Service dot com.
Aff tree Service dot com. Trees are extremely valuable in
our landscapes. They I have said this before, but trees

(01:41:01):
should never be planted on a whim. You can do
that in a flower bed. Oh there's a new flower.
I've never seen it, poort, let me try it out.
But trees, you should do your homework. Find the species,
even in some cases the varieties that are going to
do best for you for what you want, For what
you want it to be, How big do you want
it to be? Do you want it to bloom or not.
Do you want to be evergreen or deciduous. You want

(01:41:24):
a tree that grows at a moderately good rate, but
one that is going to last a lifetime and be
stronger and stronger as it gets older and older. And
that is very important. Never just plant a tree, becauld
you saw it at a garden center, find out which
one you want, then go find that tree HOMEO Guardline.
We'll put you in touch with somebody that can provide
that kind of tree for you. Because quality trees added

(01:41:46):
the value of your home. They add to the enjoyment
of your home. Planted properly, they can help cut down
on your summer electric bills, the cooling costs and things.
They can make that patio a pleasant place to be,
can just be beautiful. A blooms at certain times of
the year. So of all the plants out there, the
one you most need to not buy on a whim

(01:42:08):
as a tree. You need to know what you want.
That would be my suggestion to you. Let's go out
to a task a star. Now we're going to talk
to Thomas. Hello, Thomas, good morning.

Speaker 19 (01:42:21):
I called you about a month ago. I told you
that my plants weren't flowering, and I have really good soil,
everything's great, and you told me they were probably too healthy,
so I stopped. I stopped feeding them. They finally started

(01:42:42):
a bloom again, but they're only but okay, one boom
at a time. To measure pH and soil, how far
down do you have to go?

Speaker 5 (01:42:53):
I would take the soil in, let's say, I mean
probably the top six inches and just put some in
a in a cop Are you talking about doing it
yourself measuring? Are you talking about sending this?

Speaker 33 (01:43:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 19 (01:43:07):
I know how to I know how to measure it.

Speaker 5 (01:43:09):
I just need to seek you. Yeah, put it in
a cop put some fill up with water, and just
kind of slash it around, you know, and then pour
off the water, just the water, and then measure the
pH of that liquid.

Speaker 19 (01:43:21):
That is.

Speaker 5 (01:43:22):
That's a good a good estimate. Now, when you do
a home measuring, those are not as accurate as sending
a souce ample in and so things can throw that
off a little bit. But that would be the best
way to do it with that With what you're asking.

Speaker 19 (01:43:37):
Okay, if the pH is a little bit too high,
if I used to stilled water, would that cause more
damage than not try and flush.

Speaker 5 (01:43:49):
No, no, it wouldn't. In fact, So first of all,
what kind of plants are you talking about? This producing
one flower? What kind of plant are we talking about?

Speaker 19 (01:44:01):
Oh, got everything under the sun. I've got a lot
of climbing plants. I've got jasmine, I've got man carella. Everybody,
every everybody's just been complaining this past month or so.

Speaker 5 (01:44:17):
Yeah, let's let's do this. So there's a lot of
things that make plants bloom. Nutrition is important. Now, Nitrogen
makes them grow fast, and that's probably what I was
talking about on our last call, is don't push a
lot of vigorous growth. You know, I wouldn't say don't
keep them too healthy. I would just say, in fact,
too much nitrogen makes them unhealthy. But there's also other

(01:44:39):
nutrients like phosphorus and potassium and others that are important
in blooming. Sunlight is important in blooming, and so there
are a lot of factors that go into whether a
plant blooms well or not. But when you're talking about
you know, changing pH pH is okay, let me do
it this way. You mentioned distilled water. If you take

(01:45:00):
straw and blow into distilled water while you're measuring pH
you can watch the pH change from the carbon dioxide
in your breath because there's no buffering in pure distilled water,
but most of our soils and moisture are very buffered,
and so you could add something to raise it or
lower it, and it may dip down and come right

(01:45:21):
back up again. That that happens, and so having the
soil test tells you how much you need to add.
Sulfur brings pH down, lime brings pH up. That's oversimplifying.
There's other ways to bring it up and down, but
that basically is the fast thing. I doubt that aph
is way out of whack unless there's some unusual situation

(01:45:43):
with your soil that I'm not aware of. In general,
I would say to suggest, why don't you just once
do a good soil test, get all the data you need,
and then work from that.

Speaker 19 (01:45:56):
All right. I got frustrated last few because I've used
should see the mulch take the seat of moulch for years,
but when I'm not trying to dig, you know it's hot.
So I got I got to pull everything out of
the garden, turned all the soil mulch into my soil,
and then started using composts. But that I've got a

(01:46:20):
lot of mulch in the soil. Now, could that be
throwing everything arose?

Speaker 5 (01:46:24):
That could be a problem. That could be tying up
nitrogen too. Generally, moulch goes on top of the soil.
Compost goes into the soil. But I'm hitting a hard break, Thomas.
I'm gonna have to run, but I would I would
get a quality compost, mix it into the soil periodically
once a year, just when you're redoing and changing colors
out or something. If you can do that, do that

(01:46:44):
and then keep your mulch up on top of the soil.
I hope that helps. I'm sorry I have to run,
but good luck with that situation. Our phone number seven
one three two fifty eight seventy four. I'll be right back.
Welcome back to the guard Line. Good to have you
with us this morning. We are hopping here this morning.
We're gonna keep going here. Let's see, we're gonna go

(01:47:05):
now out to John in Brownsville. Hello John, Welcome to
guard Line.

Speaker 9 (01:47:11):
Yes, sir, good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:47:13):
I heard a lady asking you to identify a plant
a few calls ago, and it got me to thinking,
have you tried or would you recommend those Plant Identify
your apps that you can get on your phone.

Speaker 5 (01:47:28):
Have I done something? Yes, I have done some.

Speaker 9 (01:47:30):
Can you hear me, yes, sir?

Speaker 5 (01:47:33):
Hello? Okay, yes, sir, so I have done some. I
messed around with them for a while. I didn't buy
the app. I did the free version, you know, on
simper ones. I've tried. Oh gosh, what are some of
the ones? Oh, photo apps? Let me see. I was
just gonna look on my phone. No, nope, they're not there. Snapseed.
I tried that one. There's some others I'm trying. I

(01:47:56):
can't think of the names of them now. And they
were okay, they did pretty good on certain kinds of plants.
You know, if you've got a native plant in the
woods here in Texas, you probably are not going to
find the enter on some of those. They're just not
geared for that. I tell you what I use almost
all the time, though, and that is Google Lens. If
you have the Google app on an Android or an iPhone,

(01:48:18):
the Google app, you go to Google App, there's a
little kind of a square with the Google colors and
the dot in the middle. It's part of the search
and that does a search for an image. You can
search with your phone by pointing your phone at the plant,
or you can take a picture of the plant and
search the use the photo as your search. The other
thing I like to use is john is the Google

(01:48:42):
I mean, sorry, the Apple itself. If you go to
Apple Photos and you pick one of your photos, at
the bottom of the screen, there's a bunch of icons.
There's a heart and then one with an eye in it,
and the trash can right next to the trash can
that eye. When you click on that, we'll look at
the image and it will tell you what's in it.
And that. Both of those are so good that I

(01:49:05):
just haven't gone back to plant apps at all. They're
good for bugs too, by the bugs two.

Speaker 9 (01:49:11):
By the way, oh wow, that would be awful. Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:49:15):
The key to the key to using any app, including
the two my favorites, the Google Lens and then just
the the iPhone's natural ability to search is to make
sure that your photo shows what it is you're wanting
to ask about. In other words, if you have like
a whole bunch of plants at a garden center, and
you take a picture of the garden center, it doesn't

(01:49:37):
know what plants you're asking, and so getting up close
getting something maybe something dark behind it, so it really
sees the flower or the leave or whatever that helps
it to do a better job of identifying for you.

Speaker 9 (01:49:50):
Well, I appreciate that, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:49:54):
Yeah, sure, have fun out there. You're in Brownwood, Texas.
Huh oh, Brown's.

Speaker 9 (01:50:00):
Still yes, Okay, it's very hot.

Speaker 5 (01:50:04):
Okay, thanks a lot. I appreciate that. Appreciate the call
very much. Let's see here. Oh, I want to tell
you about Nelson Water Gardens. Nelson Water Gardens is outing Katie.
It's your West Houston independent garden center. It's your West
Houston destination garden center. And we got destination garden centers
here in the Greater Houston area. This one's the one

(01:50:26):
out west. You go to Katie, you turn north on
Katie Fort Ben Road and it's just a hop, skipping
or jump across the tracks on the right hand side,
easy to get to. Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery has
an outstanding selection on plants. They got some really good
deals on plants too. Right now by the way you
can get just to go check out their website. It's
Nelson Watergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot Com. You're gonna

(01:50:50):
find a lot of great plants, and of course it's
a water garden. Beautiful beautiful fountains, those disappearing fountains where
it comes out of a a like a tall vase,
a glazed vase, and the water runs down, goes into gravel,
and then goes back up through the fountain. They invented that.
They've got it. They can install them for you. They

(01:51:11):
can tell you how to install them and save the
parts if you want to do that. Nelson Water Gardens
is a wonderful place to turn your backyard into the
kind of setting that is so nice and peaceful and
relaxing that attracts birds, just as sound of water attracts birds.
And Nelson Water Gardens and nursery out there in Katie, Texas.

(01:51:32):
I head over now to the Bear Creek area and
talk to Kay.

Speaker 40 (01:51:35):
Hello, Okay, I I just heard you talking about trees
and shade and it made me think of a question
I've got for you. I had to have my beautiful
tree between me and the sun.

Speaker 4 (01:51:48):
On the east side of my house.

Speaker 41 (01:51:48):
I didn't have to take it down a few years
ago because it died.

Speaker 9 (01:51:51):
They just cut it off at the ground. They cut
it off at the ground level.

Speaker 41 (01:51:55):
And it's hotter than can be in this room now
because of that. So how close to that? It's not
a stomp, it's just you know, the root ball that's
still in the ground. How close or how far away
do I need to plant a new tree?

Speaker 5 (01:52:10):
That's a good question. There's not a good They're not
a great black and white answer to that question. Uh,
you know, if you can move over, oh at least
four feet. The problem is if you if you stay
that close, you're digging into wood because those old giant
roots near the base of the tree are still there.
Did they they did grind it. You said you just

(01:52:34):
cut it off, Well they did.

Speaker 41 (01:52:36):
They ground it down level with the ground, and it's
got grass cover over.

Speaker 40 (01:52:39):
There's like there's no dent in the ground.

Speaker 5 (01:52:42):
I think a really hard time. You're gonna have a
really hard time diggings. You're gonna have to get far.
Here's my answer, as close as you can where it's
possible to actually dig a hole. Okay, that's kind of
the answer. And those roots are gonna make you it's
gonna be eighty percent wood and twenty percent dirt. If

(01:53:02):
you get too close to it, so you're gonna have
to move away a little bit to do that. You know,
in the forest, it happens all the time. The tree
dies and falls and some little seedling sprouts up right
beside it, and as that old wood decomposes, it's just
more for the seedling to have, you know, the organic matter.
The microbes break it down and so it can grow

(01:53:24):
like that. It's more the practical of digging the hole
that That's also if they did a lot of grinding
and the soil was loosened, well, then we would have
the issue of that soil is going to settle. So
it's hard to plant a tree at the right rate
if it's going to end up dropping down several inches
in the next few months.

Speaker 41 (01:53:40):
It's it's been a couple of years and it was
a big, old live oak, so I'm sure there's a
pretty decent sized system under there still.

Speaker 5 (01:53:48):
Yeah, I bet there is. I bet there is. Well,
go buy a few sticks of dynamite and get your
new tree, and I think we can make it. We
can make it work. Oh, it's going to make the
neighborhood library one evening. They won't mind, they won't mind.

Speaker 9 (01:54:02):
I live.

Speaker 41 (01:54:03):
I live in an area where they shoot fireworks all
the time, so you know they.

Speaker 5 (01:54:06):
Won't even You can volunteer. You can volunteer to place
the broken windows up and down the street.

Speaker 32 (01:54:12):
And so.

Speaker 33 (01:54:14):
All right, thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (01:54:17):
I stay out of trouble. I did not say that
on the air, did I. Oh my gosh, bye bye,
there you go. Hush money. I like that a lot. Okay, well,
we are about to have music up here here on
guard Line because it's the end of the hour. It's
time to take a break. Uh medicea medici see I

(01:54:39):
believe as I pronounced it in Montgomery. You'll be Marisila. Okay,
you'll be the first up when we come back. Hang
on with us. We'll be right back with you for
the rest of you. Don't forget new publications on the
website that you need. If you've ever had nut sech,
if you've ever used fell language trying to control nut sedge,
stop it. I can fix that. Go to gardening with

(01:55:01):
Skip dot com and read the publication, the in depth
publication if you would. I've got two, one short one long.
Read the long one because it helps you understand why
and what you're doing. It's more than just saying, oh,
go spray this herbicide. That that's helpful. But done at
the wrong time of the year, done at the wrong

(01:55:21):
stage of growth, done on the wrong type of nutsedge,
you may not have a good success. We want you
to have success. That's why I put it up there.
Also up there is the weed wiper tool. How to
make a homemade weed wiper with sponges so that you
can put a little herbicide on the sponge and not
spray all over the place on your good plants, and

(01:55:43):
just retry it in there and get it just on
the weed. All on the website.

Speaker 1 (01:55:51):
Welcome to KTRH Guarden Line with Skip rictor.

Speaker 2 (01:56:04):
Just watch him as all.

Speaker 5 (01:56:18):
Right, welcome back to garden Line. Let's just jump right
in here and get going again. We got got plenty
more to talk about today. By the way, this is
the last hour of garden Line on this weekend. We're
here every Saturday from six to ten in the morning.
Every Sunday from six to ten in the morning. Tell
your neighbors about it. You've heard today. We calls from

(01:56:39):
other states and other parts of the state. Here in Texas.
People listen and we help whoever We can however, we can,
so we do love to get the word out, tell
folks about garden Line and continue to listen. Thank you
for being a listener. I appreciate that we're going to
head out now to Montgomery, Texas and talk to Is
it Maricia.

Speaker 4 (01:57:01):
Uh, Marisella?

Speaker 5 (01:57:03):
Yes, good morning, Maroslla.

Speaker 9 (01:57:10):
Thank you Skip.

Speaker 42 (01:57:11):
Is it too late to apply nitropalls bug out next
to my flower beds to control grubs?

Speaker 5 (01:57:21):
No, let me think just a minute. Probably here's the deal.
Grubs hatch out in this late spring and they feed
as little tiny grubs underneath the surface, and then as

(01:57:43):
it heats up, they go down deeper and deeper into
the soil. So when we treat them early on. If
you go to my lawn pest disease and we'd managed schedule,
and I realize that's for lawns, you're talking about flower beds.
But if you go there, you'll find out that we
have some products that we use when it is earlier
in the season, like June, and then we whenever it

(01:58:05):
gets later in the season, that's when the grubs get
a little bit older and we have to switch over
to some other things that will move down a little
bit further into the soil, you can give the bug
out Max a try. I think there are some things
that are going to move down a little bit deeper
in the soil, and you can also do that. But

(01:58:26):
let me ask a question first though. Are you just
finding a grub here and there or do you feel
like you're losing plants and you pull them up and
there's roots or full of grubs? Which is the situations
are you're seeing.

Speaker 9 (01:58:37):
It's just here and there.

Speaker 42 (01:58:40):
I applied the bug out Max to my lawn back
in June, but I failed to apply it to my
flower beds. And I don't have a lot of grubs
but I do want to keep them in check for
the last several years, so I have applied it back
in June.

Speaker 9 (01:58:55):
I just happened to miss it this year.

Speaker 5 (01:58:59):
Well, I would let me say this, if you're looking
at a lawn and you talk to a turf specialist,
they're going to tell you that you need to have
five to seven grubs per square foot in order for
it to be doing enough damage to warrant needing to
control it. So it's not just I saw a grub

(01:59:20):
in the lawn, it's there's a lot of them. Right.
I don't know that anybody has developed the number like
that for flower beds. But just because you see a
grub here and there, it doesn't mean you need to treat. Now,
there's nothing wrong with treating. If you want to treat,
you know, that's fine. Uh, just just know that just
because there's a grub doesn't necessarily warrant having to put

(01:59:42):
something down on it. So just something to think about.

Speaker 9 (01:59:46):
Great, Okay, Well, thank you so very much.

Speaker 5 (01:59:50):
All right, good luck up there, Montgomery. You've got a
and a plants and produce not very far away. I
wish I lived that close to it.

Speaker 9 (01:59:58):
That's all I do. I enjoyed place.

Speaker 5 (02:00:01):
Yeah, no kidding, all right, well, thank you very much
for your call. Yeah, those kind of products, by the way,
you can get nitro foss. She was talking about the
bugout Max. You can get that at ACE Hardware. I
was talking about different products. And you go to my
schedule and look at lawn pest Disease and Weed Management schedule,
and you'll see a bunch of things for chinchbugs, for

(02:00:24):
solid web worms, for grubs, for various diseases in the lawn.
They're all listed there, organic and synthetic and you know
what they're Alladays Hardware. You go to ACE Hardware and
you find whatever you need to cure what ails you
if you want to think of it that way, for weeds,
for insects, for diseases. Do you want to make your

(02:00:45):
lawn pretty? Ingreen, I talk about fertilizers, they're Holliday's Hardware.
If I talk about wrong guardline, you're going to find
them there. Ace Hardware is everywhere, forty stores in the
greater Houston area. Easy to find one, very easy driving distance.
If not across those from you go to Acehardware dot Com.
Acehardware dot Com, find the store locator and there you go.

(02:01:08):
It's as simple as that, no matter what the products
you need are. And we're entering the season now. Before
long we'll be doing our fall fertilizations. ACE has got
those fertilizers. Before long, we're going to be doing the
weed preventatives in the fall, and ACE has got those.
They just have what you need. Ace is truly the place.

(02:01:32):
Puts set out to Wharton, Texas now and we're going
to talk to Ann.

Speaker 21 (02:01:35):
Hello, Anne, good morning, have a fifteen You have a
fifteen year old eight to nine foot Texas Mountain Laurel.
It bloomed beautifully this year. However, all of a sudden,
it's now the limbs are dying in intermittently in the

(02:01:57):
tree and the top of the leaves looks like they
could have a scale issue. But I'm concerned about the
brown limbs dying. And there I did lose another one
a couple of years ago.

Speaker 5 (02:02:12):
Well, when the whole limb dies and the rest of
the tree at that point is still green, we got
a plumbing problem. So one of the worst things that
can happen to Texas Mountain Laurel is to go in
a swamp. And you know it's native to central Texas.
It grows on those limestone cliffs and bluffs and things. Yes,

(02:02:33):
it's a very tough plant, but when we put it
in a heavy clay soil with our typical amount of
rain over here, it can have problems. The roots just
aren't able to tolerate that. That's why we say put
them high and dry, meaning a raised mound that's going
to drain away well, and they'll do just fine. So
it could be a sm moisture excess that they're dealing with.

(02:02:54):
Anything that would plug the plumbing. You know, of course
physical root damage could do that. But sometimes we'll see
you may see something like a borer in a branch
that essentially is chewing through the tissues that are taking
water up and down. It could be something like that.
You just want to prune those out. I don't know
of a specific soil root rot that attacks those. There's

(02:03:19):
probably one, but I don't know of one. So I
think soil moisture is the thing I'd be most concerned about.
Prone out. The dead is not going to come back
to life, and then hopefully it'll continue on. Just watch
that water.

Speaker 21 (02:03:33):
Okay, well, it's probably from the excess rain that we had.
But getting back to the scale, what do I do
for that? On the top may on the top of
the leaves.

Speaker 5 (02:03:47):
There's not a scale insect that attacks the leaves of
Texas Mountain Laurel. There is an algal leaf spot. Are
these scale what you're calling scale? Is it a gray
colored area.

Speaker 21 (02:04:00):
Yes, kind of spots. It's tiny covering the top, not
not specifically the back of the leaf, just the top.

Speaker 5 (02:04:10):
Right, and that's the algol. That's the algyle leaf spot.
And uh, you know in our climate over here, it's
that can happen. A lot happens on southern magnolias too,
by the way, But I would tell you what if
you want. And but when you're done here with this call,
I'm gonna put you on hold and have Chris give
you an email. And if you'll take some good close

(02:04:30):
up pictures, make sure they're in sharp focus. First of all,
show me the whole plan. I want to see those
dying branches and where they are. But then get up
to those leaves and show me that. And I want
to make sure that I'm right about the algle leaf spot.
I think I am, but I want to be sure,
So send me, send me a photo, and I'll be
happy to take it to the next step if you like.

Speaker 21 (02:04:49):
Takes a bunch.

Speaker 5 (02:04:52):
All right, here we go. We're gonna put you on
hold and Chris will be right with you. Good luck
with that, you know, Texas. Mount Laurel is a wonderful,
wonderful plant. I want to talk about a little bit
when we come back, but it is if you like
to plant things for fragrance, that is a good plant
for that. We'll be right back. Welcome back to garden line. Hey,
We're glad you're listening. Today, we are here to answer

(02:05:14):
your gardening questions, try to help you have a more
beautiful and bountiful gardening landscape. That would be a goal
that I have at least in the deal. You can
give us a call at seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. I was just about to
head out to sugar Land, and I see we had
not one of those call drops. We're to figure out

(02:05:37):
what's going on with that kind of thing. Uh, If
you have been looking for a way to come up
with more, more interest, more color, more beauty for your landscape,
I think that it is important to recognize the fact
that every plant has its pros and cons and every
plant has its seasons. Perennials are nice because they really

(02:05:59):
look go and they go through their season and that
season is limited and then they die down or they
just quit blooming or whatever. And so that's not something's
going to give you color all year, but that's part
of the mix and having a beautiful landscape. Perennials and plus,
you buy them once and you want to buy them again.
They just keep coming back. That's why we call them perennials. Annuals,

(02:06:21):
on the other hand, can give you instant color, and
you can change your annuals out twice a year, like
spring and summer. You can change them out four times
a year. I mean, we call those color changes. So
if you're let's say you put the petunias in in
the spring, and by summer it's like, yeah, they're not

(02:06:42):
real happy to be here in the summer, then you
just change them out, put in angelonias or something else
that can take the heat of summer. And then when
we get to the end, you can put in marigols
to go into the fall, because they just glow in
the fall, they're beautiful. And then when it comes cool season,
you put in your pansies and violasm and listen and
snapdragons and all those other kinds. You can do color
changes all the time, but it comes at a cost

(02:07:02):
because you're constantly rebuying flats of plants to add the color.
Then we have our shrubs. But the thing that gets
neglected most is foliage. Foliage, especially in the summer, can
give you outstanding color at a time when blooms are
not as plentiful as they are in spring. So by foliage,
things like Joseph's coat, things like purple foliage of Persian

(02:07:26):
shield or the purple foliage of Secretia pallida. That those
are great plants. The coppery foliage of copper plants standing
at colius and kalladiums. Oh my gosh, so many colors
of foliage from colius and koladium. A beef steak plant

(02:07:46):
with its red, reddish flowers, and don't forget whites of
color too, and areas that are very shady and dark
white brightens it up and brings the eye in there
as tech grass, which is a loriape tight plant with
green and white striped leaves, can lead your eye around
a bed if you use it to border a bed,
or down a pathway if you use it to border

(02:08:07):
the pathway. Foliage, foliage, foliage, don't forget the foliage. That's
an important way that we bring color in. I like
the canna called phasian are also called tropic canna. It
has oh gosh, what are the colors? Yellow, it's got green,
it's got yellow, it's got a bronzing color in it.
It's just multiple colors that fade in and out across

(02:08:30):
that leaf. Very beautiful bolt. Even if the cana didn't
have blooms on it, which it does, it would still
be beautiful to plant. So just a tip there for
foliage color, especially in this hot season that we're dealing with,
you you should or for color, you should consider foliage
because it is a good dependable part of that overall
mix to have color in your landscape, and we should

(02:08:52):
have color through the year. We can do that here
in our area. We're going to head out now to Sugarland,
Texas and talk to Carol.

Speaker 43 (02:09:01):
Yes, good morning. I've sent to a little by text
treaty last October and it's doing really well. But some
of the branches are trying to grow horizontally, and I
just wonder if there's a way to encourage them or
to force them to grow more vertically so it's taller
rather than wider.

Speaker 5 (02:09:25):
Just by pruning it, just by doing the selected pruning.
Leave things that are going upright, cut off things that
are going sideways. Vtex is a difficult plant to shape.
It's not like a crack, which is easy to shape.
As it's growing, vtex wants to get wonky. You know.
I tried to prune one up one time, and when
I got through it that it looked more like a

(02:09:45):
zigzag than a trunk going up because it just is
always going the wrong way. That's my opinion. So just
do the best you can in shaping it like that.
Most people leave them as multi stem shrubs. Some people
like to try to cre et a trunk to them
with a top. You just have to get in it
early and stay with them because they are not easy.

(02:10:07):
They don't cooperate well with our attempts to train them.

Speaker 43 (02:10:11):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:10:13):
You bet you bet iex I tex agnes castis that's
the proper name for it. It typically is going to
have blue flowers. But I'm telling you you want something
that blooms through summer as long as you cut it
back because it'll make little seed pods and the energy
you don't want to go in there. The minute the
bloom spade cut it. Wherever you cut it, it's going

(02:10:34):
to send out two new shoots with new seed pods
or new bloom pods bloom stalks on them. And so
if I tax a great plant for many reasons, but
it has its drawbacks. We're going to now go to
Carol in Southwest Houston. Hello Carol, Welcome to garden line.

Speaker 33 (02:10:53):
I'm having a problem with my okra budgs. They're covered
with tiny, tiny, tiny white specks.

Speaker 5 (02:11:02):
Okay, well, a couple of things. Okra produces a little drop,
a little round ball drop. It's a sap like substance
that occurs on the outsides of parts of the different
parts of the ocra plant. But also okra can attract aphids,
and aphids will cast their skin like a snake grows

(02:11:26):
out of its skin and sheds its skin, gets a
new set new skin. Aphids do that, and when the
once are left behind, they look like little tiny white
things all over the plants. And so you're going to
be seeing one of the two. If it's white, I
think it's probably aphid skins as opposed to the natural
little eggjudate that comes out of okra.

Speaker 26 (02:11:49):
Do I need to worry about it?

Speaker 33 (02:11:51):
Do I need to put something on it?

Speaker 5 (02:11:54):
You do one or two things. You can use an
insecticidal soap, spread very early in the morning and it's cool,
spray and spray upward it because those aphids are gonna
be under the leaves is much or more than they're
on the leaves. They're gonna be on the around the
pod bays. They may be on the stems of tender
new growth and you just spray the soap all over

(02:12:15):
it and let it dry out before the hot, hot
sun comes out, and that will control them on a
lot of my plants. If I'm out there, and I
don't know how much OKRE you have, but if it's
not too many plants, you can just take that water
hose with a gun on the end and just blast
the suppers off. I mean, you don't eradicate everyone, but
you knock off all the loose aphen skins, and you

(02:12:37):
knock off a lot of the aphids that way, and
that keeps the force of the water. Yeah, but just
remember under the leaves, there's gonna be a lot of aphids,
So don't just spray up on top what you can see.
Flip those leaves over and you're gonna see a lot
underneath there.

Speaker 26 (02:12:55):
Oh good, Okay, great, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:12:58):
All right, Carolyn, Thank you preciate that. I do love okra,
absolutely do love Okrah. Hey last week was it last week? Yeah?
Last week I was talking to Ty Strickland. He's the
guy that owns fixed my slab foundation repair and one
of my daughters is buying a house, and they were
looking at an inspection on a house and some issues

(02:13:19):
that occurred, cracks in the house and whatnot. And I
just was picking Ty's brain because I'm telling the guy
knows his stuff. He's forgotten more about foundations than most
people know. And he's been doing this for twenty three
years here in the area. Fix my slab as a
professional service. And I like a lot of things about
guy Number one, Guy Tye very knowledgeable. Ty is very knowledgeable.

(02:13:43):
He knows this stuff. Number two he says he's going
to show up. He shows up on time. Oh my goodness,
How valuable is that in this day and time anybody's
sat around waiting for someone to show up at the house.
He fixes it, right, that's the most important thing, Right,
we need to fix it. And then a fair price.
This is also very important. Tight us. All of those

(02:14:03):
things tell him you're a guardline listener. Get a free estimate. Uh,
if you see doors sticking, if you see cracks in
the brick, cracks in the sheet rock, those are all
warning signs. Doesn't mean it's the end of the world.
Just call him to come out and look at it.
The sooner you catch things the better you are. And
he is not going to jump the gun and go, oh,
there's a tiny crack. We got to go in and
do thousands of dollars worth. He's not going to do that.

(02:14:26):
He's going to tell you exactly when it is a
situation that warrants the efforts to control it, he knows
how to do it. He can also advise you on
things like, hey, why don't to put a dripper around
the sides of the house to keep that soil from
shrinking and swelling and shrinking and swelling. That's what causes
a lot of our problems. Here's his website. Write this down,
go see him. Fixmslab dot com. Fixmyslab dot com. Here's

(02:14:52):
his phone number. Two eight one two fiy five forty
nine forty nine two eight one two five five four
nine four nine. We live in an area with a
lot of clay soils that move a lot, and when
we have that gully washer rains, they swell up and
then when it gets dry, which it's doing now, it's

(02:15:12):
hot and it's drying. Out to you about the things
that interest you. How can we help you have a
more beautiful, bountiful garden and landscape that's what we're about
here on garden Line. Let's head out to Rosenberg now
and we are going to talk to Teresa. Welcome to
garden Line. Teresa, Hello, Skip.

Speaker 39 (02:15:32):
I appreciate your show.

Speaker 5 (02:15:34):
My question is.

Speaker 39 (02:15:37):
I have soggy it's soggy and I was trying to
clay soil and I was trying to find out what
type of tree would grow into that. What would you recommend?

Speaker 5 (02:15:53):
Are you wanting a tree that's for.

Speaker 39 (02:15:55):
Shade possibly shade or what are my options shade or
what's what's the option.

Speaker 5 (02:16:05):
Well flowers or you know, I mean, it depends on
the size of the tree you want and stuff. Well,
if let me start with a good shade tree. Uh,
there is a red oak, a type of red oak
called nut tall oak, and you t t a l
not tall oak, and that's all. Oak will provide you

(02:16:26):
with a very good growth rate and it makes a
large spreading tree, very very nice for shade and things.
And it tolerates some soggy soil conditions. You know, it
doesn't want to live in a swamp like a cypress can.
But when you have periodic times or it stays a
little wet for too long, not tall oak can tolerate
that and it does really well. So that would be

(02:16:46):
that probably be the first one that comes to mind.
Uh so, yeah, we think about that.

Speaker 39 (02:16:54):
Okay, I think that's a nice suggestion. Now what about
some I think that's pretty with flowers or anything. Is
there anything you would recommend?

Speaker 5 (02:17:07):
I think let me when you when we're talking about
wet how wet I mean, is this like water stands
for a week after a rain or.

Speaker 11 (02:17:17):
Something like that?

Speaker 5 (02:17:18):
Described that.

Speaker 39 (02:17:19):
Oh okay, it rains and it stays wet for days.

Speaker 5 (02:17:24):
Okay. Well, another thing too, as we get to smaller
stature trees, things that aren't gonna get so huge, uh,
is you can you can bring in some soil, create
a raised mound a little bit, and plant on that
and then your your your pallette expands quite a bit.
Crape myrtles don't want to be in a swamp, but
they can take some periods of leaf wetness I mean

(02:17:47):
a root sogginess for a while. And crapes can be
anything from a five foot high little mini tree to
something thirty five feet high. And so you get to
pick the color of the bloom, you get to pick
the size of the plant. There's so many new crapes.
I did a I created a chart online years ago

(02:18:09):
on crape myrtles, and I had crepes from three feet
to thirty five feet, and I showed that the bloom color.
It showed whether it was resistance of powdery milde or not.
It showed you whether the bark was just standard putty
colored like most crapes, or if it had a kind
of a cinnamon colored bark. And if you do a
Google search and you put in my name Skip Richter
and you put in crape myrtle in a search, that

(02:18:31):
you're probably gonna come up with that one. Still, the
problem with that chart is it's older now. Those varieties,
most of them are still around, but there's a lot
of newer stuff that you can choose from. One of
these days, maybe I'll tackle it and try to re
revisit it. Okay, I see h yeah, like the earthquake

(02:18:54):
scale r I C H T E er. Okay, that's it. Uh,
let me think of what else. I'm thinking of. Things
that are more shrub like button bush grows in a swamp.
It has little round blooms that look like a little
you know, when fireworks go up in there explode and
go in all directions. That little blooms remind me of

(02:19:15):
that little round balls that have little things sticking out
from them. But it's not going to be a big tree.
It'll get up about twelve feet or so in time
if you do a lot of pruning on it, but
in general it's going to be smaller. Let's see swamps
for trees. Two below is one that has some fault color,
and if the conditions are right, Tupelow can provide you

(02:19:39):
with a good swamp tolerant tree. Not really easy to
find those because there's not a high demand for them,
but that would be one you might want to consider
a little bit of a stretch there compared to some
of the other things I'm suggesting.

Speaker 39 (02:19:57):
Okay, Skip, thank you so much, all right, and we
appreciate that, we appreciate you, and we appreciate you here
in Texas. Take care, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:20:06):
Well, thank you glad you feel that way. Thanks a lot.
I appreciate you for calling. Take care. Let's see, I
was yester day, I was I have a bird feeder
that takes pictures. Yeah, the birds come and when they
sit there, there's a camera and it takes a picture

(02:20:26):
and it sends it to my phone or it says, hey,
you had a visitor, and I'm going to look through
them and I see little videos and I've got the
scruffiest looking birds you've ever seen. So naturally, who do
I call Wabird's Unlimited. I just sent a quick cup
few pictures over to Rich from the Cypress store. You know,
there's six Warbirds Unlimited stores in Houston. That's just one

(02:20:48):
of the six stores here in the greater Houston area.
And I said, Rich, what's going on? Is this still
molting going on? Or you know my birds have the
some new disease that appeared. He said, no, I just molting.
There's still Boy, do they look horrible. Oh the cardinals
looked like you ran them through a weed eater or something.
That's just they're just all messed up. And that reminded

(02:21:10):
me that Wabirds has a number of high quality feeds.
You know, when a bird is molting, and our birds
are I mean I had let's see, I had a
blue jay in the picture. I had a type of
finch in the picture, and I had cardinals in the picture.
Well they're all molting. Well when they're doing that, they
just can't fly all over the place. I mean they're
getting new feathers. They're kind of wonky. Well, what you

(02:21:32):
need to do is give them something like nesting super
Blend from Wabirds Unlimited. Unfortunately I already was and I
believe in that food. It's really good. It's got things
like sunflower chips and peanuts and dried mealworm and bark
butter bits and sapflower nuts and all kinds of tree nuts.
It's just a super food. And that helps because you

(02:21:53):
know they can't go flying all over creation trying to
fight food. Put that in your feeder. Get them also,
by the way, from waburd you need to get their cylinders,
especially if you're going to go on a trip. You
use cylinders whether you're going on a trip or not.
But with a cylinder, it's a hard packed cylinder of food.
And you go on a trip and you come back
and is still there. Birds are picking the seeds out,

(02:22:14):
so they got something not like your feeder goes dry.
But it works really well. I like the cylinders because
if you put them kind of near a window you
can watch the birds. It takes them instead of flying
in getting a few seeds and flying away. It takes
them just a second to kind of peck those out
and you get a little more time to get to
watch your birds. Anyway. That's Wabirds Unlimited. Warbirds Unlimited is

(02:22:37):
six stores, WBU dot com, slash Houston, WBU dot com
slash Houston. You need to check them out. Okay, it's
time for me take another break, and we'll be right
back for our last segment. If you'd like to give
us a call seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. He appreciate you joining us today for

(02:23:01):
all kinds of gardening advice. I hope you're enjoying the show.
We try to keep it a little entertaining as well
as we go along, because hey, you got to have fun,
right and when we are gardeners, we have issues we
have to deal with that break our heart first of all,
when a plant dies, or when something decides to come
in and chomp on our plant, or something that's happened

(02:23:24):
to me. The night before I was going to go
out the next morning and picked my sweet corn. Every
raccoon in town got together sent theired. I think they
have text communication or something, because they all came and
they stripped my corn patch. That'll break your heart, fire ants, nuts,
edge bermuda grass in the flight. We have a lot

(02:23:44):
of things we have to do with hey. Challenges build character.
They make us stronger. But you got to laugh occasionally
along with doing the things you need to do to
get them under control. And we help you with that.
But gardening is a fun hobby, you know it really,
it just is. It's the kind of hobby that I
personally I think is one of the best ones to have.

(02:24:05):
And here's why. You can spend a lot of money
on any hobby. I mean, if you want to, if
you want to buy a bass boat or a deer lease,
or if you want to buy a very expensive, you know,
Troy built rototiller, you can spend it on gardening too.
Or you can do it for almost nothing. You can
do almost nothing save your own seeds. You can make

(02:24:25):
your own compost. I mean, it's for everybody. If you
are young and able bodied, you can do all kinds
of work out there in the garden, do it yourselfing
around the place. If you are getting up in ages
and just not able to do that kind of thing,
we have ergonomic tools. We have beds that bring things
up high where you can you can get access to

(02:24:47):
them without having to stoop and go up and down
and up and down. Gardenings for everybody, and it's mental health.
It really is mental health. I promise you that the
benefits are. If you've never gardened, I highly recommend you
give it a try, because that is there a chance
of being outside in nature and breathing fresh air and
getting some sunshine and just enjoying the outdoors. That is

(02:25:11):
physically and mentally helpful too. And then of course the
physical ability, you know, getting up, walking around, taking steps.
Even people that work in an office cubicle are told
you need to get up ever so many minutes and
walk around for a minute and before you go back
and sit down. Well, gardening is more than a walk
around a minute. I mean, you can just walk around
the yard and go back inside. But anytime you're doing

(02:25:34):
any kind of exercise like that, even if it's not
you know, physical, big physical exercise, it benefits you. And
that's gardening. And it's one of the reasons why I
say it is the best hobby there is, the best
absolute hobby there is. Now, I know that I'm biased,
but that don't make me wrong. You can be biased

(02:25:55):
and wrong, or you can be biased and right, and
I think I'm biased and right. All right, Well, you're
listening to Guardline our phone number seven one three fifty
eight seventy four. I got a few minutes left here
if you'd like, I think you can take another call
if somebody wanted to call in, Uh, just one please.
That's about how much time we got.

Speaker 19 (02:26:15):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (02:26:15):
Nelson Plant Food is a quality fertilizer producer. They've been
producing fertilizers for decades. A Dean and the team out there.
They've got their turf Star line that is for lawns.
Things like slow and Easy that last for months after
you put them out, gradually feeding your lawn a little
bit of nitrogen at a time, keeping it growing at

(02:26:38):
a nice, even smooth rate. That's a quality fertilizer. Bruce
is Bro also has a slow release to it, by
the way, it's not all fast release, but it puts
them a little bit more out early and then continues
to feed over time. That's an excellent fertilizer. Then they're
canisters are fertilizer, the jars are fertilizer. The plastic jars,
the screw lids. Uh, there's things like Nutri Star line,

(02:27:01):
things like the tree and Shrub I recommended that earlier today.
Tree and Shrub or a neutral star from Nelson's is
a general fertilizer for woody ornamentals, whether it's a deciduous
or evergreen tree. It's going to give about three to
four months per application. So if you've planted a tree
in the last two years, you should be using this
the tree and shrub on that tree on a regular basis.

(02:27:24):
You can do it now and then when we come
out and get into late spring, go ahead and do
it again because spring, early spring growth, excuse me, late
winter early spring growth is going to begin and you
want to get that down where it can provide the feeding.
And there's many many others in the Nutri Star line.
Then there's a color Star which is for flowering plants,
and these also are available in the reef. You can

(02:27:47):
refill the canisters. There's almost a dozen places around the
Greater Houston area that have the low canister refills where
you take your empty plastic jar and you pull the handle,
just like you're buying peanuts at the grocery store, right
little things. You pull the handle and put your bag
underneath it. Does that. It's a less expensive way to
buy fertilizer. Plus you're not throwing even more plastic in

(02:28:08):
the environment. We all know why we don't want to
do that. Nelson Plant food quality products for whatever plant
you're growing easy to find across the Greater Houston area.
I was talking earlier about the birds and my scruffy
birds that are in their process of molting. I'm going

(02:28:29):
to post a picture to our Facebook page. And by
the way, if you don't follow the garden Line Facebook,
you ought to because we're always putting stuff up there.
You'll be the first to know when I'm putting up
new publications because I announce them. They're on the Facebook
page of garden Line. So I'll post something showing my
scruffy birds because when you look at them, it's like

(02:28:52):
you feel sorry for them, you know. I hear Sarah
McLoughlin singing in the background, these poor birds. If you
don't know what that means, I'll explain anyway. But they're
gonna get better because I'm feeding them good feed and
they are gonna get their new foliage and be as
beautiful as ever. I'm telling you right now, beautiful. They
are not the cardinals and whatnot. If you haven't purchased

(02:29:16):
a bird feeder, you ought to get a quality bird feeder. Two.
By the way, there are a lot of different kinds.
No matter what you're trying to feed, there's a great
way to do it. I like the ones that are scrolled,
excluding my favorite, absolute favorite. But if you we're about
to run out of time here today. But I did
want to mention that this week out there in the
lawn and garden, keep the lawn mode as regularly as

(02:29:38):
you can. The more often you mow, the better that
it's gonna look. Regular. Mowing sharp, more blade on a
regular basis, at a taller height. Those are the keys
to good density of your ear. I'm going to run
out to April and the woodlands real quick. April, we
got about a minute left. Let's see if we can
get it done.

Speaker 15 (02:29:57):
Hi, we have some I think harvest strants in Kerrville.
They eat like a seven foot wide circle. Does that
sound about right, and then eat little paths away.

Speaker 5 (02:30:13):
Yes, that is a harvard. That's the red harvest rant.
I grew up with those things and they I probably
am not going to convince you they're a good thing
out there but they are. That's one of the reasons
that the Texas horned lizard. We grew up calling them
horn toads. Those feed on harvest rants, and as people

(02:30:34):
have done things that have reduced harvest grant numbers, it's
been a crisis for the Texas horn toad. They can
be controlled, you know, pesticides will kill them if they're
not really bothering you're leaving them alone is certainly a
good idea. So that's kind of up to you, though.

Speaker 15 (02:30:51):
Well, I have I have like a dozen, you know,
seven foot wide circles that these guys creating my lawn.
That's a little much.

Speaker 5 (02:30:58):
Oh in your lawn. This is not in Purville, you said, yes, oh, okay, okay,
Well I was picturing just pastures and stuff like that.
So if you put any kind of a dust insecticide
right there at the opening, they all have to come
in and out of that opening. And it kills me
to talk about killing them. I understand what you're talking about.

(02:31:21):
Like I said, I grew up with them, and they
do create a vegetation free huge area around them. Yes,
but a dust whatever kind of a dust from ortheene
to seven dust or whatever they have to track through it.
It will kill them, but you just have to get
it just a little bit there at the mound. You
don't want to spray everywhere everything, No need to do that.
That one opening is where they all come in and out,

(02:31:42):
so that that would get them.

Speaker 9 (02:31:44):
Under for you.

Speaker 15 (02:31:46):
So don't bother with the red ant killer. So I've
been buying the twenty dollars bag red ant killer.

Speaker 5 (02:31:56):
What is in that?

Speaker 15 (02:31:56):
Do you happen to have a No, I don't have
it in front of me. Wish I did.

Speaker 5 (02:32:00):
I'm sorry, red I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I
can find that red ant killer that is. I don't
know what that.

Speaker 15 (02:32:07):
That's all I see there in curvill Is bags and
bags of red ant killer, not anything about harvest ants.

Speaker 5 (02:32:15):
Hmm. Well, I don't see a product named red ant killer,
so I'm sure it exists. You're seeing it. I just
don't know which one that is, depending on the on
the name of it.

Speaker 15 (02:32:28):
But that's what they kill. Okay, try for a more
specific harvest ant killer, or go get our go get
some horn toads.

Speaker 5 (02:32:41):
Or go get some horn odes. That would be that
would be it. But you're not going to get results
in your lawn fast enough with the horn toads. I'm
sure you won't be happy, you know the speed of
those results. But all it takes is just a little
dust right in the entrance opening. You're not nuke in
the yard here. This is just a access. If they
have to crawl through it, you may have to reapply
it a week later, the reply it again a week later.

(02:33:02):
You know, with rain and different things, it's not going
to always stick around. But that'll do it.

Speaker 9 (02:33:07):
Well.

Speaker 4 (02:33:08):
Thank you for your time.

Speaker 5 (02:33:09):
Appreciate it all right, good good luck out there. I
appreciated by the April. Bye bye. All right, there it's time.
Let's see. Ow we're about to the end of our
time here, right, do we need one more break? Nope,
we're looking at the end of the show. That's what.

(02:33:30):
All right. Why you've been listening to Gardenline. I'm your host,
Skip Richtor, and I appreciate you giving us a call today,
those of you who called in, those of you who listened,
thanks for listening. Don't forget that