From Dirt to Delight

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Rickard's.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shoes, crazy gas you trim.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
You can just watch him as world.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Us.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
So many goodies to sepotusy great.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Gas against a sorry glass gas.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Sun beam and.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Hey, good morning, welcome to garden Line. We are glad
to have you with us this morning. That a little
bit of drizzle going on outside, some cloud news, but
my goodness, the temperatures are great. In fact, this whole
week is is pretty nice. If you just want to
get outside, I not have to bundle up or not

(01:02):
have to I don't know, carry an air conditioner with you.
It's sure is a good week for that. I am
going to be out in the yard today. I've got
some flower bedwork to do. There's a bed that we've
been preparing, and you know how I always say bronze
stuff before green stuff. Well, I'm actually going to take
my own advice and get out there and mix in

(01:22):
some quality compost materials, get that bed up a little bit.
The area it's not poorly drained, but it's not you know,
wonderfully drained either. So I'm going to raise the bed
level up a little bit just so when it rains
too much, which at times it does. We're going to
make sure we have good drainage. You know, plant roots
do not like to be underwater. There are very few

(01:43):
plants that survive in a swamp like environment where there
just isn't good oxygen to the root system. So that's
that's important to get that, get that right and make
sure that we can give those plants the setting that
they want. I've got a few other things to do.
I've got some planting to do. I started planting alliums

(02:05):
the other day, and I'm late getting this done. I'll
just say right up front, this should have been done
a couple of months ago, probably, but anyway, it's still
okay to do it. The garlic is something I just
got in the other day, a couple of different kinds
of garlic that we're going to have going through the wintertime.
It's pretty hardy, pretty cold hardy here. Unless we just

(02:26):
have one of those absolute unusually hard freezes, we'll carry
it through so harvested next year. I've got some shallots
that are already growing, looking really good, and I need
to plant my onions. I got a lot of different
kinds of onions we're trying. I always like to try
different ones. You know, there's red onions, white onions, yellow onions,
and a lot of different types. And when you go

(02:46):
to a local place that is a let's say mom
and pop that is an independent garden center and you
purchase your stuff there or a feed store. A lot
of our feed stores carry onions as well. They're going
to carry the kind that want to grow here. Same
is true with potatoes. When you're planting potatoes, it's coming
up in February, you want to make sure and get

(03:07):
the cultivars that do well here, because not all onions
do here do well here. I won't drone on and
bore you, but there are short day onions and long
day onions, and it depends on what part of the
country you're in as to what kind you might want
to plant. But I got to finish getting that done.
For those of you who haven't tried onions, A lot
of our garden centers and feed stores still have a

(03:29):
supply out there for you. You can still put them
in the ground the sooner of the batter too, by
the way, but you want to make sure when you
plan them, plant them about as deep as the first
joint on your index finger. Okay, so look at your
finger first joint with that little lesson an inch. Go
ahead and plant them at that depth and then keep

(03:49):
them going. We like to say, I haven't hit the
ground running. When you put them in the ground, you'll
start of course, keeping them moist. Roots will start to form,
very important time. Take care of them then and then
small amounts of nitrogen gradually pretty much all through from
now until harvest time. And here's why. An onion is

(04:12):
the base of the leaves of the plant. The onion
bulb that we eat is the swollen base of the leaves.
So you cut an onion in half, and you see
the rings right. Each ring is the base of one
of the leaves up on the plant. So if you
have an onion that has struggled along, survived but not thrived,

(04:33):
and it's got five leaves on it, how big of
a bulb can you have? Not very big? You got
about five rings. That's that's what it can do. The
bigger that onion gets, the stronger it gets, the thicker
and more rings that you're going to have, and they
just do well.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
So what do we do?

Speaker 4 (04:48):
We make sure they never lack for nitrogen and water,
we keep them growing on through the cool season as
best we can, and that way we have the best
crop we can. Now, I have to have a softball
sized onion. A golf ball sized onion tastes like a
softball sized onion. Okay, So if you feel like, well
like I failed it, I know you didn't. You didn't

(05:09):
fail at grown onions. You just grew smaller onions. And
that's okay. They're still good to eat. Well. We like
to have them bigger. It's less tedious to chop a
bunch of them up that way. But anyway, there's a
few tips there on growing onions. Now, if you'd like
to give us a call, this is, by the way,
a call in show, not a monologue. So let me
give you a phone number. Seven one three two one

(05:30):
two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. For those of you that
have a Christmas tree in your house, don't forget that
you need to keep a good supply of water, especially
when you first set that thing up. You know, they
do a fresh cut on the trunk. You PLoP it
down in a in some water, and it's going to

(05:50):
drink quite a bit of water. That'll slow down a
lot as time goes on, but you got to always
keep water in there, don't let it dry out. That
is important for maintaining as best you can nice supple
needles for as long as you can into the season.
There's nothing like a fresh Christmas tree. The scent of

(06:11):
a fresh Christmas tree is so good, so take care
of that. We do not have a cat in our house,
but I was looking. I was looking this week at
I don't know, just cats and Christmas trees. You know
something somebody posted online. There were just a series of
Oh my gosh, it was every kind of disaster you
can imagine, and some that you can't. So you might

(06:34):
want to have a conversation with kitty if you got
one around the house, and make sure that they understand
what they're not to do in your Christmas tree outside
in the garden. This is a time of year when
we appreciate the fact that we have planted burying plants.

(06:59):
Plants are produced in the winter, and we have some
really good choices out there. Of course, Holly's that's number one.
Holly's are the most common famous plant for holiday decorating.
Through the cool season that there is that would include
a number of different types of hollies that produce berries.
Cut the little branches sections of branches often use them

(07:20):
for decorating around perhaps a nice meal table, or creating
a wreath or something along those lines. For those of
you who live out in the country and you got
some of the ash or not ash juniper Eastern red
cedar ash juniper Central Texas, the eastern red cedar branches
can be cut and they make a wonderful wreath as

(07:43):
well have a nice fragrance to them. Also, I'm going
to come back and talk a little bit about plants
to put in the landscape for decorating. In a moment.
Right now, we're going to go to a break. Good morning,
we got sleepyheads. We got a show to do here.
We are going to be talking gardening until ten am
to day. Welcome to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,

(08:05):
and let's talk about the things you're interested in. You
can give me a call at seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. If you are looking
for a show place during the holidays, Pierce Caapes is
the one you need to call they you know, they

(08:26):
absolutely can do anything pretty much that you need done outside.
Do you do you need beautiful landscape lighting? Do you
want to have a complete rehaul of the landscape, maybe
just creation of a beautiful stone patio area with the
landscape lighting. Make sure the drainage is right in those
areas where you want a plant that tend to be

(08:47):
a little bit soggy, they can fix that as well
a little bit of adjustments to the irrigation system. They
can take care of that. Any kind of hardscape, drainage, irrigation, construction, landscape, lighting, pathway,
you name it. They've got designers in staff that can
help you create beautiful, beautiful curbobile for your landscape. You

(09:09):
go to pierscapes dot com. That's the website. I just
prefer you go there first because there you can see
all the kinds of work that they do. Now they're
numbers two, eight, one, three, seven, fifty sixty, but you
can find that on the website too, piercescapes dot com.
Pierscapes dot com. You can also get on board with
them to do quarterly maintenance. That's once every three months

(09:29):
they come out they spruce up the flower beds, do
any weeding, any mulching, and any trimming that needs to
be done, some fertilizing, making sure irrigation is right, changing
the seasonal color out. You know, as we go from
season to season, we put in fresh new annuals so
it always looks good. Pierscapes is good at that. In fact,
they are absolute professionals when it comes to that. You

(09:52):
are listening to Gardenline and I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to talk about the things that make
gardening more success. The way I like to put it is,
I want to help you have a beautiful garden, a
bountiful garden, and more fun in the process. That's what
we're aiming for. Gardening should be fun, and it is.

(10:12):
I was starting to set up my lens, my light
on lighting, my lighting for growing plants. Yesterday. I've got
the I've got a couple of racks that I set
up that I do that with, and I was putting
the lights in it and finishing up a publication on
landscape lighting, and I wanted to I want to just

(10:35):
talk about that. Just Oh, it's already online. My web
guys already got it up online. If you go to
gardening with skip dot com. I have a publication I
just put up hot off the presses. You may be
the first to see it if you go click right now.
Quality lighting for growing transplants. A lack of good light
is probably the number one mistake we gardeners make when

(10:58):
starting our own transplants, and it's gitting to be that time.
Get You need to get your supplies together. That would
include trays for growing them in, and I sometimes I
use the you know, the regular what they call seventy
two cell trays, and I grow in those. You can
get them with a little mini greenhouse clear cover over it.

(11:18):
If you want to do that. You need to get
your seed starting mix. Seed starting mix is basically potting
soil that's been ground up really really fine, so it's
perfect for planting seeds at just the right depth. That's
not real chunky stuff, it's very finely ground stuff. That
would include heating mats if you're going to start them
in a cold area. I start mining a garage. It

(11:39):
gets quite cool in there, and I use a little
heating mat under them and that works well. And then
of course lighting well, lighting is the mistake we make.
You know, you start some seeds. You have these, You
have this vision of beautiful landscape plants or transplants, and
what happens is you end up with something that's lanky,
stretching to ward lights, spinley. It's gonna break if you

(12:02):
mess with it. It gets out in the gard, it's
not going to perform. Well, I know, I've been there.
And all you need is a little bit of knowledge
plant lighting and some reasonly priced fixtures, and you can
do this. You know, if you want to go on
the cheap, you can basically get a fixture. I refer
to them as shop lights, but I just mean it's

(12:25):
a long, skinny fixture with a couple of tubes in it.
That's basically what I'm talking about. You can get a
fixture like that that has a very bluish light that
would be called cool white bulb. You know, having you
go in the store, you got daylight bulbs. You've got
those kind of orange e fireplace glow color, red light

(12:47):
reddish into the spectrum bulbs, and you know, you can
set it for each kind of room of your house,
the kind of mood and everything like that. You want
to cool white and a warm white, cool white, blue,
worm white I'll say yellow color lighting, and that range
gets you the amount of each part of the spectrum

(13:08):
as close as you can get without just diving in
and buying a quality plant light. But it'll get you
by I'm growing a tomato or a pepper seedling, because
you're only going to do that for a few weeks,
and you specially need the blue light on the end
of it. But anyway, I've done that before. I used
to when I use fluorescent tubes, I would put one
fluorescent tube cool white, one fluorescent tube warm white, and

(13:30):
I grew transplants for years that way. I had two
shop fixtures, so I had four bulbs, two cool, too warm,
and they were alternating. You put those things fluorescent tubes.
I had to get them down about two or three
inches from the plants to get the outaode amount of light.
I know, read the article. I make a statement in
there that in here. Let me just say it right now.

(13:54):
This is going to be hard for you to believe.
But if you put a light one foot above a plant,
a bright light or a dim light or whatever kind
of light you have, doesn't matter. Put it one foot
away from the plant, and you measure the light intensity
level on that plant, and then you move the light
two feet away from the plant. Most people would say, well,

(14:14):
it's a little dimmer, but not much. No, it's a lot.
Did you know that it is one for its twenty
five percent of what the light was at one foot.
When you moved to two feet, you doubled that distance,
and you didn't get half the light or more. You
got a fourth the light. Now read the article, explain

(14:37):
it why in there. Give you a link if you
are information, if you'll learn more. But it's very important
to keep your lights down where the plants need a
high intensity light. Now, some lights are so bright you
put them down low and you'll fright. I mean, your
plants will get all weird because it is just way
too bright for them. But follow the lighting quality. You

(14:57):
can do it, like I said, on the cheap if
you don't do it that way. But if you're really
serious about growing transplants, and maybe you want to grow
some to the point of blooming, so your tomatoes when
they go out in the garden already have blooms on them.
There you need quality lighting. And I talk about what
quality lighting is. Uh, it's I think it's an interesting article.

(15:18):
Personally because as I learned this material years ago, as
I learned about plant lighting, I just was fascinated by
what it takes, what plants use, how this works. And
I can just cut, you know, kind of give you
a little preview here of the article and it is
or the publication. Basically, what we see with our eyes

(15:41):
and what plants get with their leaves are different things.
It's light. Light is light, but we see light in
terms of it's you know, it's a white light because
it has all the colors of the spectrum in it.
Plants see it in the different wavelengths because those wavelengths
do different things in plants. If you get them on

(16:03):
the red end of the wavelength, that is helping them
bloom and fruit, and it does some other things that's
in the article. If you get on the blue end,
that's the vegetative growth end of lighting. But then each
of the wavelengths has the functions that it has and
so your light needs to do that. So you can
buy a nice quality grow light and that will help

(16:24):
you to have success with your transplants or with growing
things out more.

Speaker 6 (16:28):
I have.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
A bunch of houseplants, too many to be in the
house because we leave them outside during the summer. What
am I going to do with them when it's going
to get thirty two degrees outside or even not even
that cold. Well, I have them in the garage underneath
a really decent little grow light that covers a large area,
and my plants are grouped underneath it, and it's a

(16:50):
little cool in there for them, but they'll be okay,
they'll get through that and the light will help keep
them strong. So go to my website gardening with skip
dot com and find quality lighting for growing transplants. It's
a brand new publication I just put online. If you
live down in the Richmond Rosenberg area, you're fortunate to

(17:12):
have in Jenny Gardens right there in your backyard. You know,
you can go, oh, I don't know what is it
FM three fifty nine just north of Richmond on the
Katie fullsher side on FM three point fifty nine right
where it comes in there to FM seven twenty three,
And Jenny Gardens is the kind of place where it
doesn't matter what month of the year you go out there,

(17:33):
you're going to find some really cool stuff. An unmatched
selection of plants, shrubs, trees, vegetables, herbs, flowers, you know,
in anything you can imagine out there. They they always
have a good selection of the very best plants. Of course,
they also have a very helpful team about as enthusiastic

(17:55):
as you can get. They bring in all kinds of
expertise to the place so that when you go up
and ask someone a question, you get expert advice. You
can take them photos and samples and things if you
want to get help with stuff. You can also find
wonderful Christmas gifts right now, any kind of holiday gifts
where I'm talking about you know, wind chimes all the

(18:16):
way into special beautiful indoor decorations, whimsicle garden art. Oh gosh,
they got a ton of that stuff. It's really really nice.
They have a good selection of seeds for those of
you who are going to be doing some seeds starting.
And then you know, when you get there, you're going
to find all the quality products I talk about on Gardenline,
products from Microlife and nitrofoss and Nilsen plant food and

(18:38):
Medina soil products and molts, Nature's Way, airloom soils and
Landscaper's Pride. It's really easy to find anything you need there,
including help for success. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. That's
the website, Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Well, here we are.

(19:01):
It feels like these breaks are coming so fast. Today
it's time for another one. I'm going to quit talking
here and I'll be back in a minute if you
would like to give me a call in the meantime
seven one three two one two k t RH seven
to one three two one two k t r H.

Speaker 7 (19:19):
We'll be back.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
I'm going to continue talking about landscape plants that help
us decorating indoors for the holidays. Wen, We're glad to
have you with us this holiday season. It comes around
every year. I don't know what your plans are. You're
gonna be doing any traveling, You're gonna be having some
people in, some relatives, family friends, things like that. It's

(19:43):
time to decorate indoors, and we can decorate indoors from
our landscapes and gardens. There is a lot of things
we can grow here that work really well. I was
mentioning earlier the fact that you can use yopon berries
or holly berry in general. Yopon is a type of holly,
but all kinds of holly berries are great for decorating.

(20:04):
Yopon's great too. Just remember the scientific name, the proper
botanical name of yopon is ready for this ilix, which
is the genus of Holly's vomittoria. You heard it here first,
maybe not first, but that means don't put it in
your mouth. It is a purjective. So if you got
little kids that don't understand, just because it's pretty in red,

(20:24):
it doesn't mean it's candy to go in the mouth,
don't bring the yopons in, the berries in because you
know it's not poisonous in the sense of like some
points like plants like an oleander or something that would be.
But it is a purgative, and you don't want to
do that. So Yopon's a good one. I like to
use some of the holly fern. There's a holly fern

(20:48):
that is just a real leathery leaf, real beautiful. Makes
an excellent greenery and arrangements. It works really well. Holly
fern's a great easy fern to grow here. Doesn't have
the fern like leaf when you picture a fern that
kind of frond leaf, it's not quite like that. It's
dark green, glossy and a little bit broader leaf than

(21:09):
standard ferns, but it's a great one. Beauty berry. Beauty
berry is a native plant here in our area. It
drops its foliage in the fall to reveal beautiful purplish colored, purple,
lavender colored berries that are in clusters and they look
really nice in arrangements. Depending on the time of year,

(21:29):
you can find some nice arrangement there. There's a lot
of other plants that we can bring in. I mentioned
the eastern red cedar is a good one. Grows wild
out in the countryside, even on a road side. You'll
get some cedar branches that would be good for decorating
as well. Also, it has a nice scent, So think

(21:49):
about that when you're planting plants. Look at your landscape
right now, where might you want to plant some things
that could also be used for decorating and not just
holiday decorating, but decorating all through the year. I mean,
you know, you think about this. You go to a
florist and you get arrangements all year that have greenery
and flowers in them. What are some things you can

(22:10):
plant so that your landscape or your garden becomes a
source of those kinds of things. I think that would
work well now when we're putting in plants of any kind,
and there is not a better planting season of the
year than we're in right now. I know it's holidays,
we're busy, and we got things going, but just know this,
preparing your soil, getting ready for planting, planting as soon

(22:33):
as you can. Just I'll leave it that way, as
soon as you can get it into the ground, give
it every day possible before next summer arrives. That's the
goal now. Landscaper's Pride has a number of quality products
of over two dozen different quality products for soil blends,
for growing pretty much anything you can grow. They also
have quality mulches and twelve months out of the year

(22:56):
three hundred and sixty five days out of the year
is the time to mulch. Is always it's time to molt.
You want to keep a blanket malts over the surface
to protect the soil, stop erosion, prevent crusting, keep the
soil temperatures moderated and winter and in summer, and keep
weeds down. Who loves pulling weeds well? Keep sol multed

(23:17):
with their black velvet molts. It's a hardwood malt. It's
basically an immature compost you know, hadn't really fully composted,
but it's a decomposing hardwood mult naturally dark, full of life.
It's screened to be bulky enough to make a really
quality malt. And it's beautiful, and it's not dyed. Black
velvet is not dyed malts. That's a natural black color.

(23:39):
Cedar malts really attractive for the holidays. Got that nice
cedar or aroma in it, a beautiful reddish color when
you put it out fresh. And then there's topsoil from
Landscaper's Pride. Now this is a sandy loam compost mix.
You can use it as top dressing. If you've got
some low spots in your yard. You know you're trying
to repair your yard, get it back right again. Maybe

(24:01):
next spring you're gon be doing some more sodding some
areas that struggled. Landscapers Pride top soil is great for
filling in those low areas, for leveling things out, or
even just in part of your bedprop A quality sandy
loam with compost mix is a good part of making
quality bed now. You can go to Landscaperspride dot com
find out more about it.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
There.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
It's easy, easy to find all over the Greater Houston area.
A while back, I was visiting with some of the
folks at Microlife. It's been a good while ago now,
but we're talking about all the different products that they
have and some of the ingredients and things in them.
And you know, microlife is basically built on using nature's

(24:46):
lead in turning our landscapes and gardens into beautiful, productive places.
You know, in nature, think about the forests of the world.
Think about the meadows of the world, who running around
doing all kinds of soil prep and stuff to them.
What's happened is, year after year for ages, plants and

(25:10):
plant parts have been growing and dying and falling on
the ground, creating malts, creating soil and making it richer
and richer, more beautiful, more beautiful. That is how microlife
helps is by shortcutting that same natural process. So when
you get a microlife fertilizer, you're getting a natural, plant

(25:30):
based organic fertilizer that is loaded with microbes of all types.
You put that out on the ground and it does
what organic matter does in nature. It becomes part of
the soil and improves soil structure. It helps stimulate biological
activity and you get one of these microlife products, and

(25:52):
that is exactly what you're doing. You are helping move
nature forward quickly if you will. We don't want to
wait eighty years for the tropical rainforest to build soil.
We want it now because we've got a plant. Microlife
helps do that. It gives this natural source of nutrients.
It decompose away as microbes chew them up. And all

(26:13):
microlife products are loaded with quality microbes and quality nutrients
from nature. That's how it works. Microlife Fertilizer dot Com
is the website. It's widely available here in the Houston area.
Makes it really really easy for you to have success
with your gardens and landscapes. I don't care if it's
a lawn, if it's a flower bed, if it's a

(26:35):
vegetable garden. Microlife products are designed for all of those.
They got. They have products for acid loving plants, they
have products for fruit and fruit trees, and certainly for
the lawn and flower beds. You just pick the product
and it will help you to have that kind of success. Well,
you're listening to garden Line our phone number, I'm gonna

(26:56):
give you the number before I go to break here
because you can give a call and be the very
first up when we come back. Seven to one three
two one two five eight seven four, seven to one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Don't forget
to go buy my website and check out the Quality
Lighting for Growing Transplants article. It is hot off the presses,

(27:19):
and I would say this. Everybody needs to grow some
transplants for fun. And if you want to do it,
don't do it until you read this article so that
you can have the best chance of success possible. We'll
be right back because sometimes I can just sit and
listen to music and I forget I'm supposed to do
it radio shows. Well here we are, welcome to Garden Line.

(27:40):
I'm back. I'm back on tasks at last. Oh goosh yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
The uh.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
The folks that plans for all seasons, the Fowerty family,
they've been they have been around since what nineteen seventy three.
Plans for all seasons is the Garden Center. As you're
going up two forty nine Tombol Parkway twurd Tomboal, just
exit Luetta and it's right across Luetta, just within a
block on the right hand side right there. When you
go in there, I'll tell you this, You're going to

(28:08):
find good plants. You're going to find quality plants. You're
going to find lots of quality products. You hear me
talk about fertilizers and soils and things on guardline, You're
going to find them there. It Plants for all seasons.
But probably the most important thing that a lot of
people don't think about is the quality of advice that
you get, the quality of guidance that you get. You're

(28:30):
not shopping at some big box store where people are
hired to do the garden center that may not know
hardly anything about gardening, or may think they do, but
they don't. You're talking to people that have been gardeners
in our area for a very long time. They've been
helping gardeners for a very long time. And that's what
you get at Plants for All Seasons. You can take

(28:51):
them pictures, you can take them samples in a bag,
you know, for diagnosis or for identification, to get a
solution to help help you to have success. This is
a full service retail garden center. It's located again just
north of Luetta on two forty nine on the northbound
feeder road Plants for all seasons. Dot com is a website.

(29:13):
Here's a phone number two eight one, three seven six
sixteen forty six. Right now. They are loaded up with
some wonderful ideas for Christmas gifts for everyone on your list,
So go check it out. Plans for all Seasons. I
always love going in there visiting with the whole team.
They are a pleasure to visit with because they know

(29:35):
what they're talking about and they're friendly. That's important too.
I wanted to tell you about something that I just
put this on my website a while back. Do you, guys,
I know pretty much all the listeners unless you just
joined recently garden Line listening audience, you knew Randy Lemon.

(29:57):
Randy Lemon held the chair I'm sitting in for over
twenty five years. He was a legend in the greater
Houston area and certainly the gardening world. Everyone knew Randy.
Randy had an entertaining style, he had very helpful advice.
He benefited I don't know countless people over the years
his host here garden Line. You, in fact, me exactly

(30:20):
be one of those kind of people. Randy and I
go way back. We lived in a dorm at A
and M together Moses Hall. And I've known Randy, knew
Randy for a very very long time. You know Randy
just he was he was let's just say this, he
was a presidentce. You couldn't miss Randy when he was
in the room, that is for sure. Well, Dean Nelson

(30:43):
Nelson Plant Food set up a scholarship in Randy's name
to honor and remember Randy's wife and his contribution to
the gardening world. And that scholarship. We've talked about it
a while back, but we're making another push for that now.
This scholarship, by the way, goes every year to a
horticulture student at Texas A and M. Now, if you
knew Randy, you know how much he loved Texas A

(31:07):
and M, and how you can just imagine how proud
he would be knowing that there's a scholarship in his
name going to train a new generation of horticulture folks.
I think that is a really really cool thing, and
I'd like to ask you if you would would you
consider making a donation toward that scholarship. We are trying

(31:27):
to raise some more money. We'll continue to build it up.
The more we can produce, the more good we can
do with it. This will be something that goes goes
on year after year after year. And you can give
a couple of ways. You can go online to the
Texas A and M Foundation website and give that way

(31:48):
online with a correct card. You can also get by
check by making a checkout to Texas A and M
Foundation and in the memo writing Lemon Scholarship. Now, I'm
not going to read you all the address in the
r L and all that kind of stuff. Go to
my website Gardening with Skip dot com. It is the
most recent post on the website, the Randy Lemon Scholarship.

(32:11):
It tells you how to give online. It tells you
how to get by check. If you would do that,
But for those of you who enjoyed listening to Randy
all those years, who benefited from Randy's advice all those years,
I would just make that appeal. Would you consider doing that.
I think it is a wonderful cause, and I think
that the dividends of you being generous in that way

(32:34):
really help the gardening world here in the Greater Houston area.
I'm a product of the NM Horticulture program that is
where I got my start in horticulture in terms of
professional knowledge and learning, and I think it would be
great to start preparing more generations a horticulturist, and this
scholarship will do just that. That is near and dear

(32:58):
to my heart. I think it would be a great
way to remember Randy. You're listening to garden Line. The
phone number here is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. You hear me talk about quality
home products of Texas a lot. You know, that's where
you go get your Generac automatic standby generator. And of

(33:22):
course they have other products that they sell there, but
Generac is just a just a trusted name when it
comes to generators. But it's not just the product that
you're buying. Yes, it's a quality product, it's this that
you get. Quality home is known. They are recognized with
many awards and many very happy customers lauding them interviews,

(33:48):
UH for the kind of service they give. If you
happen to be a licensed electrician or a plumbing pro
and you're looking for a new career opportunity, you should
can say are applying to work with Quality Home. Quality
Home uses in house people for their electricity and the plumbing.
They don't sub that out, and it is a job

(34:11):
with competitive pay. They have comprehensive medical, dental, vision coverage,
four O one K, retirement plans for one K matching,
by the way, holiday paid time off, basically career advancement opportunities.
It's a stable, reliable, reputable organization.

Speaker 5 (34:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
Quality Home has been around our community for a long
time and it's a family owned business here in the
Houston area, and they make a difference in the community.
They make a positive impact here and around the world.
They donate locally to our food banks. For example, they
help fund schools. They provide COVID relief when that was
going through. They help clean water globally, helping make sure

(34:53):
people have sources of clean They are good citizens as
a company, it's good citizen. It's a great place to work.
Quality Here's here's the website. This is where you go
if you would like to put in an application Quality
TX dot com qualitytx dot com. By the way, that's
also where you go if you're interested in talking to

(35:14):
them about getting a Generac automatic standby generator installed at
your place. I don't know what it is today. Every
time I look at the clock, it's like, no, that
can't be right, But it is right. And I'm running
out of time on this segment as well. We're going
to take a break at the top of the hour.

(35:35):
In the meantime, though, I did want to, I did
want to go on a little bit more about doing
some decorations indoors all through the season long there. If
you've never grown cut flowers, you should right now be
thinking about preparing a bed that's dedicated just to that.
Now you can mix cut flowers all through the landscape.

(35:56):
We have a couple of beds in my garden, my
vegetable garden where we grow as any as and other
things like that. My life. My wife loves cosmos. She's
got some in her garden. Yes, we have separate gardens,
not that we can't go in each other's garden, but
she just kind of has her nice, pretty garden off
to the side where she grows flowers. But it is
so easy to grow cut flowers in the landscape or

(36:17):
in a garden. I would say the number one simplest
gardening cut flower gardening one on one is Zenias. Zennias
you can buy a bunch of seeds are not very expensive.
You can get all kinds. You can get tall types,
you can get bedding plant types. You can get single
flower types that would be more like a daisy like flower.
You can get a multiple double flowers that almost look

(36:40):
like well they do look like a mom, a chrysanthemum,
a mom. Just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It's easy, easy to do.
But lots of good information online. That's another fact sheet
I need to write up as on growing cut flowers.
Put that on the website too. Well, you get the idea.
But think about as you play your landscape, so as

(37:01):
you do your garden plantings, as you create even shrubs
down to shrubs in the landscape. What is beautiful for decorations?
And there are so many really cool things out there,
uh Chinese witch, hazel oil pedal on that beautiful burgundy foliage,
especially with some sun on the foliage, A little lots

(37:24):
of other things we can choose. How do you make
your landscape? Source of the door? All right, can't take
it break, Let me come back, Frank from Houston.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Here are first up.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with scape. Ricord's
just watch him as the world.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
So many sea blot basic.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
Welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line on a nice
Saturday morning. We've got a little drizzle going on out there,
some cloudy today, but good night. The temperatures are wonderful
and they're going to be wonderful for a good while
here that let me say counter blessings. We're gonna we're
gonna look at it that way. We are glad to

(38:30):
have some nice, moderate temperatures where we can get out
and about and get some things, get some things done.
We're going to start this hour off by going straight
to the phones to talk to Frank. Hello, Frank, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Hello, thank you, what are you doing?

Speaker 4 (38:46):
I'm well, sir, how can we help?

Speaker 2 (38:50):
All right? I will receive some uh tragicke dragging which Jim,
I'm has a blank out. Have some bluves in desert
rose and okay, I was trying to see what's the

(39:11):
best in the planum and I.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
Well, desert rose isn't a bulb like a tulip would
be a bull, but it has a swollen base to
the plant. Or do you think are we talking about
desert rose? For sure?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yes, yes, sir, desert rose.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
Oh, okay, desert rose likes very well drained soil, so
you need to get it in a container with kind
of a cactus mix, you know, something you would grow
for very very gritty, uh, just really well drained not
just not just pure potting soil kind of thing, but
something that drains better than that. I cannot take the cold,

(39:52):
cold weather. But it likes sunshine. It likes to be
you know, fed gradually over time. But it's not that
hard to grow if you give it good light and
good drainage.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Okay, what's the best time to plant it?

Speaker 4 (40:07):
You can plan it anytime you want. You're going to
grow it in a container, right, yes, sir, Yeah, you
can plan it anytime. You can plan one right now
if you want, just get it.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
If I'm plan it right now, do I keep it
in the house.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
Well, if you can give it a light, that would
be better. If you have some sort of an artificial
light you can put it under to help it out.
If you haven't purchased it yet, you could also wait
and just do it in the spring and then you're
not having to take care of it through winter through winter, uh,
you know, with trying to give it adequate light and
everything like that.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
So okay, so like received already glad you just hold
them over to the spring with a naked glad to
doing the thing too.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
No, if you've already got them in your hand, I'd
get them potted up, Get them potted up and uh
go go get you a uh the like airlom soils
makes a cactus, uh and succulent food. Uh, it's potting soil.
You buy it in small bags. Garden centers are some

(41:22):
of the I don't.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Know you Yeah, I'll ordered a bag of it on Amazon,
so I have a bag there.

Speaker 8 (41:34):
You go.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
Yeah, well that's it. Just get it potted up real
good and uh make you know it's a it's a
plant that is built. It's designed to be able to
hold some water so that you know, if it if
it doesn't get watered all the time, it's going to
be okay. In fact, it's better to not keep them
too wet for sure.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
So it's like a cactus or such a little.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
It's a succulent h yeah, ok, yeah it is. Yeah.
Gosh they're a beautiful though. You bet good luck with that.
Those are gorgeous plants. Congratulations on getting one of those.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
I appreciate your call.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
All right, there you have it, Hey, if you'd like
to give us a call seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. We are here to answer
your gardening questions. Well, I like to put it as
we're here to help you have a what is it,
A bountiful garden, A beautiful landscape and more fun in

(42:40):
the process. A bountiful garden, beautiful landscape and more fun
in the process. I like to put it that way.
You know, sometimes we get all kind of I don't
know what the word is, but kind of tied up
and not about whether we're having success or how do
you garden? I don't know how to do this. I
don't have a green thumb. You know. People worry about

(43:00):
that and it becomes a stress to try to have success.
You know, I think that plant's going to die. Relax,
just relax, listen. You have got to kill a lot
of plants to become a good gardener. I'm going to
put it that way. I'm giving you permission to kill
some plants or to have some struggle. That's how we learn. No,

(43:22):
we're here to help you cut down on the number
you kill and the number of the struggle. But just
relax and have fun. As you learn about it, it
becomes more fun. And once you figure out what a
plant wants, whether that plant is an azalea or a
desert rose, once you figure out kind of the knack
of it, the amount of light, the amount of the

(43:42):
temperatures it takes, the soils and things. Once you figure
that out, it just becomes fun and it looks easy.
And people say you got a green thumb, and you
just look at them, and if you want to take
credit for it, you can say yes, I do. I
would prefer you look at them and say no, I
just have an informed thumb. Skip helped inform my moumb
on garden Line. Your thumb gets smarter, your plants do better.

(44:05):
That's kind of how it works. So let's educate that
thumb and get you off to success. You can do
that listening here to Gardenline. You also do that going
into our quality garden centers. You know a place like
RCW Nursery. RCW is the nursery that is on Tomball
Parkway at Beltway eight right where those two come together.
Two forty nine and belt Way eight. That is where

(44:26):
RCW is. The website is RCW Nurseries dot com. RCW
nurseries dot com. You know, with RCW you have got
folks that have been doing this a long time. By
the way, they grow their own trees and large shrubs
up in Plantersville, and they have got as some of
the best deals you're going to find anytime anywhere right now.

(44:50):
For example, twenty percent off camellias, two kinds of committees,
Japonicas and Susanquez. One blooms in the December time, one
blooms in the January time. That just to may oversimplify it. Uh,
they have azaleas twenty percent, all their shrubs twenty percent off.
If you like metal yard art and arbors, and boy

(45:11):
do I ever I'm talking about the you know, the
metal structure and arbor as well as the hilarious uh
yard art that they have there at plants at the RCW.
Uh they've got thirty percent off that.

Speaker 9 (45:23):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
Every time I go in there, it's one of the
first things I do is go over and see what
kind of crazy stuff have they posted to the wall
with metal the yard art out there, all their trees
are fifteen percent off at r CW Nurseries. If you'd
like to give them a call to eight one four
four zero fifty one sixty one or go to r
c W Nurseries dot com. They're gonna be open today.

(45:47):
You know you should get out there and check that out.
You need to see these camelleas that are blooming. They
are gorgeous. Camellias are almost like a winter rows on
an evergreen plant. I guess that's one way you could
look at it. I love those things. Lots of perennials
at RCWS, lots of annual color. They always have what's

(46:09):
in season. I'm sitting here checking my time again. I
gotta go take a little break and we'll come back
and talk to you more. If you'd like to give
me a call, go ahead and get on the boards
now with Jonathan seven one three two one two KTRH.
We'll talk to you when we come back. Welcome back
to guard Light. You know, ACE Hardware stores are the
place you go when you need fill in the blank,

(46:32):
and that's why they say ACE is the place right now.
ACE is an awesome place to go for your holiday
lights and your holiday decorations. That's indoor and outdoor. They
have something called lights by the foot. I think that's
the coolest thing. So instead of buying this light that's
a given length, you know, ten foot, twenty foot whatever,

(46:53):
maybe you need one that's seventeen feet seventeen feet long. Well,
you can purchase by the foot your holiday light strings.
Just go by there and ask them how on earth
do you do that? And they'll tell you. ACE is
a place for really cool gifts as well. Do you
have a do it yourself or on your list? Maybe
some tools that would work well. Do you need things
for the shop? Do you need things for the kitchen?

(47:15):
Do you need things for decorating indoors? Do you need
toys for the kids? Ace Hardware has all the above?
All the above. Now we have a lot of ACE
Hardware stores around the listening area. For example, out there
in Orange you've got Child's Building Supply on Highway six
near Bear Creek. There's Hamilton Hardware just off Highway six
near Bear Creek Park. There's Auspas Ace up in the Woodlands.

(47:38):
And then you can go to either Kingwood or a
task Asita and find a K and Mace Hardware two
locations Kingwood and a task aseda just examples. Go to
acehardware dot com, find the store locator, find the store
near you. Let's go out to Fairfield. Now we're gonna
head to Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hey, welcome to.

Speaker 10 (48:00):
Garden Line morning Skips. Thank you for taking my call, Hay. Question,
since nobody really called in, I thought i'd throw this
out there. It doesn't have to be answered right now.
But I had a friend that retired and her husband
loves to plant outside, I mean just anything and everything,

(48:20):
and he's really good at it. She, on the other hand,
doesn't like to plant. But I thought I would try
to get her interested by giving her something she could
keep inside, something interesting or a cool plant, or something
hydro upon it. I don't know what might you think

(48:43):
off the top of your head or you can answer
later whichever.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Yeah, that's a good question, so you know, probably you know,
hydroponics is fine. That's pretty elaborate and involved, and we
don't want her to fail at it this first time,
so I would, okay, I would think about like a
quality house plant. I like that that if we're just
if we're just wanting to, you know, get her started. Well,

(49:10):
the two easiest plants to grow our mother in law's tongue.
It's called sense of area snake plants another name for it,
uh and zz plant z Z is another one that
you know, highlight, low light, you water it, you forget
to water it. They're pretty forgoing. They're not necessarily everybody
would think is the most beautiful go.

Speaker 10 (49:32):
Ahead, Yeah, no, I've never heard of a zz plant.
I know what a mother in law is?

Speaker 2 (49:36):
What is well? They have a.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Well it comes out of the pot with these real thick, large,
fleshy petioles that come out for they're the leaf stems
and then the leaves are on the end. It's kind
of a waxy leaf material. There's one type that has
almost a chocolate brown lea and the standard type is
just a dark green. They're easy, I mean you can

(50:04):
find them anywhere and anyway. That's an easy one. For
a more beautiful house plant, I think ugly aema or
Chinese evergreen is best. Those. You can get them in
standard green or green with kind of silvery color markings
in the leaf. But I like the kind that have
red or coral in the leaves. They are very beautiful.
Now there are other beautiful houseplants, but again we're trying

(50:26):
to help her have success. So you know, going to
a prayer plant, for example, a moranta, those are a
little more tricky, so I would try a Chinese evergreen.
It takes lower light, not as low as some plants,
not as low as a closet plant, for example, but
if you just give it moderate light, it'll do okay.

(50:47):
The orchids, the little moth orchids that you see for sale,
ever wear, that's another pretty easy plant. It has some
basic care that you give it. But as far as
plants go, I neglect mine so much that I have
to I had to take the phone out of the
room because they kept calling the society cruelty to plants
to turn it in. But they're they're tough, and even

(51:09):
the neglected ones are bloom blooming again this year, and
so that would be an easy one to do.

Speaker 11 (51:15):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
You know, you can go in to fancier things like
a little terrarium, or if you wanted to spend a
little more on it, you could do one of those
little aquaponic gardens that you know, it has the light
right above where the plants grow and they can play
around with that. But I think that would be a
little more of a challenge, but they might find it
not al enough to really attract them to.

Speaker 10 (51:38):
When you said Chinese evergreen, you mentioned the name before that.
Did you say aguilera?

Speaker 4 (51:43):
Yes, a A g l e o aglio nema an
e m a. That's the proper name for it. Chinese
evergreen is a simple name for it.

Speaker 12 (51:56):
Okay.

Speaker 10 (51:56):
And what about a Christmas cactus, Chris, This.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Cactus is good, you know right now? You get them
with blooms on them. It's easy mine also, or neglect
that I put them outside underneath the kind of a
covering area I've got kind of a gosh, can't even
say the name for it. Arbor, that's the word I'm
looking for. And I water them as I think about it.

(52:23):
They do like to be watered. They're not like a
true cactus. They grow in an area where it rains
that I ignore them all year, turn them around a
few times, pull the leaves that have fallen in them off,
and then when the fall comes they bloom again. They
really bloom easy. And I can tell you that's that
thing blooms a neglect.

Speaker 10 (52:44):
Yeah, that was not an indoor plant, though I've killed
on mine.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
But yeah, okay, I don't know.

Speaker 10 (52:53):
Okay, I'll find out what an easy plant is and
then i'll go looking. But those are some great suggestions.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
Yeah, those would be a few I don't I just
don't know what their particular interests are. You know, it's gosh,
there's so many things that would be recommending.

Speaker 10 (53:14):
I've thought about. Yeah, I thought about an herb garden,
because she does like to cook.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
But I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 10 (53:23):
I was thinking maybe something.

Speaker 5 (53:26):
Like that, but I don't.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
I thought maybe you.

Speaker 10 (53:29):
Since you like indoor plants. I am not very good
at doing indoor plants.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Yeah, well, I think that a light set up with
with herbs would be helpful. Indoor herbs struggle. They get
spin lead because they don't get enough light. And so
if you had a light set up. My wife has.
We have a counter where we mounted some lights up
underneath the counter and she sets herbs there underneath those

(53:55):
lights so you don't resee the lights that are mounted up,
you know, underneath the overhang of the counter. But that
way you can grobs indoors. But other than that, it's
a little bit more of a challenge. And like I said,
we wanted to have success. That's that's the main thing.

Speaker 10 (54:10):
Great idea. Her husband just puts them up underneath their
cabinet's perfect.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Perfect.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
Okay, all right, thank you well, thanks, ok thanks Marty,
appreciate the call. You take care, good luck. Uh yeah,
Christmas holiday, whatever the event is. Gifts. That is a
fun thing to think about when it comes time for
gardening gifts because there's so many things. You know, what

(54:38):
people on your list that you know might be interested
in birds, bird houses, bird feeders, be all that, all
that kind of thing that people that might be interested in.
Fragrant plants. There are plants plants that have a wonderful
fragrance that could be that could be planted and grown.
There's a lot of things that go along with standard gardening.

(55:00):
If you got to Moss Nursery and Seabrook, I love
going there, by the way. It is a true destination.
Everybody down that area, Chemon, Seabrook and everything they know.
Moss Nursery been around long long time. Eight acres eight
acre Gardener's paradise is what it amounts to right now.
Moss has got as they always do everything that is
for the seasons, and if you're looking for house plants,

(55:21):
easy to grow houseplants, everything from like a little four
inch pot, very very economical, up to a six foot
tall beautiful plant. They're greenhouse for house plants is outstanding
and I would even recommend you go there. You're going
to be wanting to buy fruit trees soon, you're going
to be putting in vegetables and flowers and things. Moss
has got you covered on all that. Here's the website

(55:43):
Maas Nursery dot com. Maas Nursery dot com. They're on
Toddville Road out there in Seabrook and onf you go.
First of all, allow yourself some time because there is
a lot to see wandering through that eight acres A

(56:04):
lot are really cool, aren't garden ornament? You know, statuaries
and fountains and all concrete, uh, figurines and all. It's
just cool. I promise this. Every time you turn the corner,
it's gonna be like, oh wow, I've never seen one
of those before. That's that's how it is out there

(56:24):
at Moss Nursery. You were listening to the garden line.
If you'd like to give us a call seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four, seven to
one three two one two five eight seven four. The
uh as we get close to the holidays, you know,
people get busy and things, and uh it gets quieter
on the phones, and so if you've ever you know,

(56:46):
I'd call in, but I don't want to wait online
or anything. Well, first of all, we work at not
letting people wait online, do our best at that. But
right now is a good time. Days like this are
a good time. If you'd like to give it, give
us a call. If you want to have success with plants,
you got to fix the soil first, brown stuff before
green stuff. And the one stop shop for all brown

(57:07):
stuff is CNA Malts. Cienamlch is south of Houston near
Highway six and two eighty eight. They're actually on FM
five twenty one now. Cienamltch has every kind of soil
amendment product that you would need, certainly composts in every
type and form. They carry products from Landscaper's Pride, They

(57:29):
carry products from heirloom soils. For example. They have that
if you need fertilizers that you hear me talk about.
That's part of the brown stuff, part of the soil
microlife Azamite, Nelson, turf Star, Nitrefoss products, and Medina products.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
There.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
You're going to find the Vegian Nerb mix from Airloom
Soils there. You're going to find Landscaper's Pride black Velvet there.
You're going to find Rose Soil blends there. They deliver
within about twenty miles of their location, and it's just
a place to go. When you walk into Sea Aamals,
you're going to find everything you need for success. So
don't start thinking about planting until you go there or

(58:09):
have them deliver what you need. Time for us to
take a break, I'll be right back. Welcome back to
garden Line. We are glad you are listening today. I
appreciate that. I hope you enjoy garden Line. And if
we can help you have success, then I'll call that
a good day, a very very good day. That is
what we're here for. We want you to have success.

(58:31):
You know that I was talking to Marty a minute
ago about holiday gift plants and the folks out at
Neilson water Gardens. You know, and now you think about
water gardens, what's water gardens and nursery right, So anything
water garden, they're the experts, just absolutely nationally recognized experts,

(58:52):
from beautiful water gardens to those disappearing fountains, to the fish,
to the plants and them to everything else. But do
you know they also have a really good selection of
plants in the garden center and right now inside the
nursery house plants. We're talking about gift plants with Marty
a minute ago, and I mentioned a number of different plants.
Well they've got them all there decorating and you know

(59:13):
the zzy plant that I was talking about, they have those.
They're beautifully decorated. They also, by the way, have a
great sense of humor. They say that all their plants
are sugar free, calorie free, gluten free, so that's hilarious.
Twenty five percent off all of those interior plants, including

(59:35):
succulents until December twenty eighth, So get it done if
you need a quality gift, a beautiful gift. By the way,
their houseplant section is just awesome, awesome. They still have
Christmas trees too, by the way, and with each Christmas
tree you get a free point seta so that's kind
of cool. If you haven't gotten your tree yet, you
put it off. Maybe you like trees to stay fresh

(59:57):
as long as possible, so you don't want to buy
them too early. Whatever, Well, go get it. Now's the time.
Nelson Water Garden and Nursery. They're in Katie Fort Benroad.
You go out to Katie I ten turn north on
Katie Fort Benroad. That would be turning right coming out
of Houston and it's just a little bit up there
on the right hand side. Nelsonwatergardens dot Com. Check them out.

(01:00:19):
That's kind of cool. Gluten free plants, sugar free, calorie free.
It seems like that's the deal. I see that put
on stuff that never had gluten to begin with. Kind
of like plants. Well, or at least not you're not
going to eat it, but anyway, I appreciate a good
sense of humor. You are listening to Garden Line and

(01:00:40):
we're here to help you have a bountiful garden. We're
help you have a beautiful landscape and hopefully more fun
in the process. You know, We've got a lot of
different things that we can talk about today. I'd like
to kind of shift gears a little bit. I've been
talking about some indoor decore and whatnot, and talk a
little bit about planning for spring gardening, you know that

(01:01:03):
once we come out of the Christmas season, sometimes in
Christmas and New Year's typically I'll begin planting my spring
garden transplants indoors that would be tomatoes and peppers and
things like that. Now it's early, right, it is early,
and you're going to think, well, the tomato is going
to outgrow that little six pack, Well, yes it will,
but then it goes into a four inch pot, and

(01:01:25):
then it even goes into a six inch or a
gallon pot before it makes it out into my garden. Now,
and if you're going to plan an agro tomatoes, you
don't want gallon sized plants. But that would be crazy.
But if you're just putting a few into a vegetable garden,
why not why not have a tomato that is already blooming,
maybe even fruiting by the time it goes out super

(01:01:47):
super head start that way and you can start these indoors.
I have put up on my website gardening with skip
dot com publications called quality Lighting for Growing Transplants, And
I think this is really going to help you. I
spend a lot of time working on it, just trying

(01:02:08):
to get the basics down what I do on there
as I talk about. First of all, poor lighting is
the number one thing that goes wrong when people try
to grow transplants, those spindley transplants that are not getting
the light they need. Light drives everything is good quality
seed starting mix important. Yes, is the right amount of

(01:02:29):
moisture important? Yes. Are temperatures helpful? Yes? But lighting light
shines on the leaves and makes plant food. We talk
about fertilizers plant food, but really fertilizer goes in the plant,
sun shines on the leaf, and the plant makes plant
food ca carbohydrates. So the quality of your light, the

(01:02:50):
amount of your light is very important to successful transplants. Now,
if you want to keep a plant over winter, Like
I mentioned earlier, a lot of my houseplants of outside
during the summer, and I don't have room for them inside.
The place could look like a jungle. I guess it could,
but we're just not quite into that type of decorating.
Of a lot of plants, but not that many, So

(01:03:12):
I put them out in the garage underneath a really
good quality light and keep them there for the wintertime.
Cooler tempts in the garage slow them down a lot.
I mean, they basically just sit there. I don't have
to water them much, but it's easy. So look at
that publication Quality Lighting for Growing Transplants. It is free.
You can't top me down on that price. It is free.

(01:03:33):
And it goes into the spectrum of light. You know, remember,
did you in school, when you're in science, have a
prism where you shine the light in and like the
rainbow and out the other side. What we see is
white is really a mix of almost all the colors. Essentially,
plants see those colors individually, and they do individual things

(01:03:56):
blue light, to oversimplify, blue light helps with vegetative growth.
The red part of the spectrum helps with blooming and fruiting.
Now they do other things as well. I go into
it in the publication a little bit more. But those
parts of the spectrum are important. And when you buy
a light for your home, for home lighting, that is

(01:04:20):
a light you're buying for your eyes, right, And it
has things on the package like the number of lumens
that it has and the watts that it has. That
stuff's not important for plants. Plants care about the light
bands that are photosynthetically active. In other words, when a

(01:04:41):
blue light or a red light, or an orange spectrum
or a green spectrum, yellow spectrum. When that shines on
a plant leaf, does it stimulate photosynthesis or not? Now,
there's other factors that are very important, and each of
the bands do that. So when you buy a human light,
you are getting an attractive light to our eyes, but

(01:05:04):
probably not a mix of colors in the amounts that
plants want. Can you get by with some human lights? Yes?
I grew up with a wow. Grew up during all
my early plant seeds starting time, I would use a
warm white fluorescent tube and a cool white fluorescent tube

(01:05:26):
in one of those shop light fixtures, And I had
two shop like fixtures, two four foot fixtures, cool white,
worm white, cool white, warm white in the fixtures, and
I would hang them right over the plants, about three
inches above them. And I would get by with growing
a tomato transplant or a basal transplant whatever I was
trying to grow under those. But when you start carrying
plants further in, you're trying to get them to bloom,

(01:05:48):
or you're wanting to care for a longer term, or
you want them you grow tomatoes indoors and have them fruit.
If you have the right kind of lighting to do it.
That's where we got to start looking for that. So
remember lumens the way they put it as lumens or
for humans, par Is for plants, par is the photosynthetically
active radiation. So I'm not gonna get too nerdy on you.

(01:06:10):
It's all in the publication. Talks about the amount of light.
How long do you run your lights when you're starting seats.
It's in there talks about that are what are the
concepts about distance from the light. It makes a huge
difference to get that light as close as you can
to the plants. And then there's some other tips. It's

(01:06:30):
all free. It's all on gardening with skip dot com.
So this year I would challenge you to grow some
transplants if you never had before. If you have before,
I would challenge you to take your game up a
notch and get you a better setup to do better
with it. And by the way, talking about gifts and stuff,

(01:06:52):
a plant lighting system would be a great gift for
the gardener in your list. All right, we're gonna take
a break. I'll be right back. All right, welcome back
to guard Line. Did you know that Tom Hanks wrote
most of the music for that movie that it was
a great movie. By the way, we set back in
the nineteen fifties bands trying to get on the radio

(01:07:14):
with that early rock. What's going on? Anyway, I'm impressed.
He's a great, great actor, one of those actors when
he's in a show, you know he's not going to disappoint.
But to have the talent also to write music for
it period music like that was pretty cool. Anyway, you
can tell I'm impressed. So, speaking of impressed, if you

(01:07:35):
love a hometown feed store, if you like that old
time feed store, I feel League City feed is that,
and I've been impressed when I go in there because
I love that. I love the smell of a feed store.
You know, you go in and it just has a
I don't know, earthy. I don't have a better adjective
for it, but a nice fragrance that just I just

(01:07:57):
it makes me happy because I grew up going into
feedstore Sloe like League City feed. Now, for those of
you down in League City, of course, all the communities
around it, from San Leone, Webster, El Cominarial, Santa Fe, Dickinson,
all that region, this is your hometown feed store and
they are open Monday through Saturday nine to six, so
you can swing by after work if you need to

(01:08:18):
pick up something closed on Sundays. Here's a phone number.
You write this down to eight one three three two
sixteen twelve to eight one three three two sixteen twelve.
The Thunderbergs have been operating this store since oh gosh,
over forty years now, and it's the kind of place
where you go and you find the fertilizers I talk about,
like products from nitrofoss or from microlife, or from Nilsen

(01:08:42):
plant food or maybe azamite, that very important ingredient in
taking care of our lawns, and I think vegetable gardens too.
It's there you're going to find the things to control
pests and weeds and diseases. You're going to find premium
pet foods. And if you got backyard chickens, they have
the products you need for your backyard chickens, from feed
to feeders to bedding, as they like say, everything but

(01:09:05):
the chickens. They've got it covered at League City Feed.
Where is it now? It's on Highway three, just a
few blocks south of Highway ninety six in League City,
and you should swing by there. Tell them skips it
high from garden line when you swing by. I was
what was I talking about before? When I was talking
about quality? Oh, I know, Christmas gifts are any time

(01:09:29):
of the year gifts. You know, you don't have to
wait for some special holiday to give a gout of
lighting for plants if you know a gardener who wants
to take it up a notch. Quality lighting is important
most of our homes. It's hard to even grow a
house plant in due to the poor light levels, lack
of quality lighting in the plants. And you could buy

(01:09:53):
you could buy something that's like the whole setup. You know,
you buy it. It's got a rack, it's got the
lights on it and everything. Those are pricey, but it's beautiful.
I mean, it's something that's attractive to put in the house.
You know, hanging a shop light over the kitchen counter
may not be esthetically acceptable, and so you can buy
a nice one. But you can also put together a
package of things. My article on lighting recommends a certain

(01:10:18):
kinds of light. And you can go online and buy
a high quality light and someone can figure out where
to put it themselves. You know, they put it in
their garage like I have mine. Maybe you would just
want to buy the whole package for starting seed, like
a tray with the seventy two cells in it, a
bag of seed starting mix. Those trays come with a

(01:10:38):
little clear dome that goes over them, or real real
easy to find. You can buy a more expensive version,
so that same thing too, and then maybe a pack
of seeds. If you know they like to grow vegetables,
we'll get them a pack of tomato seeds or pack
of pepper seeds, and a pack of eggplant seeds, or
maybe some spinach or whatever you want to give them.
Just let them have at it. But a quality light,

(01:11:00):
a heating mat, there's another one that you could do.
If you're going to I guard, I start my seeds
in the garage. It's cold in the garage, not too cold,
but it's cool in the garage. So in order to
get the seeds up and going, you want that soil
temperature to be about seventy eight to eighty degrees for
a lot of the warm season plant seeds. And so

(01:11:21):
when the garage is fifty degrees, you just put a
little heating mat underneath it. It warms the soil in
the little trays. And to have warm soil for the
roots but cool air for the tops is a great
combination for growing a good stocky houseplant. And to have
a quality light and know how to use it is

(01:11:42):
very important. Now when you go online to buy lights,
you know you're going online, or if you even go
shopping around different businesses for lights, a lot of times
what you see is not very good quality. It's not
going to work. They may call it a plant light,
but it's not. You know, you go on a place

(01:12:03):
like Amazon and you see these lights that look like
spiders sticking out in all directions, and they're they're kind
of that purple color which is a combination of blue
and red wavelengths. First of all, that horrible looking on
your eyes in the house. But you can do better
than that. And so a lot of those don't tell
you the specifics of the plant. I saw a plant

(01:12:25):
light the other day and when the fine print it
said how many how much available plant available wavelengths are there,
And you'd have to stick that thing about four inches
from a plant to do any good, I mean just about.
And that's you know, they show pictures of it hanging

(01:12:46):
from a ceiling, you know, ten feet away from a plant,
it's not going to work. You need a quality light
that's made for that. So go to your local garden centers,
go to a place that knows what they're talking about,
or if you do shop online for them, make sure
you're getting a quality plant. And if you don't see
letters like pa R or PPFD, those are two things

(01:13:11):
to look for, then you're probably talking to a seller
who really doesn't know what they're talking about. Or maybe
they know, but they're not going to tell you that
the light just is inadequate. So get a good quality
light if you want to grow things in a longer term.
There are houseplants that take a little bit more light

(01:13:31):
to look good, and you can even get home fixtures.
You know, a light that chines from the ceiling or
hangs down from the ceiling. I use the stand up
kind of a gooseneck like structure that for where you
put it behind the couch so you come over your
shoulder and you could read. And I just put a
quality plant like bulb in that, and I've got a

(01:13:53):
Norfolk Island pine that's now about four and a half
feet tall and just thick and lush, and one for
that light. It would be a mess, but great gift,
great gift idea. Well, you're listening to garden Line. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty

(01:14:18):
eight seventy four. You can give me a call, talk
to Jonathan, have him get you on the boards. And
when we come back from the break that we're about
to take here, you will be the first step. What
kind of gardening questions can we help you? Then that's
what we're here for. I just want to remind you
again that on my website is a new post, the

(01:14:40):
newest thing on the website, the Randy Lemon Scholarship. Randy
was a legend here in the Greater Houston area for
decades as a host of garden Line. If you knew Randy,
or if you heard Randy on the air, you knew
he was one of a kind. For sure. He loved text,
A and M and there has been a scholarship set up.

(01:15:02):
I emails from Nelson Platforms and Randy you can get to.
I would like you to check it out on my website, Stott.
I think it's a great cause and I know Randy
would be trapped.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Welcome to kt R h Guarden Line with Skip Ricord.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Just watch you as.

Speaker 4 (01:15:30):
All right, folks, we're gonna jump right in here. I
don't know what happened, but everybody grabbed the phone at
one time. So we're gonna dive dive straight into it.

Speaker 12 (01:15:40):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:15:40):
Today we're gonna start with going out to Hockley and
talking to Scott. Hello, Scott, welcome to Guarden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:15:48):
How you doing today?

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
I'm well, sir, Thank you good.

Speaker 13 (01:15:53):
I've got two creat myrtles. They're about fifteen feet apart,
and one of them the stalks and everything look wonderful.

Speaker 12 (01:15:59):
And the other one and they're all.

Speaker 13 (01:16:01):
Like blackish, almost like it, uh huh some sort of
disease or something. I'm just wondering what I could.

Speaker 8 (01:16:08):
Do to it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:10):
Yeah, good question. That is caused by an insect, Scott.
It's called the crate myrtle bark scale. And if you
look closely at those trunks, the blackish city trunks, you'll
see little white things in there. That's actually the scale
insects there. They're really difficult to control. You know, if
it's a small crpe myrtle, you know you can you

(01:16:30):
can tillow brush and brush them off and you do
some oil sprays on them while they're dormant. It helps
a little bit. The thing most people do is put
a systemic insecticide in the ground and the roots take
it up, and then the insects that are sucking juices
out of your crpe myrtle stems, they pick up that

(01:16:51):
poison and it kills them that way, and it doesn't
That way is not killing you know, some beneficial insect
that's out there on the plant. That would be after
we get a little bit of warming and the crank
myrtle begins to grow and it's actively taking up nutrients
and things. That's when you do that trench for that.
But that's basically the option. You can ignore them. They

(01:17:14):
are not going to kill your creape myrtle. They make
it look bad, but they do have natural enemies which
build up to help keep them moderately under control.

Speaker 13 (01:17:23):
Okay, and I'll try that when it warms up a
little bit. And appreciate your help.

Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
Yeah, thanks a lot for the call. Appreciate that. Take
care all right, bye bye. I'm sitting here is cracking
me up. The phones are like popcorn going off here,
just popping up here. Okay, we're gonna go to David
in Southwest Houston. Hey David, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:17:51):
Good morning.

Speaker 14 (01:17:51):
Got a couple of questions for you. First of all,
is this a good time to do organic fertilizing for
my yard?

Speaker 4 (01:18:01):
And the reason is the your lawn grass has just
almost quit taking up nutrients. It's taken up a little bit.
The roach are growing a little bit, but not much.
And so save your money. Or if you got the
fertilizer in hand, just put it in the garage and
then once we get into spring put it on. Then
I have put a schedule on my website, David, David,

(01:18:21):
that's free. It's gardening with Skip dot com. And the
lawn care schedule tells you exactly when to fertilize through
the year and what do you use?

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Okay.

Speaker 14 (01:18:31):
And the other question is I have a river birch
tree that didn't make it last summer. It's been dead
all summer until now obviously it's gone.

Speaker 5 (01:18:42):
It's about twenty feet.

Speaker 14 (01:18:43):
Tall, all the branches are off. It's like it's a
skinny poole. And actually it doesn't look bad at all
of me. It's in the middle of a huge garden.
I'm wondering do I have to cut it down or
can I leave it there for woodpeckers?

Speaker 4 (01:18:57):
Well, you can leave it. What what's the diameter of
the trunk on that river bird?

Speaker 5 (01:19:03):
Oh gosh, not not real wide. I mean it's about
twenty years old. But yeah, that's all okay, Well maybe
maybe maybe six inches I guess.

Speaker 4 (01:19:17):
Yeah, okay, Well that's big enough for woodpeckers. But they
like to be up higher, so I don't know how
tall it is, but you know, down low you're not
going to get the woodpecker houses. They want to get
up in the air a little bit. But there's no
wrong then wrong with leaving.

Speaker 14 (01:19:31):
It if you if you there's no danger to following.
You don't think because there's no branches at all anymore,
and it seems so solid.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
Well yeah, I would just say every now and then
go grab it and kind of move it a little bit.

Speaker 11 (01:19:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:19:41):
See, the river birch is not a it's not a
super strong wooded plant. So as it begins to get
decay in the dead stem or trunk, uh, it will
get weak and it will eventually fall. But you ought
to be able to pull on it a little bit
and and kind of tell without the leaves to catch
in the wind. It's probably okay for a while.

Speaker 5 (01:20:00):
Okay, and tell me then the website again to get
to the advice that you have skipped with.

Speaker 4 (01:20:06):
Yeah, yeah, gardening with garden skip gardening skip you take care.
Thanks for the call. Man. HM. We're gonna go now
to Houston and talk to Ruth. Hello, Ruth, welcome to
guard Line.

Speaker 15 (01:20:23):
All right, I'm looking for a recommendation for a good
place to buy a plant. My daughter is wanting a
house plant that maybe's three and a half four feet tall.

Speaker 7 (01:20:37):
Uh, and she lives just east of the Heights.

Speaker 4 (01:20:43):
Well, I would go to Buchanan's Native Plants in the
Heights on Eleventh Street. They have a cage greenhouse full
full of all kinds of plants, lots of options there.
It's just down the street from your daughter.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Okay, great, well, thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (01:21:04):
Merry Christmas.

Speaker 4 (01:21:06):
Merry Christmas you as well. Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:21:09):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
We're just going through them here. Scott in Houston, Welcome
to garden Line. How can we help? Good morning, good morning.

Speaker 7 (01:21:22):
I'm looking for a soil top dressing compost.

Speaker 4 (01:21:27):
That's fine.

Speaker 8 (01:21:28):
I have a.

Speaker 7 (01:21:31):
One of those roll around spreaders that spread soil and yeah,
I'm looking. Yeah, they're awesome. I'm looking for something that
will not only help my soil but green my grass.
I used to buy one here in Houston and it's
not bagged anymore. So I'm looking for something that really

(01:21:53):
okay because I don't have to use normal fertilizers when
I use that product.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
M Uh so.

Speaker 4 (01:22:03):
Is this a you just need some bags of it?
Or do you need to order a amount of it
or which way? Okay?

Speaker 12 (01:22:12):
Bag?

Speaker 16 (01:22:12):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Well you the uh the folks up at Nature's Way
Resources in Conro almost to Conroe. Uh, they sell a
leaf mold compost and they sell a fungal compost and
both of them can be screened down or are screened
down to a very fine texture. I would have. I

(01:22:34):
haven't had those in my hands in a while, and
so I'm I know the kind of uh uh spreader
you're talking about. Uh, it just you just got to
get it fine enough where it falls through those holes.
Is this the kind that the holes in it are
kind of diamond shaped?

Speaker 7 (01:22:49):
Yeah, it's spanding is banded metal.

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, so you're going to need a
very fine textured uh. But you know, if if you
roll it across the yard and most if it goes
out and a littles left behind, you know, we just
dump it in your bed as a mult But the
leaf mold compost and the fungal compost from Nature's Way
Resources now they do sell that by the bag. You

(01:23:14):
may have to go get it, but you're gonna want
to get a bunch of it, so and they may
it may be retail available also as well somewhere near you.
I would try that. I know that Heirloom Soils also
has a leaf mault compost that is screening Europe and Porter.
But Heirloom Soils they are up in the Porter area,

(01:23:38):
but they sell all over town. They have a wide
number of outlets across the area, and you may find
their leaf mold compost as well. Either way, you've got
a quality product with the of those two.

Speaker 7 (01:23:53):
Okay, I heard you speak about Siana Malt. Do they
carry anything?

Speaker 12 (01:24:00):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:24:01):
Oh yeah. Where are you located? It just says Houston
on my board here.

Speaker 7 (01:24:06):
Yeah, I'm basically southwest Houston West Timer in the Beltway area,
so I have access to jump on a beltway and
be anywhere I want to be.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
So okay, well, yeah, run down, run down to Siena Molts.
They are on five point twenty one. You can just
go to Ciena Malts dot com the website and find
them u They only deliver within twenty miles, so they
probably not going to deliver to your area, but you
can go down. Just give them a call, talk to
Ashley or one of the folks there and tell them

(01:24:39):
what you're wanting to do and they can get you
fixed up too. I'm sure they carry that as well.

Speaker 7 (01:24:44):
They're going to make a or produce a fine malt.

Speaker 4 (01:24:49):
They probably carry heirloom soils, leap mold compost. But I
just can't keep up with everything that everybody carries, so no.

Speaker 7 (01:24:58):
I understand.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
Okay, all right, well I'm gonna have to run for
a break, but good luck with it. And sounds like
you're doing a good thing there to your long that's
for sure. Thanks thanks for calling in. I'm gonna have
to go to a break, Leslie and Conro you'll be
our first up when we come back. Welcome back to
guard Line folks.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Glad to have you with us.

Speaker 4 (01:25:19):
Before before we went to break, I was talking about
Nature's way resources, you know, Nature's way. They were making composts,
before you know quality compost was cool. I guess you
could put it that way. John Ferguson's long been a
student of the soil science, and he knows how to
make quality compost. And when you go to Nature's Way,

(01:25:40):
whether it's compost, whether it's soil blends, whether it's mulch's,
they've got it all. They still have twenty percent off
their fungal compost. It's called the Fungal Friday Sale. You
gotta do it on Friday, Fungal Friday. Twenty percent off
fungal compost. If you're looking for veggie and herbicx. If
you're looking for a top dressing leaf old compost, they

(01:26:01):
have got that there. I was just talking with someone
a moment ago about that. That Nature's Way. They sell
it by the bag. It's available in some stores around
our community, or you can just go up there and
get it. They're up on the road to Tombaal Highway
forty five. You get to where fourteen eighty eight comes
in from the west and you turn right across the

(01:26:23):
railroad tracks right there Nature's Way. They're on Sherbrook Circle.
Nature's Way Resources the phone number if you'd like to
give them a call, get the specifics nine three six
two seven three twelve one hundred ninety three six seven
three twelve hundred. You will not go wrong with products
that are made right and have long been a leader

(01:26:43):
in this industry and our region. We're going to go
to the phones now and talk to Leslie in Conroe. Hello, Leslie,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:26:54):
Good morning, happy holidays.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
I have a question.

Speaker 6 (01:26:57):
During Burrol, we had a tree pole on our house
and when they cut it down, they had to take
out all the crape myrtles that we had in a
small area. They were probably about twenty feet high. And
now they have come back, but they've come back as
a grow So should I let them continue to grow
as bigar or cuff them back?

Speaker 4 (01:27:19):
So are you saying, basically you have crpe myrtle shrubs
coming up everywhere?

Speaker 12 (01:27:25):
Yes, I guess that's it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:26):
They're just bushes. Okay, So you can do a couple
of things. I'm assuming you want to keep the crape myrtles,
and so what I would do is for each crpe myrtle,
select three of the shoots coming up to be three
new trunks. If you want a single trunk, you can

(01:27:47):
do that, but generally crape myrtles come in about three
trunks at a time. Cut everything off other than that,
and cut it as close to where they attach as possible.
Don't leave any stuff just I mean right up against
because there's a bunch of bugs at the bottom and
you don't want it to continue to sprout like that.
There is a product called sucker stopper. Sucker stopper it's

(01:28:12):
a plant hormone and you spray it on those cuts
and it helps prevent them from re sprouting so fast.
It's not going to eliminate all of it, but it helps.
And then take those three that are growing and train them.
Let you know, they'll come up a distance and then
they'll fork into two, and then each of those will
fork into two more, and you're just kind of snipping

(01:28:33):
and guiding and creating this beautiful structure that's aesthetic to
you as they grow. But you can wait until late
winter to do that pruning. You don't have to do
it now. But when you do have some of that
sucker stopper around where you can spray on them.

Speaker 6 (01:28:52):
Okay, and if I left them as bushes, would it
hamper anything?

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
No, you can just let them grows bushes, but it's
going to be just this thick tangle that in time,
as it gets bigger and bigger, is going to be
pretty crowded. So I guess you know it's your plant.
You go with what aesthetically is pleasing.

Speaker 6 (01:29:19):
To you, right, Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
I appreciate it, all right, you, bet Leslie, thank you
very much. Appreciate the call. I was talking with Ruth
a minute ago about houseplant recommendations. Or daughter lives just
down street from Buchanans practically, and Buchanans is on eleven
Street in the Heights, so I was telling her about
that their houseplant greenhouse is just outstanding. I mean it is.
It is absolutely beautiful, very beautiful now this weekend there.

(01:29:48):
You know, there's always things going on out there at Buchanans.
There's plants right now, the holiday gift plants, you know
that things like Christmas cactus, Thanksgiving cactus, those kinds of
things are there. If you're looking for gifts for kids,
they're Bungalow, which is a little gift shop area. There
have some wonderful little holiday books for kids and other

(01:30:10):
things as well. They have gifts for the lady on
the list. They've got gifts, you know, for anybody that's
interested in plants. They're going to be having on December
twenty second, right before the holiday. They're going to having
a holiday centerpiece workshop. Now you need to do this. Now,
it's a ticketed event. It's eighty five bucks. But here
is the deal. You'll go in there on December that's

(01:30:34):
a Sunday, by the way, December twenty second, and you
will build your own holiday centerpiece and it will be
epic and you get to take it home. So not
only do you have fun and learn how to do it,
but you make this wonderful arrangement that you can take
home if you want. You can just you know, go

(01:30:57):
and purchase holiday decor already ready to go. They've got uh,
fall wreaths, stems, garland, outdoor decor, all kinds of stuff
like that ready to go. When you go to Buchanans,
you're gonna get good advice, you're gonna get quality plants
and quality products, and you're gonna have a good time.
I can just tell you that Buchanan's Native Plants on
Eleventh Street in the Heights. I always wander the place

(01:31:22):
just to see what's new. What did they have now?
What new kind of thing they have? In Boy, if
you're in if you're into natives, fall is for planting,
so is winter. By the way, go ahead and get
those things and get them in the ground. They have
the best supply of native plants of anybody in the
whole region. And they can point you to the one

(01:31:44):
that does what you wanted to do. For example, I
want one for butterflies, or I want one for pollinators,
or I want one that's evergreen. You just tell them
they know what they're doing. I love birds, and I
got to tell you that the folks at Wallbirds they
just have the best stuff that. It's the case. You

(01:32:06):
take bird seed, for example, you go hying buy bird
seed anywhere, Well, yes you can, but look at a
bag of bird seed, cheap bird seed, and you'll see
little red bebes in it. And those are not eaten
much by birds. They generally kind of get kicked on
the ground so they can sprout under your bird feeders.
And now you got another thing to do with Wallbirds.

(01:32:27):
Unlimited creates seed blends that birds will eat one hundred
percent of this stuff in the seed blend, and so
It's really a more economical way to go about it
because instead of buying a bag of seed and half
of it is unused, you get all the seed that
you purchased when you buy from Wallbirds. Now, right now,
I would recommend their Wilbirds Unlimited Winter super blend loaded

(01:32:51):
with fat, loaded with protein, much needed by birds as
we get colder and colder and their natural food supplies
out in nature become more and more sparse. Very important
to do that. Wildbirds is the place for gifts to
someone you know. I had a call earlier about a
plant recommendation for someone that wasn't a gardener. Well, an

(01:33:14):
anybody on your list, gardener or not, will appreciate being
able to see the birds and hear the birds that
are attracted in by a quality feeder, for a bird house,
for all kinds of things that Wilbirds has. And if
you have a bird lover on your list, the book
written by Wilbird's founder, you can find it at All Birds.
Just say I want the book written by your founder.
It is an outstanding book on the birds of the

(01:33:35):
region and how to take care of them. Well, let's
see here I mentioned what was I talking about earlier?
I get going here and I sort of sidetracked myself. Oh,
I think it was more about lighting and gifts and
things like that. I think a gift certificate is another
good way to go when it comes to people on

(01:33:57):
your list. Gift certificates allowed them to get what they want.
And when you get a gift certificate from one of
the places we talk about here on garden Line, we're
talking about places that have everything. I mean, if you
can't walk into you know, we can as plants and
find something that interests you. You may not even want

(01:34:17):
to grow a touch of plant, go into the bungalow
and you'll find really cool gifts in there. And are
our folks just are good at carrying quality equipment, And
so why not a gift certificate from someone that is
on your list. I think that's a good idea. I
would love getting a gift certificate, by the way, And

(01:34:38):
for gardeners, you can never have enough tools. Maybe we'll
talk about maybe I'll talk about that when I come back.
What are my favorite tools that would make good gifts
for the gardeners on your list? You know, if you
know someone that's a wood shop guy, Oh, there's always
a new tool they have to have, right, you know,
do it yourself repair guy. The tools are their life.

(01:34:59):
It's the same thing for gardeners. Quality quality tools make
gardening more fun and they help you out better success
because they just do a better job and they're less
wear and tear on your joints in the process. Plus
some of them are just too cool, just too cool.
All right, I'm going to take a break. If you'd
like to give me a call and get on the

(01:35:19):
boards seven to one three two one two KTRH will
be right back. A little boogie woogie. Welcome back to
the garden Line. Glad you're with us today. We got
a lot more things to discuss. One thing that I
did want to talk to you about is a product
that Nelson Plant Food created over forty years ago. It's

(01:35:41):
called color Star. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's
famous in the in the industry. A color Star is
a fertilizer to help keep your flowering plants blooming. And
in order to do that, you need to feed them.
You need to give them nitrogen. Believe it or not,
because when you get foliage growth, you catch carbohydrates. When
you catch carbohydrates or make carbohydrates. You create blooms, and

(01:36:04):
that's what color strais. It is well known. They ship
I don't know how much of it to states all
around the country. I mean it's a popular product because
it works. Professional landscapers know and purchase color Star for
doing just that. You apply it about every three to
four months during the growing season. You can apply it.
You should apply it now for your cool season bed,

(01:36:26):
your pansies and violas and things like that. You want
to keep them growing and blooming up their best. You
do color straw you buy by the canister. Many places
around town will do refills of your Nelson plant food products.
So that just makes it an even more economical way
to go. Widely available with better garden centers, feed stores,

(01:36:47):
ace hardware stores, Southwest fertilizer, you can find color Star
easy to find and it really does work. We're going
to go now to Kingwood and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Good morning.

Speaker 16 (01:37:03):
I had a couple of different things I want to discussed.
One of those is we have a lot of bread
pairs planted decoratively all over the place around her head.
They're pluming, and I wondered if you've had a way
to explain to those trees that it was the wrong season.
Maybe they're doing it to avoid the fire black.

Speaker 4 (01:37:25):
Well, well, here's what happens when a bread when any
pair really but a bradbird, when it goes through stress
at the end of summer, could be drought, could be heat,
could be a lot of things. It goes into what
we call a false garmancy. Maybe the leaves drop off
or something like that happens, and it stresses it and
it's almost like it went through winter, and so then
it comes out and it blooms. You know, it doesn't

(01:37:46):
understand what month of the year we're in, but that
is just a stress response and you can't do anything
about it. Those ballooms enjoy them while you haven't. They'll
be gone and hopefully next year we'll get back in
and sink.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
Good.

Speaker 16 (01:38:02):
Well, I appreciate you telling me that. The other thing
I was going to tell you is one of your advertisers,
Nelson's planted back in the day when he first started,
and I don't know how many years, but at least
forty years ago, they the people were handling that he
was one of the prime people you actonite, And so
I have a little place here at the Kami, and

(01:38:25):
I ordered from him, and he brought it himself and
unloaded in my barn himself. And so I really have
always been to use Nelson stuff because I just think
that he's a really hard worker and a really really
bright guy.

Speaker 4 (01:38:42):
Well, and that is that is absolutely true.

Speaker 13 (01:38:45):
And you're.

Speaker 4 (01:38:47):
Well, you're not the first person to observe that. Uh
and and and Dean, he cares, you know, I cared
enough that when Randy passed, he set up that scholarship
for Randy up at text A and M. And that's
just the kind of thing Dean does. So that surprise
me at all. Thanks for thanks for sharing that, Bill,
I appreciate that.

Speaker 16 (01:39:05):
Well, it's a real pleasure speaking with you, and I
listen to your program as much as I possibly can.
You're really good information. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:39:14):
Glad to hear that. And you take care. We're going
to go now to Patterson and talk to Leanne. Hello, Liamne, Hey,
good morning, good morning.

Speaker 12 (01:39:26):
Hey Micha.

Speaker 17 (01:39:27):
I have a question for you.

Speaker 11 (01:39:28):
We have property out weekend place, and I have a
lot of sand and I need to know what would
be the best kind of grass to plant our grass
seats put out there to get some grass growing.

Speaker 4 (01:39:41):
Okay, is this for a lawn, I assume not a pastor?

Speaker 10 (01:39:45):
Yes, well there's.

Speaker 11 (01:39:47):
Target pasture also, but mostly up by the house.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Uh huh.

Speaker 4 (01:39:52):
And how irrigatable is this area? Can you can you
get water to it?

Speaker 12 (01:39:58):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:40:00):
Okay? And so you're wanting just a quality lawn, attractive
quality long grass, I assume not that's something a little okay. Well,
you know, Saint augustine is fine, and it'll root down
in a sand just fine. You're just gonna have to
water it a little more often, and you need to
fertilize it on a regular basis because sand does not

(01:40:22):
hold water and nutrients. Well, there are some other grasses
you could plant, like zoisia or like bermuda grass. But
anything you grow that you want to look good, you
got to water, fertilize, and mow it. And those three
things mow, water, fertilize or the secret to success. So
you could go with a drought. There is a Saint

(01:40:44):
augustine called cobalt was released by A and M not
too long ago, cobalt, and it is quite drought resistant
because it has such a good, deep, robust roots system.
And so if you're doing Saint Augustine in that spot,
I think I would recommend that one for you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:41:02):
Then there are certainly Bermuda grasses are very tough. Even
if they go into drought and look bad, they bounce
right back, and so that would be another The problem
with bermuda though, is you got to mow it regularly
for it to look good. It's not forgiving when you
don't mow often. And also bermuda if you got kiddos
that like to roll around in the lawn Bermuda grass,

(01:41:24):
tiggers love bermuda grass, and you know, if you ever
grew up doing that, you know what a trigger is.
And that's no fun. Makes it all scratchy. Yeah, yeah,
that's one. Those are in it and invades flower bed.
That's I'm kind of going off on bermuda here, but
those are its drawbacks. Its strengths are if you mow
it regularly, it's the prettiest grass on earth. I mean,

(01:41:46):
that's what golf course greens are made out of.

Speaker 11 (01:41:49):
Yeah, okay, all right, great Jim, all right, Well I
think I'll go with the Saint Augustine.

Speaker 10 (01:41:54):
So thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:41:56):
All right, Well, see see if you can find Cobalt.
I'm pretty sure. I'm sure you're pretty sure it's available
widely here in the Greater Houston area. Thanks again, appreciate
that call. Bye bye. That is the case. Oh gosh. Well,
if you are in the Tomba area, your hometown feed

(01:42:17):
store is League City Feed. League City feeds about three
miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty
and League City Feed is a traditional feed store. You're
going to find everything you can imagine for livestock, for pets,
you name it. If you want one of the fertilizers
I talk about on Guardline, they carry it at D

(01:42:38):
and D Feed. Did I say I think I crossed
over there? My brain switched D and E feed outside
of Tombo. Now, one thing that's really cool about D
and D is that you can order online. That's a
new thing. Just give them a call two eight, one
three five, one seventy one forty four. You can go
to their online store. Just give them a call, they'll

(01:42:59):
te to do it and you can just do the
ordering right there online. It makes it really really simple
and easy to do if you're looking for a cool
gift too. By the way, Leak City carries case knives, cases,
a quality pocket knife, very high quality pocket knife, and
they have a bunch of different options and so pretty much,
jaybody on your list would appreciate having a quality case knife.

(01:43:21):
And when you're in there at D and D, just
ask them to see the knives. I think that you'll
be impressed with what they have. They're also going to
carry things like the heirloom soils that I talk about,
the turf Star by Nelson, micro Life Products, nitrofoss Products,
Medina products. You get the idea. It's it's just everything
you need to have success. They're at League City feet again.

(01:43:43):
If you're looking for them, go on twenty nine to
twenty west from Tomball about three miles out and there
on the left hand side. Two eight, one three five,
one seventy one forty four. Well, it's time for me
to take a break. Jim and Houston. You will be
our first when we come right back. All right, we're back.

(01:44:04):
Welcome by the Garden Line. Glad to have you with
us today. I'm going to head straight out to the
phones here and we're going to talk to Jim in Houston. Hello, Jim,
good morning.

Speaker 12 (01:44:19):
Yes, I have a I have a question regarding putting
a palmero plant plant to bed for the winner. It's
gotten very large. Sever you know, it's that Hawaiian plant.
I may be mispronouncing it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:37):
Oh plumeria.

Speaker 12 (01:44:38):
Uh huh yeah, close enough. Anyway, we brought the cutting
home from Hawaiian. It has done well as far as
a plant, but not many blooms this year. But I
understand that in the winter time you just put it,
put it in the garage and forget it or you know,

(01:44:59):
just so it'll or easier. And how to promulgate it.

Speaker 4 (01:45:04):
Yeah, you can, you can do that. You can put
them in the garage. I've even known people that shook
the dirt off the roots when they had one in
the landscape. Shook the dirt off the roots and hung
them upside down in the garage for the winter. They're
they're a big, old, thick succulent stem and they go
into that kind of dormancy due to the temperatures.

Speaker 14 (01:45:21):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:45:21):
And then you just bring them back out, pot them
back up again. You you propagate it by taking sections
of the stems and letting the letting the you cut
cut it loose, let it kind of heel or dry
over that that cut.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:45:35):
And then they can be stuck and rooted in a
potting mix. Now here, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm
gonna anyone out there who's part of the Plumeria Society,
our local Plumeria Society. Would you give me a call,
let's talk about this, and I'd love to visit briefly
with you about it. You can kind of give them
some advice on overwintering a plumeria and on propagating plumerius.

(01:45:58):
We'll just have a real quick look brief talk if
someone Plumerius Society will give me a call on doing that.
But Jim, it's a wonderful plant. I know y'all fell
in love with them out there in Hawaii, uh, and
we need to help you have more blooming success this
year with it. Part of that is a good quality
plant food.

Speaker 5 (01:46:15):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:46:15):
Nelson Nelson Plant Food has plume aria food. You can
buy little canisters and I would recommend that that's one
quality uh plant food for plumerius. Good sunlight, good drainage,
adequate moisture, and good fertilizing to help that plant have
the best chance of blooming. But none of that till

(01:46:37):
it warms up in the spring.

Speaker 12 (01:46:39):
Well, that's good. Enjoy your show.

Speaker 4 (01:46:43):
Thanks a lot, Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Good
luck with you with your plumeria. Yeah, yeah, I know
people love those things and they're really not that hard
to grow. I mean, every plant has its challenges and
some things you have to do to make sure it's happy,
but in general, plumerias are not. It's not rocket science.
This is any plant you can pull o the ground,

(01:47:04):
hang upside down in the garage over winter, and stick
back in the ground again. That's the kind of plant
that I like to grow. One of my mentors, doctor
Bill Welch, oh gosh, the man, is a walking encyclopedia.
He is the author of Perennial Garden Color and Plants
of Gardening, books on old roses and other things. He

(01:47:25):
said something, and this is where I first hearted. At least,
he's talking about old rose growers that go to like
cemeteries and they find rose bushes just growing there among
the headstones, you know, that were planted. Nobody's fufuing them
and babying and spraying them with fungicides and all that.
They're just living on nature out there, doctor Weltch. Bill's

(01:47:48):
statement on it is if dead people can grow it,
you can too. I like that Plumeria is not quite
a seminary plant. It's not that hard. If dead people
can grow it, you can too. Gosh, well, you're listening
to garden Line, and I wanted to tell you a

(01:48:08):
little bit about encented forest down there in the Richmond
Rosenberg area. Chented Forest, as you know, is the place
to go for pretty much any kind of plant you
need at any time, but right now, right now, in
addition to an outstanding gift shop full of quality items,

(01:48:28):
just really beautiful, one of the kind stuff that you
will love, they've got a forty discount on what's called hollaballs,
inflated hollaballs, So imagine giant ornaments. I mean when I
say giant, I mean up to like what two and
a half three feet or something in size and down

(01:48:49):
and you hang them underneath your trees. You've got a
big gold live oak tree in the front yard, and
you got these ornaments hanging off the tree. They're really cool.
Forty percent off the inflated hollaballs for your land skate.
But also they've gotten in some strawberries, new strawberries. They
got Sequoia and Chandler and eversweet, and it's a really

(01:49:09):
good deal. You got a whole bundle of them and
get them in the ground. Now, if you get them
in the ground right away, water them in, plant them
at the depth that they originally grew. And here's the
secret on strawberries that you know at the very base
of the plant, that's where the leaves come out of,
and that's where the roots come out of. Right in

(01:49:30):
that line between leaves and roots, that's the depth of
strawberry planting. Water them in well and then begin to
give them fertilization on through the wintertime. Strawberries grow in
the winter slowly, but they grow and they get stronger
and stronger. And the better the plant is when we
come out into spring, the better your production is going

(01:49:50):
to be. So stop in at Enchanted Forest and get
you some there on FM twenty seven fifty nine outside
of Richmond, Texas. So if you're going towards sugar and
you twenty seven to fifty nine is off to the right, uh.
Enchanted for us. Here's the website that write this one down.
It's a great website with lots of good information. Enchanted Forest, Richmond,

(01:50:14):
TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. You're
listening to garden Line and our phone number finally got
quite on the phones again here phone number seven one
three two one two kt r H seven to one
three two one two k t r H. You can

(01:50:35):
give us a call. I don't know, We're probably going
to go to a break here pretty quick, but if
you want to go ahead and get on the board,
you can be the first up when we come right back.

Speaker 16 (01:50:45):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:50:45):
The folks at Medina have been producing quality products basically forever.

Speaker 16 (01:50:51):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:50:51):
They were on the first sponsors of garden Line back
in the nineteen fifties. Four is even called garden Line.

Speaker 2 (01:50:56):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:50:56):
They have a product called humate humic acid. Now basic.
This is like liquid humus, so's it's a compost concentrated
in a bottle. You know, compost is decomposed organic matter.
Humus is decomposed compost. It just keeps going to the
form of humus and humic humate. Liquid humus has got

(01:51:17):
that humic acid in it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:19):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:51:19):
Humus benefits moisture retention in the soil, like if you
have especially if you have sandy soil. It helps with
the soil structure. The physical properties too, so even a
clay is benefited by it. It provides micronutrients, provides some macronutrients.
It just enhances the nutrient uptake of the plant by
improving those soil qualities. Now you can buy humate humic

(01:51:43):
acid from aDNA in a quart a gallon. They even
have larger sizes if you want. But basically, when you're planning,
just get a couple of tablespoons, put them in a
gallon of water and watered in real good. I'll tell
you what I'll also do is soak the root system
in it. You know you've got a tree or shrub
or something, just put it in a bucket. Is that
the container in a bucket or a whatteb or whatever,

(01:52:05):
and put some of that in the tub to soak
up in that root system. And then when you get
ready to plant, you're ready to go. So it makes
it really easy. I will also soak seeds. If I'm
going to do some seed starting in, put a tablespoon
of humid humic acid in a gallon of water and
soak them until the seed swells up and they're ready

(01:52:26):
to go. And you will have success with that. All
part of another one of the wonderful products that the
folks at Medina have come up with. You are listening
to garden Line and we're here to try to help
you have fun in gardening. We want you to have success.
We want you to get beauty and bounty out of

(01:52:46):
the things that you grow, and that is exactly what
we do. Going to the last break, I think music
kind of cut me out a little bit, but I
just wanted to say it again. The Randy Lemon Scholarship.
We're rejuvenating that, bringing it back to the fore front.
You know, Randy, he was a legend here in the
scenario in the gardening world. I mean his entertaining style,

(01:53:07):
the helpful advice he provided to people for over two
decades here in the Houston area on garden Line helped
a lot of people have more success. You may be
one of those people. Dean Nelson set up a scholarship
a while back in Randy's name at Texas A and
M for a horticulture student, and that is what we're
talking about. If you will go to my website Gardening

(01:53:29):
with Skip dot com, the top item is Randy Lemons Scholarship.
You can go online and give it tells you how
you can give by check It tells you how. Just
go to that website. Would you consider making a donation
to the scholarship fund that lives on in remembrance of
Randy benefitings horticulture students at his alma mater and Mine,

(01:53:50):
Texas and M University. Well let's see here. I hear music,
which means I got to quit talk to him? And
what does it else? I mean it means you are
one more hour left and the show today? You'd like
to give us a call? Seven one three two one
two k t r H.

Speaker 1 (01:54:06):
Welcome to k t r H Garden Line with Skip Ricord's.

Speaker 11 (01:54:17):
Rim.

Speaker 3 (01:54:19):
Just watch him as many give things to Susy again
not a sign.

Speaker 4 (01:54:39):
Hey, welcome to garden Lines. Good to have you back. Well, well,
we got some things we can be discussing today. I
want to get onto those here in just a bit.
If you would like to give me a call, all
you gotta do is dial seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one

(01:54:59):
two kt r H. Every time I hear the word
dial come out of my mouth, it amuses me because
we used to dial. Now we just punch buttons. Right,
all you gotta do is punch buttons seven to one
three two kt rh and we'd be glad to visit
with you. How do we help you so that you
can have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape,

(01:55:22):
and more fun in the process. That's kind of what
it's all about. Let's see, I had a few things
that I wanted to go over to. I talked about
wanting to encourage you to try transplants this year, growing
your own translists. I don't mean all of them. You
don't grow everything you're grow, but try growing some. Get

(01:55:45):
your little light set up and do that. I think
you will find that it is a really fun thing
because listen, you know we're talking about the end of
December and in January. You are inside when you don't
want to be outside, probably, and you're starting little seeds
under a light. You're watching them grow. You're getting the
full experience. But the real reason that I like to

(01:56:07):
do this is if you wanted to start things from cuttings,
you can start those under your lights. I mean, you
have some cuttings of different kinds of plants you'd like
to propagate, or if you want a variety, you just
can't find locally. And that's true. You know, they're probably
a thousand tomato varieties out there. I don't know how
many there are, but there are a lot of tomato varieties.
And you go into the best garden centers we got,

(01:56:29):
and I mean they may carry a couple dozen different
ones in some places, but there's going to be things
that are too new or that just aren't asked for anymore.
But they are good old varieties that are fun to grow.
You can grow those yourself and all you got to
do is get a back of a seed, the supplies
you need and go for it. And it's a lot
of fun. And once you learn how to start seeds,

(01:56:52):
once you learn how to start cuttings, it just adds
another aspect to gardening, another fun aspect to gardening. And
the best part about it is, well, take a day
like today. We kind of had some misty, drizzly weather
this morning. You could be inside gardening with your new setup.
So I want to encourage you to give that a
try this year. We'll help you have success. Just give

(01:57:14):
us a call here on Guardline and we will be
happy to work with you. We're going to go out
now to Chapel Hill and talk to Rachel. Hello, Rachel,
welcome to garden Mine.

Speaker 10 (01:57:27):
Thank you.

Speaker 18 (01:57:27):
How are you doing.

Speaker 4 (01:57:30):
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:57:32):
Good.

Speaker 18 (01:57:34):
I wanted to ask if there's a way to get
my orchid to bloom. Someone gave me an orchid and
it bloomed beautifully, and then it stopped blooming, and I
don't know if I should cut a little stem where
the blooms come out, or just let it continue.

Speaker 12 (01:57:50):
To get longer.

Speaker 4 (01:57:54):
It's probably not going to bloom again on that stem.
It can, but it normally doesn't. Sometimes you'll get a
lot slideshoot coming out that'll bloom for you on it.
I'm assuming you have a moth orchid. That's the ninety
five percent of the orchids you see sold out there
are moth orchids, it seems like, especially in our area.

(01:58:17):
The thing you want to do is, once we get
through this cool season, take a look at your orchid
and you can put it up out of the pot.
It's going to be growing in either moss or little
wood chips, and take a look at the root system.
If some of it looks kind of brown, kind of gray, brown,
water soaked, rotting, kind of shriveling kind of things. You

(01:58:39):
can cut all of those off and then repot it
with a little fresh orchid bark or sphagnum moss in
the container. And when we get into when we get
past the wintertime, start to fertilize it lightly and water
it periodically. Now, you don't want to keep them too wet,
but if you take any fertilizer and you take it

(01:59:00):
down to the lowest level on the label, you can
even cut down from that a little more. And each
time you water, you just give it a drench with
that with that solution it could be an organic product
or synthetic product, and just gradually get it in a
very bright light location. I keep mine in the bathroom.
We got a real bright window in there. Uh and uh,

(01:59:24):
and it it's bright, but it's not direct sun. And
and they do well in that location. And it's not
hard keeping them going, but you just need to kind
of rejuvenate them and get them going again. You may
want to wait a while, though, because sometimes they'll send
out a little side shoot. If it just recently finished blooming.

Speaker 18 (01:59:42):
Well, it's already got a side shoot. Actually, I don't
know ge it's a side shoot it's a new shoot. Yeah,
it's a new shoot basically, but.

Speaker 4 (01:59:51):
It's all coming from the bottom.

Speaker 2 (01:59:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:59:54):
And it hadn't it hadn't it hadn't bloomed yet.

Speaker 2 (01:59:58):
But it's short still.

Speaker 4 (02:00:00):
So okay, okay, well take care of it. Good light,
good light is the important thing, not direct sun, but
nice bright light. And you want to keep it going
as well as you can. And maybe that new shoot
will give you a little bit of a reward here.

Speaker 6 (02:00:20):
Yeah, thank you very much, you bet, thanks, Rachel.

Speaker 4 (02:00:24):
I appreciate, appreciate your call. Thank you very much for that.

Speaker 11 (02:00:28):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:00:29):
You know, Southwest Fertilizer is the place you go for
any kind of supply you need to have garden success.
I don't care if it's your lawn, your vegetables, your herbs,
your flowers, your fruit trees, your landscape trees. They've got
it all there. Fertilizers of every type you can imagine,
you know, from big bags the lawn fertilizer to canisters

(02:00:49):
of products, you know, like micro life products. You know
that we've got Nelson plant food product. Anything that comes
out of my mouth on garden line is going to
be there. Southwest Fertilizer. That's just how it is. If
you're an organic gardener. They have the biggest selection of
organic products in the whole region. They do Southwest Fertilizer
in the southwest side of Houston, corner Bus and Nutt

(02:01:10):
and Renwick. When you go in there, grab your lawnmower blade,
take them in and get those things sharpened because it's
going to be mowing season again for you know it.
Don't wait for the rush, go ahead and get them
doing that.

Speaker 2 (02:01:22):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:01:22):
They have a small engine repair shop in the back
as well. The website is Southwest Fertilizer dot com. The
phone number seven one three sixty sixty six one seven
four four. And while you're at it, it's a great
place to buy quality tools for the gardeners on your
list or for yourself. You're allowed to buy yourself a
Christmas bread. We're going to go now to Richmond and

(02:01:45):
talk to John. Hey, John, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 19 (02:01:49):
Yes, sir, I uh, I fell behind on my on
my fertilization schedule, and I'm never I wasn't ready for
the fall. I didn't I didn't get anything huh down
as far as wind or or anything like that. Is
it too late for me to do anything right now.

Speaker 4 (02:02:07):
Yeah, I don't worry about it right now. Wait until spring.
Wait until spring comes, when your lawn starts to wake
up and grow, do your fertilizing then I usually will
do in my yard, I do my first fertilizing when
I mowed the lawn twice. Now on my schedule, there's
an early greenup application, and if you haven't seen my schedule,
it's at the website gardening with skip dot com. You

(02:02:31):
can download it there. I generally don't do the early
green up, but you can't. And then there is the
regular first fertilization. It's about the time you've mowed the
lawn twice, but it's on the schedule, okay.

Speaker 19 (02:02:44):
And as far as weeds that I have growing right now,
I just can I put something down for it? Or
do I just keep on just cutting for now?

Speaker 4 (02:02:55):
It's the weeds. Like you're seeing the weeds right, they're
there now, right right right? Okay. So I would what
I would do is as we get into later in
the winter before let's say, maybe in early February or
late January something like that, late January, pray better time,

(02:03:15):
get you a broad leaf post emergent weed control product
and spray it on them, and it will kill them.
If you wait until they start getting big and flowering
and sitting seed, those products aren't going to work as well.
So catch them before they start growing.

Speaker 11 (02:03:31):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:03:32):
And that's also the least stressful time to your lawn
grass for you to be spraying the weeds. Okay, all right, okay,
good luck with that. Don appreciate it. Appreciate your call.
Thank you. We're going to run to break. I'll be
right back. Welcome back. We are glad to have you
with us. If you'd like to give me a call.
Seven one three two one two KTRH seven one three

(02:03:54):
two one two KTRH. I saw my Southwest fertilizer and
having everything they also carry a's of mind, of course
they do. They have everything, you know. Azamite is a
micro nutrient or trace mineral, same thing, trace minerals supplement
that we put out on our lawns, and we put
it on our vegetable garden. You put in flower beds too.
Asumite provides those trace minerals that are essential for plant growth,

(02:04:17):
but not needed in large amounts. That's why we say trace,
just a trace of them is all you need. Now
you have a salt test done and see where you
are on nutrients. That's the best way to fertilize, whether
you're using lawn fertilizer or azmite or anything else. But
as a general guide, I would recommend that you put
out the asamite. You put out periodically. It's up to you.

(02:04:40):
Just depends on the actual nutrient levels in your soil
at the time as to how much or how often
you want to use it. But it goes a long way.
A forty four pound bag will cover about six to
twelve thousand square feet now in the vegetable garden. I
use it at ten pounds per thousand square feet. Ten
pounds per thousand square feet in a vegetable garden. There's

(02:05:00):
a thing in soul science called li bigs. Let's see
libigs barrel. It's called the law of medicnce minimum li
bigs barrel. So imagine I want you to picture this
for me. You know what a a whiskey barrel wine
barrel looks like, right, So imagine that you took the

(02:05:21):
staves going up in that barrel and on one of
them you wrote in for nitrogen, and on one p
for phosphorus, and on one K for potassium, and all
the way around the barrel to where you're writing, like
zinc and iron and manganese and all these trace minerals.
And then you cut those staves off at a certain
height and let's say almost all of them were up

(02:05:43):
at the top, but one stave is only halfway up
the barrel. How much water could you put in the barrel?
Only as much as the most limiting height stave will allow.
That makes sense. Well, that's how it is with nutrients.
If a nutrient, maybe you have plenty of everything in
your soil, but you have a nutrient that is limited.

(02:06:06):
That is how much plant production, growth, health you're going
to be able to have. So you want to bring
the even the trace minerals up to a good amount
in the soil bank account. And think of it as
that you're not feeding a plant like you know here
you give it a spoonful of fertilizer and it eats it.
You're building the soil when you fertilize, so that when

(02:06:29):
those roots need twenty different nutrients out there sixteen primaries,
but we have some others that are important too, and
when it needs some of that, it's there in the
soil bank account, and your grass lawn can grow, your
peach tree can grow and produce well, your rosemary herb

(02:06:50):
can grow and produce well. At the flowers, the vegetables,
whatever you're growing. And that that is why we talk
about azemiti as a trace mineral supplement, very very important.
So hopefully that made a little bit of sense. People
get a little confused on minerals and nutrients, like is
it too late to use as might No, it's never
too late. It is not something we're putting on like

(02:07:13):
nitrogen we do certain times of the year to make
the grass grow. It's something we're putting on to build
a saw bank account. So when the grass wants that
particular element, it's there, it's ready to go. Hope that helps.
If you have had some trees that have had some
issues this year, you probably ought to give Martin spoon

(02:07:34):
Moore a call. Martin is that Affordable Tree Service. Affordable
Tree Service is our go to company on garden Line
when it comes to tree trimming. Now, this October through
February cooler season window is when a lot of pruning
gets done. It's the best time to get most types
of pruning done. Although you can prune all times of

(02:07:54):
the year, and the Martin stays busy. Martin does excellent work.
And when you do a good job, when you have
good service, good price, good job, you stay busy. And
so don't delay. Tell him you're from you heard about
him on guarden line. Get you up toward the front
of the line. Give him a call seven one, three, six, nine, nine,
twenty six sixty three. Have him come out. Take a

(02:08:17):
look at your trees. Look at the overall health. How
are they doing, or any branches needing to be removed.
If you have young trees, do they need any training
to help them get off to a good start. You know,
if you don't train a tree when it's young, when
it gets old, you're gonna have a mess, and you're
gonna get out of chainsaw and you're gonna make big
wounds trying to get things back to where they should

(02:08:37):
have been trained to a long time ago. Martin can
advise you on that. If you're gonna have any construction
done around a tree, he can advise you on that
and tell you how to do it so you don't
hurt your tree. Listen, Martin knows what he's talking about.
He's been doing this a long time here in the
Greater Houston area. His website is a fftree Service dot com.

(02:08:58):
Or you can call seven one three six nine twenty
six sixty three. You're gonna need to talk to Martin
or Joe. If you don't, you call the wrong place
seven to one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three.
Get on his schedule so he can come out and
take care of your trees. They are the single most
valuable plants in your landscape. They do a lot of

(02:09:19):
things for us, very very important. I was talking about
gifts for gardeners and ideas for gifts and items for gardeners.
Gardening books are another great idea. You know, if someone
is really into herb growing. Now there's a book produced
a long time ago, and oh my gosh, the names

(02:09:42):
escaping me now. Madeline Hill and Gwyn Barclay are the
authors of it, Texas Herb Growing. Maybe the name of
it my brain just went blank on it. I'll figure
it out anyway. That is a good book. Doug Wells
wrote a book called a Garden Almanac for Texas and
it tells you what to do each month of the year.
I've got one out there called Texas month by month gardening,

(02:10:04):
same kind of thing. There are books that are excellent
on flowers, books that are excellent on antique roses. Doctor
Welch I had one called Perennial Garden Color that is
the standard for Texas perennials, the old time perennials on
the new ones. Perennial Garden Color a great gift book

(02:10:26):
for that, And there are many other books out there.
I guess I ought to put a list of recommended
books on the website. That'd be a probably a good edition,
but a good quality book. You know, it can be
a freezing coals leading day outside and you can get
open that book and you've gone back into gardening again.
You're dreaming and you're learning, and you're getting better getting

(02:10:48):
more information on it. So a book is a good
a good gift for gardeners. Now they're they're coffee table books.
I'm not a huge fan of coffee table books, but
they are beautiful for looking at you know, you put
them on the table and people look at them and
get inspired. But I like the blue collar meat and potatoes,
get down in the dirt and get it done kind

(02:11:10):
of book. But we mentioned before a subscription to Texas
Gardener magazine is a gift. Texas Gardener is, to my knowledge,
the last remaining private gardening magazine for state, for a
state in the country, Texas the last one to still
have a gardening magazine for Texas. Or's not a Nebraska
Gardening or a New Jersey Gardening and so on. But

(02:11:33):
there's a Texas Gardener magazine written by Texas gardeners. I
know almost all the authors in it, and they're excellent,
and it's written for Texas gardeners. So anybody who either
is a gardener or wants to be a gardener, get
them a subscription to that. You can do a print subscription,
you can do an online subscription where you view the

(02:11:54):
magazine online. That's kind of popular now, or you can
do both. You can do it either way. Anyway you
go by Texas garden is the website for that if
you want to be part of that good local inspiration.
And by the way, if you're heard the term that
all politics is local, have you ever heard that, well,
I would like to say all gardening advice is local too.

Speaker 2 (02:12:15):
It is.

Speaker 4 (02:12:16):
And I go online a lot and I see things,
I listen to shows, and I hear things said, whether
it's TV or radio, and I think, well, yeah, that's
true in New Jersey, but not here in Texas, not
in our location. Or maybe it's true in Austin but
not in Houston. Yeah, we have differences even within a

(02:12:39):
section of the state like that. So you need to
get good local advice in Some of the books written
here in Texas are helpful, very helpful for that. The
magazine written in Texas helpful for that. And gardening shows.
Local gardening shows like garden Line here in the Greater
Houston are very helpful for getting good local advice. You
can also get the kind of advice when you go

(02:13:01):
visit one of our independent garden centers here in the
Grider Houston area. I talk about them on garden Line
all the time. You know, they are north, south, east, west,
and central, no matter where they live, all directions and central.
We have got quality garden centers with staff that know
what they're talking about. And you know you've heard me

(02:13:25):
ripe about this before, but I had been into big
box stores, and here we go big box stores and
stores that sell everything from pajamas to microwaves to plants,
those kind of places. The likelihood of getting good advice

(02:13:46):
or slim. I went into one one time, and I'd
set up to train employees at it. I was saying,
I'm doing a good thing here, just getting some training in.
And I went to talk to the manager and he
was gone. The garden center manager was gone, and the
new guy was in. I said, oh, I'm supposed to
be here doing her training. Okay. I said, well, so
where are you from? And he goes, oh, I was
at the jewelry counter and they moved me to gardening. Okay,

(02:14:09):
and you're selling chemicals that people are going to use
on their lawns. I've been to a big box store before.
I was looking at the wall of products up there
on the wall, and a young lady walked up, May
I help you? And I always like to ask a
question or two just to see if they are able
to help, And turns out I asked, oh, what were

(02:14:30):
you doing for this?

Speaker 3 (02:14:31):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (02:14:31):
I was cutting hair in a beauty shop, all right,
not setting you up for gardening. Go to your mom
and pops. That's the bottom line. Time for a break.
We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back, Welcome back to
garden Line. We are glad you're with us today. Hey,
if you'd like to give me a call, we're on
open lines. It's seven one three two one two k

(02:14:52):
t r H seven one three two and two kt
r H. I've been talking about holiday gift ideas and
and things to consider giving someone. Uh there I mentioned
gift certificates and the importance of that. I mentioned that
our local garden centers, of course have the quality plants
and advice and many products in their gift shops that

(02:15:16):
just are outstanding for gift ideas, that is for sure.
Do you know Ace Hardware also has some really good
gift ideas I love. I was in an ACE gosh
when was this about three weeks ago? And looking at
the kids toys? Do you think of Ace when you
think of kid's toys? Were you should? And there were

(02:15:37):
a lot of cool stuff, a lot of and some
some of the retro kinds of things, you know, like
Lincoln logs. How many of you remember Lincoln logs. I
played with Lincoln logs to the cows came home and
the dogs chewed them up. I loved those things. And
you can still buy some cool ptro types of toys
like that at ACE Hardware's as well. Remember every Ace

(02:15:57):
Hardware stores independently owned, so each although it is an
ACE and has the standard ACE things there, it's going
to have the flavor, if you will, of the owner.
It's going to have its own unique version of all
the kinds of things that they can carry. But I
can tell you this, when you walk into ACE you
will find at least a dozen things that you did
not know you could buy locally at your local Ace

(02:16:19):
Hardware store. By the way, time to get in there,
get your landscape lighting, get your decorations outdoors, get your
lighting and decorations for indoors as well. They are ready
to go at ACE Hardware store for this holiday season
and they are stocked up. You need to get by
there and check it out. All Star Ace Hardware, for example,
is in Spring and in Magnolia, two different locations. You know,

(02:16:42):
there's a lot of ACE Hardware's in the Greater Houston area,
Lake Conroe Ace Hardware another place for those of you
on the side you Valdi Street Ace Hardware and up
in brunn and Brunna Ace Hardware just examples of the
many ACE Hardware stores in our area. You can go
to Acehardware dot com find the st Or locator and
find the stores. Yes that's plural, the East Hardburre stores

(02:17:06):
near you. We're going to head out to Richmond now
and talk to Margaret. Hello, Margaret, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (02:17:15):
Thank you, good morning.

Speaker 7 (02:17:20):
So I.

Speaker 17 (02:17:22):
Was asked what the problem is, and it's my front lawn.
I'm seeing the browning of the grass. A few patches
are like circular in shape. Uh huh, and the grass
is very brown around it. Most of it is so green,
but just those particular areas. Uh, what do you recommend?

Speaker 4 (02:17:44):
Okay, good, Well, that's a disease called brown patch or
large patch. It kind of has two names now, large
patch in brown patch, and it's a fungus. And what
it does, Margaret, is it rots the leaves off the runner.
That's why you get the yellowing turning to tan, turning
to brown circles and the lawn they're not all perfect circles,

(02:18:07):
but they are typically circulure in their shape. And so
the good news is it's not killing your grass, and
those runners stay alive, and when it warms up a
little bit, they'll start to grow new grass blades and
it'll fill back in green again. Then bad news. While
they're well, you don't have to treat. The bad news

(02:18:31):
is is those bear is now sunlight is hitting the
soil and you're more likely to have weed seeds start
to grow. So you can put a pre emergent herbicide
out to stop weed seeds, or just know that you're
going to be dealing with them in those areas and
be ready to do that. There are fungicides that will
stop brown patch from occurring, but once you have the circles,

(02:18:54):
they don't make the circle green. It's already you missed
the boat on those spots. Some people, when they get
a few of those circles, they'll go ahead and treat
with the fungicide so that you don't get more of
them to stop more from forming. And if you if
you go to my website, it's an easy website to remember,
I'm Skip Rickter. The website is gardening with Skip, Gardening

(02:19:18):
with Skip dot com. I have lawn care schedules to
tell you how to mow, water and fertilize, and then
I have a schedule that's the lawn pest and disease
and weed management schedule. And as you go from January
through December, it's a big chart January to December, and
there'll be a line for weed prevention, a line for
weed control of existing weeds. There's a line for insects,

(02:19:39):
a line for diseases, and it tells you when all
that needs to be done so you can avoid those
in the future.

Speaker 17 (02:19:46):
Okay, I appreciate it because I was thinking we'd need
to take those areas out and plug in some new grass.
So that's not necessary, is it.

Speaker 4 (02:19:57):
Not at all? No, don't worry about at all. There
there's no no need to do that. That they will
be back, all right.

Speaker 2 (02:20:06):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 17 (02:20:07):
I appreciate it, and thanks for all of the helpful
information that you impart with us.

Speaker 4 (02:20:13):
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for listening. Glad,
glad to have you around. Okay, I'm gonna had a
caller call in about a question about a nursery. I'm

(02:20:36):
gonna need some more information I believe on that or
just speak to them directly. Either way, I'll be happy
to do it. So let's see here we were talking
about gifting and whatnot for the holiday season. Some ideas
for people on your list. A good tool is always

(02:20:56):
a good gift, it is. I mean, if someone's a woodworker.
There's a bazillion woodworking tools. If someone is in a
kind of home repair, do it yourself, do it yourselfers
and things like that, then you know a good tool
is going to be happy, happiness for them when they

(02:21:17):
get it. If it is a gardener on your list
or somebody who wants to be a gardener, a quality
tool for them is important as well. And listen, I
have owned a lot of tools over time over my time,
and sometimes they are cheap, and cheap is a good
word for them because they don't last. They don't last.

(02:21:41):
Buy I'm a quality tool. Buy I'm a quality pruner
set that is excellent idea. Pruners are saws. One of
my favorite tools is a soil knife. Soil knife is
like a big old booie knife with a curve cupped
blade with serrated on one side. It is excellent for
working in the soil. There are other ideas on tools

(02:22:03):
like the kneeling bench. I always talk about Southwest Fertilizer.
Bob's got the kneeling benches down there. It folds up,
you store it, you bring it out. It's a seat.
If you'll turn it one way, you flip it over
it's a kneeling bench and the legs become handles to
get back up off your knees. If you're north of
forty you know what I'm talking about. Lots of good
tools out there for gardeners. We're gonna take a little

(02:22:24):
break here and we'll be back. Welcome back to garden Line.
Good to have you with us today. Hey, we got
a short amount of time here. Got a few calls
to get through. I did have someone that asked about
last week. Luis Tomorrow called in and we were talking
about Christmas gift ideas from Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood
Garden Center, and someone asked about what were the locations
for those. Warren Southern Gardens is in Kingwood, Texas and

(02:22:48):
it is on North Park Drive. Kingwood Garden Center is
on in Kingwood, Texas and it's on Stone Hollow Drive.
Both are open seven days a week. Run Southern Gardens,
North Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Center, Stonehaller Drive. It is
not fair that the people in Kingwood have both of
those garden centers right in the backyard right there. That

(02:23:10):
is a that is a great thing. All right, We're
gonna run out to the phones here and talk to
Billy and Tomball. Hey Billy, welcome to garden Line. Hey, hey,
I just going Thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 8 (02:23:23):
I am I've been toying with the idea of some
above ground vegetable gardening.

Speaker 14 (02:23:29):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (02:23:30):
But I'm a little confused by, you know, the issue
of what types of material should I use or not
use in.

Speaker 4 (02:23:40):
Building the box?

Speaker 2 (02:23:42):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (02:23:42):
Treated metal? Whatever got you? Now when you say above ground,
or you mean like a box that sits on top
of the ground, or do you mean a box that
is on legs up in the air.

Speaker 8 (02:23:57):
I'm guessing on the ground above above crowd, but on it.

Speaker 4 (02:24:04):
Yeah, that's a that's a good way to go. Well,
there's you know, plants don't care what they're in, and
so I have had beds that were just a mound
of soil with slope sides.

Speaker 15 (02:24:16):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:24:17):
And then you know that you can grow in that.

Speaker 11 (02:24:19):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:24:20):
If you want something that it doesn't tend to wash
away as much, then you can begin putting a border
around that kind of thing of stone. For example, I
built beds out of treated lumber before. Now there's naturally
rot resistant wood like redwood is a little that way,
cedars a little that way, and then there's treatments you

(02:24:41):
can put on wood to paint over the wood to
help seal it and slow decay. But any wood will
decay in time, even pressure treated lumber. But I've made
beds out like two by ten pressure treated lumber before,
and you can do that. Some people don't want to
do that because there's chemicals in it, and that's fine.

(02:25:01):
That's fine. The other way to go probably the I
think one of the best ways to go is to
use a metal bed that has a treatment to the
metal like galvanization. Usually they have even better stuff now
to do that, and then is painted on the outside.
That gives you the most life out of that bed.

(02:25:24):
It doesn't rust away like a piece of tin would rust.
So those I used to have a sponsor called Vego
Garden Beds. They are in North Houston, located in North Houston.
They produce a lot of those products. As you get
to a nicer, nicer bed like that, the prices do
go up, but I think they're pretty reasonably priced, and
you can find some that have corrugated sides. You can

(02:25:47):
get them in various colors that are earth tones, you know,
like a tan or a brown or other variations on that,
and they work really well. The thing I like about
those is they're very The walls are thin enough to
where if you've got a small area and you want
to fit a bunch of beds in, it doesn't the
bed itself doesn't take up as much space. I used

(02:26:08):
to make beds out of cinder blocks, which you could
also do by cinder blocks a couple of bucks apiece
and lay them on the ground. And now you've got
an eight inch tall bed that you put soil on.
But there you're losing. You're losing eight inches on both
sides of a bed, and so you start taking up
more of your yard that way. Sure.

Speaker 8 (02:26:29):
Sure, So it sounds like it really doesn't matter from
a health perspective what the material is, even treated lumber.

Speaker 4 (02:26:39):
Well, people will debate that, and I don't have time
to go into the nerdy details Billy on the air.
But the products that are made to treat wood are
made to stick to the wood and not wash away,
or they wouldn't work, and so they don't leach out
into beds that much. But I understand people have concerns

(02:27:01):
about things. We did a study years ago and a
grife on railroad ties, and does it leach into the soil.
And if it leaches into the soil, do the plants
take it up so that your tomato has it in
it for example? Right, And we found minimal, minimal amount
of that. But some people will put plastic lining around

(02:27:22):
the bed wood that they don't want to leach in.
It's good to everybody, but I do know that like
a Vego bed made out of that not galvanized bit.
It's like galvanizing and then painting it. Those things, they'll
have their food grade. There's nothing to leach or anything
like that. So it's just up to you. Some people
worry about fly ash put into cinder blocks as being

(02:27:44):
a potential health hazard. I don't worry about that stuff myself,
but I respect the fact that people do. So it's
all up to you.

Speaker 7 (02:27:52):
Men.

Speaker 4 (02:27:53):
Hey, thanks a lot. I appreciate the information. You've cleared
it up for me. All right, Billy, you take care. Thanks,
thanks for that very much. I'm going to run now
to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Donna. Hey, Donna,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:28:08):
Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. I want to
speak to you about some plumeria putting up.

Speaker 4 (02:28:18):
Okay, okay, that's good.

Speaker 9 (02:28:21):
The Plumerius Society recommends that when the weather is forty
degrees or less over a consistent amount of time, that
all your plumerias be brought into a warm spot. I
heard the gentleman asking about bringing in his plumeria if
he could.

Speaker 10 (02:28:39):
Bear root it.

Speaker 9 (02:28:42):
We do that a lot with our large plumerius. Yes, okay,
was there our question?

Speaker 4 (02:28:49):
You ask you basically? Dig it? Yeah, you're digging it up,
shaking the off, and.

Speaker 9 (02:28:57):
You'll find that that tree is not a huge root
system under that ground. It's fairly easy to dig up.
Dig it up, shake it off. Don't let it be wet.
That's the problem this time of year, when the weather
is maybe rain, maybe not. You don't want to put
up wet plumeria roots. So dry roots bear rooted. I

(02:29:20):
like to put them either in a box or in
a like a cardboard big cardboard box, a bunch of
them together. That way you have less area of your
garage or wherever you're storing them taken up right, Okay,
water them?

Speaker 4 (02:29:38):
Okay, that sounds good.

Speaker 12 (02:29:42):
Yeah, m.

Speaker 4 (02:29:45):
All right, Hey, donad real quick, how do you root
a plumara? Cutting and just okay? The briefest version.

Speaker 9 (02:29:53):
Okay, you take that plumeria cutting in the spring and
you put it into some good, good fresh soil. I
love ocean forest. I love it, and don't water it
and wait for a little leaf to show up. And
when that first little leaf shows up and you get
another one and another one, about three little leafs.

Speaker 6 (02:30:14):
Uh huh, start watering it.

Speaker 2 (02:30:16):
Okay, it's really all right.

Speaker 4 (02:30:18):
Hey, the music is ending my show. Thank you for
calling in. I appreciate that. Very good information. Folks. Wow,
time flies when you're having fun, and we did today.
Talk to you tomorrow morning, six am.