Rooted In Nature

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with skimp Rictor.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's just watch him as so many good things to
supasya again not a sign.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
All right, all right, here we go. Good morning on
a good Saturday morning, and welcome to garden Line. We
are so glad to have you with us. I will
be talking about all kinds of things this morning regarding gardening.
There's I know it's a holiday season. You're probably in
a Turkey coma right now or were recovering from one.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
But there's a lot to do outside, a lot of
fun things. And if the relatives are overstaying their visit,
gardening would be a great way to get outside. And
well you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, there are
a lot of things that can be planted in our
gardens right now. I just did you know I talked

(01:20):
about last week finishing my patio that I was laying
a dry stone patio in the back, and I'm relocating
a garden gate now to another location that suits it
better for the patio. It's time for me to get
out in the garden and get some things done. I've
a gardener's kind of taken the vegetable garden's taken a
back seat to a lot of other things, and I

(01:42):
know you can relate to that. We get busy with
one thing or another, and all of a sudden we realize, boy,
we've let that go. I need to catch up. Fortunately,
I've got plenty of multch out there, so I'm not
dealing with weeds. But it's just a reminder that all
the cool season weeds germinate once the temperatures start to
drop in the soil, which, of course, when temperatures begin

(02:05):
to drop in the air around us, we start to
slowly drop that soil temperature and the weed seeds start
to germinate. According to whatever species they are, some germinate
and very barely cool soil at all. It has to
go down a little bit more for them to germinate.
In the lawn. We've been talking all fall about applying

(02:26):
things to stop the weed seeds from germinating, and that
would be barricade. Barricade, you know, as a night frost
product that we talked about all the time. And you
know there's also a product from Nelson. Nelson's has They
have a number of really great products, but turf Star.

(02:48):
Turf Star is an excellent one that they do. And
we've been talking about putting things like that out and
the importance of making sure that we get those and
get them watered in to get ahead of the weeds.
Just a reminder, I'm not going to go into a
lot of detail on it now, but weed seeds continue
to germinate. What I said, turf Star I met, I

(03:12):
met carbo loads specifically, turf Star is a group of
different fertilizers by Nelson. But anyway, the fact is that
all the weeds do begin to germinate earlier. They can
germinate any time. So like if you had a garden
bed that was completely mulched and you pulled the mulch back,

(03:32):
all of a sudden, you'd see weed seeds start to
germinate and sprout and come on up because they are
exposed to light, they're exposed to the ability to establish themselves,
and so always keep that mulch on. I have a
bed that I pulled the mulch back on. I was
going to get out and plan something, and then I didn't,
And now I'm looking at it and it's all the

(03:54):
little tiny weed seeds starting to look like a chia
pet out there. Because the seeds are there anyway. Mults
most much always keep the mulch on. It's important. It
does so many good things for our gardens. You know,
there are a couple of products and they're not like commercial,
well they can be commercial, but there's a couple of

(04:14):
things items that we can put in our gardens that
are just miracle workers. And one of them is compost.
When you add organic matter to the soil, it does
all kinds of things. I'll talk about that a little
bit later. I'll come come back to that one. But
maltz is the other one. You know, malts is there
are so many types of mulch out there. You can

(04:36):
get molts that are processed by our great companies here
in the Greater Houston area that do that, and those
processed malts. Multches come in many forms, many types, you know,
from pine barks to shredded hardwoods to on and on
down the line. But they're just organic materials from nature

(04:56):
that are being put on top of the soil to
stop weeds from germinating. To moderate soil temperature so that
if it's too hot or too cold, the root system
is sort of it sort of has an insulating blanket
to protect it, to prevent crusting of the soil. When
it rains on specially silty types of soil, you get

(05:17):
a crust that forms when that surface dries, and it's
hard for seeds to push through. They also stop erosion.
You get too much rain, it just washes, you know,
little mini gullies all over your garden beds, and that's
not good either. So that's one product that does all that.
And it's the same thing you see in nature. Nature mulches.

(05:37):
It drops in the forest, they drop tree leaves on
the ground on the surface, and here we are nature's
molt in meadows. You know, as grass blades dye and
fall to the surface or lay over onto the surface,
you get a protective surface covering. Isn't that neat? Nature
does it and we can too. But that's molting. That's

(05:58):
very important. Keep your soil moltz. If you didn't maltz
and you got weed seeds coming up just when they're
real small, I can just use a little rake kind
of tool, whether it's a handheld tool or a long
stand up rake and just scratch the surface around and
it'll destroy those seedlings they had. Little tiny roots are

(06:18):
not able to withstand just a little bit of soil
disturbance like that. That works fine, Or just throw mult
on top of them. You know, if a weed seed
is an inch or so high and you throw some
good multch on it, it smothers it from light. Smother
not from air, but from light. It cannot get light
and it'll dime. So that'll save you from having to mulch.

(06:41):
One other tip on maulting, by the way, you know,
it would be a good idea occasionally if I tell
you what our phone number is, since this is a
call in show, well, I may be suffering from too
much turkey here myself, but the phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven

(07:01):
one three two and two five eight seven foere if
you like to call with a question. Let's see where
I lost my train of thought there when I took
off on that. Anyway, uh oh, a tip for mulching. Now,
not many people take the physical newspaper compared to what
used to be. Right, It used to be everybody got

(07:22):
the paper thrown in the front yard. Now I've kind
of gotten away from that. But if you have access
to newspapers or any kind of a paper like that
craft paper in a rolls oh rolls of paper or
something that is an awesome underlayment for the mulch that
you put down. So, for example, uh, for a long
time I have in garden beds when either after I

(07:46):
planted or before laid down four to six sheets a
newspaper and wet it. Have a garden hose there with
a little spray hand spray nozzle on the end and
wet it with that and then let it let it.
That helps hold it down, and then put the mulch
on top of it. Now I'm gonna take a little
break here, but when I come back, I want to

(08:06):
finish with telling you that really easy way to get
an extended use out of your mulch in just a moment.
In the meantime, if you'd like to give us a
call seven one three, two one two five eight seven.

Speaker 5 (08:18):
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Speaker 3 (12:04):
Hey, welcome back to garden Line. Welcome back. All right,
I was in the big middle of a multing tips story.
I learned this a long long time ago. I've been
writing about it for a number of years now. But
it's the newspaper technique. And again, there's nothing magic about
the newspaper. It just used to be plentiful piling up

(12:26):
in people's garages. But it works, and any kind of
paper will work like that. So anyway, what we do
four to six sheets of newspaper, lay it down and
spray it. That holds it in place. If not, the
slightest breeze picks the newspaper up and it flies across
to your neighbor's yard. So just spray it with just
barely wet it with the spray. Lay some more newspaper.

(12:49):
I overlapped the edges about two inches on all sides,
and then pretty quick after that just go ahead and
put some mulch on top of it, and that mult
if you dried grass clippings from your yard. If you
haven't used a post emergent weed control product in the yard,
it could be you know, you may be access to

(13:09):
spent hay or some other kind of a mault. I
usually use shredded leaves from the neighborhood in my vegetable
garden because you know, wood chunks and things of your
traditional landscape mulches. Getting that on your soil and then
you're trying to plant tiny seeds, it's a little more
difficult to deal with. But anyway, whatever you use for

(13:30):
a maltz, throw it on top of the newspaper and
it doesn't take much. Four to six sheets of newspaper
is blocking a lot of the light out, almost all
the light out, and then throw a little mulch on
top of it and it'll stay like that and it
will last for a long time, like several months, two
or three months at least that it'll give you in

(13:53):
weed protection just because that newspaper will decompose. It's organic.
Any kind of paper you know it decomposes away. Works
really good for this. And I'm telling you this because
the ways you can use it are pretty cool. For example,
you can you can go in before your plant and

(14:14):
you know you've wrote a till the soil. Now weed
seeds are getting light that are up near the surface.
You put the newspaper over it. And then when you
want to put transplants in, if the newspaper is wet,
just spread it and wet it. You can just take
your trowel, stick it down through the newspaper into the soil,
pull back on it to create like a V shape opening,

(14:34):
put your transplant in, press the soil in around it,
and now you right up to that plant is it's
still mulched with newspaper. If I'm going to plant like
a row of seeds, I say I'm going to do
some rows of radishes or lettuce or something across the bed.
When I lay the newspaper, I'll just leave a little gap,
the one inch gap between the sheets of paper, and

(14:55):
that's where my row of seeds goes. And I'm telling
you this is really easy. Then you throw something attractive
on top, and just remember that newspaper is going to
go away. You're not gonna have to look at it
and tie. It's just going to ride away. So that
works well. The other thing you can do with it
is use it to recapture lost ground. So let's say
you had a garden bed and I've got some pictures

(15:16):
when I did this several times that I've done it,
and the bed just looks like a chip out of weeds.
There is just solid green. The weeds are coming up everywhere,
but they're still small. And if they're small enough to
where when you take your spray wand and water it,
they kind of lay over a little bit. Just do
that and then lay the newspaper on top of them

(15:37):
and wet the newspaper, put the mulch on it, and
all those weeds that were little, tender growing weeds now
become decomposing, releasing nutrients back to your soil plant food,
and I guess molt in and of themselves as they die.
They're dead organic matter on the surface. And I have
recaptured lost ground like that. I had a bed one
time that got so far away from me that it

(15:59):
had some kind of almost wiry stemmed weeds that were
sticking up about six inches high of course, you can't
lay newspaper on that, so we just broke them over,
you know, just grab the weed and bend it and
break it down flat to the surface, lay the newspaper
on it, covered up, and we never weeded that bed.
And it would have taken a couple hours to weed
that bed, but we just wet it, put the newspaper

(16:22):
on top, and none put You got to put mult
on top of the newspaper and it really works. So
if you know about anybody that takes the paper, if
you have some of those advertising things that you know,
come that newspaper based advertisements come in the mail, whatever
you do, it is a tip that works pretty well
for you. Now, speaking of tips that work pretty well

(16:44):
for you, asmite is a product that provides those micro
nutrients the things that we need in small amounts and
without going nerdy into plant soil, nutrition, science, chemical all
that stuff, there are three kinds of basic groups of
nutrients that we have in our soil for our plants.

(17:05):
One are the macro nutrients that would be nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,
that's the three numbers on fertilizer bags. That's the three
nutrients that plants need the most. Of Then there's secondary
nutrients that would be calcium, things like sulfur and magnesium.
There's secondary nutrients. We need a lot of them, but

(17:25):
not as much as the big three. And then there's
trace minerals, and we need a lot of trace minerals.
You know, there's over a dozen different trace minerals that
we put down for our plants, say over a dozen
depending on the plant and the plant grows, stage and
stuff as to what it needs. Those are the trace minerals.
And that's what azemite is for, is to put on
trace minerals. It's a mind product. You can go to

(17:47):
azamite Texas dot com and find out more about it,
or you can just go to the store where you shop.
Feed stores, garden centers, ace hardware stores, Southwest Fertilizer and
Southwest US all these places carry asmite. It can be
done anytime of year. Again, it's not associated with the
growth season. It's restocking the soil bank account or building

(18:09):
up the soil bank account of nutrients. And I like
that analogy of a bank account because it really describes, well,
what's going on. We're creating a bank account of nutrients.
So when that plant, whether that plan is your lawn,
or that planet is a broccoli plant in your garden.

(18:29):
When it needs a little bit of a trace mineral,
it just goes to the bank account and makes its
withdrawal because it's there. I like our bank accounts. If
I don't stock them first, there's not gon't be no
money there when I need it later. So that's that's
what we're talking about with asamite works pretty well here
our phone number seven one three two one two fifty

(18:52):
eight seventy four. If you got some gardening questions you
would like to ask, well, give me a call. We'll
visit about whatever you're interested in. For those of you
up in the Tombol area, you have D and D
Feed just three miles west of Highway to forty nine
on FM twenty nine twenty. So if you're in Tombo
and you say you know what I need to make
a BUCkies run, you're going to head across the country

(19:14):
to it, Well, you will go right past D and
D Feed. The Dover family opened that up in nineteen
eighty nine. They have continued to grow the place expand
the place. You're gonna find plants there, You're gonna find
the fertilizers I talk about from nitro foss from Microlife,
from Nelson Turf Star line, other Nelson fertilizers, from Medina products.

(19:37):
You're gonna find soils from Airloom soils and other soils,
and mulches and Landscaper's Pride products are there as well.
It is just a great place to go visit. And
you're going to also find super high quality dog foods,
you know, high end lines like Origin, Diamond, Victor Starpro.
They carry all that stuff as well as of course

(19:58):
your livestock feeds and feed for their pets. And if
you got something you need to control from those rats
that are loving to come out in the winter and
you know, crawl around looking for a place to live
in our place. Well, they have pests and rodent supplies
as well, d and de feed. Three miles that's the
tumble On Highway to forty nine. Well, let's take a

(20:20):
trip down to the galleria and we're going to talk
to Harry. Good morning, Harry, welcome to Guardenline.

Speaker 12 (20:26):
Thank you, good morning. I have been growing some herbs
on the patio and I was wondering with the coal
weather coming, what I should expect from things like basil
and time and oreguano, things like that, and now keep
up the good work. Really enjoy the show. You're doing
a great job. And I'll take the answer on the
radio if it's okay.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, that's fine, Harry. Thank you for the coal well herbs.
We can plant herbs in any pretty much any month
of the year. Bay you mentioned in basil, basil is
probably the most cold intolerant herb we have. If it
gets in the forties, basil is not happy at all,

(21:07):
not happy, and it'll go downhill fast, and certainly a
freezer will take it out. But all the other herbs
pretty much. And when I say all the others, I'm
thinking about things like rosemary, oregano, times, summer savory, oh gosh,
what else is the chives? And all pretty much all

(21:28):
the other herbs For the most part. We're talking about
perennials if you are coal tender, but not many, and
those are best planted in the fall. And we'll when
I say in the fall, I mean anywhere from fall
all the way through the winter season. But the sooner
you get implanted, the better established they'll be when summer
heat comes next year. And so you can plant herbs

(21:49):
anytime of the year. If you've got herbs, you can
leave them out. If you have herbs and you want
to continue harvesting them through the cool season, you know,
let's say you're going to get to I don't know,
January and you want to go out and pick some
oregano or something like that, well, you can always bring

(22:09):
them in. Where you live has a good hard freeze.
They can take moderate freezes, okay, but if you want to,
you know, keep them lush, then if they're in a container,
just put them into a protected spot. When we're going
to truly get way down, you know, below freezing for sure,
to maintain freshness and healthy and harvestable growth. But as

(22:32):
far as I'm surviving, they're very tough. Now. One last
point to make about this, and this holds true not
just for herbs but for all plants, is when you
have a plant and a container, it's more susceptible to
the cold because of the root system. If you were
to take a plant that's say that is quite hardy

(22:53):
for the area where you live, and you move it
from the soil and instead you plant water, you have
one in the soil and one in a container. On
the patio, well, the one in the soil. The soil
temperature is not going to drop much below about fifty degrees.
I mean it may be up near the surface you'll
get colder a little bit. But even when it gets
cold cold, the soil is an is a source of

(23:17):
some residual warmth and as a result, those roots are protected.
Now you put that in a container and all around
the container, on all sides, in the top. Now, cold
air is making that container get cold, and that container
can freeze free solid on a good hard freeze night.

(23:37):
And if you have one full of moisture and you
can see that in the morning you reach in there,
it's like a rock. So those would need to be
protected a little bit more. But if it's in a container.
I'll talk a little bit later this morning about protecting
container plants from cold, so stay tuned for that. But

(24:00):
it as far as herbs are concerned, boy, now is
a great time. And herbs are so easy to grow.
You know that, it's just you plant them and it's
almost a plant and forget. I mean, yeah, it's good
to fertilize them. Yes, of course, you gotta water them
in the summer when it's hot, but they they just
are good, tough plants, and they don't have to go

(24:20):
in an herb garden. If you want to make a beautiful,
you know, one of these symmetrical herb gardens like you see,
you know in fancy estates and things, you can do that.
That's good, go for it. But if you just want
to use herbs, why not use a regino as a
groundcover or time is a groundcover underneath other plants, as

(24:41):
long as they can get sunlight. They need a little
bit of sunlight of course.

Speaker 13 (24:44):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
And there are many other uses for herbs that are ornamental.
So just something to think about. I'm gonna take a
little break here. I will be back seven one three
two one two KTRH if you'd like to give us
a call.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
By us.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
All right, folks, we're back. Welcome to Garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richer, and we're here to answer gardening
questions or just provide garden I know a lot of
folks will never call. I talk to people all day
and they go, I love listening to the show, but
I don't want to call and be on the air.
All right, Well that's your call, so to speak. I

(25:24):
tell you this though. We it will be a pleasant
experience for you. I promise you that we don't. We
don't shame callers on garden line. We know you know
we don't. I don't know fuss at you if you
quote do something wrong, that's it's your garden. Hey, you
call me, I help you. I used to say this
all the time. I should say it more. But uh,

(25:46):
there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

Speaker 13 (25:48):
Now.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
I know you're thinking, yeah, no, I've heard stupid questions
in life before, but don't think of it that way.
Here's how I think of it. I worry about stupid answers.
The pressure's on me. If you've got a question, somebody
else has that question. It's just a fact they do,
and so ask away. I'm not here for gardening experts

(26:11):
only to call in. I'm here for someone who has
never gardened before and needs to be told things like
you put the green side up when you plant a plant. Right,
that's okay. We'll go with those questions to whatever you're interested.
I want everybody to be a gardener. I want everybody
to have success, and I want everybody to have fun.

(26:31):
And the way I put it, is I'm here to
make your garden more beautiful, more bountiful, and more fun.
That's what I want to do. So let's let's go
for that, all right. In the meantime, Microlife has a
number of products and you hear me talk about them
from time to time. I use the bio Matrix a
lot for my indoor plants. That's an orange label, an

(26:54):
orange label. It is a seven to one to three
fertilizers nitrogen, one percent phosphors, three percent potassium, and it's
a good that's a good balance for pushing foliage growth
and good health of the plant in general. And so
I use it on houseplants a lot. But it's not

(27:14):
an indoor plant fertilizer. It's a plant fertilizer. So if
you're want to go outside and water something with it,
that's good. It works for that. A lot of folks
love to use fisher mulsion and seaweed blends, and Microlife
has their Ocean Harvest, which is a four to two
three fish based fertilizer, and then the Microlife Super Seaweed,

(27:35):
which contains a lot you know, seaweed has a lot
of plant growth hormone type ingredients in it. As well
as others for the plant. And that combo of super
seaweed and ocean harvest is something that organic gardeners have
used for years as a combo way of instead of
using like a soluble one of those dissolving water blue

(27:56):
or green, you know kind of product things. Well, organic
garners have always done the super seaweed, the ocean harvest
or the equivalents and seaweed and fish and motion fertilizers.
They also have the liquid AF micro Girl. Liquid AF
is an excellent product to use for any kinds of plants,
including our indoor plants. You know indoor plants too. They

(28:18):
need microbial content and the soil to do well unless
you're just gonna provide every single thing they possibly could
want through your fertilizing, which is difficult to do. So
I would have these on the shelf. You can buy
them in a gallon, earn a quart and just mix
them up. And that's what I do when it's time
for me to fertilize. I've got these products, buy liquid,

(28:38):
and I can do however I wish with them, and
I'm starting off something new. A lot of times I'll
put in the Microlife liquid humates plus and water with that,
especially in larger containers outdoors. I find that to be
very helpful. Anyway, all these products are from Microlife. You
can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and learn more
about their products, or you can just go to pretty

(28:59):
much anywhere shop for gardening and you're going to find
micro Life products here throughout and beyond our Greater Houston area.
We were talking this morning about using newspaper for malts
or other papers for maltz products and the importance of that,
and I mentioned that I would be talking about protecting

(29:22):
plants that are containers from frosts and freeze damage. I'm sorry,
my brain is trying to do two things at once here. Anyway,
if you have a bunch of container plants and a
hard freeze is coming, if those plants are at all cold, tender,

(29:45):
or again, because the root system will get way colder
than it will in the soil, you can take your
containers and you can group them together and you put
them in a protected location, so like if you have
a south side of the high house or someplace where
the cold north wind isn't just going to blast them,

(30:05):
actually just grouping them together in a interior corner of
the home. I don't mean inside the home, I mean
not a corner pointing out, but a corner pointing in
where you can put them all together, group them close together,
and then throw any kind of a covering over them
to kind of block the wind. I've known people to
throw a bunch of leaves over the whole thing and

(30:26):
just sort of create that little area. Whatever you do
that grouping too tightly together and throwing something over them
in that protected location to further protect them will help
get them through even some pretty significant cold weather that
we occasionally have in our listening area here. But that

(30:47):
little tip makes it easy. Now as far as how
do you get them there. You know you may have
large containers, and goodness sakes, don't bend over and pick
those up unless you want to put your chiropractor's kids
through college. Just get a dolly or a hand truck,
whichever term you use for it. Slide the lip of
it underneath the container, put a strap from one side

(31:10):
of the dolly around the container, attach it to the
other side that keeps a container from falling off the dolly,
and just with one hand and almost no effort, you
can tilt it back and roll it wherever you want.
And I moved large I mean, you know, half whiskey
barrel sized containers that way. You just have to make
sure you strap it to the dolly, and it works
really well. I've got a dolly just a little rope

(31:31):
that I use on it, and it just sits there.
And when I need to move a container, I just
use that rope and tie it on there or any
kind of strap. You can move a lot of big
containers that way. Maybe you have a citrus growing in
a really large container and or you would like to Yes,
you can do that. And I don't care if it
is a lime or a lemon, you know, something's a

(31:52):
little more cold tender. You can move it right into
the garage that way and get it through the worst
of the cold and then move it back out, you know,
out in front of my garage on the driveway off
to the side, I have some container. I got a
beautiful hibiscus that I love. I don't have a greenhouse
space for it, and so it just goes into the
garage on the coldest nights, and so it may have

(32:16):
spent a few days in there and then come back
out again, just a little tip for you on that.
Let's see here we Oh, I did want to I
didn't want to mention or talk about something else that
I think is important. I mentioned earlier that I had
been in my garden and doing, you know, doing I
need to do a little bit of weeding where some

(32:37):
weeds had just started to come back up. Uh. My
walkways are leaves in the garden. Uh. And so if
you have just if your garden is just like a
single bed or something, well this doesn't work. But if
you have a traditional garden area also where it's like
a bed or walkway, a bed or walkway, I will

(32:57):
put in the walkways all the leaves that I get
from my property and from a neighbor's properties. You know,
they're so nice they put those leaves out for you
at the curb because they know you're a gardener. And
I'm telling you, one gardener can take care of several
streets of a neighborhood's full of leaves over the course
of a season. If you have a shredder to shred
them up, that's fine. I just I layman down in

(33:19):
the garden floor and then just run over the lawnmower
that chops them up. I also have on the little
string trim or grinder grinders that works pretty good. Medium good.
But put them in the walkways and pile them deep
in there. I mean, you know, I may go pile
them a foot deep and just walk on them, and
and and as they get wet and walked on, they

(33:41):
compress down and they decompose. And after several months of
warmer weather, you can pull the dry surface leaves that
still look like they did when you put them down.
Rake those back, and underneath you're gonna have a lot
of what we call leaf mold. It's a it's a
black chocolate or not black chocolate, brown crumbly leaf material.

(34:03):
Let's say it's halfway to compost. Okay, it's decomposing, it's
falling apart, but it's not truly completely composted. But you
have that, and that can be used whenever you're redoing
your soil. Maybe you're going to rework the soil, add
some organic matter to it. I will get that and
harvest it, and I'll run it through a little screen

(34:25):
and put it in to add to my putting mixes
if they need something like that in them. So when
I say a screen. I'm talking about a half inch
hardware cloth that I have a two by four frame
that sits on top of the wheelbarrow. It's the size

(34:46):
that would be the inside of the wheelbarrow size, and
I just throw the leaves in it, rake them around
and all that small stuff falls through, and then anything
larger you just throw back in the walkway or do
whatever you want to do. Use it as a mault.
It also makes a very good mault as well. So
just another little tip full of tips today on gardening.

(35:08):
If you'd like to give us a call our phone
number seven to one three two one two kt r
H seven one three two one two k t r H.
We're going to go to a little break here and
want to come back. I'm going to continue with some
tips for the garden, some ideas that will help you

(35:28):
have more success with your garden and hopefully more fun
in the process. All right, folks, let me see here. Yep,
it is time for me to quit talking this morning.
Oh one last thought before before we go, uh, we've
got I'll talk about some of our garden centers and
things going on right now. But I'm telling you this
is a great time to be making purchases for both

(35:51):
gifts for the garden and also to take advantage of
some really good sales that are going on out there
on certain kinds of plant, especially trees and shrubs, and
things ten to be a good deal at this time
of the year. So talk to you in just a minute.
All right, welcome back to Garden Line. We are going
to continue with some tips and ideas for this gardening season.

(36:16):
I do want to remind you that we do have
some great garden centers that are having a lot of
real cool stuff going on. You need to get out there.
I'm gonna talk about a few of them as we
go through the show this morning, but just kind of
putting that bug in your ear. I know, it is
the holiday shopping season, and if you got a gardener
on your list, I mean, anyone with any interesting gardening

(36:40):
there are a lot of cool tools and you know,
for example, there are things that I wouldn't buy myself
because I just I'm just not interested in doing that,
but there are other people that would. And what does
that even mean. Well, I mean there's all kinds of
different things. Regarding some people, they you know, they'll spend

(37:02):
a million dollars on a nice little lamp that sits
on a desk. I shouldn't say a million. That is
all designed for the right wavelengths for plants. To put
a little plant under, you know, as a gift item. Well,
that's cool stuff. I've got my own places where I
have my light arrangements set up where I take care
of my plants and things in But for some people

(37:24):
that is as far as they want to get into gardening.
It's taking care of a really nice houseplant with a
very attractive light feature on that plant. See what I'm saying,
little self contained. One of my daughters has a self
contained hydroponic in it and it's a little thing that
sits on the counter. It has a nutrient water in

(37:44):
it that recirculates, and then it has a little top
on it that has lights that provide those plants side.
So you can grow your herbs in a kitchen on
a counter where there's not near enough light for herbs.
You can do that. Now, I don't garden in that way.
I've got herbs outside. I put a cover over them
and things. That's what I mean when I say I
may not be interested in it, but people are. And

(38:06):
I tend to not always have the most esthetic arrangement
of things as some of these real nice products will
provide you. So just be thinking about that. Any gardener
in your list will be happy to get a quality tool.
I mean a tool that makes their work easier and
is effective. You know, a pair of hand pruners that

(38:29):
will last forever, a quality brand, and there's some good
quality brands out there that comes in a little leather
sheet that goes on your belt. For some gardeners that
is a home run, yet an excellent one to do.
Almost anybody will appreciate gift certificates to places where they
like to shop. You know, if you're if you're a

(38:51):
gardener and you like to go get things, that's a
nice thing. And then I keep telling you about plants.
Plants are a great way to provide a super super
gift for things. Now for example, you know Ace hardware stores.
I talk about them a lot, but it's just a
great place to shop for all kinds of things guardening.
They have gifts, they have stocking stuffers. If you got

(39:11):
a guy or a gal either way that loves to barbecue,
they have grills that would boy put a big bread
bow on that and you got something quality tools for
any kind of do it yourselfing from indoors to outdoors.
They have Legos. My granddaughter is playing with legos. She's

(39:32):
at our house right now and she's playing with legos.
So when I walked through the living room this morning
on my way out, stepping on legos with the bare
feet as you're going across the floor, that's an experience.
But anyway, you can get those kind of legos at
your Ace Hardware store. They have also they got a

(39:54):
toy called They're called Brooder Toys, but they're one sixteenth
scale realistic detail hailed toy vehicles. These are really cool.
I've been in Ace Hardware store has had a lot
of the old retro toys that you probably played with
growing up, and they still are available at an Ace hardward.
See what I'm talking about. Their Black Friday sales are
good through Tuesday December second, say that again. Black Friday

(40:17):
sales good through Tuesday, December second. You can go to
Acehardware dot com and find the Ace Hardware store near you.
They have a store locator stores and places like the
League City store out by Hobby. The Gateway Store is
an excellent one over in Galena Park. There's a good
Ace Hardware store there. Kigole Lumber is another Ace hardware story.
See what I mean. Uh, there's a newly opened one

(40:40):
down in the Bay Cliff Store just south of Seabrook
and their remodeled Uvaldi location is another great one. I
don't mean u LD Texas, I mean Cee Valdy East
Hardware in Houston area. All right, just some other ideas
for great places for gifts. If you love garden centers,
and you know I keep talking about how great our

(41:01):
garden centers are Narth, North, South, East and West. Well,
Buchanan's Native Plants is in the Heights and that is
an outstanding place. Now I know you can go in
there right now. You can get you some awesome Christmas trees.
A lot of people do their Christmas tree shopping after Thanksgiving. Newsflash,
it's after Thanksgiving. Go get you a Christmas tree from Buchanans. There,

(41:26):
Buchanans Plants, they always have cool stuff going on. There
is actually and this is way ahead of time. I'm
just going to tell you about it. There's a holiday
centerpiece workshop. Now this is not just a little you know,
ten minute. Oh that was interesting This is like a
workshop taught by Ponderosa Blooms. Ticket sure, eighty five dollars,
but you are going to get an outstanding training of

(41:50):
how to do stunning holiday centerpieces, lots of techniques for
incorporating greenery and natural elements, different types of floor styles.
At the end of the workshop, you will leave with
your own handcrafted piece ready to brighten your home during
this winter season. That is December twenty second, So Sunday,

(42:11):
December twenty second, from twelve to one. I'll tell you
about it when we get to that day too. At
Buchanans Plants and the Heights, that is going to be
a really cool event, and they always have cool events there,
So Buchanans Plants eleven Street in the Heights, go to
their website Buchanansplants dot com. And then as you know,
as family and friends come in, always remember a great

(42:32):
garden center like Buchanans is a great place to get out,
you know, stretch your legs, get outside, get a little
fresh air, and let them see something really cool that
we have here in the Houston area that I'm telling
you you're not going to find the kinds of garden
centers and the number of garden centers that we have
here in Houston and other locations. That's just the fact

(42:53):
I've been around. I do garden center tourism. When I
go to other cities, always want to go see, show
me the best garden center. She got, See how those are?
But I like that, Oh gosh, what were we? What
was that tiring?

Speaker 8 (43:07):
About?

Speaker 3 (43:07):
A second ago? I had a oh in the garden
and looking at everything from weed control to recycling in
the walkways. You know, the walkways are an area where
you need a all weather pathway. And that's one reason
I like leaves and things in the pathways like that,
because you just create an all weather pathway. When I

(43:30):
was in Conroe in Montgomery County as a horticulturist at
the extension office there many many years ago, we created
a garden and did an all weather pathway and we
put I'm not exaggerating this, three hundred bags of leaves
in a thirty five by thirty five garden over the
course of a season. Now, every walkway we would put

(43:54):
like a foot of leaves and walk on them and
they would they shrink down. Any of you who made
composts know that you can have a pile of leaves
as high as your shoulders, and when you get through,
you got about two inches of compost at the bottom
of the deal right, Actually a little more than that,
but that's how that works. So we'd fill up the
walkways between the beds and walk on them, and as

(44:14):
they sunk down, we put more leaves on it and
walk on until they sunk down. And when we got
through we would have because these are real high beds,
we'd have about ten inches of just beautiful dark chocolate
brown leaf moulls slash compost that when we work rework
the beds, we just rake the leaves off the top
of the walkway which aren't decomposed, took that, put it

(44:36):
in the beds, worked it into the soil. I would
put it in wheelbarrows too, because then maybe you got
a bed out front by the where the I don't
know your mailbox is or something out front, and you
would just take the compost there to rework the soil.
So I was using my walkways in the garden to
create all kinds of good soil materials for all over

(44:57):
the place. That that's a good tip, I'm telling you,
that really really works. And it's handy, So think that way.
Take advantage of things. You know, nature, you how to
recycle things long before before we showed up. Uh, think
advantage of those good things. Yeah, a good gardener can

(45:18):
take care of a neighborhood full of leaves, and we
need to take advantage of that. If you have pine trees,
don't be afraid of using pine straw. The pine needles
they break down faster if you chop them up a
little bit, but you can just use them as a
mulch and they make a really good monk. I have

(45:39):
put them a little bit thicker to block the light.
That sure works. All right, more tips when we come back.
Here's the number if you want to call in seven
one three two one two kt r H.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Welcome to kt RH guarden Line with Skin Richt.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
It's just watch him as us. So many good things
to set.

Speaker 14 (46:19):
Not a sign.

Speaker 15 (46:25):
Sun.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Well, well, welcome, welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're entering our second hour this morning.
You know this show is on from six am to
ten am. For anyone that is new to garden Line,
just found the show and started listening. Well, we're here
every weekend on Saturday morning and Sunday morning from six

(46:49):
am to ten am to answer your gardening questions. If
you missed the show or want to go back and
hear previous shows, you can do that by going to
the website, OK website and finding garden Line and listening
to the past shows there. If I think one of
the best ways to listen to garden Line is to
use your phone and get the iHeart Media app. It's

(47:12):
a red Heart if you're looking for it on whatever
store you use for your Android or your Apple phone
and iHeartMedia app. You can follow garden Line on there,
and that way you would also have access to pass
shows and you could listen live. That is one of
the interesting things that I think technology has a lot

(47:35):
of cool stuff. But I listened to I listened to
different things throughout the day live on my phone. And
so let's say you're out in the garden and you're working,
and if you just take your phone with you, turn
the speaker on and get out there and do your stuff,
listen to guard Line and if you run across something
you can take a picture of send it to me

(47:55):
and say, hey, what is this? And I can't I
can't do text and emails and stuff during the show,
but you can call in, send the text to or
excuse me, send an email with a photo to us,
and then call me and we'll talk about it. If
you call the producer here at the number I keep
giving out throughout the show, he will provide you with

(48:18):
an email that you can send the picture in whip
and then follow up with a call. That way you
get on the spot. It's kind of like having me
hanging out there. I'm on the porch while you're working
in the garden. What do you think about that? What
about that setup? I'm on the porch and you're out
working in the garden and you go, hey, Scot, what
is this? What do I do here? What's wrong? Well,

(48:39):
there's your chance right there by listening to Guardline on
your iHeartMedia app. All right. Interestingly enough, I've talked about
a number of different things this morning. One thing I
want to remind you of is that if you go
to my website, there's a lot of stuff on there
that will help help you in your gardening efforts. They

(49:03):
it just makes it much much easier for your for
your gardening efforts. For example, I put a publication on
that I did with an A and M horticulture specialist
a few years ago, and it is about protecting your
landscapes and gardens from frosts and freeze damage. It's it's
got a number of pages, lots of color pictures. It

(49:26):
goes into the nerdy details of frosts and freezes, and
if you don't want to read all that, just skip
past it. You can go right to the point. There's
a little paragraph on protecting containers like I was talking
about while ago. There's there's information on you know, should
I sprinkle my plants with water? I see that my
neighbors do that. You know, they spread with water and

(49:47):
there's ice all over them and ice is an insulator. Well, uh,
there is truth in that, but mostly that's not true
because the way people do it makes it not true.
But if you want to do it, I tell you
how to do it in a way that works. And
then the same thing for what about putting lights and
heat underneath the covers to protect plant. All of that

(50:10):
information is in there and I think it's really helpful
and you should just go ahead and book market and
have it ready to go because you're going to need
to get out and cover some plants at some point
coming up here, and that information is there. Also there
my gardening or my lawn care schedules, the one about
things we do to help the lawn grow, mow, water,

(50:33):
fertilized kind of things, add some mineral supplements like the
azmite do the aeration very important for our lawns. And
then the other schedule is the pest Disease and weed
management schedule. And that is just as the name implies,
what's going wrong in your yard? I got weeds? How
do I control them? When do I control them? What

(50:55):
do I use? I've got chinch budge? Or when do
you inchbugs occur? I just moved down here from somewhere
else and I hear you got chinchbugs or side web
worms or some of It's all there on the schedule
January through December. Makes it really really easy for you.
And it's free. It's free. You can give it as
a Christmas gift if you're a tightwad. It's free. So

(51:18):
get download those schedules and find that information. I'm putting
more stuff up all the time. I just did something
a while back on nuts Edge, A number of things
on controlling nuts Edge did a thing on nematodes recently,
and I'll be putting up We're working on redoing the
website and revamping it and just adding a ton of stuff,

(51:40):
and so there's always something new coming up on there,
so I encourage you to bookmark that and go check
it out. As far as the you know, the frost
and the freezes are concerned, I am putting an orchard
in on the side of my house.

Speaker 13 (51:55):
Now.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Orchard is a big word for what I'm putting in.
It's gonna have about four fruit tree in it. But
this is just an area where it was a bunch
of lawn that I had to mow and I never
walked over there. I didn't need lawn there, and so
I've taken that out and redone the soil, done some
irrigation work and things in there. I've got the beds

(52:16):
ready to go, and just this winter I'll be planting
the fruit trees there and one of them is going
to be a satsuma. Satsuma is a type of citrus
that is very cold hearty, you know, citrus ranges, and
cold heartiness from the minor freeze causes damage to pretty
hardy and probably the hardiest of the citrus, or close

(52:39):
to it is the cumquat. The kumquat is the little
thumb sized orange citrus. It's not an orange, it's a kumquat. Actually,
the skin is probably better tasting than the interior of it.
They're used for marmalade and other things. Real cool, but boy,
those things can take temperatures down. It's twenty degrees if

(53:02):
they're if they're properly hardened off, and sometimes I hear
even a little colder than that. But they're very hearty citrus.
Satsumas are probably second on the list. They can take it.
If it's an established tree, they can take temperatures down
I would say probably mid maybe a little below mid twenties.

(53:22):
But if they're hardened off in an established tree, if
you've got a brand new satsuma you planted this year,
no no, no. When it gets into the upper twenties,
for sure you better cover that thing up. And but
again I'll be putting a satsum in. I'll talk a
little bit more about that when we come back. I
need to take a little break here, and if you
would like to call and get on the board, we

(53:43):
can visit with you about your questions. Just call us
at seven one three two one two five eight seven
four Guarden Line. We are glad to have you with us,
looking forward to your call if you'd like to ask
a question this morning. You know, a lot of times
i'll Garden Line, we kind of have a backup and
yet the way hold and I don't like for that

(54:05):
to happen, so we try to clear those out as
fast as we can. Uh. But when we're looking at
these holiday seasons, it slows down a lot. And if
it's a good time, if you'd like to call and
never called before, or just you know, only got a minute,
got to get it done, well, this is a good
time to do that. Seven one three two one two

(54:26):
kt r H seven one three two one two kt
r H. If you haven't been out to the Anti
Crosing Porium, you need to go. I've told you this before,
but it is a wonderful destination for gardeners and families.
It's been around since nineteen eighty three and it is

(54:47):
just a it's just a cool place. It's like you've
gone back. The word antique is a great, a great
way to start the title of the place, because I
mean they focus on antique roses, but they go beyond,
way beyond that. I mean they have roses of all types.
They have so so much more than just roses too.
If you're looking for herbs, we were talking about those earlier.

(55:08):
They are loaded up on herbs, so they have plenty
of that. If you like native plants, they do have
native plants. If you wanted to plant a fig tree,
for example, the Anti Rose Imperium has fig tree. Yeah,
they have fig trees that you can get it in
the ground now before spring arrives. It's easy to do.
And when you go out there, you're going to find

(55:29):
some really fun events too. They have an event actually
on December first, which is tomorrow, that is part of
the very Merry Savings weekend event. And say that again,
Very Merry Savings Weekend event started on Friday, but it'll

(55:50):
go today and tomorrow. All roses are rolled back to
twenty You're not going to find a better deal than that.
And they have a nice, well grown rose. They do
an excellent job of growing a very strong, healthy plant there.
In their materials that they have, they have extra savings
on other plant materials up to fifty percent off just

(56:10):
in time. Now here for the holidays. I would recommend
that you follow them on social media, that you join
their email list, and just do this. Go to the
website Antique Roseemporium dot com, Antique Roseemporium dot com look
at the upcoming events. They will have extended hours at

(56:31):
the Rose Imporium till seven pm for an event called
Lights in the Garden and that is on these dates
September sixth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, and they'll be Santa there.
Kids can get pictures with Santa. They're also hosting a
charity day Christmas Classic car show with the Chili Cookoff.

(56:51):
Well that's an interesting combo on December fourteenth, but you
got to go to the web page you find out
about it, get the tickets and stuff like that for it.
And anytime you're dropping out there this month and well
this month today is the last day and next December,
tell them I sent you and they'll give you ten
percent off of your purchase. Come on, man, am I

(57:13):
giving you? Can you do you need more reasons to
run out to the antiq rosing forium. You got you
got family hanging out in the house and you need
to get them outside and do something different for a
little bit, take a little trip out there. You have
a great, great idea. And again this is going on
the deal with telling them I sent you goes all
the way through the end of December. Tell them I

(57:34):
sent you. You get ten percent off. Now you can
also order plants from Anti CROs online. You can order
the ship online, makes it really easy. I personally would
love to go out there myself, but if you want
to just order them in you can do that. Just
use the coupon code skip twenty twenty four Skip twenty
twenty four and you get that same ten percent discount.

(57:56):
So it's just telling them, look, we heard about you
guys on guardline and they like to know that Anti
Crows importum. They're out in Independence, Texas, just north of Brunham.
It's not a long drive at all to get out there,
very very fun and easy and beautiful drive country too.
I love going out there every time I go. It's
like going back in time to a really really cool place.

(58:21):
You're listening to garden Line. The number here if you'd
like to call us A seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven to one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh you know, it
is so important that we prepare this soil before we
plant the plants. I'm a broken record on saying every show,

(58:42):
pretty much many times the show sometimes brown stuff before
green stuff. I try to keep things simple, right, brown
stuff before green stuff? What does that mean? Okay, everything
below the ground is brown stuff. That's soil, that is compost,
that is fertilizers, nutrients. That's the brown stuff. The green
stuff stuff grows on top. That's what we're wanting to

(59:05):
look at. But if you want something to look at,
you better take care of the soil first. That is
the secrets of success, the secret sauce, as they say,
and it's very important. I was talking earlier about, you know,
making composted leaves or decomposing leaves to add into the soil,
and the importance of those things when you're doing a
significant amount of soil work, whether you are creating a

(59:29):
raised bed or creating a whole new garden, or even
just looking for things for containers. Ciena Moltz has got
you covered there south of Houston near Highway six and
two eighty eight. The road there on is FM five
twenty one, FM five twenty one. You need to just
write down the website Siennamultch dot com, CNA maltch dot com.

(59:51):
It is a one stop shop for homeowners all of
you through that region. Meridian First Colony, Sweetwater, Iowa Colony, Pomona,
Sun Creek to stay all of that region down there.
This is in your backyard. They are known for their
premium hardwood molts. You can get it in bulk. They
have native hardwood. They got double ground. They've got a

(01:00:11):
two inch screen product. Beautiful dark chocolate color, not dyed,
beautiful dark color. It smells so good, smells so good.
Also you can get in bulk Louisanner Louisiana. Excuse me,
Landscaper's Pride black velvet that is again not a dieed
mol It's a great mast. They got roasts soal. They
got again it compost molts. Compost if you want sand, gravel,

(01:00:35):
decomposed stuff, the stone on pallets that deliver within twenty
miles for a feet and while you're there, part of
the brown stuff. Microlife fertilizers, Azamite turf Star Line from
Nelson's and other Nelson fertilizers, heirloom soil products. They're landscapers
Pride products they're nitrophost fertilizers, their medina products are there.

(01:00:57):
It is all. It's your one stop shop up for
setting the foundation for success with your plants. It is
very important. And this season not a lot going on
out in the gardens and landscapes. This would be a
perfect time to get your soil built, to get the
head start on fall planting, winter planting, and definitely spring gardening.

(01:01:18):
There at Siena Moltz, I'm want to run out now
to Sharpstown and we're going to talk to Mike this morning.
Hey Mike, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:01:28):
Thank you, sir. How are you doing today?

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
I'm doing well.

Speaker 16 (01:01:33):
How are you well? It's a little chili, but I
got a couple of large questions that I would imagine
is is kind of on the minds of most people
in my area. Where I grew up, I had a
lot of magnolia trees and honeysuckle, and it was really

(01:01:54):
wonderful to wake up and smell the outside. Now where
I live in Sharpstown, you can't smell anything when you
go outside, and I'd like to plant something that is,
shall I say, less labor intensive, but you can go

(01:02:16):
out and not only see colors, but smell. I have
smelled so many flowers that have hardly any scent to
them at all, much less you know, you know you
can smell when you first walk out the back door. Now,
the other question that I have is that, in the

(01:02:39):
addition that I live in in Sharpstown, I have noticed
over the years, and I've lived in this house for
sixty years, is that the level of the yards are
sloping quite badly, and that hardly any of them have
you know, what I would call built up soil foundations

(01:03:00):
enough to you know, when you edge your yard you
could not see the dirt underneath the grass. But unfortunately
I'm seeing more dirt than I am grass nowadays. Do
I need to just start building up the soil and
then plant monthy grass around the edges to keep the soil.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Well. I can't quite picture exactly what's happening there. If
you're getting erosion, away from it, getting more getting the
grass healthier with things like aerating, fertilizing, watering moderately in
an appropriate way, And that's all I want today. I
do that, okay, then I think I think you're probably

(01:03:45):
okay unless you're just growing grass so much that all
the runners are coming up, and so you got this big, thick,
spongy runner. Yeah, is that what you're talking about? Or
are you talking about just there's no grass and you
see soil right through it.

Speaker 16 (01:03:59):
No, no, no, I've got plenty of grass. But I've
noticed that my yard sloping down to the street is
getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Do I just need
to add more dirt?

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
I guess so, if you're talking about it it's like
below the level of the curb now or something like that.

Speaker 16 (01:04:23):
Well, there's just not as lush as it used to
be when I used to mow the grass. I mean,
you know, you take off the tops of the blades,
and it was real close you could walk on it.
Now it feels like you're walking on the dirt.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Okay, well, let's do this. I can answer your other
question for this one. I want you to take some pictures.
Show me a picture of your yard and then go
up close to this area toward the street where you're
saying it's shrunk or whatever, and show me some pictures
kind of close up of that. At the end of
our call, i'll put you on hold and that we'll

(01:05:02):
come back to. You can send me pictures and I
can I can comment on it or whatever. That probably
be the best thing as far as scents smells, there
are many plants that are wonderfully fragrant, and the examples
of these, and now I'm gonna give you some that
are just like intoxicating, lots of fragrance in them. You know.

(01:05:25):
The kind of poster plant for natives in Texas is
called Texas Mountain Laurel, and it just has a great
bubblegum smell if you remember great super bubble bubble gum.

Speaker 16 (01:05:37):
Oh yeah, how about lavender.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
That lavender smells good, but it struggles to grow here.
You're gonna have trouble getting it to grow here. Another
one that is a strong scent is almond verbina. It
kind of has a vanilla scent to it. But it's
a huge bush, makes a very big bush. But I'm
telling you, when it blooms, you meet fifty feet away

(01:06:01):
if the wind's blowing right, and you will smell that plant.
It's a good I've got.

Speaker 8 (01:06:05):
I've got.

Speaker 16 (01:06:07):
I got a big Eastman out in my backyard and
I can plant that bush and it sure would help.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Yeah, that would be good. I think citrus smells good
when it's blooming. So if you got a little patio place,
you're sitting a container citrus and those bloom. They have
a nice fragrance, a very refreshing fragrance to the blooms.
We could go on and on. You know, there's there's
roses that have wonderful scent, but it's not like five
feet away you're gonna smell them so much like these

(01:06:35):
other plants, but it would be more like just enjoying
the fragrance of a rose. There's a lot of old
time garden flowers, like old time petunias that have a
nice fragrance that.

Speaker 16 (01:06:48):
I've been through roses and gurdenas and that, and they
just didn't work out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Yes, I was, let's do this. I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna put you on whole Mike. I gotta go
to a break and my producer will give you an
email during that time and I'll come back to you
when we get back from break. I just got a
hold for now, all right, folks, I'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
Houston's News, Why there were traffic plus Breaking News twenty
four to seven.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
This is US Radio seven forty k t RH.

Speaker 6 (01:07:21):
Five everywhere with the IRPP.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
More of what's happening now from the John Morris Services Studios.

Speaker 17 (01:07:28):
Trudeau, Trump and tariff talks. I'm Jared Lewis. It's seven
thirty one now on news Radio seven forty khrh with
traffic and whether together.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
Gary Mack is here.

Speaker 18 (01:07:38):
Long term roadwork continues on Spur five. Nothing new this
one both ways University to Elgin and two alternating lanes.
The latter has just a left link closed and that's
from University to Oeste. Also, if you see something out
on the roadways, holler at me. Our traffic tip line
number is is seven three two one two tips. Gary
mac The Generator Supercenter dot com traffics.

Speaker 19 (01:08:02):
Must Sunday Saturday only going up into the low sixties
of her sixties is where we are supposed to be
for this time of year. Now for the overnight low
actually a little warm, partly cloudy overnight low fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
I'm Jeff Eno from the Weather Channel.

Speaker 17 (01:08:15):
Cloudy forty one at the k Trighs Generator Supercenter, twenty
four hour Weather Center, k triogs News time seven to
thirty two. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is meeting with
President elect Trump this week at mar A Lago for
talks on possible tariffs. Trump reportedly also having secret discussions
with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Diamond about the upcoming
White House agenda. President Biden is seen holding an anti

(01:08:38):
Israel book while Black Friday shopping in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
To Houston.

Speaker 17 (01:08:43):
Firefighters are expected to make a full recovery after battling
a house fire Friday afternoon. A mother is claiming that
her son was on lace drugs before allegedly killing his
sister and niece. A woman is accused of beating her
friend's four month old daughter, leaving her in critical condition,
and funeral arrangements are made for next week for the
Precinct five deputy constable and her daughter who were killed

(01:09:04):
in a crash from earlier this month. News on demand
at kreach dot com. Our next update is at eight.
I'm Jared Lewis on Houston's news, weather and traffic station
News Radio seven forty KJIRH.

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
All right, folks, welcome back to the garden Line. Good
to have you with us. We are in the middle
of a visit with let's see Mike in Sharpstown and
I think I guess Mike was going off to take
the pictures in an email. So all right, call back
Mike when you get those pictures sent, give me a
few minutes to have a chance to look over them,

(01:09:48):
and we'll continue that discussion as we go. The folks
at League City Feed down there in League City have
been a great old time feed store since I don't
know what, probably forty years ago something like that. Leake
City Feed is on It's on Highway three. So if

(01:10:11):
you're in League City, just a few blocks south of
Highway ninety six on Highway three, it's on the east
side is League City Feed and so it serves that
whole area. So when I say hometown feeds here, I
mean if you're in Baycliffe, Lamarx, San Leone, Dickinson, Santa Fe,
League City, Webster Clare, Lake City, I'll come in to
real all those regions down there, this is your hometown

(01:10:33):
feed store, and they it's it is the old time
feed store. You know. If you I remember as a
kid growing up, and you know, we would go into
feed stores to buy feed for the cattle or whatever,
and I just love the smell, you know. I was
sitting on a sack of feed there while my dad
did what he was doing in the store and taking
care of things and just enjoying that. That the smell

(01:10:55):
of a feature. I love it. And at Leake City
Feed you've got that old time service too. They carry
the sacks out for you. It's it's just a fun
place to shop. You're going to find premium pet food there.
You're going to find fertilizers you hear me talk about
like nitrofoss and microlife for example, and Nelson plant food

(01:11:17):
for example. They carry asmite there as well. They carry
heirloom soil products there as well. It just is that
kind of place where you go in and whatever you
need for your lawn and garden and landscape, they're going
to have it. That includes any kind of things to
control pests or to manage weeds, or to deal with
diseases in your plants. Even if you have backyard chickens

(01:11:40):
and you need feed or feeders or watering or bedding
or things like that. Everything but the chickens, isaaha, I
would put it. They've got that for you at League
City Feed. They're open Monday through Saturday nine to six.
They're closed on Sunday, and the phone number two eight
one three three two sixteen twelve one three three two

(01:12:01):
one six one two at League City Fee. I like
going in there. Uh, there's now League City is now
in the third generation of Thunderberg's running that store. The
grandfather built it forty years ago.

Speaker 13 (01:12:15):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
And now you you uh, you just you go in
and it's still it's I think it's still kind of
like the same place.

Speaker 13 (01:12:23):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
And uh, if you're lucky, you may get to see
the I don't know if it's a mascot or not,
but Ruorshak the Dalmatian, which of course is the perfect
name for a dalmatian rorshack. So it's kind of like
a psychiatrist. It just would have to have that rush
act there in the office and and say, now I
want you to look at the dog and tell me

(01:12:43):
what you see. I think that'd be that'd be a
good I'd go to that kind of place, get to
see a dog, all right, League City feet noo of
that around you're listening to garden Line. The phone number
is seven one three two one two ktr H seven
one three two one two k t r H. I

(01:13:08):
in the front yard, I have this big patch of
Saint Augustine. It's cobalt Saint Augustine from the Texas and
M breeding program. It's one of the newest Saint Augustine's
that they have out of the Texas and M breeding program.
In fact, now southern turf grasses across the South.

Speaker 13 (01:13:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
These universities, you know, if you're talking about the University
of Georgia, University of Florida, a lot of these places
that are doing breeding of turf grasses. Uh. They collaborate
on their breeding and they test it in a lot
of different areas. And cobalt is that my cobalt looks
perfectly good, except one low spot. I've got some brown
patch in large patch in and it's very kind of irregular.

Speaker 16 (01:13:50):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
And it's gonna be fine. Large patch just rots of
leaves off, the grass comes back again. But it's very
interesting that this one low spot is where it occurred.
And I'm trying to figure out why that is. Because
it's not a wet spot. It's not, you know, some
spot that gets wet and stays wet longer, which promotes
that disease. It just is the way it is. It's
just the way it is. All right, Is it time

(01:14:12):
for me to take another break? I just heard something
in my ear. All right, good, all right. Well, the
last time I was down visiting with Danny at an
enchented forest done in Richmond Rosenberg, they had just gotten

(01:14:32):
a shipment of some plants. They had vegetables at herbs
and things, and they it's just always going on down there.
If you need like fall color, there's no reason for
your landscape in the winter to look bad. Just go
grab pansies, go grab violas. The cycloman is a beautiful
fall color plant. It looks good. Someone was talking about

(01:14:54):
ken What about planting herbs now, Oh my gosh, you're
not gonna find a better selection of herbs than an
enchanted forest. It is the time to make sure you
get all your woody ornamentals established. The sooner you do
it between now and spring, the better off you'll be.
And if you're looking for a spring blooming tree like
a red bud or my favorite, the Chinese friend, they

(01:15:16):
have those there. If you're looking for a shade tree
like a red maple, they've got those there. If you're
looking for holly's, many varieties of holly's, or they're at
enchanted forest. And as far as holidays are concerned, their
gift shop is loaded with wonderful gifts and beautiful things
for decorating your home for the holidays and Enchanted Forest Now.

(01:15:37):
They are located on FM twenty seven fifty nine. If
you're heading from Richmond to sugar Land, they're off to
the right twenty seven fifty nine. Go to the website.
I hope you got a penhandy. Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX
dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. All right,

(01:16:01):
I'm having a little trouble in my headphones here here
am I needing to take a break. Okay, I'm gonna
take a little break right here. Thank you very much.
Come back to garden Line. Glad to have you with
us this morning on guarden Line. Hey, if you would
like to ask a question, how about this seven one
three two one two kt r H. That's how you

(01:16:23):
reach me seven one three two one two k t
r H. We'll talk about the things that you are
interested in. It in well, it has to be about plants.
It has to be about plants. I can't help you
if you have been oh, I don't know, let's say,
around family for a little too long, and it's kind
of time to move on. I can't help you with that.

(01:16:45):
I can't help if the dishes are piling up in
the sink and nobody's helping with that. You know, you
work and slave and do all the cooking and everything,
and nobody is helping you with you get the idea. Anyway,
we we like to have some fun here on guarden
line if you would like talk gardening or maybe some
gardening planning. You know, a lot of times of gardening

(01:17:06):
people wait until I don't know it, it's too late
to start to do things, and there's no need for that.
You know. For example, if you want to plant plants,
don't wait until spring when it warms up and everybody
there's flowers everywhere, and you want a plant to start,
start now. Prepare your soil now, get the soil right now.

(01:17:28):
That is really really important. If you are looking for
starting your own seeds that first of all, I think
that is one of the most fun things to do,
is to start your own seeds for let's say next
your's tomatoes or something, peppers, something you want to grow, Well,
now's the time to order seeds. Start ordering seeds. Get
those things in because you can find varieties you're not

(01:17:49):
find anywhere when you mail order a seed in, then
go get you your supplies, get the trays, the seed
starting mixes and things like that. Our garden setters have
all that kind of stuff, So do you know Ace
Hardware stores, office fertilizers, got things like that. Get those
all set up and you're going to find that. Then

(01:18:09):
when it's time to do it, you're ready to go.
That seed you want isn't out of stock because everybody
else bought them all up, or anything along those lines.
If you want to start seed, now's the time to
be getting your your light fixtures set up and ready
to go. Because I'm telling you this pretty much at
the end of December, I'm starting to put seeds in

(01:18:29):
the ground for all kinds of things for spring. You
be planting transplants of broccoli and things like that now,
because that can be planted out sometime in January or February.
You know we're just about to that time. So don't delay,
get it done and take advantage of that opportunity. Speaking

(01:18:50):
of opportunities, oh my goodness, Wall Bird's Unlimited is stocked
up on perfect gifts for Christmas. And this is such
an easy this is a no brain I got my
mother in law a beautiful little humming bird feeder that
it just just very very attractive and effective at bringing

(01:19:11):
in the low birds. Maybe someone in your house or
in your Christmas list household would like a particular type
of bird house or bird feeder, maybe a suet feeder
for the winter season, maybe a thistle feeder for certain
kinds of bird. You know, not all birds eat thistles,

(01:19:33):
not all birds eat other kinds of seed. Each kind
of bird you want to attract is going to be
attracted to different things in seeds, and they have blends
for that. For example, right now, I would recommend the
wild Birds Unlimited Winter Super Blend. It's packed with fat
and protein. And my feeders have been quiet for the

(01:19:55):
late summer and fall season. They kind of quiet because
birds have had plenty to peck around on out there
in the neighborhood. But they're about to come back, and
they're coming back like big time knocking on the door.
Hey we're hungry. You got to be ready for it.
Go to Wildbirds. But while you're there, I'm telling you
you're going to find a number of awesome, awesome gifts.

(01:20:15):
Go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston to find
the six wildbird stores in our area. I have to
take a break coming up here in a little bit,
but let's see you do. I have time to get
out to a call right quick. Let's go to Jim
in Montgomery. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:20:38):
Hey. I was talking about I need to ask you
a question about wild violets. I sent off and I
got some seeds and I'm not real sure. They said
they're edible, and you know, that's one thing. I also
have a comment. If people are looking for holly, either
American holly, Berfort holly or the Epon holly, right now

(01:21:03):
is the time to go to the nursery to find
them because they'll have the red berries on them, and
that's the ones you want. The female.

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
That's a good point. Yeah, it's true with youpons as well, Jim.
The wild violet, I have never planted them from seed.
They're basically like a weed. In places where people have them,
they just they come up and you know they're wild.
But I've never tried grown them from seed. But that
would be a little bit of a time in that process,
but I would think you could do that. As far

(01:21:30):
as the bloom's being edible. I don't know. They may be.
I'd have to do an online search on that one.
Since it's not a common blooming plant for us here.
It doesn't it hasn't made my list of things I
know that you can eat the blooms of, you know,
like you can eat colendulas, and you can eatn astertium
ballooms and squashed and so on.

Speaker 13 (01:21:51):
The reason I got them is because of that, is
because they were edible. I checked out too. I got
a bunch of other herbs as well, and I'm going
to grow some in a in a in an area
and by my southwest window. And I got grow lights
as well, and I've been successful growing some of the
stuff there. I got a toothache plant and some uh

(01:22:17):
some other stuff. But it seems to that I wanted
to grow something that I can, you know, grow like
a micro garden or whatever you call it. I got
some of that grass, that wheat grass and some other
things that I got a packet, And so I'm gonna

(01:22:39):
see if I needed to plant the wild violets now
or wait till the spring, or what if I.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
If you've got now, if you've got the indoor place
to be able to grow them then start them and stuff.
You go ahead and start them now and have a
transplant to put out in the spring if you'd like
to do that. Okay, I think that that'd be better
in trying to start them, you know, later in the
spring and then have to plant them out in summer.
That it'd be better to go ahead and get that
done now. It sounds like you got a good plan

(01:23:08):
there starting your mac greens and other things.

Speaker 13 (01:23:11):
Right. I wanted to make a comment too. I got
Fiddley ficus. I know you have to and I've got
one that's like fifteen feet tall right now. It's it's
grown out of the pod and into the ground. I'm
gonna have to dig it up and move it. And
it got down to thirty sixth last night here at
least that's what they said, And I was wondering, you

(01:23:31):
know what about tomorrow night? Is it gonna when? Is
it got breeze?

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
You know, I know, I don't know know that it
should be warming up. We should be going toward warmer
than like this morning is colder than tomorrow morning. But
did thirty nine not damage that fiddle fig?

Speaker 13 (01:23:52):
Well, I haven't checked on the ones that I got
planted on the side of the house or on the outside.
But the one on the poor seems to be doing
just fine. And I also have a spot'sphilium plant there
next to it, and it it's still doing well in
the high biscuits hadn't dropped its leaves yet, so I figured,

(01:24:13):
you know, I uh dodged a bullet, so to speak.

Speaker 3 (01:24:18):
Well, you can, you can wait till the last minute.
I don't see any I'm looking at weather forecast ten
day and there's not a colder day than this morning
that I see up ahead. But you string me. Yeah,
well Montgomery, No, I'm looking at Houston. I'm sorry, excuse me,
but if the weather's going, if it's warming here, it's
warming there.

Speaker 13 (01:24:39):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
But anyway, well, hope that helps.

Speaker 5 (01:24:42):
I appreciate it, great deal.

Speaker 3 (01:24:43):
Appreciate you getting your call. Yeah, thanks n thanks for
calling you. Appreciate your calling me.

Speaker 15 (01:24:48):
Jim.

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):
You know I ron in the Woodlands. You will be
next up. Wasn't wasn't able to quite squeeze you in
this this segment. But when we come back at the top,
we will. We will go straight to you. I want
to remind you you're listening to the Garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Rector, and we are here every Saturday
and Sunday from six am to ten am, where you
can call in and ask about whatever questions you have

(01:25:13):
related to horticulture. If you've got you got teams that
won't help you in the garden, I can't help with that.
If you've got a spouse that has different opinions about
where things that ought to be planted, I can't help.
But I can't help you with gardening questions. That's what
we do when we come right back.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Just watch him as well. So many things to see botas.

Speaker 3 (01:25:55):
All right, welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line. I'm
your host, Rick, and we're here to talk about gardening.
The way I like to put it is, we're here
to help you have a more bountiful garden, a more
beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. How about
that Does that work? It worked for me. Well, we're
going to head straight to the phones. By the way,

(01:26:15):
the number if you'd like to call seven one three
two one two KTRH. We're going to go out to
the Woodlands talk to Ron. Hello, Ron, welcome to Garlandski.

Speaker 20 (01:26:25):
Hi, thanks for taking my call. Hey, it's a pretty
simple question. I need to plant some oak tree seed saplings,
and so what's the best time of the year to
do that?

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
Is it now? Is it summertime?

Speaker 20 (01:26:37):
Can you help me with that?

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):
Are these things? Are these things you've been growing in
a container? Are things you're digging and moving both?

Speaker 20 (01:26:46):
I lost so many trees cast bad weather, hurricanes and
stuff that I'm my my yard's pretty sparse right now.

Speaker 3 (01:26:55):
Yeah, okay. Well, as far as digging and moving a plant,
fall an early winter or the best time to get
that done. So now the leaves are falling off, the
demands are gone to zero. Get whatever root system you
can get with those saplings that are coming up. The
smaller the plant you're digging, the more successful you're going

(01:27:18):
to be at moving it. The bigger it gets, the
more shock there is to the system because the amount
of root loss has increased percentage wise, Move it to
the new spot, put it in water, it in really
good settle in the soil. Don't put fertilizer in the
planting hole. Now, as far as things that were growing
in a container, when you put them out of the container,
lay it over, slide them out of the container. You

(01:27:40):
may have to bump the bottomer sides to get loose
to slide out. Any circling roots, go ahead and cut those.
If they're small, you can cut them with a utility
blade or otherwise just use handpooters. But cut circling roots
in three or four places around the plant. Those cut
roots will re sprout quickly and within a few weeks

(01:28:02):
you'll have new root growth coming out on them. So
make sure and cut them and then plant them at
the same level they were growing in the container. Okay,
very good. I have one more question for you if
you have time.

Speaker 20 (01:28:14):
Yeah, looks like a couple of my couple of my
pine trees are getting attacked. I assume it's pine beetles.
What's the best to use to knock those guys out?

Speaker 8 (01:28:22):
Kill the beetles?

Speaker 3 (01:28:23):
All right, Well, tell me about tell me what you're seeing.
What are the symptoms that are making you think maybe
pine beetles.

Speaker 20 (01:28:30):
So the I'm getting some holes in the bark kind
of circumfrenchly around the tree, and then there's some sap
that looks like coming out to I guess to plug
those holes. I guess the tree's defence is doing that.
And then the leaves, the needle needles way up high,
they're turning brown.

Speaker 3 (01:28:48):
Okay, so are the are the sap globs you're seeing?
Are they from ten feet high down or they go
way up the.

Speaker 20 (01:28:56):
Trunk they're Yeah, I really couldn't. I would say they're
six feet or higher.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
Okay, So yeah, that is some type of a pine beetle.
There's several different types. There's probably four different types that
might fit you what I hear you describing there. When
needles turn brown, that is not going to recover. Like
if you lose all the green needles on a branch,

(01:29:28):
that branch will not reach sprout. In a pine it's
not able to do. It can only reach sprout at
the base of green needles. So as long as you
have green needles, you can bring that plant back around. Now,
there's not a spray systemically to go up in there
and kill the pine bark beetles. External sprays only prevent

(01:29:48):
new beetles from tunneling in, and so the problem with
external sprays is you need to reach if you can,
eighty percent of the height of the tree. All sides
all bark into the crevices with a spray, and what
ends up happening then is you're standing down low, squirting
way up too much vertically. You know what I'm saying,

(01:30:09):
That the mist is drifting down and it's very dangerous
to do that. So hiring a professional to come in
is an option. But my only hesitation on saying iago
get somebody to spray it is that it may be
a little late to save them. So if you see
fifty percent of the needles are still green, well they

(01:30:31):
may be okay, But just know this, the spraying will
not kill what's in the tree. It'll only prevent additional attack.

Speaker 20 (01:30:41):
So there's nothing that could be planted around the bark
in the ground that systemically the roots would pick that
up and travel it up to the entire system.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
Then, to my knowledge, there is not I know that
in the past there wasn't a good systemic There may
have been something come on the market that I'm not
aware of, but I think the problem is that usually
when pine bark beetles hit, they hit hard and they
hit fast, and so as a result, you know you're

(01:31:11):
gonna you're gonna end up with the tree goes down
before the product, before the product gets up there and
is present to kill the bugs.

Speaker 20 (01:31:23):
So yeah, it looks like I'm going to be down
to pine trees then.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
So listen, Skip.

Speaker 20 (01:31:28):
I really appreciate your time, Thanks for the thanks for
the information.

Speaker 3 (01:31:31):
Yeah, Ron, And one quick tip. You know, we recommend
Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoon Moore for for treework like that.
But whoever you are using this, sooner you get them
in there after. We truly have a brown pine tree,
the better because that pine bark starts to slip and
come off pretty quick compared to other trees. And when

(01:31:55):
you're trying to climb a tree and you got huge
chunks of barc slipping it is, it is dangerous and
so it's better to get it done sooner. And like
I said, if there's no green needles, there is no
regrowth on the pine, so it's a done.

Speaker 20 (01:32:07):
Yea, there's there. Okay, Clely Brown, thank you very much
for your time.

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
Okay, have a good day, Yes, sir, thanks for the call.
Take care. I'll bye. That is unfortunate, but that is
the case of what it is. Hey plans for all seasons.
They are on Highway two forty nine. We call that
Tomball Parkway. Tomball Parkway. Plants for All Seasons is a
great place to go to get any kinds of plans

(01:32:34):
at any season of the year. You know they're experts.
This family owned operation has been around since nineteen seventy
three two forty nine, was pretty much a cow trail
back in nineteen seventy three, not much past that. But seriously,
they are truly lawn and garden experts. And if you
are a green thumb and you take pride in your garden,

(01:32:55):
you need to visit Plants for All Seasons. If you
have a brown thumb and you think you're hopelessly lost
as a gardener, don't worry about it. Go in there,
take them samples, take them pictures. They'll turn the thumb
green for you and you to worry about that. You
can give them a call at two eight, one, three,
seven six, sixteen forty six, or go to the website
Plants for All Seasons dot com. They are loaded up

(01:33:18):
with color right now, like cyclemans and biolas and pansies.
They've got plenty of cool season vegetables. If you're interested
in doing some vegetables, including different kinds of onions, you know,
the red, white, and yellow onions are all available there.
And then the bulbs a nice source of bulbs. You know,
if you're on the plant, some things that come up

(01:33:41):
and give you a real traditional quick bulb show, like
hyacinth and tulips. They've got plenty of bulbs for those,
as well as well as everything else you would expect
from a quality garden center, including all the things you
need to make the brown stuff good, so mixes and fertilizers,
any different types and plants for all seasons. I had

(01:34:07):
moved some bulbs. Speaking of bulbs, I had moved some
bulbs myself from another location. Sometimes, you know, someone will
offer to give me bulbs that they have at the
garden and dig them up. I've been in situations where
you know something's about to be done to a property
and these bulbs are there, and either you dig them
and get them out of there now, or they're gonna
be a concrete slab over them later on. And so

(01:34:31):
I end up with bulbs a lot of different ways,
and I typically abuse the heck out of my bulbs.
You know, these are things that are the re appearing bulbs,
the kind that bloom year after year that established that
can grow in our landscape as a true perennial. And
you know, maybe things like paper white. Some of the

(01:34:51):
paper whites, a few of the daffodils are that way.
There's just a lot of different kinds of bulbs that
do really well. But anyway, bottom line is I'm always
moving around and they're just a pleasure because every year
you get this surprise they pop out of the ground,
they bloom, and that I call that a dividend on
your investment. Time for me to take a break. I'll

(01:35:14):
be back with your calls at seven one three two
one two ktrh. Welcome back to Garden Line, folks. We
are ready to go here for another segment here this morning,
we're going to talk about some things related to activities
outside right now, things we need to be doing. If
you'd like to give me a call. Seven one three

(01:35:36):
two one two ktr h seven one three two one
two kt r h. Soil, soil, so, it's all about
the soil. So it is so important and nature's way
resources is basically a wonderland of soil products. A good
way to put it. I think so much of soil

(01:35:57):
and if you listen to garden line. You know that.
But I love it so much. I could just run
out of Nature's way, jump into a pile of compost
and make compost angels.

Speaker 13 (01:36:06):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:36:06):
Can you picture that? Laying on my back, weaving my
hands in the air. I think it's cool stuff because
it works. It is the stuff that makes soil or
makes plants thrive. And if you look at nature and
you look at the way that soil gets built naturally
over a long long time, as nature decomposes organic matter
into the soil, it just gets better. But Nature's way

(01:36:29):
gives you a head start, a huge headstart. For example,
you go there and you buy some of their quality
composting materials. They have a number of bed mixes. They
have all kinds of mulches and things to put on
surface of the soil, various products. If you're looking for
blends for acid loving plants, for fruit trees, for vegetables

(01:36:50):
and herbs and things, they can get you fixed up.
John Ferguson long ago became a student of the soil,
and it just it was like a snow all going downhill,
picking up steam and size as it went. You know it.
His knowledge, the amount of professional journals and things and
books he reads and studies have made Nature's way what

(01:37:12):
it is, and I and his son there to continue
in that tradition, just putting out quality products that work,
that will help you have if you want to, if
you want people to think you have a green thumb.
And by the way you do, thumbs don't really turn
green or brown. We say that, but they don't. What
happens is your thumb gets informed and when it informs,

(01:37:35):
that makes it greener. If you know what I'm saying,
and I'm informing you, the quality soil products make it
make your thumb green, make it look like you have
a green thumb, because you do because you know how
to do it. Go by Nature's way. By the way,
on Fungal Fridays, that's ever Friday, twenty percent off their
fungal composts. It's a great deal. You just swing by

(01:37:57):
on a Friday to do that. You can go out
there with your trailer truck, pick it up. You can
buy by the bagging, buy it by the boat. You
can call them up and say deliver it. You can
go to local garden centers and other outlets of gardening
supplies here in the Houston area. And many of those
will carry Nature's Way products. That makes it really simple
if you'd like to give them a call. Nine three

(01:38:17):
six two seven three twelve hundred nine three six two
seven three twelve hundred. The only thing you need to
not do is put it off and delay. Go ahead
and get it done. They have the products you need.
Getting the soil built now enables you to plant whenever
you want a plant. I've talked to gardeners before. In fact,

(01:38:41):
the truth be known, I've done this myself. I put
it off and put it off, and it was time
to get those tomatoes into the vegetable garden, let's say.
And all of a sudden it starts raining, and I
just said, rainy days, rainy days. This soil is too
wet to work. I wish I'd prepared it before. Prepare
it now. Ninety year old fellow I knew in Conroad, Texas,

(01:39:03):
at the Friendship Garden, a community garden on the north
north side up by the airport. He used to say,
you can always add water, but you can't take it away.
And what he meant by that was when the soil
is dry and you can work with it, that's great.
You can always add water later, but when it rains
too much, now you got a soggy mess that you

(01:39:25):
don't want to mix up and mess with. His point was,
make soil while the sunshining. I like to say, make
hay while the sunshine. Makes soil while the sunshining. That's
a tip for the wise. I know it's a holiday season,
you're busy, you got all kinds of things going on.
But you get a little time here and there, get
that done. You will be so much better off if

(01:39:48):
you get that done. And Nature's Way Resources will help
you help you do just that. By the way, if
you are interested, you can go by there and pick
it up, or you can go to the website, you know,
Nature's Way Resources dot com. Nature's Way Resources dot com.
You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richtor

(01:40:09):
and the phone number here is seven to one three
two one two kt R h seven one three two
one two kt r h Uh. If you are like
many people, including myself, whenever company's gonna come over, you
have to kind of spruce up the place a little bit.

(01:40:30):
You know, maybe the leaves need raking, the lawn needs mowing,
get those weeds out of the flower bed or al
mulch on top. I don't know how far you go
with that. I know indoors we go to we often
go to great links getting that house in a very
unusually pristine position, position or condition before people show up.

Speaker 8 (01:40:49):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
Well, the landscape can be kind of the same way too.
And if you are looking to really revamp your landscape
and make it look good, and it's let's say, it's
just more work you're going to be able to do,
or maybe it requires some skills that you lack. Uh,
Pierce Scapes has got you covered. They've got designers on
staff that can create that beautiful design beds, you know,

(01:41:12):
the aesthetics, the they have the eye for that, they
have the skill for that, and they can do that.
And if you would give them a call now, I
know it's holidays now and you're not going to have
them come out now, well that's that's okay. Just give
them a call and get this scheduled and let's get
the process going.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:41:29):
When they're when you and they are able to get
together and get the and get the work started, you
can go in. You can do a consultation in terms
of you know, what can I do at the front
of the house here that it just there's too much shade.
Everything that uster to grow is not growing out. What
can I do here? We're going to do in this bed,
what plants will do well, Redesigning beds and things like that. Uh,

(01:41:53):
irrigation season hits big time again next year. They do
irrigation repairs and things, and so there's you know, get
them on the schedule to come out take a look,
fix the things that need fixing. Would you love to
have that beautiful patio that has a special ambience of
lighting in it, landscape lighting. They can do that kind

(01:42:16):
of thing. You can get them on the schedule to
do quarterly maintenance where they come out and they do
the weeding, they do the mulching, they do the fertilizing,
any kind of trimming that might be done. Make sure
the irrigation's working on that too. They can do that.
Would you like to create some hard scape pathways or patios,
They can do that. Pierscapes pierscapes dot com. That the

(01:42:39):
numbers two eight, one, three, seven oh fifty sixty. But
just go to piercescapes dot com. You can find the
phone number there and you can also find photos and
examples of the kind of work that they can do.
I'm going to head out now to Guarden Oaks and
talk to Frank.

Speaker 21 (01:42:56):
Hello, Frank, Well, they were going to you.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
What's up, dude? What's up? All right?

Speaker 21 (01:43:05):
I've got I've got some property in Grian's County and
I planted a number of pine trees a while back,
and they're all about fifteen eighteen feet tall. Now, unfortunately,
some of those trees have got really low hanging limbs.
You know, they're probably four to six inches in diameter

(01:43:26):
at this point, and they are a hassle or you know,
getting them riding lawn more can't get them under Yeah,
So I guess my question is can I cut them back?
Is now that you know a good time of the
year to do that, And how do I go about that?
Do I cut back maybe six inches from the trunk
or what? You know? What's your advice on gotcha?

Speaker 3 (01:43:48):
Okay? Good question. Thanks for asking, because a lot of
times I wish people would have asked for did it
good help? More? Pine trees cannot rea sprout from a
cut like other trees. You cut them off six inches
from the trunk and they would sprout out branches, from
that point, not that you'd ever want to do that. Though.
Pine trees, I would cut them all the way back

(01:44:10):
to the trunk. And this is a case where you
cut them off flesh against the trunk, or leave maybe
a couple of inches at the most, at the most
an inch or two of color on the base of
the pine tree. Other trees we leave a little bit
more of a collar, depending on the size of the branch.
But with a pine I would just pretty much cut

(01:44:32):
them back to the to where they joined the trunk,
and then there's a little slowly close over that wound
in time. Yes, now's a good time. Winter's a good time.
You can even do it in early spring if you want.

Speaker 21 (01:44:46):
Okay, So there's no restriction on that, and I don't
have to worry about putting anything on it to cover
it up or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
No, no, we're going to do that, not at all.
Find you're fine. This would be good to go.

Speaker 21 (01:45:01):
Thank you very much, sir.

Speaker 3 (01:45:03):
Hey, thanks for the call. You take care all right, folks.
I'm gonna take a low break if you would like
to be first up when we come back. Seven to
one three two one two k t R H seven
one three two one two k t R H. We
will be back with your questions, and I've got a
few more tips. I've kind of gotten away from tips
this morning. We'll go back to them a few more
tips to help you have success. Hey, welcome back to

(01:45:27):
the guarden Line. I'm your host, stip Rictor. We're here
to help you have a bountiful garden, certainly a beautiful
landscape and more fun in the process. I'm gonna go
straight back out to the phones here and talk to Scott. Hello, Scott,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:45:43):
Hey, how are you.

Speaker 8 (01:45:47):
Good.

Speaker 15 (01:45:47):
I've got a question. I love out in Belleville. Talk
to you a few times already. Very very sandy soil,
I mean like beach sand throughout the whole property almost.
I want to start transplanting or planting some trees. And
I think that I've read enough where I heard that
now is a good time to actually put trees in

(01:46:08):
the ground because they can concentrate on roots and seat
of leaves. Is that true?

Speaker 3 (01:46:14):
That's correct. It's a low stress time to plant a
tree or shrub.

Speaker 13 (01:46:21):
Very good.

Speaker 15 (01:46:21):
So I've got a by text that I was actually
able to save. I had to cut the tap root
it busted through the plastic thing and put a tap
root down. But I cut it off and dumped it
in a bucket of water and it sprouted leaves back.
Those things are Those things are hardy. What do you
suggest for doing for the hole that I'm going to

(01:46:43):
put it in. It's in like a tent five gallon
container something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:50):
So what you're going to do is when it comes
out of the container, make I don't know how long
it's been in the container, but if it's had time
to develop circling roots, cut those on the outside of
the container wall where they hit the wall, and go
in a circle. Cut those three or four places around. Uh.
Then dig a hole in a sandy soil, normally we

(01:47:11):
say dig a hole two and a half times the
size of the container. Well, in a sandy soil, that
kind of isn't necessary. It's such a loose soil. What
I would do to save you some work is dig
a hole just a little bigger than the container so
you can slide that down in it. Try to make
sure and dig it only as deep as the container. Okay, okay,
And the reason the reason for that is soil settles.

Speaker 15 (01:47:35):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:47:35):
And if you dig a hole, have a loose soil
in the bottom. That plant will settle deeper, and it's
important to get it at the right depth. So just
dig it as deep a measure the depth in the container,
measure the depth of the hole. Set it in the hole,
fill the soil in around it. Don't put fertilizer in
the hole. Don't put compost in the hole. Just no,

(01:47:57):
no fertilizer, No compost in the in the whole for
this tree. For what you're doing right now, once it
starts to grow in the spring, then begin to fertilize it,
and especially nitrogen. Nitrogen is the most important thing to
get that tree growing. But a good I'll tell you
there are tree and shrub fertilizers out there, but you
can also use a lawn a turf fertilizer. If you

(01:48:19):
got some to your lawn, you got some extra, just
use it to fertilize your trees and shrubs because it's
good for that and water.

Speaker 15 (01:48:26):
I've got a really good I've got a thirteen thirteen
thirteen that I use on my plam areas. Is that
is that fine?

Speaker 3 (01:48:36):
You could use that? That's higher phosphorus than you need
for trees. And shrubs. But I don't know what your
soil test would say, so it may be Okay, a
soil test is really the best way to go to
know how to furtiz.

Speaker 15 (01:48:49):
Would they do that?

Speaker 3 (01:48:50):
I would do that.

Speaker 15 (01:48:52):
There's a agriculture I can't remember the name of it,
but there's one right here in Belleville. I would Would
they test it there or do they sell the Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:49:04):
Your county extension Your county extension office. Here's what you're
talking about. Yeah, you've got uh no, here's what you do.
You if you have a pin or pencil handy, you
go to Soil Testing dot T A m U, dot
E ed U. Now that I've said that, you can
also go to my website gardening with skip dot com

(01:49:27):
and on my soil I'm and all my lawn care schedule.
There's a hopper hyperlink to the soil testing site. But
you want to at soil testing, there's a bunch of
different soil tests they can do. You want the urban
soil test, Yeah, and all it means is that it's

(01:49:47):
for yards and homes and residential rather than pasture. Okay,
so do the urban soil test. Tell them it's a
tree and and they'll give you the results and they
come in. You have questions about you can email me
and send me a copy of it and I'll look
at it for you. Or very cool since you got
that county Extension office. And I'm saying this because there's

(01:50:08):
listeners from all over Everett County in this whole region
of Texas has its own county Extension office. And you
got an agent in there, and you can contact that
person and you can get help with soil testing results
and what to do because they know the soils, they
know their county.

Speaker 15 (01:50:25):
Well, yeah, well that's a good idea because they're literally,
you know, ten minutes away. It's it's a good sized
piece of property outside of town, and it is it
was it. It used to be pasture land. But there's
a lot of trees and oaks and hickoryes and all
that stuff on it. But I want to plant some
other trees around the property. I've got a bunch of

(01:50:47):
Asian lime trees. I'm scared to plant them because when
it gets cold, they kind of freeze and die. And
they've been they've been in buckets for so long that
they're just kind of suffering, you know what I mean.

Speaker 13 (01:50:59):
So I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:50:59):
I don't.

Speaker 15 (01:51:00):
I'm kind of torn about what to do on those.
Any any suggestions, I'm sorry, Tell me what kind of
plant that was?

Speaker 3 (01:51:09):
Again?

Speaker 15 (01:51:10):
They they said that they were an Asian lime tree.
They they have. It's a lime tree, but it's not
like the typical Mexican line that let you the flavor
that you would put in your your margarita or anything.
It's a very mild lime flavor they make. They make
awesome pies, but they're just and I planted them from

(01:51:33):
seed from one that I had down in Cyprus area,
and I've got half a dozen of them now, and
then I've also got just regular limes and and and
you know, grapefruit, and I just want to scatter them
across the property.

Speaker 3 (01:51:47):
Okay, well, I'm not sure exactly which one that is,
but if it's an edible lime, you can do that.
They're they're true limes are not cold hearty. Now, if
this were a rootstock type of plant, they grow wild,
and but I don't know why you would want one

(01:52:07):
of those really, So yeah, I don't. I don't know.

Speaker 15 (01:52:14):
Now, these are all lime trees that I bought at
nurseries out here in up above Brenham. There's there's a
nice tree nursery and and the other ones. It is
very edible and it put out limes like crazy until
we had that really really bad freeze back in what
twenty twenty one or something like that. Yeah, it killed

(01:52:35):
my tree off. But I had I had collected the
seeds and planted a dozen of them, and they came
up and they're you know, four three or four five
feet tall now.

Speaker 3 (01:52:45):
So but they're in Mukay, Well yeah, I would. Uh,
you can plant them. They are going to be subject
to freezes, but you can certainly plant them the same
way I was describing before about dig the hold of
right depth and put them in watermen really good on
any kind of new plant like that in a highly

(01:53:07):
sandy soil, you're going to want to provide supplemental irrigation,
especially the first summer. Uh, And so that could take
a number of forms. There. There are things called tree gators.
You put around a tree. You can go dry by
fill it up with water and then it slowly leaks out.
Or you can create a worm of soil around it
a doughnut and fill that berm full of water and

(01:53:30):
it sinks down in But they need pretty regular watering
that first year to get that good root system developed
so they have some resilience to them.

Speaker 15 (01:53:40):
Okay, okay, well we can do that now that we
actually live out here, we've finished the house, we can
we can water them up regular.

Speaker 3 (01:53:48):
So all right, well, good, well, your your agent, your
a county agent out there. Her name is Stacy via
Reel and she's a good one visit for our retire Okay,
you take care, have a great day, by you, bet,
Thank you very much. All right, time for me to
take a break. I'll be right back. Folks. All right,

(01:54:12):
welcome back to the garden line. Glad you are with
us this morning. Got a lot to talk about, always
always have a lot to talk about on gardening.

Speaker 13 (01:54:20):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:54:21):
It is just when I was a county extension Horticulture
is the Texa and m Agro Life Extension Service. I
used to tell my co workers, you know, I had
egg agents that I worked with. I had family and
Community health agents that I worked with. I had four
h agents that I worked with. That's how extension is.
We cover pretty much tall areas and I used to
tell them that I have the biggest clientele in the

(01:54:42):
county because anybody in the county who has a front
yard or a houseplant is my clientele. Meaning anybody with
a yard would call I would because of all the
issues with the yards. But you could go down into
the entered the skyscraper region of Houston, go to the

(01:55:05):
nineteenth floor of some building and some little person's just
sitting there in their little tiny apartment with a house plant,
and they could call me and ask for a question.
That's how it is on garden Line here too. So
everybody has at least plant curiosities, if not questions, and
that's why we're here. I'm going to head out now
to Galveston and we're going to talk to you. Key. Hello, Kevin, Hello,

(01:55:29):
how you doing, buddy. Welcome to Guarden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:55:33):
Thank you.

Speaker 14 (01:55:35):
I've got a garden and this year I grew some
Okrah and I got an Okra plant, and I knew
I had something pretty special because this one was extremely.

Speaker 8 (01:55:45):
Thick the stock.

Speaker 14 (01:55:47):
So I measured it with some string and I taped
it on all the way to the base, all the
way up and came out, pulled the tape down, and
it measured twenty four feet. The Guinness Book of World
Records is some guy in New Orleans.

Speaker 8 (01:56:02):
That had it at sixteen feets, so I didn't. I
haven't applied for it yet. But anyway, my main question
to you is do I do I cut it.

Speaker 14 (01:56:10):
Down when it stops producing because it's still producing? Do
I just leave the roots in the in the soil
or what do you recommend?

Speaker 3 (01:56:19):
Okay, it will die completely to the ground when you
have a good hard freeze. Now Gobston, you're pretty far sout.
I don't know. I've never I never wondered if you
could get Okre to survive at the base and re
sprout out or not. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't even
try it. I mean, even if it did, it wouldn't
be worth keeping it. First of all, you got to

(01:56:40):
take a picture of that and send it to me.
I want to. I want to see that with something
in scale in the picture, if you would, But if
you wouldn't mind sharing a picture of that. I don't
know what is it? Yeah, I guess it's because I
talk about Okra all.

Speaker 14 (01:56:54):
I built a Trellis system for the garden and I
have a four by four post and that I have
like a long galvan I spence post across holding it up,
you know, suspending.

Speaker 8 (01:57:05):
It, okay, and it's just continually traveling along that, along that,
along that galvet I spence post up at the top.
Y'all send you.

Speaker 3 (01:57:13):
A do you own a do you own a helicopter?
Or how do you pick that thing?

Speaker 8 (01:57:19):
No, it just it travels pretty much.

Speaker 14 (01:57:22):
It went straight kind of straight up at an angle
and now it's just growing laterally, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:57:27):
Okay, but I.

Speaker 8 (01:57:28):
Do have I do have. I did have a ladder at.

Speaker 14 (01:57:30):
First, but I kind of it's kind of dip it
a little, but it grows, you know, sideways.

Speaker 3 (01:57:35):
Okay, Well, I want to see a picture of it.
I'd love to see that, and just let me know
I have permission to use it if you would.

Speaker 13 (01:57:42):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:57:42):
Now, I've had a lot of calls on I had
somebody call about a fifteen footter I believe it's fifteen
feet the other or send me a text or email
about it. But yeah, no, just just take it out.
It's you know, it's done. Plan the next one again
next summer when when we get late spring some warm weather.

(01:58:04):
Do you remember what variety it was?

Speaker 8 (01:58:06):
I do.

Speaker 14 (01:58:07):
I've got the seed package right here. It's fairy Morris
okra Emerald.

Speaker 3 (01:58:15):
Oh, Emerald, Yes, okay, Well, uh, there there's not a
huge difference in OKRA sizes. You know that there are
some that stay smaller. There's a few varieties that only
get like two or three feet tall, and then there
the standard kinds get can get pretty tall. But that's interesting.
Did you enjoy that the flavor or quality?

Speaker 8 (01:58:37):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's excellent. It's excellent.

Speaker 14 (01:58:40):
And I played at about five about five plants, but
like I said, I knew it had something a little
remarkable because this one, the stalk on it was just
it looked like something out of a dinosaur that the
way the okay grew so thick, and it had like scales,
but it was just really really really large, very good.

Speaker 3 (01:59:01):
I hate to put you to work, but Kevin, if
you could put a ruler up around the base and
take a picture of that, I'd be interested in that
as well. That's that's interesting. I have a problem on
an obsession with.

Speaker 14 (01:59:13):
Okrah like a tape measure, like a tailor tape.

Speaker 3 (01:59:17):
Yeah, just something that would kind of give a rough
idea you know how big it is? Okay, Well, yeah,
so I will take a picture that I would replant
it and if you if you don't want to have
such tall opra, you could next year cut it off
at about let's say, maybe three feet as it's growing,

(01:59:41):
just cut the top out and then it'll branch and
so you'll you'll have a giant bush, but maybe it'll
be pickable for a little longer. You know where you
can reach.

Speaker 14 (01:59:55):
And one other question before I go, all of the
cherry tomatoes, by the way, they're still produce and do
just cut those off at the base and leave the
roots and the soil.

Speaker 3 (02:00:05):
Well down there. You might be able to do that. Generally,
I replace them. There's things like soil diseases, there's pestant
things that will maybe stick around. But if you can
cut them off at the base and mult it well,
you might get them to come back and do that,
or you can cut the tips out.

Speaker 8 (02:00:23):
I wasn't worried about him coming back.

Speaker 14 (02:00:25):
I just heard that it was beneficial for the soil
to leave the roots and all that down in there.

Speaker 3 (02:00:30):
Oh oh oh, I see, okay, yeah, no, you can
do that. Yeah, that's called no tail gardening. And I
do that myself and a lot of a lot of
the beds and areas you just just cut it off
and let the root trot. That's what happens in nature
to annuals. Every annual that grows in nature, the roots
become part of the soil. All right, thank you, sir,
thank you.

Speaker 8 (02:00:50):
What do I send that picture to?

Speaker 3 (02:00:52):
I'm going to put you on hold and my producer
Jonathan will pick it up and he will give you
an email. Thank you, Hey, Jonathan at you. If you
are looking for a quality garden center with right now
some really good deals on RCW Nurseries is a place
you need to go to. RCW is It's just a

(02:01:14):
dependable garden center conveniently located here in the Houston area,
northwest Houston where oh what is it? Belt Way eight
comes into two forty nine Tomball Parkway. They have fifteen
percent off all their trees right now. They have twenty
percent off all their shrubs right now. Cajun Hibiscus, my
favorite series of hibiscus, fifty percent off of those. You

(02:01:38):
just goin' to protect them during the winter, but my gosh,
what a deal, and they'll come out strong in the spring.
And ten dollars off of or ten dollars select roses.
My gosh, that's crazy. RCW nurseries is the kind of
place you go. You get expert advice, you get quality plants.
They always have something interesting. They have beautiful, beautiful, bright

(02:01:59):
red married Hollis right now. You can go see they
grow their own trees and shrubs up there in Plannersville.
So you know you're getting a species that wants to
grow here and a quality, quality plant that wants to
grow here. Rcwnurseries dot Com is the website. I did
want to mention I talked earlier. I talked a little
bit about ACE Hardware stores, and ACE Hardware is loaded

(02:02:23):
for the Christmas season. I want to take I'm going
to go to the break here for the top of
the hour, but when I come back, I want to
tell you about some of the things about ACE that
you probably are not aware of that are really really cool,
So stick around for that. I'll also be giving you
some more tips on having success with your vegetable garden

(02:02:43):
and your flower bins during this cool season. And Gary
and Katie, you will be our first collar up to
come back after the top of the hour. I appreciate
you guys being listeners to garden Line. I love visiting
with gardeners. I just do and said, how can you
talk for so long? First, I've never run out of

(02:03:04):
things that I'm excited about to talk about around We'll
have a few more of those.

Speaker 1 (02:03:11):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with skimp Richard's.

Speaker 2 (02:03:15):
Shoes trim just watch him as many good things to
see Bay.

Speaker 22 (02:03:38):
Again, not a.

Speaker 3 (02:03:40):
Sorry, welcome back, Welcome back to the garden line. Good
to have you with us listening this morning. Uh, this
is gonna be a good day for gardening. Get out there.
By the way, I was looking at the weather going forward,
and we've got an interesting week. All week, we're going
to be in the in the Houston area. Now I

(02:04:01):
know some of you're listening from other areas. I can't
give a weather report on every area, but it's going
to basically be low's in the mid to upper forties
and highs in the mid to upper sixties. That's really good.
Then about Wednesday, the rain hits and the highs go
up a little bit. We'll be in the lower to
mid seventies all the way up until next weekend, with

(02:04:24):
quite a bit of rain chances in the last few
days or so of that week going through the weekend.
So time to get what is the reason for me
give the weather. It's time to get things done. You
need to get your work done by next Tuesday if
you got outdoor things to get done in the garden.
So that's your public service announcement for the morning. We're

(02:04:45):
going to go out to Katie Now on Guardline. We're
going to talk to Gary. Hello, Gary, welcome to guard Line.
Good morning.

Speaker 13 (02:04:53):
Skip.

Speaker 8 (02:04:54):
A couple of quick questions.

Speaker 23 (02:04:56):
One is I have a biscus that suffered in the
twenty one freeze and had two other teep breezes as well,
so it keeps coming back from the ground.

Speaker 3 (02:05:05):
It's a good, healthy plant. It's probably I put tall,
very blushy. It won't bloom.

Speaker 23 (02:05:10):
I've tried hitting it with high phosphorus fertilizer a couple
of times. I just wonder if it's one of those
things it's just not ever gonna bloom.

Speaker 3 (02:05:18):
No, it should. This is a tropical type of hibiscus,
not the perennial that normally dies to the ground every
winter and comes back normally. So are the blooms bigger
than a solid plate you know?

Speaker 13 (02:05:37):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:05:38):
Oh yeah, they're about the smaller.

Speaker 8 (02:05:41):
They're bigger, they're bigger.

Speaker 3 (02:05:44):
They red pink. Are they red, white or pink? Or
are they other colors? I think it's red or orange.

Speaker 23 (02:05:52):
It's been so long I can't remember what color it lost.

Speaker 3 (02:05:55):
It's okay, yeah, that's all right. I'm just trying to
figure out what kind you have. What I would recommen
and you do. Definitely protect them at the end of
now that we're at the end of the season from
a hard phreeze that might come, if you can just
throw something over it to protect it next year, hold
back on the nitrogen a little bit, and if you

(02:06:18):
need to do some pruning back, wait until late winter
when we're past the danger of freeze to do the
pruning back on them if you want to maintain the
size at a different size. And finally is what's out
of your control, and that's the sunlight. They need lots
of sun and as the sun amount decreases, the blooming

(02:06:40):
potential decreases. So do you think that could be contributing
to this. No, it's got plenty of sun. Now.

Speaker 23 (02:06:47):
What I have done in the past is trim it
right before a freeze. I can tell a blanket over it.
That's one thing historically always done is cut it back
right before free sauce.

Speaker 3 (02:06:58):
Yeah, well if you need If you need to do that,
that's fine. I don't know why a biscus would not
bloom other than lack of sunlight or excessive amounts of
nitrogen pushing a lot of vegetative growth at the expense
of you know, settling in and blooming. And even that
is a little bit of a long shot on it,

(02:07:19):
but I'd give it one more shot on I don't
I don't know why the different thing isn't blooming if
it's getting good light. Obviously it's in good health because
of the size that it is.

Speaker 23 (02:07:29):
Yeah, it's it's very healthy, and it's it baffles me
because I have other ones that have cut and they
bloom come back blooming, and I was just informed it's
a tangerine color. I don't know if that makes a difference.

Speaker 3 (02:07:41):
Tangering. Yeah, that tells me what kind of hibiscus it is. Yeah,
so hmm. Yeah, bosporus is important on blooming, but really
all nutrients are to do a degree. It's just the
excess nitrogen the first number they want to stay away from.
So maybe using a biscus type fertilizer from We've got

(02:08:03):
some folks like Nelson plant Food has that.

Speaker 15 (02:08:06):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:08:07):
The nitrophoss also produces a biscus type fertilizer in small
plastic square jars. Both of those do and you can
you can find those at a lot of our garden
centers and things, uh being out there in Katie you
got Katie's hardware, uh and there's Katie Hardware out of
Sinco ranch area. So that would be the only other

(02:08:30):
thing I could suggest.

Speaker 13 (02:08:31):
For you on it.

Speaker 23 (02:08:32):
I just may not have done into enough time, but
I did it with liquid and then then throwing the
Osma coke type high fosterus fertilizer type stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:08:41):
Slow release, So.

Speaker 23 (02:08:43):
I'll give another shot and see. The other question I
have is I was moving my ponytail palm. I had
to go underneath the garage type area and kind of
pulled off some of the tip of the leaves, kind
of pulled out where it actually looks like I got
some of the like then and look and look to it.
We're kind of pulled out as that's going underneath. Is

(02:09:05):
that an or it's not going to come back or
is it got Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:09:12):
There's primarily an apoco meristem on that ponytail. Sometimes you
get a little bit of branching on them, and strangely enough,
but I would wait and see. You may not have
gotten truly that bud that's down in there, So give
it some time and see. I think that thing will
find a way to come back. But that that's my

(02:09:33):
best guess, uh, not really being there to examine it
closely and all of that. But I think the chances
are you're going to be okay, we'll see. Okay, Well,
thank you so much. All right, be patient with them.
They're pretty darn resilient, all right, they may find a way.
Thanks Garry. You take care. I was talking earlier. I

(02:09:54):
just now mentioned the ACE out there at Sinko. You know,
Ace hardware stores are all over the place. They are
literally all over the place, stores all over the Greater
Houston area. And I've had some questions, you know, from
people that live down maybe South and West, and boy,
you've got a lot of Aces down there. If you
if you're on forty five going you know, toward Galveston direction,

(02:10:17):
you've got League City Ace Hardware. It's just just not
far off League forty five right there on League City
Leake City Parkway, that is, if you head over to
the east of there some of you. I've had a
question kind of out that direction to Bay Cliff, Texas.
There's Ace Hardware there in Bay Cliff. You've got the

(02:10:38):
one that is Kilgore's clear Lake clear Lake excuse me
Hardware also there in League City. So those are those
are all easy to get to run. Space Center Houston, MND.
Clear Lake is out in that direction. And then up
on Beamer Road, which is just off of the Beltway

(02:10:58):
eight also southwest. That's another one down by the Hobby Airport.
You've got Gateway Hardware and rental. It's on telephone right
right behind Hobby Airport there. So there, Yeah, you got
plenty of the the course of the Paarland, Elvin Deer
Park all out that direction, Galena Park. You got a
lot of Ace Hardware stores down in your region. Makes

(02:11:20):
it really easy to take care of the things you need.
For example, their Black Friday sales are still good through Tuesday,
December second, so you what is it Tuesday? Yeah, on Tuesday,
December second, I believe is when those wind up. If
you're decorating, they have sort an assortment of Christmas lights.
It's just unbelievable. They have a really cool thing called

(02:11:42):
lights by the foot at ACE Hardware. And I'm not
talking about just these aces that I mentioned, but all
around the greater uscenario lights by the foot. So basically,
you go in, you go, I need, you know, fifteen
feet of lights or I need seventeen or twelve feet
of lights. You literally pick the custom length of holiday

(02:12:03):
lighting and you can purchase them that way as well.
And then of course the indoor decor is outstanding. While
you're in there, check out their cool old time toys,
you know, things like Legos. And I consider and name
all these old time toys that I've been seeing in
ACE Hardware's the brewder toys one sixteenth scale realistic detailed

(02:12:25):
toy vehicles a really cool thing, you know. And of
course you know Ace, You're gonna get great grills, great tools,
great stocking stocker stuffers at ACEH Hardware. So when you're
thinking about holiday shopping, think about ACE Hardware. I'm gonna
have to take a little break. I will be back
with your calls at seven one three, two one two KTRH.

(02:12:46):
Welcome back, Welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have you
with us. As always, I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we're here to answer gardening questions. The way I like
to put it is, I want to help you have
a beautiful, beautiful landscape, a bountiful guard of whatever kinds
of things, vegetables and herds and flowers. And I want
you to have more fun in the process, because gardening

(02:13:07):
should be fun. That it's just as simple as that
gardening should be fun. I was talking about some of
the Ace hardware stores down south and east of Houston area.
A lot of options down there. Don't just know you've
got plenty of options. Well, you also have a wonderful
garden center, Moss Nursery. They're on Toddville Road in Seabrook,
and I always like going to Moss to stroll through.

(02:13:30):
And by the way, it's going to be perfect weather
to get down to Moss, even gonna go this weekend.
You want to go all the way at least through
the mid part of the week and then things start
to rain and stuff. So get out there and enjoy
a stroll through Moss. I can't describe for you adequately
what Moss Nursery is like. I can tell you it's
eight acres. I can tell you that it is a

(02:13:52):
long time family operated garden center. I can tell you that.
I can tell you that every time you turn a corner,
you don't know what you're going to see. It could
be some carved wooden totem, it could be it could
be some unusual concrete statuary that is just something like
you've never seen before, an African mask, a mineral specimen,

(02:14:14):
a taxidermy. I mean there, it's crazy. It's fun. It's
absolute fun right right down there now. I mean their
point set a selection is outstanding. They got plenty of
vegetables in stock for those of you who are wanting
to do a little vegetable guarding this winter. The house
plant greenhouse is always a good place to go. Beautiful

(02:14:36):
water features and fountains, anything blooming, you know, holiday plants,
things like forest amros, bulbs and holiday cactus, Thanksgiving Christmas
cactus and all that kind of thing. They got plenty
of those down there. Remember that the Moss Nurseryes Open
House and Market is going to be Saturday, December seventh,

(02:14:57):
that's a week from today, from ten am at three pm.
They're gonna have local vendors. They're gonna be arts and
crafts and food. It's just a lot of fun. Tina's
Brought Worst is going to be out there. Man, I'm
getting hungry talking about that. Tina's Brought Worst is going
to be out there providing food as well. Uh it
just go. It's Toddville Road in Seabrook. If you want

(02:15:19):
more information, go to their website Moss Nursery dot com
Maas Nursery dot com. Allow some time to wander through,
enjoy yourself out there. I'm telling you, Moss Nursery is
a fun adventure to go visit. I know people that
just go just for the what do you call it,
the ambiance, the mental, psychological whatever benefits of just wandering

(02:15:45):
through a beautiful nature place that is stock full of
plants that you're going to want to have. I can't
go there without bringing something home from the Greenhouse, one
of their houseplots, because oh my gosh, the selection is incredible, incredible,
including landscape points like cactie too. They've got really nice
specimens like you just don't see everywhere, I mean, really

(02:16:07):
special place. Let's go to Houston and talk to Cliff. Hey, Cliff,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (02:16:17):
Good morning.

Speaker 24 (02:16:18):
I'm calling about my Saint Augustine Lawn, who that seems
to have been taken over by we especially this thing that's.

Speaker 15 (02:16:26):
Like a wild strawberry plant.

Speaker 24 (02:16:28):
Actually, if I let big enough that you actually have
a little tiny strawberries and I can't seem to get
rid of them.

Speaker 3 (02:16:35):
Yep. Yeah, what have you tried? Have you tried any
sprays on it?

Speaker 13 (02:16:40):
No? I have not.

Speaker 3 (02:16:43):
Okay, I would get you something that is for broad
leaf weeds. There are products that have terms like oh gosh,
I just just like on the on the terms oh gosh.
Celsius is one that you can use it that's uh you.

(02:17:05):
It's not as widely available as some of the other things,
but Celsius is a good one for that, uh, anything
that is for controlling broadleaf post emergent. Let's see you
where roughly are you located in the Houston.

Speaker 24 (02:17:20):
Area, Montrose Upper Kirby.

Speaker 3 (02:17:24):
Okay, so if you're if you're going to go in,
you know, in that area, let's see Montres Upper Kirby.
You're not too far away from Buchanan's native plants. I
know they got some things there that you're gonna be
able to purchase to help you control and manage weeds
and things. If something says broadleaf weed control post emergent

(02:17:45):
that that's what you want. You mix it up, LA,
don't over mix it. Post emergent broad leaf weed control.
That if you walk into Buchanans or someplace and just
say I need I need broad leaf weeds and I
don't kill grass, I won't kill broadly weeds, and I'll
want post emergent, they can put you in the right
ballpark of the things. You mix them up. You spraym

(02:18:07):
according to the label on the weeds. Be careful. Broad
leafs kill broad leaf plants. So if you have let's
say some pansies and you spray it on those, it'll
kill those because they're broadly plants. But you know it
makes up a strong, strong pressure because that creates mist
that drifts. So just just a little bit of pressure
on the spray and spread directly on those weeds. Now's

(02:18:29):
a good time for that because the temperatures are so
cool that you're not going to hurt your Saint Augustine
with those products, but you will hurt the weeds and
you're not going to get rid of them all at
one time. You may have to do it again. Start
in an early spring. Just remember summer's your enemy.

Speaker 13 (02:18:44):
On that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:44):
So the more you can do your spray in when
temperatures are not above the mid eighties, the better off
you'll be.

Speaker 13 (02:18:54):
Well.

Speaker 24 (02:18:54):
I used to think that the Saint Augustine choke out anything,
but I've learned otherwise. So all right, thanks for your healt.

Speaker 3 (02:19:03):
Yeah that's that, that's true. But Saint Augustine has its issues,
you know, where it gets a little bit thin or
something like that. I thought of the other the two
other products I was trying to think of, bonn eyed
weed beater ultra and fertile zone. Weed beater ultra and

(02:19:24):
fertil weed free zone are two broad leaf post emergent
examples to go along with celia. Okay, that will do
well on those. They'll, they'll, they'll, they should do a
good job. Now's there's a thousand different weeds out there,
and not everything responds to every product, but that that
should get you in the ballpark.

Speaker 24 (02:19:45):
Great, I appreciate it, Thanks so much.

Speaker 3 (02:19:48):
All right, Cliff, you take care. Yeah, that that is
the case. My approach on Guardline is not to just
look for a spray for every problem that there is,
because our number one goal on taking care of anything,
number one goal is cultural Okay, So if you want

(02:20:08):
a weed free lawn, you fertilize it properly at the
right time, You water it properly, not too much, certainly
not too little, and you mow it regularly, and you
create a dense lawn and you choke out the problem.
You don't want to be on a treadmill where every year,
three times a year, you're having to kill something. Right,
you do everything you can. Now, there are weeds that

(02:20:31):
despite your cultural control, there are going to be a problem,
and that's just the way it is. But the main
thing you're wanting to do is culturally to avoid the
problems you can to take the best options that you
can to avoid things and avoid the need to spray.
And then when you have to spray or treat to
put a granule out, you do that. But in most

(02:20:53):
cases we can avoid the majority of our problems with
cultural practices. You know. The the importance of fertilizing can't
be overstated. The more you supplement with the right blends
and products, the better off you're going to do. And Medina,
for example, the folks at Medina have something called has

(02:21:14):
to grow six twelve six. I would definitely have that
on hand all the time because any time you're going
to plant a plant. Six twelve six has to grow
is an outstanding products out Medina soil activator in it
to stimulate biological activity. It's got the six twelve six
which is a high phosphorus fertilizer that's important for good
root development. It's got hum humic acid in it, which

(02:21:37):
improves soil structure. It's just excellent for transplanting. You can
use it for things other than transplanting, but it's outstanding
for transplanting. It's one of the many products by Medina
that is just effective. I've used these, I know them.
They're good, they work, and that's why I recommend them.
Medina Plus is another example. It's a good for folier feeding.

(02:22:00):
It's got the Medina soil activator in it. Also, it's
got forty different trace elements side of kinon, which is
a natural growth hormone from seaweed extracts. I could just
list the ingredients on and it's a mile long of
good things to help your plants survive, thrive and produce
the things you want like fruit or foliage or beautiful blooms.

(02:22:22):
Medina Plus and Medina has to Grow six to off
six plat food by the folks at Medina, and you're
going to find them all over the place. They are
widely available and as I said, they work. Time for
me to take a little break here. We'll be back
with your calls in a moment if you'd like to
dial in seven one three two one two KTRH. All right,

(02:22:49):
we are back, folks. We got a less than a
half hour left to guard line today. If you'd like
to give me a call and now it would be
a good time to do it or talk to you
next weekend. Seven one three two one two k t
r H. Seven one three two one two ktr H.
I am doing a number of things to get ready

(02:23:12):
for the seed starting season. And if you have not
ever tried growing your own transplants, you should try that.
And there are a number of reasons to do that.
First of all, it allows you to grow things that
you cannot buy. Maybe there's a brand new tomato variety
just came out and you want to try it out,

(02:23:34):
or some obscure one that just doesn't get carried. Because
you know you can't carry every variety of everything. You
can grow it yourself and you can have it that way.
Number two, it's just fun. It's absolutely fun to grow
your own seedlings. And there are a few tips for
doing that. And I'm going to post something to the
website this week on success with growing your own seedlings,

(02:23:55):
so be watching Gardening with Skip dot Com. I'll post
it there Gardening with Skip dot Com on how to
do that. It's very important to get the lighting right.
That's probably the single most important thing. And where people
go wrong is lighting. Spindley, scrawny transplants trying to reach

(02:24:15):
light are not going to do well out in the garden.
They're going to break over. They're just not going to
perform well for you. But you can avoid that with
good lighting. But get you some good supplies and materials
to do that. I'll put some information on that. In fact,
I may put two different things up, one on lighting
and one on success with just general seed starting tips.

(02:24:37):
But I think you should give that a try. That
would be a good gift too, by the way, for
someone on your list, somebody who would love to get
maybe seed trays, plants, starting supplies, you know, all of
that kind of thing. Once you see my article on
the website, then you can even have a little bit
better idea on how to go about shopping for that
and lighting. You know you can get by with cheap lighting.

(02:25:00):
For years I used a fluorescent four foot shop light
with a cool white tube and a warm white tube
in it to provide a wider spectrum. And if you're
just growing a little transplant and you keep that light
down on the plant, I do mean, I mean like
an inch away from the plant. You can grow a
decent transplant that way. Of course, now everything's led, so

(02:25:24):
now we're starting to look again at spectrum carefully. You
can spend a significant amount of money or a modern
amount of money on a quality plant growth light. So
you can do that, but be real careful when you're
out there shopping because there's a lot of Bologney information.
And I'll go into this in a lighting article that
I'm going to put up, But just remember what it

(02:25:45):
says on packages that the light is designed for our
eyes is different than what you need to know for
a light designed for plants. Okay, lumens are for humans.
So if a light bulb so many lumens, that's basically
for lighting a room. It doesn't tell you about light quality.

(02:26:05):
And plants have an opinion about the wavelengths and things.
But lumens are for human par actually par photosynthetically active radiation. Okay,
there's your nerd alert for the day. That's for plants,
lumens for humans, pars are for plants. And I'll put
that article up. I try to weed through all the information.

(02:26:26):
I might make it real simple, fast, easy and interesting
to do. But why not give something like that to
the gardener in your list, or give a really big
hint to those people who don't listen to garden Line
that you would like something like that. Let's set out
to Cyprus, Texas. We're going to talk to Jim. Hey, Jim,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 22 (02:26:48):
Yeah, thanks, good morning.

Speaker 15 (02:26:49):
How are you today?

Speaker 3 (02:26:51):
I am doing well. I'm doing very well.

Speaker 21 (02:26:55):
How can we help you to do?

Speaker 22 (02:26:57):
My problem is I've got some older wax ugustrooms in
the backyard and they're green. Then all of a sudden,
one side of it is just turned black brown and
died off it and it's bouncing all around in the
backyard on that back wall where those the customer a
growing are. Do they just eventually, once they get twenty

(02:27:19):
twenty five years old, start dying?

Speaker 3 (02:27:22):
No, No, they don't. I'm not a fan of lagustrum
because they typically get a little leaf spot that causes
brown spots with yellow all around the on the leaf,
and it really plagues them. Uh at what you am
battling that? Also? Yeah, yeah, And it's just a it's
a battle and it always looks bad. And the way

(02:27:45):
to control it is every time it rains to run
out and spray. If on your side and nobody wants
to do that, you're always going to get around to
doing that. So I would, I would at this point,
I would just and this is your call, Uh do
I want these things or don't want to put something
else in here? And this would be a time to
make a good decision on that if you want to
keep them. We're going to have to figure out what's

(02:28:08):
wrong in the soil, and it's probably a root rot.
Now there are root rots that are brought on by
soggy soil. There are actually some fungi that have tails
like tadpoles that the spores swim through the soil to
attack plants. And it's weird. That means quit watering so much.
That means put underground drainage in. That means, you know,

(02:28:28):
whatever it takes to avoid soggy will help with those
kind of root rots. There are fungicide drenches you can
put on roots, and then there's some root roights you
can't treat for oak root rot called urmilaria. Now you
and I can't know which one it is if it's
a root rot, but if you were to dig down
around a plant and kind of scrape the roots with

(02:28:51):
a pocket knife on the side where the dying is occurring,
if you can do that and you see like water
soaked brown gray looks like an old stained cigarette filter
kind of look that, that's typically typical of a root
rot having affected that plant.

Speaker 13 (02:29:09):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:29:10):
And so what do you do now? Well, either you
try a drench that may or may not work, or yeah,
there's just not a good solution to those kind of
root rocks. So either too much water or just a
root rock that you're not gonna be able to treat anyway.

Speaker 15 (02:29:27):
Okay, and I have seen what you described under the mulch.

Speaker 3 (02:29:32):
Okay, well, uh, I'm gonna have to go to break here,
but I'll just leave you this, Jim. If you go
to plant clinic plant clinic dot T A m U
dot E d U you can dig one up that
is on its way down, that's so ugly and damaged
you don't want to keep it, but it's not dead. Fully,

(02:29:53):
it's still alive. You dig it up, get some of
the roots. You can cut the top back that's not
so important, put it in a box and ship it
to a college station, or drive it up there to
the plant clinic, and they will analyze it and culture
it out in a petri dish and tell you exactly
what the root right is, if there's one, and what
to do about it, if you can do anything about it. So,

(02:30:15):
if you want to keep those legustrums and not replace them,
save the whole row, I would do the plant clinic thing.
And I'm sorry you'd have to be brief here, but
I'm going to have to run. Good luck with that.
In Cyprus. Are not that far of a drive. You're
about an hour and fifteen minutes from the Plank clinic.
All right, folks, we're going to take a little break.
I'll be right back. Well, well, welcome back. We are

(02:30:39):
in our last segment. Well the day. We'll be back tomorrow.
By the way, we got any questions, By the way,
if you have, folks, staying with you during this holiday weekend.
Tell them about garden Line. I don't care where they live,
they are welcome to listen in. We'd love to have them.
Guardline reaches all the way across the Louisiana border a

(02:31:01):
little bit, and I know past Huntsville definitely up there.
In fact, we have folks from up Gosh all the
way up in Leon County the Call and then over
toward New Bromfels direction and down to Corpus Christie. We've
got pretty wide area that's covered there. So you certainly
can tell your friends and family to listen to garden Line.

(02:31:22):
We'd love to have them. I wanted to say something
about a Southwest Fertilizer. I brag on them all the time,
and I say, you know, if they don't have it,
you don't need it. And it's really true. You know.
Southwest Fertilizer has been around since nineteen fifty five, and
they have over the years established themselves as the go
to place for anything you're looking for. I don't care

(02:31:45):
what the product. It may be some obscure thing to
control pests or weeds or diseases. It may be. Certainly,
all the fertilizers I talk about on garden Line all
the product recommendations. I go, ah, you need to go.
I tell someone them earlier, you need to go get
some bown eyed beat her old to a fertile loan
weed free zone. Yeah, Bob's got those and much much,
much more. It's got a ninety foot wall of tools.

(02:32:07):
So if you are looking for a quality tool for
a family member as a gift, you should tell them
to go buy there. That kneeling bench that I keep
bragging on, it's a it's a you sit on it
or you flip it over and you kneel on it
and the legs become handles to help you get back
up again. It's cool. It is very cool. If you
want to make my homemade weed wiper that's on my

(02:32:28):
website Gardening with Skip dot com. Bob's got the suction
cup based grabber tool that we use in all the
free diagrams on my website for how to build your own.
It's not expensive at all and it really really works.
It doesn't matter what you need. If you got a
plant problem, you on taking a picture a sample, let
them put their eyes on it.

Speaker 6 (02:32:48):
Do that.

Speaker 3 (02:32:48):
They can do that there. It's Outwst Fertilizer. It's time
to get stocked up on things when it comes time
for planting, whether package seeds or bulk seeds. Have these
great bulk seed bends where you can get a really
good price. Bulksy draw is less expensive than packages. You
can get a really good price on a lot of
good quality seeds there, so check them out. I'm just

(02:33:09):
telling you it is a place you need to go,
and you need to see Southwest Fertilizer dot Com, corner
Abyssinet and Runwick in Houston. We're going to go now
to Spring Branch, Spring Branch, I believe and talk to Bill.

Speaker 25 (02:33:25):
Hello Bill, Hello, Skip, how you doing today?

Speaker 3 (02:33:30):
Well, I'm good, I'm good. What's up?

Speaker 21 (02:33:33):
Oh?

Speaker 25 (02:33:34):
Back on November ninth, you and Dan from Nitrofoss we're
out of Katie Hardware on Pinoak and I showed you
all pictures of my law and uh Dan you said
I needed to get a zoxystroban, but the Scott's disease
had such a small amount. I haven't been able to
get back in touch with Dan, and I was wondering
if you could tell me would Southwest Fertilizer have a

(02:33:56):
stronger uh A zoxy stroban that I could get it.

Speaker 3 (02:34:02):
Yeah, well, that particular product, if you put it at
the right rate, it works. It'll do that. Now, some
diseases like take all root rot are difficult because you
don't just treat one, so you're probably gonna have to
treat it again. If you look at my schedule at
Gardening with Skip dot com website, it has two treatments
in the fall and one in the spring for take

(02:34:25):
all root rot. But yes, Bob at Southwest does carry
Scott's disease X. That's the name of that one. I
don't know if he has another azoxystrobin. There are others
out there, but the one that used to be used
a lot is called Heritage, and it's kind of difficult
to find now. I think they're pulling back on their

(02:34:45):
retail supplies or something. I don't something like that.

Speaker 8 (02:34:49):
Okay, already.

Speaker 13 (02:34:52):
Yeah, a.

Speaker 25 (02:34:55):
Dark grayish brown and you can see all the way
through the dirt.

Speaker 3 (02:34:59):
So do you know what that disease was? Well, if
it's if it's take all. If it's take all. When
you pull up some roots, they're all dead except the
ones at the very end of the runner. Of course.
Now the grass is not doing rooting. It's it's not
creating a bunch of new roots, but that all the

(02:35:21):
old roots are brown and dead. You grab me with
your finger and pull on them, the outside slops off
and you just have this little worry interior. If even that, yeah,
that would be an example of the symptoms. Yeah yeah,
all right, well yeah, go by Sea Bob. They'll be
able to fix you up. But down with my schedule
from the website because it tells you exactly what and when. Okay,

(02:35:46):
all right, thank you sir, Yes, sir, thank you for
the call. I appreciate that. In Chinned Gardens out there
on the Katie Fullsher side of Richmond is a place
that it's a you got to take people to see it.
There's always something cool going on out in Chanty Gardens.

(02:36:06):
They always have stock of some of the best plants
and best things that you just don't see all the time.
Maybe something really new that's cool that you need for
your gardens. Just head out there southwest southwest of Houston,
Chended Gardens, Richmond. It's on FM three fifty nine between
Richmond and Katie full Shirt direction. All right, you can

(02:36:29):
find that when you get out there. Their holiday selections
is unrivaled. It is absolutely amazing. Place is just gorgeous
and they have things that you would want for this
time of year, cool season, color of course, stuff like that.
If you Christmas trees and holiday trees like that, they've
got those. They had strawberry plants while back. I don't

(02:36:50):
know if there's still someone stock or not, but you
can still plant strawberries down here to get a headstart
on the spring. If you're looking for herbs or any
kind of a chrisp skift, you should see their gift shops.
They are outstanding right now, loaded with some cool stuff.
Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com is the website. If you've

(02:37:14):
got color beds in your landscape like pansies, petunias, a
lissome ornamental cabbaging, kale dianthus, you need to have color
Star on hand. Color Stars are product by Nelson. It
comes in a little plastic jar screw top lid nineteen
thirteen six. That's the numbers, nineteen thirteen six. It's one

(02:37:34):
of their most universal blends for anything that has flowers.
Pretty much, I mean that's the way to think about it.
Do it about every three to four months and keep
those plants growing. So it's got five sources of nitrogen
in it, and it has organic bow meal and blood
meal also to feed the soil. They designed this over
forty years ago, and I'm telling you professional landscapers use

(02:37:56):
it and home gardeners all over Texas and they shep
a lot of it out of Steak because people discovered
over there and they want it because it works. Color
Star by Nelson Plant Food, So check it out. I
think you'll find good success. By the way, the secret
to having good blooms all through the winner is to
keep pushing them along with regular applications of small amounts

(02:38:19):
of fertilizer. That's how you do it. If your pansies
last year just kind of wimped out and put blooming
so well you didn't have color Star, put some color
Star on them every three months and they're going to
do really good. The music, it's one of my sad
songs because it means the show's over. Shutting down to

(02:38:42):
the day. I'll be back in the morning, bright eyed
and dish retailing pat people six am. In the meantime,
check out my website Gardening with Skip dot Com.