Bird Talk with Wild Birds Unlimited!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
H Garden Line with Skip Richter's.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Crazy trip. You just watch him as well. Many thanks
to see bot basic quick not a sun glass the

(00:35):
sun beamon down between.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
All right, let's do this. Good morning, gardeners and want
to be gardeners. Thanks for tuning in the garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help
you have a beautiful garden of bountiful garden, gorgeous landscape

(01:01):
and hopefully a lot of fun in the process. You know,
the cool thing I think one of the cool things
about gardening is it is a It's like painting and
that you have a blank canvas. Now, sometimes the canvas
isn't blank, it's a mess. You got to clear it
off and start with a blank canvas. But when you're
painting something, you pick up the brush and look at

(01:24):
this big, giant white canvas and say, okay, what do
I want to paint and where do I begin? You
start drawing whatever whatever it is you want to see.
It could be a bunch of balloons in the sky,
you know, it could be anything you want to draw
on the canvas. You get to do it. You get
to pick the colors, you get to decide where you
want to put it, and it's a lot of fun.

(01:46):
And the cool thing about it is there's a range,
so that gardening is for anybody, no matter what you
are doing, no matter what you're trying to landscape, or
how big the project is or how small. For some people,
starting off on gardening is getting a bunch of big containers,
filling them full of quality potting soil and growing vegetables

(02:08):
and flowers on the patio or down the driveway or
wherever you want to set them on the front porch.
For other people, it may mean just having somebody come
in and turn the whole place upside down, begin with
dirt and take it from there. The whole design is new.
Everything has created hardscapes. I mean, you've got a huge

(02:31):
range in gardening. But don't feel like if you don't
have this show placed landscape that's going to be on
the next garden tour, that you're just not doing a
good job gardening. Of course not. You get to do
what you want to do. What do you want your
garden to look like? What is the next step that
you want to take? And I would advise you to

(02:53):
start with some sort of a plan, some sort of
an idea, think about it. Drive around town. I do
this all the time. I've said this many times on
the show. But when I go from here to there,
I never take the well I try to never take,
you know, the standard highway route. I will go through neighborhoods,
I'll take other roots, and I get to see houses,

(03:15):
and I get to see different ways of landscaping, and
I get to see different kinds of plants and combinations.
And it's inspiring to do that. And you can take
a picture of it. It's okay to take a picture
from the road if somebody's landscape, and take it home,
and you know, put it in your to do or
your someday, and then you've got those ideas there. You
begin by starting with the soil. Always that that is

(03:37):
the foundation to success. It is not about starting with plants.
Do not do that. Start with the soil, brown stuff
before green stuff. You get the soil right, and you
put the good plants in it, in the design you like,
and there you go. And I would begin, I would begin,
you know, easy, you start with the basics. A lot

(03:57):
of times gardeners, Okay, I'm drawn on here, but I
think this is important. A lot of times gardeners are
plant collectors, and I am a plant collector myself. I
get it. I understand it. You go to a garden center,
there's a pretty plant. I want that one. Oh, look
at this one over here that is awesome. I want
that one. And you do that, and then you go

(04:18):
home and you walk around going where am I going
to put these? And the landscapes of plant collectors tend
to look like a bomb went off in a garden
center and everything rooted where it is landed. You just
have a great collection, but it's like there's no order
to it, there's no sense to it. And sometimes plants

(04:39):
don't thrive because you got a cactus next to an
azalea and they don't have the same water needs, or
you know, you have maybe a fern, you know, next
to a hibiscus and they don't have the same sunlight needs.
I'm just saying you start with a plan. Just maybe
your first step, maybe your first step right now, is
to get out there and side. I'm going to create

(05:01):
this bed around a tree or along a back fence
or wherever, and I'm gonna get good sold I'm gonna
build it up, and then I want to put these
plants in it. So first you get the beds created
and then you begin to put the plants in. And
there's nothing wrong. You don't have to do the whole
thing at once. In fact, I've got a back bed
that probably oh gosh, it's probably fifty feet long, and

(05:25):
at this current time, I probably have seven plants and
the whole bad or six probably, and it's so it
looks sparse, but I'm gonna build it out. I'm just
doing it a little at a time, and that's okay.
So that's why we're here for on Guardline to help
answer questions, to help guide you, to give you direction.
If you have problems, you can you can call us
or email me a photo and then call and we'll

(05:47):
talk about, you know, what is that bug or problem? Uh,
But feel free to do that reach out. We love
to talk to you phone number seven one three two
one two K t R H. Let's go ahead and
go to the phones. So we're going to head to
Jersey this morning and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Hey, good morning skill. My Saint Augustine grass has come
out really well this year and probably the best I've
had in years. But all of a sudden, I'm getting
out a lot of blades turning yellow kind of starts.
It's not real. My yard still looks good, but I

(06:27):
can look down into the grass and at the base
of the blades they start yellow and then it slowly
kind of creeps into the blades of grass. And I'm
just seeing this in many different spots, and I'm just wondering,
is it more maybe a fungle, or is it maybe
I've got bugs.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's a good question. I'm kind of trying to picture
what you're seeing. So the yellowing is just like the
whole part of the beleef is like a bright yellow.
It's not like a gradual loss of green. Ok yes, Okay,
if you were to pick a blade and hold it

(07:08):
up and look at it to the sky, do you
think you would see, uh, just solid yellow or would
you see kind of a yellow and green striped that
becomes more yellow as it progresses along time. Okay? That
sounds like an iron That sounds like an iron deficiency.
And iron can be can fail to get into the

(07:31):
grass for several reasons. One is the pH of the
soil is a little high. Number two is the phosphorus.
The middle number on the fertilizer bag is a little high.
That's why my my my lawn schedules we try to
aim for for low phosphorus numbers. And then the final
one is there just as an iron, And that's actually
the more unlikely one that there just is an iron.

(07:54):
A soil test would tell you what your iron levels are,
but you could go in there with a product called
iron keylate keylate is spelled c h E la te
and it's a type of iron that doesn't tie up
in the soil as readily and so the grass plant
has a better chance of getting it. I would start
with that. Apply it. You can do them. Sometimes you

(08:15):
can do hose in iron application. Sometimes granular hose in
probably a little bit better, but that way you can
kind of just treat the areas that are most showing
it and see how it responds to that. If that
greens it up, then that was the problem. And if
it doesn't, then we need to look a little deeper.
Maybe send me some photos and we'll look for some

(08:36):
possible diseases involved. I think at this point, though, with
your description, it's going to be an iron deficiency.

Speaker 5 (08:44):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Stip.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
I'm going to give that a try.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
All right, you take care you're there, you know, right
there in Jersey Village, You've got some Ace hardware stores
up in that whole cypress area that can get you
all fixed up with a keylated type of iron. And
also some great garden centers too, not far away.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
From you, aces right down the street.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
I'll give them check in with all y.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
All right, sounds good, good luck, Thank you, thank you
for the call. Appreciate that. In the lawns. I was
out in the yard visiting with my neighbor a few
days ago, and he said, he said that I had
turned him onto Sweet Green for a nitropos and he said,
I need to get some more of that where. You know.

(09:32):
That was awesome, he said. He greened his line up
like crazy. It did it fast. It just looks great,
And that's true. Sweet Green is a it's a primarily
a nitrogen fertilizer. Natural fertilizer melts away into your lawn grassroots.
Pick it up, and you get some fast growth you
want to give now. Normally, right now, I'm recommending slow
releases to carry us through summer. But sometimes you need
to get in there and you want to get a

(09:53):
quick result and you know, kind of invigorate a spot
and sweet green is great for that. And you know
we use it various time of the year. But sweet
green from nitrofosk can be found in many places Ace
hardware and sinkle ranch ospase ace in the woodlands. You
go up, maybe in Channa Forest. There'll be another place
down there in the Richmond Rosenberg area. Take a little
break here and we'll be right back with your calls. Well,

(10:16):
good morning, it is time to wake up. Here we
go on guardline weird to answer your questions, help you
have success. That's the bottom line. So give me a
call if you got a question. If you'd like to
send a photo ahead of you calling with your question,
just call and talk to my producer and he will

(10:37):
tell you how to get that photo to me. Sometimes,
if it's going to be a description and you're trying
to describe a weed you can't quite describe and stuff,
it's better to send me a photo, let me look
at it, then give me a call. We'll talk about it,
figure out what's going on there. Hey, last summer, you
know the storms we had and the way they took
out our power and I keep telling you guys about
quality Home products of Texas. They are the purvey of

(11:00):
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and they have their own service people on staff. They
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set it up, they go through all if there's any
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(12:30):
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it done, because when they do it, they do it right.
We're going to go now out to Spring and talk
to Lance. Good morning, Lance, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (12:49):
Ory Skip A quick question. I'm following the skins, but
i think I've got my pre immersion out a little late,
and I'm having a few weeks in my yard and
I'm wondering what I can if there's anything in a
little of going out there on the hands and even
picking them. If there's a product can yeah, straight on
granular into Saint State yard.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Got you? Now, these are these are broad leaf weeds
as opposed to grassy kinds of weeds.

Speaker 6 (13:15):
I have a little bit of ermuta that's mixed in
from the neighbor, but I'm more it's yeah dollars. There's
a few dollar weeds. And then there is one that
looks like a little a little succulent with white flowers.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Okay, yeah, that's a booker.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
That's a lot, but just a little yeah, well.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Don't let it become a lot. That's Virginia button weed.
And those low white flowers are followed by a little
a little smaller than an English pea size pods that
will recede it. Uh. Probably at this time, the best
thing you could use is something called Celsius, like the
temperatures Celsius. It comes in a little pack that makes

(13:54):
one gallon. So you mix it up and you're just
sporting the weeds. You're not you're not like treating the
entire lawn. You're going to where the weeds are and
you're squirting them with it, and it works very well.
It is also one that even if the tempts are
in the low nineties. It's not going to stress your
grass like some of the other good weed control products
will do. Once these temperatures get as high as they're getting. Now,

(14:17):
go ahead and use it in the morning. It's the
best time to apply it, and that would be the one.
And it also is probably about as effective as anything
you can find on the Virginia button weed, and even
at that you may find that four six weeks later
you're having to treat it again with the celsius because
it's a very difficult weed to get rid of, but

(14:39):
Celsius can do it.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Appreciate you, all right, good luck getting rid of those
weeks thanks to the call this morning. You bet you
take care. Appreciate that. Let's go now to Stafford and
we're going to talk to Mary. Good morning, Mary.

Speaker 7 (14:54):
Good morning. I have a beautiful green thing vine growing
up the trellis, but I have no ballooons.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Okay. Is this a climbing bean that you have?

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (15:10):
Okay, well I have several that are climbing and one
that's a bush bean, but none.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Of them are bloomings.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
None of them are blooming. How long ago did you plant?

Speaker 7 (15:24):
Probably two months and I planted from seam.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Oh wow, Okay, well, green beans, most of them, the
bush types especially, you should be getting something at about
fifty days as far as production, or less could be
less pul beans upright, ones they can range anywhere from
about that, but some of them can go up to

(15:48):
seventy days or more. They're kind of slow to get moving,
so it could be that if you overdo nitrogen on beans,
they take off with a bush leaf growth at the
expense of bloom production. So I don't know how rich
your soil is or what the fertilization schedule's been, but

(16:09):
just know that you don't want to not give them
any fertilizer, but just go go a little bit light,
especially on the nitrogen. And then finally, if they're if
they don't get at least six hours of sun, you're
going to see a delay in production and a lower
level of production because they just can't make enough carbohydrates
to do it. So does any of that get.

Speaker 8 (16:31):
Is it going to get too hot for them to produce?

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yes, they'll quit setting, but not just yet. You should
still be getting setting on your beans. But when it
does get hot there, they're not going to set.

Speaker 7 (16:45):
I put some ashes from my fireplace back in the
winter on the bed.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Is that a problem the problem, Well, probably not if
it wasn't too much. It's kind of like everything the
dose makes the poison kind of would I would say
if you overdo ashes, the pH is going to get
too high and you may see some iron chlorosis or
yellowing of the new growth. Ashes are going to contain

(17:10):
potassium and a number of other minerals and can be
helpful if that's what your soil needs. If you already
have a lot of what is in the ashes, then
you're just creating an imbalance. So that's where we go
back to a soil test to see where you are
and what might need to be added.

Speaker 7 (17:29):
Okay, well the leaves and everything look very, very healthy,
but they're just not producing. Maybe I'm too.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Early yet, Well two months you should be getting. You
should have gotten balloons by now, and even pods for sure.
I don't know. I kind of can you know? Looping
back again, it's light, it's moderate fertilizing, not too much,
and then depending on the variety, they vary in terms

(17:59):
of how how soon they come into production. I can't
think of anything else that would be causing them not
to produce. For you than that. Give them a little
more time, see what they do, let them settle in,
and just make sure they get adequate so moisture, and
hopefully they'll settle in and start producing for you.

Speaker 9 (18:19):
Thank you all right, Mary.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Thank you very much. Appreciate that call. Yeah, that's interesting.
Green beans are more people ought to grow them. We've
got a lot of great types of green beans. There's
bush beans, bush types, and then there are the types
that we call pole beans that climb. There are some gosh,

(18:43):
some great varieties. You know, there's so many good varieties.
I've done green bean trials over the last twenty years
several times, and there's a lot of good varieties. One
old bean that's been around a long time and it
still is a good one is Contender. Contender is the variety.
But there are a lot of other good ones. And
you go to a garden center that knows, you know,

(19:05):
they carry the varieties that want to do well here
and talk to them about what they have. But that's
an old mainstay, it's been around there. On the pole beans,
a lot of those take a little too long to
come into production for me. And so there are a
few varieties. There's one called rattlesnakes a little slow to
come into production, but it's an interesting being. And then

(19:26):
there's some broad flat types of pole beans as well
that do well also. We're just about to come up
here into another break. I just wanted to mention that
if you have not been to my website, I would
encourage you to go check it out. It's gardening with
Skip dot com. That's where my schedules are. The schedule

(19:49):
for lawn fertilizing and lawn care in general, mowing, watering, fertilizing,
and then the schedule for lawn problems, and that would
be weeds and diseases and insects, and they go from
January to December. It's a little chart like a checkerboard
sort of, and from January to December, and then each
row is a different problem, like there's a disease row

(20:11):
and insect row and so on. So you can see
exactly when do chinchbugs typically attack here, when do soide
web worms typically attack, and then follow it down as
to what to do about it. Let's take a break,
we'll be right back. Hey, good morning, welcome back to
garden Line. Thanks for joining us today. What do you
want to talk about? This show is about you and

(20:32):
your questions regarding gardening. How do we help you have success?
That's what it's about. Give me a call when you
want to maybe diagnose a problem or make some suggestions
as to how to improve a part of the landscape.
Phone number seven one three two one two k t
r H. Seven one three two one two k t
r H. And we will be happy to do just that.

(20:56):
I was talking earlier about, you know, gardening, taking gardening
step at a time. Don't look at it like, oh,
I've got to have this giant landscape makeover, although you could,
but look at it like what is the next little
thing I want to do? What is the next thing?
About a year ago or so, I decided my next
thing in the house we had moved into was to

(21:19):
put in and I call it an orchard. It just
means that's where fruit trees are. It's not an orchard,
but it's the orchard's on the side of the house.
I had a little strip there. There's a little too
narrow to do a whole lot with. And with the
privacy fence and the eaves of the house, the ground
sunlight amount is less, meaning you know, as a sun

(21:42):
goes through the sky. There's a little pattern that goes
across the ground, but the number of hours any spot
is in the sun is lower. So what I did
is I brought in and carrid some vego beds. I
filled them with soil, not too tall, probably about eleven
inch high, and big squares, and then I anim trees
in them. So the trees that come up, they're going

(22:02):
to be in the sun a lot because they catch
the sun sooner and even when the ground has gone
into shade from the house, the tree leaves are up
there still capturing sunlight, see what I'm saying. So it
became a good spot for that, and I put a
little archard down. I started with the beds, got them
set up back to I still have a bed. I
haven't put a tree in, and the beds have trees,

(22:23):
and so I'm just waiting. I know what I want
to do there, and it's just a matter of me
getting around to it and finding that species and variety
that I'm looking for. But now that whole area it
looks nice now for me. Everybody has a different opinion
about what they like the look of Some people would
put grass in there and mow it and edge it
and weed eat it and everything. I just turned it

(22:43):
into a giant moultched area. It's around you walk around
that side of the house and it's basically a lot
of leaves from last winter. All my neighbors are so
nice to leap at the curb for me and brought
them home, run over them with a lawnmoarders, chop them
up a little bit so they don't blow around, and
it just looks like a four all around those trees.
And if a weed sticks its head up, I take

(23:04):
care of that weed. But in general, with the thick, thick,
multual leaves, I don't have to deal with it. So
that was like one project that was done in pieces
over time, and you can do the same kinds of things.
Maybe you want to grow some vegetables, why not starting
containers and then or you could start going all the
way to getting a nice raised bed and putting it
on the ground, filling it full of good mix and

(23:25):
starting to grow your vegetables. And there's things you can
grow in summer, so you can start that garden right
now and then when fall comes you'll be rolling and
ready to go for broccol and cabbage and cauliflower and
a kale and a coolabbie, and spinach and lettuce and
beets and radishes and carrots, and here I go. I mean,
there's a lot of things you can plan, but start small.

(23:47):
Try something. What is going to be the thing you
do next? And just because it's summer and it's like
it's going to get hot now, now you can still
do that. A little morning work here and there can
go a long way toward making your life escape or
your gardening dreams. Take that next step. Well, let's uh
head out now to the phones. We're going to go

(24:07):
to Greg in Magnolia. Hello, Greg, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
How are you doing this morning?

Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 10 (24:20):
My question is I have several fruit trees. I have
a lemon tree, of peach, apple, and two orange trees.
And after that freezygeddon we had several years ago. It
buds but does not produce any fruit there, especially the peach.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Is not it So it blooms, but it doesn't cut fruit.
That's what you're saying, Yes, sir, yes, sir, Well that's strange.

Speaker 10 (24:59):
And I fertilile.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Okay, Well, peaches, peaches do not require a second variety
for pollinating your apple does, but the peaches don't. The
if it gets enough sunlight, that's an important part of
setting buds and blooming. But if you're getting blooms, you're
getting at least bud set so maybe, you know, if

(25:25):
the sunlight was a little marginal, maybe that could be
part of it. There isn't an insect that kills the thing.
It kills the fruit after it blooms. It's not a
pest problem. You know, there's some diseases like brown rot
that can even attack the blooms and the young fruit,
but generally that's not when you see a problem with it. Hm,

(25:48):
this is strange a peach that bloom, blooms. Does it
does look good?

Speaker 10 (25:56):
Yes, yes, it hasn't really grown thickness in the trunk
is as I would like it. But it is next
to two sweet gums, and that might be sucking all
the more all the minerals and stuff from it because
you know, the sandy loan just.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Doesn't hould the minerals.

Speaker 6 (26:13):
Yeah, up county.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you know oil, Yeah, it's a decent it's a
decent type of soil that how many hours of real
direct sunlight do you think that tree gets.

Speaker 6 (26:26):
Probably six to eight.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Well that should be enough fruit. Yeah, right, So after
it blooms, do little green peaches form like I'm talking
about the size, you know, like an English pee, but
they are elongated and skinny.

Speaker 10 (26:46):
No, sir, no sir, because as soon as you know,
back in the day, you know, I'm preaching at the choir.
But when once you see a little fruit, then I
start spraying. That is sector side stuff, the fruit tree spray.
And then bards usial gated the squirrels and I throw
the nest the net over it.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
And then that had probably well blooms this year.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Okay, oh oh just a dozen. And how old is
the tree?

Speaker 10 (27:14):
About seven years old?

Speaker 11 (27:15):
It really hasn't grown much.

Speaker 10 (27:17):
And I fertilize, you know, with those spikes every year,
and I use that mult its fruit trees.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, I would mean I would. I'm opposed to the spikes.
Well as opposed to the spikes. I just get a
good lawn fertilizer or a fruit tree fertilizer and sprinkle
the granules all around under the tree and a big throughout,
a big circle or a circular area for every inch
of trunk diameter, give it one or two cups of
lawn fertilizer.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yes, so, and I use the good stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
The only thing, all right, Well, the only thing I
can think of that could be happening is maybe the
pollinators are being killed if you start too early on spring,
and like, don't don't spray any insecticides during blow but
that I don't know why you wouldn't have any pollinators.
But that's not many blooms for a tree. And so
that's the only thing I can think about. If you want,

(28:10):
I'm gonna I think we kind of hit a stalemate
on this one. If you would like, I'm gonna put
you on hold, and you can either hang up or
if you hang on, my producer will give you an
email address and send me a picture of the tree
from a couple of angles in its neck, in its setting,
and then maybe get up close and show me what
it looks like. If I see anything else on it,
maybe something will pop into my head that hasn't yet.

(28:33):
But we'll see what we can do for you. Okay,
all right, put you on hold right now, you bet,
thank you for the call. So we were sitting outside
yesterday late in the day. We like to go out
late in the day and I don't have a big
mosquito problem because I got those mosquito buckets, so thank
goodness because that used to ruin that nice time of

(28:53):
the day. But anyway, we're sitting outside, my wife and
I and little birds are coming to our feeders. We
got a couple of feeders from wildbirds, and we were
just watching them come and go from the feeders, and
I got out the Merlin app. And if you don't
even have bird feeders, you need to get this app.
It's free. It's from Cornell. Cornell University has an ornithology

(29:15):
department that created this amazing app. And basically what you
do is you can take a picture and then look
for what the name of that bird is. And it
really works. I zoomed in on a Carolina chickadee that
was so far away that when I zoomed in on it,
it was like a real grainy, crummy picture, but it
was there. Merlin told me, that's a Carolina chickadee. You

(29:37):
could go down, you could listen to the songs that
bird makes. You can find out about it. It's so cool.
And then we're sitting there a little bit later and
we heard two or three birds singing in the trees
and I couldn't even see the birds. Merlin also has
a listen find the bird by sound and it listens
and as soon as it here's this little bird singing.
After a few seconds, it pops up the name of

(29:57):
the bird. It's so amazing. Wild Birds on Limited is
our favorite place to go because we're getting more and
more into these birds. The feeders. I've got a feeder.
One of the feeders we're watching the Carolina A tigoties
at is the squirrel eliminator origin. It's just called the eliminator.
Excuse me, a bit of eliminates squirrels and things because
they they they if they try to grab onto it

(30:20):
to go in and get food, it closes the door
on the feeder. It's really really cool. Now now's nesting
time still for birds, and so you need to be
using their exclusive Nesting super Blend only get it only
available Wallbirds Unlimited. We're still using our Cardinal Convetti that
is a great feed also, but Nesting super Blends so important.

(30:41):
Six stores Kingwood, clear Lake, Pearland, two in Houston, one
one on Memorial and then in Cyprus. WBU dot Com
forward Slash Houston WBU dot com Forward Slash Houston. You need,
you need to try this stuff out, get that Merlin
app and then get to Wildbirds Limited. Welcome back to Guardline.

(31:03):
Good to have you with us this morning. We're here
to help you have success and fun when you go
about your gardening activities. That is important. Another way that
you can make sure and have success and fun is
to know where your local ACE Hardware store is and
it's easy to find. Ace Hardwaretexas dot com. Ace Hardware

(31:24):
Texas dot com. That's the website and when you go there,
you're going to find everything you need to have success
in your lawn, to control weeds and diseases, to control insects,
to fertilize your lawn. And make sure that you hear
me talk about these products and where do I get them? Well,
your local Ace Hardware store. Ace Hardwaretexas dot com. That's
a website that I'll hope you find the one for you.

(31:45):
So for example, up north there's spring Ace on Spring Cypress.
Down southwest there's Plantation Ace on Mason Road in the
Richmond Rosenberg area, Champions Ace on Spring Cypress northwest, northeast
Crosby ACE on FM twenty one hundred, and then in
West Houston there's Langham Creek ASE on FM five point nine.

(32:06):
In Cyprus just by the Copperfield neighborhood there, and there
are many, many, many more. There's just a few examples
of the ace hardwar stores you can find near you.
But the main thing is you gotta go. You gotta
check them out. By the way, Father's Day is coming,
and I'm just saying, their barbecue selection is great, it

(32:27):
is unbelievable, So you may just want to go by
there and check it out. Also, some really great tools,
you know, from really quality brands and whatnot. Whatever your dad, husband, grandpa,
son is looking for that is related to tools and
guy kinds of things. If you will, well, Ace Hardw's

(32:49):
got it. And I know some of you ladies are
going wait, I like tools too. Okay, all right, get
you one, when you get your husband one? Two? Why not?
I think that's allowed. Let's go out to Tomball. We're
going to talk to my Hey, Hey, Mike, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 5 (33:04):
Hey, good morning, Skip love your show.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Good morning, thank you.

Speaker 5 (33:08):
I have something growing in my yard. I sent a picture.
It looks like a sedge, but it's got little what
looks like grass burds sitting on top of it. I'm
just wondering how to control it. I've got several patches
of it in my yard, and I have a bermuda,
mostly bermuda and tiff tough grass.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Okay, So that's that is a weed called kai linga,
and it's related to sedges. It has a triangular stem
at the base and you get the look real close
or feel it with your hands, roll it, roll the
stem in your fingers and you can kind of feel
the clunky three sides as you roll it along. Kling
is a difficult weed to control. Uh. First of all,

(33:55):
it loves wet conditions. So your grass can do with
much less water than kaylinga, and so would I would
make my watering very deep and infrequent as possible. Don't
just keep it wet all the time. Otherwise kyllinga just
proliferates and it's very difficult to manage. You can't control rainfall,

(34:17):
which can control irrigation. Then, as far as products, the
product called sedge hammer. Sedge hammer will give decent control,
but it's going to take several applications. It's not just
a wipe it out like it like it does on
some of the other sedges and things. But sedge hammer.

(34:39):
And there's also one product called Managed that's the same thing,
Manage and sedge hammer. I think there may be one
called sedge Ender that's the same brand as well. I
need to look at it's on my website. I need
to look at my own website. But anyway, use those,
follow the instructions on them, and be ready to do

(35:00):
it maybe two or three times as we go through
this season. Just don't don't let it up, prayer, and
then in the meantime keep it dry as you can.

Speaker 5 (35:09):
Okay.

Speaker 12 (35:10):
Well, I don't.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Water my yard very very.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
Often unless it really needs it, so okay, uh yeah,
so uh I have the sedge hammer here, so I'll
just start applying. Okay if I can get rid of it.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, just stay stay with it, don't let it, don't
let up from Yes, sir, you take care. I appreciate you.
Call time for me to go to a break. Is
that what I'm hearing? Oh no, we're hearing music. No,
there's no way. It's the top of the hour. We
didn't just do an hour a garden line. I just
got started. I had stories to tell, things to talk about.
I guess you have to stick around. We're glad you're listen.

(35:50):
By the way, if you have questions about uh that Sedge,
go to the website gardening with skip dot com. Find
the publication called Sage and end up. Look it is.
I researched it for a long time, talked a lot
of turf and weed specialists and searched out the products

(36:11):
and everything, and I figured that animal out and we
have figured out ways to shut it down. But you
got to be diligent. You got to read that publication
and be diligent. You don't halfway control nuts Edge. You
never let it up for air. Well, good morning, welcome
back to Guardline. It is good to have you with us.

(36:34):
Looking forward to visiting with you about the things that
are of most interest to you. How do you have
success in the garden and in the landscape. Just before
we went to break there, I was visiting let's see, oh,
I was visiting with Mike and about some kylinga in
the yard, and I failed to mention that image is
another option for that image. I am age the label

(36:57):
will say image for Nutsedge. There's other images. Just to
get the one that says image for nuts edge and
that's another good option. Might be a little more effective
actually than the manager and sedgehammer would be on that
particular Kalinga. I just want to make sure and say
that I'll email them as well. But welcome back to Guardline.

(37:19):
Good have you with us. We have plenty of things
we can touch base on and talk about today. I
want to begin by just this segment at least by
just saying, if you have been wanting to garden more,
but maybe as you've gotten older, getting around is difficult.
It's hard to get up, hard to get down. Maybe
some arthritic conditions in your hands make it a little

(37:39):
harder to hold some of the implements and things. There's
a lot that you can do to continue to enjoy gardening.
I talk about the kneeling bench all the time. It's
a folding bench that you flip it one way and
you can sit on it, so you can be sitting
there like printing the suckers off your tomatoes, or doing
some of the kind of work like that, or you
can flip at the upside down and you kneel on

(38:02):
it and the legs become handles to get up and down,
and boy does it ever make a huge difference when
you have to go down to your knees and get
back up again. On gardening, tools that are ergonomically designed
are very helpful. And I always talk about quality tools,
you know, making sure you get a quality tool. Oytherwise.
Checking out a plants Fall Seasons the other day and

(38:23):
I noticed they have a lot of good quality tools
there and they have some ergonomic ones as well. The
Plants Fall Seasons is a garden center there where Tomball Parkway,
FM two forty nine and Luetta come together. It's right
there on Tomball Parkway, just north of Luetta. But they've
got a great tool section and we were talking about

(38:44):
gifts and things for Father's Day and whatnot. If you
check that out, you might find that that is just
a really good get. A quality tool is essentially last
forever almost It just a lot of these printers, quality
brands like Corona, and I believe they have Corona there
at plants Fall Seasons. They even replace the blades on

(39:07):
many of the models and things, so they just keep
going and they work well. And cheap tools they get
messed up and it makes it harder to cut and
so that's more strain on your hands, and so get
a quality tool, and that way, in the long run,
I would contend that you save money. You throw away
a lot of cheap, worthless tools, while one quality tool

(39:30):
just keeps going and going and it makes it so
much easier. And especially those you're dealing you know, with
strains on joints and elbows and from using a lopper
prunter or something like that. So anyway, just a little
tip there, plants fail seasons. Why there you can find
some great plants too, And they carry all the fertilizers
you're hearing me talk about here on garden Line. They

(39:50):
just have a great selection also soils products from potting mixes,
tumulchiz to bed mixes out in the landscape two eight, one, three,
seven six, sixteen forty six. If you want to give
him a call, we're gonna head out now to Needville
and talk to Vernon or Vernon, Vernon, Vernon, Well, hey Vernon,

(40:15):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (40:17):
Yes, I got a question.

Speaker 13 (40:18):
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a fruit
tree giveaway down in Sweeney and I got a couple
of prime art freedom blackberries, Okay, and they look great,
and I've got them sitting in a container where they're
waking up water and these things are just going like
game busters. But I wanted to transplant them, but I'm

(40:41):
kind of afraid of doing it in the heat. Right now,
it's okay, get them in the ground.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, no, you do need to get them in the ground.
Make sure you get a good sunny location for them.
They're going to need some sort of a trellis because
they produce long, strong canes growth they you know, their
their canes are very vigorous, and so you need a
wire to attach them to. Just a single wire even
oh about chest high usually is okay, maybe a little

(41:09):
bit lower than that. But Primark Freedom is bread by
the University of Arkansas. That's what the arc is about.
In the in the name and prime means that the
first year canes produce fruit. In blackberries, I don't want
to nerd out on you here, but in blackberries, a
shoe comes out of the ground in the first year,

(41:30):
it's called a primacaine. Then it goes through winter, and
the second year it's called a flora caane, meaning it flowers.
And that's the normal BlackBerry. One year a cane grows,
goes through winter, and next year it fruits and then
it dies. Primacaine blooming blackberries have fruit the very first
year before they go through that first winter. They can

(41:52):
also have fruit the next year, but that in primark freedom.
There's another one primary traveler that are just excellent. And
there are some see where you located, Yeah, there are
some BlackBerry patches. There's a patch out there toward oh,
just west on two ninety. I'm trying to think of exactly,
but anyway, they have both of those varieties and they

(42:14):
look great. So you've got a great variety there.

Speaker 13 (42:19):
Okay, so we go and get them in the ground,
and what's the best fertilizer to use them?

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Most you know, blackberries don't take a lot of fertilizer,
but I would use now they are fertilizers that are
far fruit trees, and that would be fine to use.
I tend to, you know, I need to fertilize, and
it's like I don't have a fertilizer. I tend to
just grab my lawn fertilizers and use those on them.

(42:42):
And you hear me talk about all these lawn fertilizers,
any of the lawn fertilizers on the schedule would be
good for blackberries. Just use it moderately. You don't want
to overdo it, but scratch it into the ground, watered
in real good. The main thing on blackberries, keep the
weeds away, give them plenty of rooms so that a
weed eater or a lawn more doesn't get in the way.
And yeah, they'll they'll do good for you.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Okay, all right, well that sounds good. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Well, good luck. Now you know the rule on guarden
line is my advice is free, but you got to
bring me half the blackberries and we'll call it even.
All right, well sounds fair, All right, sounds fair. Well
I do too, take care of vernon. Appreciate your call,
Thank you very much. Microlife fertilizers, there is an example

(43:29):
of a good one for fruit trees, you know, the
green bag. The Microlife makes fertilizers for like citrus and
other fruit too. You can do that one. They both
work very well for your fruits. But anyway, the green
bag that typically is what we think about the lawn.
You're going to put it on several times through the summer,
just just moderate doses as you go through microbes get involved,

(43:51):
they turn the nutrients loose, your plants get happy, and
your soul gets better. That's how it works with microlife.
You can also get their humans plus the purple bag.
And when you put the you mates plus inn uh,
that is going to help with the all long term
improvement of soil. Humus is the final stage of compost.
So you mats plus or essentially concentrated compost in a

(44:13):
bag and they work and they're for microlife. So grab
both the green and the purple bag. Get out there
in your lawn. Get busy. Time for me to take
a little break and then we'll be back. All righty,
we got a little bit of you're preyle. That's been
a while. Welcome back to the guarden line if you'd
like to give me a call. Seven one three two

(44:34):
one two k t r H seven one three two
one two k t RH Someone who's asking me about
I mentioned earlier the kneeling bench, and I was talking
about you know, orgonomic tools and things like that. Uh
and uh, you know where can you get those? Well,
they're available in a lot of different places. Uh, but
I always just go to Southwest Fertilizer because I talked

(44:56):
to Bob about those long time ago, and he's kept
them in stocked and you always have them there, and
they're they're not that expensive, but they are very hopeful.
And yeah, I've told this story before. It's been a
long time, so I'll tell it again. But I bought
my sister a kneeling bench. Now, my sister is older

(45:16):
than me, significantly older than me, a fact that I
love to point out to her whenever I get a chance.
Bless her poor heart having me as a brother. Anyway,
I got her one, and I got kind of looking
at it and I thought, you know what, I think
I could use one. Not that I'm getting older and evening,
not that I'm getting to crap it or anything, but

(45:38):
I'm just saying anyway, So I got me one. And
you know, have you ever been out in the garden
working and the next day you wake up in maybe
the pre natal position, and everything hurts and you don't
know why. It's because you In my case, it's because
I go down to my knees to plant a seed
or pull a weed or mulch. I get back up again.

(45:59):
I go over here. You're not plan a plan. I
get up again again, and who knows, maybe five thousand
times on a Saturday. At least that's the way it
feels on Sunday morning when I wake up. The kneeling
bench is really helpful for that. So I got me one.
I fell in love with this, one of my top
five tools that I have. Maybe I should just do
a thing sometime on my favorite tools. That'd be a

(46:20):
good deal. I think I will. But anyway, kneeling bench
a good one. Southwest Fertilizer's got it. If you go
to my website, we talk about, you know, controlling nuts
edge and I have my weed wiper. It's a homemade
little deal, not expensive at all, easy to put together,
very simple anybody. You may not be a handyman at all,
but you definitely can build this weed wiper. So simple.

(46:41):
And where do you get the tool? The grabber tool
that you used to build it, because it takes a
certain kind of grabber tool at least it works best
with a certain kind of grabber tool. You get it
a Southwest Fertilizer. Bob's got those. You just go buy
and ask him, say I want that grabber tool. The
skip talks about I'm making a weed wipper. Whence you're
right to it. Anytime you go on to Southwest, you're
going to find everything you need. You know, other tools

(47:04):
quality brand. If I mentioned Corona earlier, Falco is another
outstanding quality brand. Any product that comes out of my
mouth on garden Line is going to be a Southwest
fertilizer because anything that works they carry, and they carry
many options of it. Someone called the other day and
they had a crape myrtle that was sprouting from the
bottom and they'd cut them off and in reach sprout

(47:26):
and they'd cut them off and in reach sprout. Well,
there's a product called sucker stopper, and it's a hormone
that plants produce. But you put it on those cuts
when you remove a sucker and it didn't come back again.
Isn't that nice? Yes, it works. I'm using it on
some Vitex I have. That's horrible about soccer sprouting. But anyway,
Bob's got those Southwest Fertilizer corner Bissinette and Renwick seven

(47:49):
one three six sixty six one seven four four. If
they don't have it, you don't need it. Let's go
now out to sugar Land and we're going to visit
with Mike Hello, Michael, Welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 5 (48:03):
Hello.

Speaker 14 (48:04):
I'm on my third rosemary bush. Every time I buy
one it dries up and just dues. And even the
third one here, it's half of it's already dried up.
I don't know if I'm watering it too much, not
watering it enough. I've got it in a five gallon pot.
I've used or Miracle Grow Organic Choice to with the

(48:26):
little pearlite in it to dry it up because I
was reading that the soil can't be too wet, and
it's down my patio not getting direct sunlight.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah, okay, Well, rosemary does not like wet conditions. It
is more of a Mediterranean herb, so you know things
like olive trees and things that are real happy growing
on a rocky hill side in the Mediterranean. Rosemary is
that kind of plant that does super well here planet
in a bed if you have, if it has good
drainage planted in a bed, it is a very drop tolerant.

(49:00):
Once established, it's a very It has a way of
getting out down there and getting the water it needs.
In a container. The whole root system is confined, so
when that container goes dry, you can have drought problems
on rosemary if it gets too dry in the container,
if the container needs good drainage holes in order to
do well. But it's going to be one of those

(49:22):
two things, Michael. It's either it got too wet and
it got some root right in it, or it got
too dry. And I think probably too dry may have
been the problem. Although I'm not there as you water,
so I don't know how your watering is going. But
that typically happens when you plan a new one. It
has a confined root system and you gotta water that
little maybe it came out of a four inch pot.

(49:43):
You gotta water that little four inch square root system
that went in the ground until it gets reaches out
the roots into the soil throughout the container. But it's
an easy one. Give it plenty of sunlight. It wants
a lot of sun But if you can get it
through that time, I think that's help. Maybe a root
stimulator wouldn't be a bad idea either. When you're getting it.

Speaker 14 (50:04):
Started, so you're saying put it in direct put it
in the direct sunlight or not direct sunlight.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
No, it likes direct sunlight. If you put it in
the shade, it'll stay alive. But it's weak. It's it's
a little more spindly, and it doesn't have the energy.
Sun produces the fuel for the plant, and that fuel
is carbohydrates. And so when a plant is in less
sun than it wants, and rosemary wants full sun, it

(50:33):
doesn't do as well.

Speaker 14 (50:35):
It's not as if another bush. It's just more of
the stringing one. The one that's more like a vine
kind of grows, doesn't grow, really doesn't really grow upward,
it grows out, and that one is thrived out rot.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Oh really okay, rosemud? Well, yeah, Rosemary's rosemary. So I
don't know why that one's thriving the other one isn't.
But I don't give up on them. They're not that
hard to grow. I have killed rosemary and container by
ignoring before, and you know, just because you get busy
and and it really wasn't well established when I did that,
and I know better, but you know how it is.

(51:08):
Things happen, And.

Speaker 14 (51:09):
Is the organic choice soil the one with this kind
of compost is is that a good soil or not?

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Is that? Okay?

Speaker 1 (51:18):
I would get I would get one that's got a
medium texture, not super chunky, but not just mucky little
potting soil that just has no particle size at all. Uh.
The veggie nerd mix from heirloom soils is a very
good one for growing rosemaries and tomatoes and even flowers. Really,

(51:38):
but veggie nerd mix would be a good good one
for that. That kind of container five gallon and five gallons. Yeah, yes, sir,
they're available. They're available by the bag. You're you're down
in the sugar Land area, Yes, self as fertilizer probably
has that by the bag. I'm sure when you go down.

(51:59):
You know, there's some ace hardware stores that you may
call them down in your area. The plantation acism too
far away from you. And then there's the garden centers
down toward Richmond Rosenberg direction that the enchanted forest and
attended gardens that probably have it as well.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
All right, all right, Michael, thank you.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
All right, you take care, appreciate you. Bye bye. Nelson
Water Gardens and Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens is a
destination garden center and it's it's on the on the
west side of Houston. It's out in Katie. So if
you are anywhere west in Houston and you're looking for
you know, a really cool place to go, a place

(52:46):
where you just can enjoy just being there. I love
the sound of water. Every time I go to Nelson's,
I just want to sit down and get therapy by
listening to ten thousand fountains around me everywhere. And oh
my gosh, they're so gorgeous, aren't you. If you go there,
you're gonna think you need and you cannot live without
a disappearing fountain because they're so pretty and they're so cool,

(53:07):
and birds like them, and it just it's just wonderful.
They have it all there. But they are so much
more than that. They are a nursery, Nelson Nursery and
water gardens is just what kind of plants do you want?
You're talking about rosemary just now, Well, they got a
greater herb selection. Do you want some of the perennial
of Thiscus, the ones that die to the ground and
come back every year. Beautiful little pottery, amazing pottery, really

(53:32):
really really nice. So just keep in mind that it's
the place to go, and you got to take your
friends when you go, because it's just a fun outing
to get out and do that with people coming up
On Saturday, June twenty eighth at nine am, they have
their Ding Dang Sale, the Ding Dang Sale kicking off

(53:53):
your Fourth of July holiday. It's an annual clearance event.
All kinds of clearance items happened at that time. I
need to wait till that to get something. But I'm
just saying if you don't go check that out on Saturday,
June twenty eighth, before we jump into summer with both feet.
We're kind of in summer with one foot right now.
But Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery. You go out to

(54:15):
Katie Turn North on Katie Fort Ben Road and they're
just up the street a little bit there on the
right hand side. Let's go out to Texas City. Now
we're going to talk to Carrie. Hey, Carrie, welcome to
the garden Line. Hi, good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 5 (54:30):
Hi.

Speaker 15 (54:30):
I just have a question. We have several bags of
potting soil that we've kept in our house to deter
any answer bugs getting in them. Well, they started developing.
They have gnats in them, and I don't know if
I should throw away the potting soil or how.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
To treat it. No, don't throw it away. I would
probably put it outside for just a little bit. Do
you know you hear me talk about mosquito dunks on
ye garden line. If you can get either the mosquito

(55:11):
dunk or mosquito granules. If you use a dunk, you
got to take a hammer and break it up, or
just some granules. Put them in a little bit of
water and in a watering can, and then just water
the especially the top of that potting soil top couple
inches of the potting soil. The same disease that kills
mosquitos kills fungus gnats, and so you can kill the

(55:32):
gnats in the bag that way. It's natural. It's not
a poison. It's a disease of the just of those
two species, mosquitos and fungus gnats. So I would try that,
and I think that'll work for you. In the meantime.
Letting it be a little on the dry side helps.
Is when it's moist, that's when fungus knots want to
get to it. But don't throw it away. It's good stuff.

Speaker 15 (55:53):
Okay, well, awesome, Thank you so much for your help.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
You bet, thanks call carry appreciate that. Okay, good bye,
all right, by bye, You're listening to garden line seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three, two one two five eight seven four. I
talk about Medina products a lot because there are a
lot of Medina products and they really really work. Or

(56:19):
were talking earlier to Michael, you know about the rosemary
and getting it established well, and I should have mentioned
to him, Medina has to grow six twelve six. Plant
food is a great product for watering in new transplants.
If I were putting a rosemary in, I would get
some Medina has to grow six twelve six. Plant Food's

(56:39):
got that hYP phosphorus. The high middle number really helps
with rooting. It's got Medina soil activator in it. It's
got humic acid in it, it's got seaweed extracts in it.
Put in a watering can and watered in when you
plant that thing, and then watered in a week later,
and then watered in another week. Three different applications of
it to get it off to its best start. Now,

(56:59):
that's not the only use of Medina hasht gros six
twelve six, but it's one that I use all the
time because it definitely works. Medina products are available everywhere.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
You know.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
You go to feed stores, you go to gardens and
independent garden centers, you go to Ace hardware store. You're
going to find Medina products all over the place and
they work. What It's time for me to take a
little break. We're here coming up on the mid hour break.
If you'd like to give me a call the number
seven one three two one two kt r H seven

(57:31):
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll
be right back with you and your questions. Well, welcome
back to the garden Line. Good to have you with us.
So what a wonderful world. Alrighty, we're going to go
to Sherry now in Conroe. Hey Sherry, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (57:52):
Good morning and good morning Skip. How are you this morning?

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Doing well?

Speaker 8 (57:56):
Thanks you hearing me?

Speaker 13 (57:58):
Hear me?

Speaker 8 (57:58):
Okay, now I just have a quick question about my
plumbaria tree. Of course, when it got really cold in February,
I had to remove it, and I was planted in
the ground and then brought it inside and then I
replanted it. I have probably over fifty plumaria tree, so
this one is not even growing. It's alive though I

(58:19):
can tell it's alive.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Okay, Well, if you've got fifty plumerias, you know how
to grow plumrias.

Speaker 8 (58:28):
So yeah, I've propagated quite a few. So this one here,
I'm almost thinking it's very dormant. It's like because I
pulled it up out of the ground, I had a
root ball, even put the powder on it, the white
powder to get the roots to grow and micro life, water, sun,
everything needed for growth. It's green, but it's no flowers,

(58:49):
no nothing, just to stick.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Well, well, yeah, the things you said, you've given it
what it wants. I don't know if you said this,
but gets plenty of sun, right.

Speaker 8 (59:00):
Oh yeah, plenty of sun?

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Yeah yeah, okay, okay, so that's it that you're doing
everything you can. I don't know if some sort of
a shock from what it went through. It shouldn't take
this long to recover. Plume areas don't grow fast, but
they do grow correct, right seeing some yeah go ahead, right.

Speaker 8 (59:23):
I'm just I thought, well, it's been since you know,
Marshish somewhere in there and being patient and it's alive,
and I just think, like you said, it's in shock,
and it's kind of an a dormant or a standstill state.
So I guess I'll just kind of play it by
ear and maybe they'll PLoP back. But it's alive. It's green.

(59:43):
If you, you know, rub the bar or the outside
of the stocks. It's about a two three foot stock.
It's still alive.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Does it have any green leaves on it yet?

Speaker 8 (59:55):
No? No, But when I first put it in, it
had one in February, and then.

Speaker 6 (01:00:00):
I pulled it out.

Speaker 8 (01:00:01):
So I'm thinking, it's like, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
You know, well, don't give up on it. It may
take a long time, but don't give up on it,
and it should begin to grow. I just don't know
why I wouldn't. And obviously you don't have to take
care of a plummeria.

Speaker 8 (01:00:18):
Yeah, I have quite a few, if you want some.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Okay, well I may take you up on that. I've
been looking for plumeria all right.

Speaker 8 (01:00:27):
Okay, Well, thank you for your advice. I guess I'll
just kind of keep on doing what I'm doing and
then maybe it'll just surprise me one day.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
I think it will. And sometimes, you know, one thing
I learned a long time ago is that plants can't read.
They can't because if they could read, they would know
not to do things they're doing, you know, like it'll
say true a book, I'll tell you that you got
to do this, or if you do this, a plan
will do that. And they don't cooperate because they can't read,
they don't know, they don't understand what we are.

Speaker 8 (01:01:00):
Correct, You're exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
I'm obviously joke joking, but uh, yeah, it's just sometimes
it's just yeah, I don't know that makes sense. I
shouldn't be doing that. I guess the plant can't.

Speaker 8 (01:01:12):
Yeah, I agree, definitely, yeah I cannot.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
All right, but.

Speaker 8 (01:01:16):
Anyway, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:01:20):
Share.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Are you in the Plumarius Society by any chance?

Speaker 8 (01:01:23):
H No, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Okay, I'm just curious. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask some
if someone in the society will call in and give
us some thoughts on this. But I thought it first.
Thanks a lot, appreciate it. Do you appreciate your call?

Speaker 13 (01:01:35):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Take care?

Speaker 8 (01:01:36):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
All right, I know we got some Plumarious Society folks
out there, and uh, if you've had this happen and
then you know you did something to it, it changed
it or it just changed, just give me called I'd
be kind of curious to hear about that, because I
haven't run into that myself and so be kind of curious.
So anyway, there you go. Uh, you're listening to Guardline

(01:01:58):
our phone number seven one two one two kt r
H seven one three two one two k t r H.
All right, so, uh, we're having a great Sunday morning here.
I hope you are too. By the way, it's a
lovely day this afternoon. I plan on doing nothing. That
is my plan for today. I'm going to do a

(01:02:19):
whole lot of nothing. If I do any gardening, it
will be in a book or on a computer screen
because I'm just not going to get out and do it.
I'm giving myself a rest day. It's kind of a
little too much of the not rest days here in
the last week. So anyway, I hope you enjoy it.
If you get a chance to get out and see
a great garden center, that'd be an awesome thing to
do this afternoon. They're still well stocked, and when you

(01:02:42):
go to our independent garden centers, you end up getting
experts that know what they're doing. There are people from
here who've gardened here who know our plants. You know
it's not just a shipment because the national headquarters of
the chain said, here's a bunch of plants. You know,
it's a it's stuff that they've chosen, they've ordered, and
they have if you will cure specifically for you and
for your garden. And that is the nice thing about

(01:03:05):
our mom and Pops also called independent Garden centers here
in the Greater Houstonario. I talked earlier about some tools
I like, and I'm just going to talk about that
a little bit. In fact, this would be something I
may post this, I may post this to our Facebook page.
That would be a good thing to do with this.

(01:03:25):
But anyway, so one of my favorite tools. If I
were to pick out just a few that I really like,
and I have so many tools I like, so this
is hard to do. But the kneeling bench is one.
You know, you can sit on it. For those of
you who aren't listening earlier, you can sit on the bench,
or you can flip it over and kneel on it
and the legs become handles to get you back up
off your knees again without the strain. Very good one.

(01:03:48):
Another one I love is a soil knife, a soil knife.
Think of a like a booie knife, but one that
has a sort of a scalloped blade. It's curved just
a little bit, and so it has a point on it. Well,
some of them are round it on the end, some
come to a point. On One side is just a

(01:04:09):
regular knife edge, not super super sharp, but you can
sharpen them pretty well. The other side is typically serrated,
and so that serrated edge. In fact, I was planting
a shrub two days ago and I came up to
a root digging the hole. I just grabbed my soul
knife and just was stabbing it in there like a

(01:04:30):
little sewing machine, just going up and down, stabbing it
against that root on the serrated edge, and it just
cut right through it, and the root was as big
as my little finger. It's really nice. It usually has
gradation markings on it in inches, so if you want
to see how deep something is, you want to plant
something for inches deep, you can use your knife to
measure that. Some of them have other nice gadgets on them.

(01:04:51):
My mind, I have a scabbard that I put it
in so it sits on my belt so there with
me when I'm out in the yard. It just works great.
And there's lot of versions of them, but it is
a very handy tool. I use it a whole lot
on planting. I was in a bed that had been
neglected and had this clump of grass weed grass growing

(01:05:12):
in it, and I just took my sole knife again
with a serrated edge, kind of lifted the grass blades
up and I just was sliding it underneath the grass,
just under the sole surface, just ripping through the roots
of the grass. If you cut below the crown of
a grass plant, it won't reach sprout from the roots.
It can't unless it's a perennial grass like johnsngrass or

(01:05:32):
something that has those rhizomes. Anyway, just taking it out
like that and just really quickly, and if I tried
to pull that up, I'd have lifted up a bowling
ball sized load of soil, probably hurt my back trying
to pull it up. But so a knife works. That's
another good one. I really enjoy that tool. For general weeding.
I like to be able to use a either a

(01:05:56):
diamond hoe or a hula hoe. A diamond hoe is
ape like a long, skinny diamond, and all four edges
are sharp, and so two of the points because it's
a long, skinny diamond you can use to go in
there and get right up beside a plant, just to
slice a little weed out of the way. It's at
an angle where you're not chopp You never chop with it,

(01:06:16):
You just use it. I guess you would say. I
would say you use it almost like you're mopping the floor.
You know, you just are sliding it back and forth
underneath the soil surface like that. A hula ho, also
called a stirrup hoe, has a strap shaped blade that
comes down and curves flat and then comes back up again,
and it rocks. So when you're pushing it, it rocks

(01:06:38):
one way and cuts, and when you pull it it
rocks the other way and cuts. And so you would
use it like you're playing shuffleboard, except not just pushing
the shovelboard. You're pushing and pulling, and you can go
through a large area of soil really fast, controlling a
lot of weeds if they're not too large. So that's
another one that I like, I gotta take a little
break here. We'll stop there on the tools. Maybe I'll

(01:06:58):
start up with some more when we come back in
just a bit. All right, We're hopping here on Guardenlne.
Good to have you with us this morning. We're talking gardening.
If you want to talk gardening with me seven one
three two one two ktrights. What you need to know
it is time for summer fertilization, and primarily in summer.
We're focusing on slow release products that last that gradually

(01:07:20):
trickle that nitrogen out to the growing grass, just like
the grass takes up nitrogen gradually over time. Nitropas superturf
silver bag, that's the one that does just that. It'll
give you about sixteen weeks of release. So you do
it now, you're good to go until we do our
fall fertilization. Really just return those clippings in the meantime.
It'll cut down on your mowing because of that slow release.

(01:07:43):
It'll improve the plant's ability to go through drought because
plants that are not overfertilized with nitrogen at one time
have better root systems. Therefore, they can take up water
better and have a more extensive bank account of the
soil available to the plant. Super Tuff's available places like
Bearings Hardware on Bisonet and on West Timer Ace Hardware

(01:08:05):
City on Memorial Drive and plants for all seasons on
Highway two forty nine. And it's not hard to spot
because it's a sober bag, easy to see half way
across the store. Makes it real easy. I was talking
to somebody the other day who is trying to fix
some drainage in their property. They just have a bad

(01:08:26):
area and they've kind of messed around with it. And
you know, they if you don't know what you're doing,
I mean, you can do do it yourself. Drainage projects.
People do them all the time. But if you don't
know what you're doing, you spend a lot of time
and money and effort and it doesn't work right. You
need to know how to lay it out so that
it does drain properly from the area that's too wet

(01:08:47):
to the area where you can have it go. And
Pierce Capes is that kind of company. In fact, Pierce
Caapes in general are professionals, so they have they have
distinguished landscape, Irrigation, Drainage, backflow, pest side, all these certifications
and licenses. These The average tenure for their employees over
ten years, and they got people on staff they've been

(01:09:08):
around over twenty five years. They know what they're doing
and so have a professional come in and do it.
Do you need landscape design, they can do that. Do
you need to get that drainage fixed. They know how
to design a system. They can deal with it when
it rains too much here in the Greater Houston area.
Do you need lighting? They know how to do that
right and the right kinds of products so you have success.

(01:09:30):
And the same with irrigation. Quality custom sprinkler systems designed
to incorporate all the areas of your landscape. Pierscapes dot com.
That's the website. Start there, go look at what they do.
Piercescapes dot com two eight, one three, seven oh fifty sixty.
I'm going to go now to Kingwood and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike,

(01:09:51):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:09:53):
Hey Skip, how are you Hey?

Speaker 16 (01:09:55):
So I got a question in my front yard. My
oak dropped and we cut it up and it laid
in the one spot for like nine weeks, and so
I got an area like ten by twenty that has
got like wild grass in it. And the question is, uh,
you talk about kill till and Phil I had a

(01:10:15):
contractor to come out and say, hey, well, I'm just
going to scalp it and then put topsail on it
and lay down saw it on.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
Top of it.

Speaker 16 (01:10:22):
Do I need to use round up and wait for
it to die and then till and then phil or
can I do what he was saying?

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
It depends on the weeds that are there. If they're
all annual weeds, what he's saying will do it. That'll work.
If let's say you had muta grass in there are
some other weeds it's perennial that when you scrape off
the top of the ground it just comes back out
of the ground. Then it wouldn't work. So it depends
on the weeds that you have. But I you know,

(01:10:53):
I don't know all the weeds, and I'm sure you
don't know all the names of the weeds that you.

Speaker 4 (01:10:57):
Have in there. It's basically the grass.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
It's like a wild girl.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Yeah, okay, Well, we do have some perennial grasses. If
you want to send me pictures of them, that may
be the best way to go. You know, I don't
want you to waste your time and money either way.
You know, if we were to tell you I just
do what he said. Well, then if it was a

(01:11:21):
perennial grass and it popped through then you'd have a
problem trying to kill a grass in your grassy lawn.
So I'd like to take a look at them to
be sure. But that that's really the bottom line is
can it come back up through there or not?

Speaker 16 (01:11:34):
And so it just round up. Yeah, let's ask for
a round up. How long do I have to wait for?
You know, like a week or a week?

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Give it a week so that it moves down all
the way down into the plant system. And after that,
if you need to throw dirt on top or whatever,
that's fine, but you want to make sure that it
has plenty of time to move down. And if you
could go a little longer than a that would be
even better. Sometimes what you'll see is in your spraying
you missed a spot, and then you can respray that spot.

(01:12:08):
And it's better to get it right before you go
into the time, money and expense of putting in new
sod because you want it to turn out nice, of course.

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
Okay, perfect, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
Yeah, thank you, thanks a lot. Yeah, appreciate your call.
Good question to ask. That was a good question. And
you know, it is important to get things right when
you're doing them. A lot of times we do things halfway,
and there's some things you can get away with doing halfway,

(01:12:41):
but there's things you can't get away with doing halfway.
If evil canevil jumped halfway across the Grand Canyon, it
would not end well. By the way, if you jump
nine tenths of the way across the Grand Canyon, it
wouldn't end will either. You got to do things right,
and so you want to not have to redo. And
when it comes to getting grass and stuff and weeds
that are in a lawn, get rid of them before

(01:13:03):
you put that lawn down. So whatever that takes, whatever
it takes, and you know, certainly an herbicide with time
can be a way to do it. My daughter put
in a lawn this week or not this week, this
summer or spring, and we went through several rounds of
making because you had some very tough to get rid
of weeds that are perennials in the site. And we

(01:13:24):
got that all eliminated, and it took about three rounds
of it to make sure we got it right. Because
then when the grass goes down, you don't have the problem.
You get rid of it. If you throw grass on
a problem, you're just going to have problems in your
new lawn, and you don't want to do that. So
I do practice what I preach on that one and
I highly recommend it. Hey, Houston powder Coders biggest powder

(01:13:46):
coder in our region, six acres. They have over seventy
five employees. These guys they powder coat everything. I mean
they it's amazing all the different kinds of applications. They
have certain applications that they do for folks down on
the Gulf coat to deal with, you know, the excessive
salt sprays and stuff which really takes a toll on metal.
Over one hundred different colors that you can use. And

(01:14:09):
they can, like I said, they can powder coat or anything.
They gotta been big enough to bring a trailer in
there and powder coat the whole metal trailer. For US gardeners,
we're looking at cast iron, wrought iron, and luminum patio furniture.
We're looking at decorative things that hang on the wall
that are metal. We're looking at perhaps things like a
post light post in the yard, or a railing that

(01:14:32):
goes down the side of a patio or a walkway.
They can do all of that. You take a picture
of what you want to have done. You send it
to sales at Houstoncoders dot com. They'll give you a
quick quote, they'll pick it up, they'll deliver it. They
do it all Houston Powdercoders dot com two eight one
six seven six thirty eight eighty eight to eight one

(01:14:54):
six seven, six thirty eighty eighty eight. Go to Houston
Powdercoaters dot com. Fault. Look at social media, look at
the work they do. You'll see what I'm talking about.
It is amazing. Well music means I'm gonna be talking.
Turn it over to the news. Apparently there is something
more to talk about than gardening. Ard of nevable. We'll

(01:15:15):
be right back after that with your gardening questions. If
we've got to open board right now, So if you
would like to call during the break, maybe we've on
the first ones up. Seven to one three two one
two k t r H. Seven to one three two
one two k t r H. Good morning, gardeners, Welcome

(01:15:47):
back to garden Line. Good to have you with us.
We're about for this hour, We're going to be visiting
with a special guest, rich Edie from wild Birds Unlimited.
And so what I'm gonna do this hour is if
you want to call in with a birding question, anything
related to birding, feel free to do so. If it's
a different kind of question, just hold it and we'll

(01:16:08):
take it in our next hour, starting at nine o'clock. Okay,
so let's do it that way, and I'm gonna go
right on head here. We're gonna head out and talk
to Rich. Hey, Rich, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Good morning, Skip. How you doing today?

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
I'm doing good. How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Doing really good? Sitting here, our purple Martins are really
doing a lot activity right now. Got a full house
with a bunch of babies that are getting ready to fledge.
So so there you go summer, Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
Yeah, it's just stuffy in a mosquito at your place
then with all those purple marks around and dragonflies and dragonflies. Yeah,
there you go. There you go. Well that's good. I
was talking earlier. I don't know if you were listening
to Garland earlier, but I was talking about being out
with my wife yesterday on the back patio, and you know,
I'm a novice at birds for sure, but I'm getting

(01:17:06):
so interested. And there was a little what turned out
to be a Caroline Tickty at our eliminator feeder, and
so I zoomed in with my camera and had this
cryptic little picture, you know, all pixelated and everything like that,
because I zoomed from about twenty five thirty feet away
and I saw I went to Merlin and put it
on there, and it was a Carolina tickty sure enough,

(01:17:27):
And a few minutes later we were hearing a couple
of different birds singing. And again I'm a novice, I
don't recognize them by their songs. So I just pulled
out Merlin again and listened to sound, and there was
my Carolina tickitty. So I got in another bird, I
got to hear what they were like. It's kind of fun.
It's a lot, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Yeah, for sure it is. You know, that Mertlin app
is a great way for people to learn about what
each bird sounds like, because I generally will hear a
bird way before i'll see it, right, And so using
that Merlin app, if you're out on a walk in
a park or just hang out in your backyard like

(01:18:03):
you were doing, put that Merlin app up, turn on
the sound, and all of a sudden, it'll start picking
up all the different birds in your backyard. Like I say,
you'll hear them before you see them, so it's a
great way to learn what each bird sounds like. For sure.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
That is a good point for sure. Now I saw
a video you did a little clip on social about
the eliminator feeder, and I have one and I love it.
My squirrels don't like it. The language that they use.
If you can translate from squirrel to English, it'll make
a sailor blush. I mean, they are, they are very

(01:18:41):
upset about that feeder. But we tell people a little
bit about the eliminator because that one is just amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Yeah, the Eliminator feeder certainly is our flagship squirrel resistant feeder.
People may have a missing they may think that a
squirrel is not going to get on the feeder. They're
gonna get on the feeder, they're just not going to
be able to get to the bird food. So yeah,
so the eliminator works really well. What's unique about that

(01:19:08):
feeder is is you can adjust the tension on it,
so for folks who aren't familiar with it, it's got
a spring loaded action, so when weight gets on the purchase,
it closes off the ports of the bird food, so
it prevents the squirrel from getting into the feeder. You
can also adjust the tension even lighter, so even if
you're trying to keep off let's say mourning dove. Some

(01:19:29):
folks don't like to feed all the dove they're finding
from being on the ground, but not on their feeders
because they will eat a lot of bird food as well,
And so you can adjust that tension even to when
a heavier bird gets on there, it'll close off. So yeah,
it's a very effective feeder. It does a really good
job at keeping your seat dry. And you know, you

(01:19:49):
can put any seed blend in there you want, like
our no masks or our voice, it doesn't really matter.
The blend of your choice goes in the eliminator, and
it's very effective at keeping squirrels out of your bird food.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
Yeah that's good. Well, I have mindset like that, and
so blue jays and doves and stuff don't even go
to that one. But you know, like a RN or
like the carolina that I was talking about, the smaller birds,
a technoos or something like that, it can sit on it.
The other feeder is the hopper feeder you guys have

(01:20:23):
that's a recycled material, and I like that one a
lot but that's where the big birds have to go eat.
And boy do they ever line They line up to
get to that one.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
Yeah, hopper feeders are they're a classic feeder. I mean
when I was growing up as a kid in the Ozarks,
you know, my dad had a hopper feeder. Of course
it was made out of wood back then, but that
was that's the feeder that's that everybody's familiar with. It
holds a lot of food. It's what we call a
foundational feeder. The eliminator is right, well, but that's that's
a feeder that you put out in your yard. It's

(01:20:57):
out there three hundred and sixty five days a year,
holds a week worth of food or maybe a little more,
keeps the seed dry, and that's the feeder that the
birds know is going to have something for them every
time they come to your backyard. Because birds are on
a pattern, right, They moved through the yards looking for
food on kind of a consistent pattern. When you've got

(01:21:18):
something out there consistently that has food, like a hopper
feeder or your eliminator, they're going to frequent your yard
on a very regular basis.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
Good. Well, that's good, good information. Now I've noticed that
the hopper feeder you guys have has a little bit
bigger roof. I think it, and I don't have as
much problems with the birds. He getting wet, you know
when it rains, unless we just get a horizontal rain
or something coming in.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Yeah, that's right. The hopper feeder that was actually designed
by the owner and CEO of wild Birds Unlimited, Jim Carpenter.
He had that patented back of the day when he
designed it. And you were talking about the recycled material
it is. It's made from recycled milk jukes and so
what people are familariliar with the word poly lumber, but
this is a little bit different with these feeders really

(01:22:04):
stand up well to do our nice humid weather in Houston, right,
So they they won't they they won't crack, they won't split,
as opposed to you know, the traditional wood feeders that
eventually over time will just brought away. This feeder will last.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
A long long time. Yeah, I can. It looks like that. Uh,
we got a caller on the line, so we're going
to go out and take a call. Here. We're going
to talk to Marty in Fairfield. Hey, Marty, you are
on the line. With me and Rich Eadie from wild
Birds Unlimited.

Speaker 17 (01:22:34):
Yes, I was so excited. Hi, I just wanted to
see I put out your food, the no mess blench.
I also have the cardinal consetti and I have the
one that is mostly centaur seeds. But the problem I'm
having is the blackbirds, ones that are trashy birds. They

(01:22:59):
seem to take over the birds years and and they
run off all the other birds. And I wonder is
there a way to keep those away or is there
a food that will not that they won't like? Because
I had that the hot pepper stuff for the squirrel.

Speaker 8 (01:23:21):
Which you think, Yeah it's rich.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Okay, Yeah, we're having a Yeah, we're just having a
little glitch here. We're going to try to We're having
trouble getting him back on with you on. So I mean,
let me if I put Marty on hold, do you
think that would would work? Can we do it that way?
Let me let me try that. I'm gonna there we go.
All right, you got Rich. We're having trouble getting you
both on at the same time. So can you want

(01:23:49):
to comment answer Marty's question?

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Yeah, for sure, Marty. So I think it comes down
to a couple of different questions I may have, and
if you drop into the story, they can make help
you a little further. But there's a grackles, which are
the big blackbirds that you typically see I call them,
I call them HIV birds and so yeah, yeah, those birds,

(01:24:12):
you know, they they can take over a feeder. You
might try feeding safflower, just straight safflowers. Safflower is what
we call a problem solving bird food. Squirrels don't particularly
like it because it's really bitter, and the blackbirds slash
crackles don't really like it either. So that's something that
you could try. And then we were talking about the

(01:24:34):
eliminator a little bit earlier. The eliminator is not only
squirrel food, but you could adjust to keep bigger birds
like the grackles off of your feeder. Uh, so they're
not getting at all your bird food and they they
eventually figure out if they can't get into it, they'll
just they'll just go elsewhere.

Speaker 17 (01:24:52):
So I will do more staff far than I mix
the staff flower in with all other three, but I'll
just have to in straight staff law.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Yeah, give that a try, and if you need some
more help, be sure to just give us a call.
Would be glad to help you out.

Speaker 1 (01:25:11):
Okay, thank you, you Bet, Thank you Marty, appreciate that call. Hey, Rich,
we got to take a quick break and we'll come
right back and continue our conversation with you. All right,
welcome back to regard line. Welcome back. We're going to
go straight back to the phones. Now we are visiting
with Rich Ed from Wildbirds Unlimited. Rich, it's good to

(01:25:33):
have you back. Thanks for hanging on with us. I
have a list a mile long of things I want
to talk to you about with THEE how far we
can we can get in this? Before I forget though,
I want to mention that if people are interested in
finding their local Wildbirds store Wildbird's Unlimited store, what you
do is you go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston,

(01:25:55):
WBU dot com forward slash Houston, and you can find
the sixth wild Birds Unlimited stores here in the greater
Houston area and north south east west. There we got
plenty of stores around. There's gonna be one close to you.
So I just want to mention that, or Rich, before
you go too far into this, could you give us
a few tips for someone who's listening in going Okay,

(01:26:16):
this sounds like it might be fun. I'd like to
dabble my toe in the water of bringing birds to
the landscape. And what are some tips for beginners that
you would suggest? Any any thoughts or ideas there anything?
Can you hear me? Oh? All right, We'll get Rich

(01:26:42):
rap back here just a moment. Well second, okay, hey, Rich,
are you there?

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
I am Can you hear me?

Speaker 4 (01:26:50):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
Okay, good, Yeah, we were. I was talking and I
wasn't connected with you. Basically, I'm just asking what are
some tips for people that might be interested in trying
to get into feeding birds and learning about birds and things.
What are some beginner tips that you would suggest for
someone like that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
Yeah, So the first thing that we try to get
folks to try is a tray feeder. The tray feeder
you would put a variety of different foods in there.
Birds actually eat by sight, so they don't always look

(01:27:29):
at a feeder and know that that's for them. So
put out a tree feeder, multiple types of food, see
what the birds like, and then circle back and get
a feeder. Once you've got them, come into that tray feeder.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
Okay, okay, that's a good one. I used to have
a trade feeder. Oh, I still do, but it is
a good way to start off. Just basically a little
tray typically with wood or recycloplastic around it. It has
holes in it so water can drain out of it
if it needs to, hangs by little wires, and it's
real easy to use. A good idea. Uh So when

(01:28:12):
we're when we're talking about bird feed are bird seeds?

Speaker 6 (01:28:16):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
I talk about this a lot when I talk about
wibirds unlimited, but there is there are a lot of
cheap seeds out there. You can find them pretty much
everybody those bird seeds, but typically they're like well over
half sometimes up to almost three quarter of the little
tiny red bebies is what I call them. It's the
it's the milo or sorghum, uh that birds just don't

(01:28:38):
care that much about. They're not very fond of. So
you end up buying X pounds of bird seed and
you end up only getting a fraction of that. In
terms of things birds are interested And I appreciate the
fact that you guys, you know, put things in your
in your blends that one percent of it birds are
interested in eating. And so I I think when you're

(01:29:01):
looking at all your blends. How would someone come in
and know, you know, what would be a good blend
for me to use? Right now, we're talking about nesting
super blend, but can you kind of give some thoughts
on that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
Yeah, so when somebody comes in the store, they're going
to we can walk them through the whole process. So
we have and so what you're talking about is seed
that has a lot of filler in it, so cereal
fillers like milow, wheat, even cracked corn, which some birds
will leave, but not too many. So all of our

(01:29:33):
blends are what we call a no waste That means
the birds are going to eat one hundred percent of
everything that's in the bag. We've got a variety of
blends that's starting to say. With our Supreme blend, it's
black oil, sunflower, striped sunflower, safflower, which we talked a
little bit about earlier in some flower chips, and then
if you move to our choices, just like the Supreme,

(01:29:54):
but we've added peanuts and with peanuts off for even
a wide variety like went backers at my Sparto tough
peanuts as well. So so those are what we call
them no waste, but you will get mass on the ground,
which some so long they've got to pick backyards. It's
no big deal smaller backyards. So they want to have

(01:30:14):
a little bit tidier way of feeding the person. You
slide over to our no mask which is sunflower tips
and iced peanuts. That is one hundred. We'll see you'll
get very little mass if any on the ground. Whatever
does that, the ground will get up by the ground
feeding birds like the and sparrows. So okay, and yeah,

(01:30:36):
and we have we have everything in between. We have
a lot of straight, straight seats like black whiles sunflower seed.
We do get it's a difference between black oil and
striped sunflower. Stripe sunflower is what you basically see in
the sunflower seeds that you buy at the grocery store,
at the convenience store that baseball players eat. Those are
bigger murder shells that have a much bigger heart in them.

(01:31:00):
Cardinals absolutely love striped stone flower seed. Black oil the smaller,
much easier to crack into, and so your smaller birds
really like the black oil. But tip mice, cardinals, blue jays,
they really like to stripe. So that's why we put
both in our blends. Because some birds like one more
than the other.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
So okay, wow, that's that's a lot of good information.
So i've i you mentioned that you use the term
no waste or your blends. There's also something called no mass.
Can you talk a little bit about what that means,
because do you have the n M on some of
your bird seed blends. What does tell us about no mass?

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
Yeah, so the the are what we call our no mess.
No millet is what that means. So some of our
blends have white millet in it, which is great for
your ground feeding birds. For folks in town that have
the the scaly breasted unia, which a thriving population in
the Hoaston area, they love millet, so sometimes you might

(01:32:04):
want to offer millet in your backyard. But for folks
who don't want millet in are no mask no millet,
that's what the in them stands for, and no mask
means just that you're there's one hundred percent edible seed.
There are no cells on the sunflatter seats, so the
birds will they go to the feeder. They're eating everything
that's in the feeder and there's nothing getting kicked to
the ground, which, by the way, yeah, you do look

(01:32:27):
at other blends that we were talking about. Read the ingredients.
If you're buying it elsewhere, breathe the ingredients. And if
you're seeing corn, milo or wheat, the birds are not
gonna eat it. So what they're gonna do is they're
just gonna throw that out of the feed or looking
for something that they do want eat. That's why somethings
go and my birds are just tearing through that teeth

(01:32:48):
that I get, and it's like, well, take a closer
look at the ground. You're probably gonna find a lot
more of it on the ground than you realize. So right,
so just read the ingredient list. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
Okay, well rich you are. Sometimes I'm hearing you loud
and clear, and then it's kind of like you start
to get garbled. I don't know if that's a cell
phone deal or whatever, but just letting you know that
we're kind of cutting a little bit in and out.
So I want to I would like to visit a
little bit about the seasonal types of blends and also

(01:33:23):
seeds for different kinds of birds. I know that you
guys have every kind of feeder in the world, and
so when I walk into wild Birds Unlimited, I look
and I just see all these feeders. And I got
a feeder from my mother in law who quit, she's
just not able to do the bird thing anymore. And
it's a thistle feeder. It's got these little tiny slits

(01:33:43):
in it. And that's just an example of what I'm
talking about. So could you talk a little bit about
not just like a tray versus a hopper, but different
blends and different kinds of feeders that you might use
for certain kinds of birds.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Yeah, for sure, so hopefully you can hear me. Okay,
we call it being seasonally savvy in the store, and
what that means is we're gonna have our birds here
year round, like our cardinals, our chickadees, our tip mice,
are downy woodpeckers, red belly woodpeckers. But being seasonally savvy
also means that we keep up with the movement of

(01:34:19):
birds from season to season. So a good example of
that is hummingbirds. Right now, very few of us have
hummingbirds in our backyard that come July into late July
into August and September, the hummingbirds are going to show up.
So that's when we tell people to put out their
hummingbird feeders. You are talking about the Niger feeders, the
bench feeders that have the real small slips. It looks

(01:34:40):
like kind of like black rice. We don't feed Niger
here in the Houston area year round. We typically will
get our goldfinches in the winter. They show up in
late December and they're usually gone by the first part
of April. So we had a very good bolt inches
and cold benches shut up from the north. Gold pitches

(01:35:01):
don't really migrate, they're more nobody. They're gonna move as
far as they need to get a good solid food source.
And so this year the winner in order to push
the birds further south. And so we have a good
relation of gold pinches this year. And that's when you
put the Niger out. Yeah, And then you're talking about
our nesting super blind. That's really good all the way

(01:35:21):
through August. It's a really good plan to support the
birds when they go through their molt in the fall. Uh.
And then we have another new and that we started
with cardinal confetti. I believe Marty talking.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
Yeah, Rich Rich, I'm gonna I'm gonna get you to
hold that. I'm against a heartbreak in about fifteen seconds.
So I want to come back and jump into cardinal confetti.
I've got it. My birds absolutely love it, so just
hang on. Sorry to have to interrupt you, but I
gotta follow the rules here, so we'll be right back. Well,
welcome back, Welcome back to Guardline folks. Good to have

(01:35:54):
you with us. Hey, we're visiting with Rich Ed from
wild Birds Unlimited, and we're talking all things birds this hour.
If you have a non bird question, hold it till
after nine o'clock we'll take that. If you have a
bird question, feel free to call in right now and
here's your chance to talk to the expert. Just give
us a call at seven one three two one two

(01:36:14):
k t r H. I'm gonna go back here and
take Rich. Hey, Rich, it is good to have you
with us. If I can get my there we go.
If thanks for being on today. By the way, I
really appreciate that this is such good information. My next
question is is there anything you don't know about birds?
Because every time I ask you a question, you answer

(01:36:35):
with information I hadn't even thought about to ask you. Guys,
I know this is true of all the wild birds
owners and stuffy They just know their stuff. It's it's
a great place to go for information too.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
Yeah, well we appreciate that. Yeah, that's that's what we
that's what we try to do. I mean, at the
end of the day, are our mission is to bring
people in nature together and bring joy into everybody's lives
by watching their backyard birds. The birds are are super important.
They're a real indicator of our environment and the and
the ecosystem in your backyard. Right. So not only do

(01:37:10):
we try and educate folks on the different birds that
they'll see in their yard, but how does that tie
into their landscape. You know, native plants, organic gardening, attracting
the insects to your backyard, well attract the birds, right,
So we really try and get everybody educated on that
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:37:29):
That's good, that's excellent. Yeah. Yeah. And Wildbirds Unlimited is
a place to go. I was we were talking about,
you know, seasonal things. I just want to mention that
when people go to WBU dot com forward Slash Houston,
you can find your wildbird stores, but also you can
find out about different bird questions you may like you

(01:37:50):
could look up what is a catbird look like? Or
what does the golfinch look like? You can look up
what are seasonal savvy for birds. Like we were just
talking about what are you do in summer and what's
going on. There's a lot of good videos on there
that are very helpful, and so bookmark WBU dot com
forward sized Houston and start perusing around it. It's pretty amazing,

(01:38:12):
pretty definitely pretty amazing stuff. So let's shift just a
little bit. Father's Day is coming up, and you know
people are always thinking, what's a good gift, you know, for dad?
Or it's certainly same things true on Mother's Day. What
would you suggest someone who is looking for a good
dad gift that would be something to either help someone

(01:38:33):
that was already into feeding birds and watching birds, or
someone who it might be kind of an introductory gift
to get them started.

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
Well, if nobody, if somebody has never been in our store,
then they don't know about what we call our advanced
poll system, the acronym for it's aps. Our polls system
is very unique to wildbirds unlimited. For folks who've been
in our store, they know about it. But what the
pole system is is it is a very sturdy bird

(01:39:05):
feeding station pole system. You start with the basic setup.
It comes with a four foot ground pole, a four
foot extension, a double hook, and a ground stabilizer. And
the ground stabilizer is probably the most important feature of
the pole system because what it'll do is it'll keep
your pole system nice, straight and sturdy. What's great about

(01:39:28):
the APF system is you start with that double hook.
You can come back later and you can buy another
double hook, and you can expand it to go from
two feeders to four feeders. And then we have all
kinds of different attachments that you can put on it
as well. A squirrel baffle if you've got it out
in the middle of your yard and you can maintain
that ten foot perimeter around the system, Putting a baffle

(01:39:51):
on will keep the squirrels from calling up the pole.
You can put branch brunches, you can put different kinds
of hooks for different types times of the year. In
other words, if your your goldfinches show up in December,
you can rearrange your pole system to put out your
Niger feeders. Hummingbirds are showing up. But you know what,
they're really good for two scope, They're really great for

(01:40:13):
holding hanging baskets. They're they're like, oh okay, yeah, yeah,
you could put you can put a heavy duty flower
basket on there. People use them for all kinds of
different things. So the APS pole system is by far
one of the one of the very unique things that
we have. And everybody, you can never have too many
pole systems in your yard, That's what I say.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
So there, there you go. And it's true. I have one.
I just have one. But the one I have I
love it. And you're right about the stability. I can
push the the four prongs that go on the ground
around it, and you have a little screw you tighten
up there. I can push them down to grass level
and you can mow over it, you can weed eat
around it. Uh. And it does hold that thing very
very sturdy. By the way, I saw I heard you

(01:40:57):
the other day on a on a social media you
were somebody a squirrel can jump ten feet out and
five feet up. I believe. Is that correct? Is what
you said?

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
Yeah, that's exactly right. So people come in, well, squirrels
are driving me crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:41:10):
So I have a squirrel that I thought needs to
go to the squirrel Olympics, but apparently he's just average.
I had a feeder that was eight feet away from
a fence, and that's it was amazing. He could jump
to the feeder with a problem. It's like, Dad, come in.

(01:41:31):
He had a baffle on it, so he just said,
the heck with the baffle, I'm jumping over the top.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
Yeah. The fun part of that would have been watching
him try the first several times right eight feet away.
I can promise you he wasn't the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:41:46):
Yeah, okay, all right, Hey, we gotta we gotta caller
Ron from the west Side, so rich. We're going to
bring him on and let him ask you a question. Hey, Ron,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 18 (01:41:56):
Hi there, I have a I got some of your
the Noble mess blend, and I've had this feeder for
a long time. And it's the time where you pull
the top up your feet it from the you fill
it from the top, and then I guess it's a
tray feeder. There's a little tray that holds the seed,

(01:42:19):
and the birds are just not coming it still, just.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
You know, they're they're not taking it. Is it the
placement of it. It's under the eve.

Speaker 13 (01:42:29):
Of my.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
Yeah, it's under one of the eves, and under the
of your house is pretty close to the house. Yeah,
it could be a plate, it could be a placement issue.
We we generally recommend that a feeder be at least
ten feet away from your house, and a lot of
that just has to do with preventing windows strikes and
things like that. Like I was saying earlier, on the

(01:42:55):
tray feeder, birds eat by sight first. They don't look
at them, say the eliminator feeder or a hopper feeder
and go, oh that's for me, right, They they really
need to see the food first. Have you ever had
birds on that feeder ever?

Speaker 18 (01:43:12):
I mean I think maybe a few have come by, But.

Speaker 2 (01:43:16):
Yeah, so you cold it up once and that's it. Yeah,
you might. You might try changing the placement of it
for sure. That would be That would be my first recommendation.
I mean, I'll give you a really good example of
placement importance, even like on a nest box. I have
a blue bird. I had a bluebird box in my
front yard for a long time, and I could never

(01:43:38):
get the bluebirds to even take a second look at it. Right,
I moved it to my backyard, into the corner of
my yard where I thought it might be a more
attractive place, and they moved right in. And so the
same thing will go with feeders, right, you might have
to do a little bit of trial and air to
put it. As long as you're seeing birds in your backyard,

(01:43:58):
it's a matter of just helping the bird birds find
that feeder and the bird food easier. Uh. And again
you might you might even try a tray feeder first,
change the placement, try a tray feeder. Once they're coming
to that tray feeder, then you can put that feeder
right back out again and they'll go, Okay, the food's
in here, and they'll figure it out pretty quick.

Speaker 18 (01:44:18):
I have a a bird bath right underneath it, so
I'm giving them water and giving them things.

Speaker 10 (01:44:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
Bird yeah, birds. Yeah. Again, that's a placement thing as well.
So birds are birds are spooky creatures, right. So I
I hear folks putting bird baths like right along their
back hedge. Well, bird baths and a hedge probably don't
mix too well because a bird will see that and think, hmm,

(01:44:48):
something in that hedge might come out and get me. Right, So,
bird baths generally do well out in the open. They
can be in the shade, they can be in full sun,
it doesn't really matter. But again, a place where the
birds can see it and feel comfortable getting on the
bird bath. I mean, you've got your neighborhood cats, You've
got your neighborhood Cooper's Hawk, so they need to be

(01:45:09):
able to keep They're gonna try and keep themselves safe
and so placement.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
Hey, that's a that's a great that's a great answer.

Speaker 2 (01:45:17):
RN.

Speaker 1 (01:45:17):
I hope that helps. I'm gonna have to move on,
but I appreciate your call. And all you got to
do is stop into a Wild Bird's Unlimited store. If
you're on the west side. You've got a store on
bel Air in Houston and one on Memorial Drive in Houston,
so those are both kind of well. Bel Air is
more southwest, but you've got a couple of stores pretty

(01:45:38):
close to you. You need to stop into one and they'll
answer a thousand of those questions for you. They're really
good at it. Thanks thanks for calling in. Rich, go
to another break. We're going to come back for a
short segment, so if you can hang on, I sure
would appreciate it. I would love to ask you some more. Hey,
welcome back to Guardline, folks. We got one more segment
left with Rich Eadie from All Birds Unlimited. Now you've

(01:46:00):
got six Wildbirds unlimited stores here in the greater Houston area,
So at north south east west, wherever you live, there's
one close to you. And in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive
on clear Lake Eldorado Boulevard, and on Paarland on East Broadway,
Houston West on bel Air, Houston Southwest, excuse me, Memorial Drive,
Houston Southwest on bel Air, and then in Cypress on

(01:46:20):
Barker Cypress. So go see one. That'd be a great
thing to do this afternoon. Go check out a wildbird
store and find out what this is that we're talking about. Well, Rich,
this is a short segment, and so I wanted to
first say, are there some things that maybe you wish
I had asked or that people need to know that
I didn't think to ask, that you would like to

(01:46:40):
add before we run out of time here today.

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
Well, I think you know, there's a kind of an
old saying that say that you don't need to feed
the birds in the summertime because they have plenty of food.
And actually the opposite to that is true, because right
now is nesting season. And so if you the birds
and they're they're laying their eggs and they're raising their babies.

(01:47:05):
The feeders are really important to mom and dad because
a chickadee, a single chickadee, will collect over eight thousand
caterpillars just to raise this single clutch. So that's a
lot of flying around, that's a lot of foraging to
find a lot of caterpillars in about a three week period.
And so what you'll see is the chickene's were we'll

(01:47:27):
be looking for the insects for their young. They'll come
to the feeders to feed themselves to keep their energy up.
So summertime feeding is actually very very important for our
backyard birds because it really does help them along a
really busy time.

Speaker 1 (01:47:41):
All right, now, we got to hear that again. A
chickadee is a very tiny little bird. How many caterpillars?

Speaker 2 (01:47:48):
Over eight thousand? Yeah, over eight thousand?

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
Okay, so yep, there's.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
I know that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:56):
I read a book many years ago when it first
came out that blew my mind and change my thinking.
I've been doing horticulture a long time, but it was
called Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallomy, and basically, I
don't you can't summarize the book in a sentence, but
basically it's our oak trees. All these plants that we
have are fed on by caterpillars. And the more we

(01:48:18):
plant things that are not native to hear or that
don't support those kinds of caterpillar populations, we really affect
our wild birds because they can't just survive on what
we have in our feeders. And it was a whole
mindset about landscaping and what you do and what you
don't do.

Speaker 3 (01:48:34):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
And I had no idea that things like you just
said that many caterpillars a little tiny bird like that
would need. And I would suggest someone else if you're interested,
read it Bringing Nature On. It's an excellent, excellent book,
and there are many others that point to that. But
thanks for bringing that upreach, because that is that was
mind blowing to hear that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
The first time you want to attract chickadees, plant an
oak tree. That's that's what they say. Is that a
post for over three hundred different types of mods. Yep,
And they're eating the collecting the larvail of those moths,
and oak trees are a super close plant for that.

Speaker 1 (01:49:09):
So boy, we we could we could end it right
there and just let that sink in. That is really
good information I'll tell you one thing. Some of your
some of your blends, you have dried meal worms. And
I am not a drug expert, but I am pretty
sure that in the bird world, dried meal worms are
a control substance. That's crack for birds. My birds love

(01:49:33):
that stuff and it you know, it's so high and
what proteins and vats and everything like that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:39):
That's right, drive. Meal worms are a great addition to
the backyard. We were talking about the cardinal confetti. It
it has dried meal worms in it. So if you
want to attract cardinals and other types of birds in
our area, that's a great blend to give a try
because it does have dried meal worms in it as well.

Speaker 1 (01:49:56):
Wow, that is that is good, good info. We got
about a minute left before and we can even talk
into the music when it starts here in just a
little bit if we like. I would like to just
leave you with any other suggestions for someone who is
wanting to get more help with learning about birds, in
addition to going to your local Wildbirds Unlimited store, any

(01:50:19):
other tips or resources out there that you might recommend.
I know the owner wrote a book.

Speaker 2 (01:50:25):
Yeah, Jim Carpenter. Yeah, The Joy of Backyard, The Joy
of Bird Feeding. So he wrote a book. It gives
you step by step constructions on how to get started
feeding birds in your backyard. But you can always go
to the Cornell website Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They're a
wealth of information on just about every bird in North America,

(01:50:46):
and so there's lots of lots of resources out there.
National Wildlife Federation we encourage folks to get their yard
certified as a natural as a wildlife habitat through National
Wildlife Federation. That means that you're focusing on the things
that birds need in their backyard, but not just birds,
but all wildlife. So that's another great place to start.

(01:51:06):
And if people need more questions answered, they can certainly
come in and see any of us, and we'd be
glad to help them.

Speaker 1 (01:51:15):
Well, I tell you, I've been to almost all, I
believe of the wild Birds Unlimited stores around town, and
I'm always amazed. It's not just you guys that run
the shop there, but the folks that work with you.
They're so enthusiastic and so knowledgeable, it just makes it
It makes it a lot of fun. Y'all have done
a great job on that. Well, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:35):
Yeah, we appreciate yep, you bet we We like I said,
we enjoy. We enjoy bringing joy into people's lives by
letting them enjoy, helping them enjoy their backyard. And that's
what we're all about.

Speaker 1 (01:51:46):
Yeah, I'm going to be speaking at an upcoming event
called Oba Palooza and I saw you are too. Is
that correct? Or do I have a different event that
you're Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
No, thanks for bringing me, I am yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:51:59):
What are you gonna be telling us?

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
Telling us about creating a healthy backyard bird habitat?

Speaker 1 (01:52:06):
Okay, now that's Saturday, August second, folks, just listening to
garden Line. I'll talk about it multiple times dream now
and then. But Rich, I can't thank you enough. Thanks
so much for coming on. I know people really learned
a lot and enjoyed it. And uh, if you're looking
for a Father's Day gift, that that book by mister Carpenter,
the founder of Wildberd's on living If We would be

(01:52:27):
a great gift for dad. Who knows he may read
that and get inspired to try it himself. Have a
great thank you, Thank you, yes, sir, you too. You
take care? All right, Well we're going to put this
hour in the books. We're coming back for one hour today, folks,
one more hour of garden Line. If you got any
kind of gardening questions seven one three two one two

(01:52:48):
K t R H. Look forward to talking to you.
All right, we're back. Welcome back to guard Line. That's
great having rich Edie from Wildbird. It's unlimited there answering
our gardening questions. Boy, do I have a lot of
gardening questions. I tell you I talk about Ace Hardware
Stores all the time. You know that you listen to

(01:53:10):
me and doing it. Uh, it's just the place. It's
the place to go. Do you need a great Father's
Day gift? You're not going to do better than Ace Hardware.
For example, maybe maybe there's a hands hand tool for dad,
you know, a power tool like something from Ace has
their own brands. There's Milwaukee, there's Stanley, there's Black and Decker,
Craftsman and Dewault. I'm especially fond of the Duwault and

(01:53:32):
boy do they ever have those at Ace Hardware stores.
Barbecue pits, barbecue equipment to go with your barbecue pits
and supplies. And then you know, whatever Dad is interested in,
you're going to find something there at ACE. Whatever is
an outdoor enjoyment and outdoor creating that special outdoor environment,
or even things inside the house. Ace Hardware has got

(01:53:55):
you covered. You can find your ACE Hardware stores by
going to Ace Hardware Texas dot com and you'll find
stores like All Star, Ace and Magnolia k and m
Ace and Kingwood on Kingwood Drive, the Kilgore's Clear Lake
Lumber on East Maine. If you're down in Port Lavaka,
there's Port Lovaka Ace on Calvin Plaza, and then Katie
Ace Hardware on Penoak Road in Old Town Katie. Just

(01:54:18):
a few of the mini Ace Hardware stores at Ace
Hardware Texas dot Com. We're gonna go now to Katie.
Speaking of Katie and talk to George. Hello, George, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:54:31):
Good morning, Skid.

Speaker 9 (01:54:32):
Thank you for taking my call. I got three questions
and I hang up and I listened to you the
first one. Okay, I have three. I moved into this
home about five years ago. It came with three very
tall palm trees. Okay, there is a lot of weeds,

(01:54:56):
especially this time of the year, grows around this palm trees.
Do you have a suggestion on how to get rid
at those palm tree I'm sorry, sorry, give ready to
the weeds without harming the palm trees.

Speaker 1 (01:55:10):
Yeah, so what can you give me? The other question
you have so because I need to keep going on
and then I'll answer them all together.

Speaker 6 (01:55:18):
Yes, sir.

Speaker 9 (01:55:19):
The other question, I have a flower bit that I
was getting ready to plant some flowers and as I
was digging, I found there's clay on the bottom about
eight about sixty eight inches deep. I ran into clay,
so stop.

Speaker 6 (01:55:37):
I want to have a solution for that.

Speaker 9 (01:55:40):
The last question I have is I have two create
myrtle trees in the backyard, but the area is not.

Speaker 6 (01:55:49):
Getting a lot of shade.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
Is it safe?

Speaker 9 (01:55:51):
I can remove those and replant them somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:55:56):
That's all for me.

Speaker 1 (01:55:57):
Okay, thanks a lot. I'll answer those three. You have
a quick answer on those. Generally, I try to keep
it to a question here on Guardline, but I can
do a quick one on these getting rid of weeds
around palm trees. The most palms don't have basal sprouts.
There are a few palms that you get multiple trunks
coming out of the ground, but most don't. So just
look and check if there's no green leaves or anything

(01:56:17):
down there. You can use. If it's grassy weeds, there's
grass only killers. If it's grass and broad leaf. There
are systemic products that if you go to my website
gardening with Skip dot com, there's a publication called herbicides
to use on Skip's weed wiper. Now you don't have
to use the weed wiper to use these herbicides, but
they're grouped by the kind of weeds you have. And

(01:56:39):
I would go there and you'll find a listing of
the ingredients and the products that you need. Firebed with
clay underneath. You're just going to need to bring in
some expanded shale and some compost and mix it in
as deeply as you can. If you can bring a
bed mix in like a veggie and herb mix would
be a good one. That would work on that and
create a raised so excess water drains away. That would

(01:57:03):
be even better. But anything you do to improve the
internal drainage of the soil like I mentioned, or bring
up the level would be helpful for that. And I
just went blank on the loves the last question Andre
that he asked me, I can't remember the last question.
Oh great, myrtles. Yeah, don't move crept myrtles now, thank you.
Move crepe myrtles in November or December would be the

(01:57:25):
best time. Once they've drop leaves, that's the time you
want to dig them up and move them. If they're big,
it's going to be very difficult for them to recover
and survive the move. If they're small, you might be
successful with it. All right. That is a fast answer
in a nutshell on those If you're dealing with pests
inside and around your home, you need to know about

(01:57:46):
pest Brothers. Pest Bros Is the company that I talk
about on guardline all the time and I recommend because
from Texas City all the way to the Woodlands, from
Baytown to Katie, they cover that whole area. They have
ways of dealing with termites that are long lasting and
designed programs on it that are very safe to use. Also,

(01:58:06):
fire ants, mosquitoes, wild varmits. Whatever is bugging you called
pest Bros. Go to the website the pest b r
os dot com. Thepestbros dot com two eight one, two
oh six forty six seventy. They can fix it right
in the most effective way and in the safest way,

(01:58:27):
so you get long term control without those worries. Let's
head now to talk to Pat. Hello, Pat, welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 2 (01:58:36):
Hello, how are you today?

Speaker 1 (01:58:38):
Do good?

Speaker 2 (01:58:40):
Good?

Speaker 12 (01:58:41):
H I sent you some pictures of the lantana that
I have. I've got five of them. This one stopped
producing flowers, and the new leaves that are coming on
don't look good at all.

Speaker 1 (01:58:57):
Oh this is a while back, right, I remember seeing
that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So what I
saw is there are little insects that suck the juices
out of lanana leaves. There is a thing called the
lantana lacebug that's one of them. Then there are some
plant hoppers that do the same thing. And you see

(01:59:17):
the new growth, it loses its green and little tiny specks.
But when you get a thousand specks on there, the
whole thing just looks tan. You are brown. And the
way to deal with that is a challenge, because if
you put a systemic on them, it'll go in the
plant and kill those bugs. But you do have butterflies
come into your lantanas, so it's a little bit of

(01:59:38):
a trade off there. I might try using a spray
of a pyrethrin type insecticide pyrethrine. It is an organic
product that doesn't last very long, but it does an immediate,
quick knockdown. But you're going to need to spray upward
from underneath the plant, which is a little hard to do,
and you need to give them a good dosing of it.
These bugs hide, it's almost impossible to cat them in

(02:00:00):
the act, other than lace bugs, which don't run away
so fast. But you're gonna have to hit those pretty
hard and do it probably about once a week for
about three weeks to get ahead of them. Then give
them some fertilizer and water and try to push them
fresh new growth so they can get some leaves out
there in the sunlight.

Speaker 12 (02:00:16):
Pat Okay, I sure appreciate it, all right, you bet ye?

Speaker 2 (02:00:22):
Good luck.

Speaker 1 (02:00:22):
Yeah, I've dealt with those same things myself. That is
indeed a problem for sure. When you're dealing with mosquitoes.
One simple way is just find the stagnant water where
they're breeding and throw a mosquito dunk in it. Someone
called earlier about some fungus gnats and pot bags of
potting soil. There isn't a disease in the mosquito dunks

(02:00:45):
that kills mosquito larva and fungus gnat larva. And that's it.
It doesn't hurt ladybugs, it doesn't hurt the family cat,
doesn't hurt the birds coming to the bird feeder. It
just goes after the mosquitos, which is a wonderful thing.
Some of them look like small beige donuts. The mosquito dunk.
They float around, cover about one hundred square feet and
last for about a month. Then there's granules. Those are small,

(02:01:05):
like grape nut size, little if you remember that serial,
little size granules that you can throw in in places
where stagnant water is just going to be, you know,
underneath your catch basins, under your plants and a perhaps
a bird bath, or even if like there's a hollow
spot in a tree and water's getting in there, mosquitoes
are breeding in it. Just toss one up in or
toss some granules up in there. You can take care

(02:01:27):
of them that way. You're gonna find mosquito dunks at
a hardware stores. You're gonna find them at feed stores
or independent garden centers. They're easy to find. You need
to have them on hand all the time because when
you need them, you need them and don't ever be
a Skeeter breeder. Don't be a Skeeter breeder. Get rid
of those things. I'm gonna take a little break here.
We'll be back with your calls in just one second

(02:01:48):
here at seven one three two on two kt RH. Alrighty,
welcome back. We're in our last hour on guarden Line.
You got a question seven one three two one two
kt r H, give me a call. We're gonna head
out now to tom Ball, Texas and talk to John
this morning. Hello John, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (02:02:10):
Good morning, Skiff. I got a quick question for you
about eagleson Holly's. They're roughly two months old, about fifteen
gallons when they put them in, but they didn't support
them or take them up, and three or four of
them are kind of laying in, so would it be
best to take them up? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:02:31):
Do they do they have a single trunk or do
they have multiple trunks?

Speaker 5 (02:02:36):
An?

Speaker 11 (02:02:37):
They're single?

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
Okay? Good?

Speaker 3 (02:02:40):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:02:40):
There's advice called the three sixty tree stabilizer, and you
can find it at a lot of different places up
there in Tomball. They got them at Arburgate.

Speaker 2 (02:02:49):
I know that.

Speaker 1 (02:02:50):
Uh, and go grab you one of those. Uh you
just drive a little tea post in the ground, a
little metal post in the ground. It attaches to the
post and attaches to the true and you want that
strap to be real loose, because what happened is when
they grew these things, they probably I don't know how
they grew them, but they had some way of holding them,
and they didn't develop good strength. Trink strength, good night,

(02:03:12):
trunk strength. There we go, trunks, and so yeah, when
a plant moved, it's easy for you to say, when
a plant moves, it makes the tissue stronger, and it
makes those roots at the bottom that are kind of
like the anchor roots that hold that trunk straight. It
strengthens them as well. So you want to leave it
a little loose so that eagleston can move around in
the wind, but it'll prevent it from moving more than

(02:03:34):
about three or four inches for sure. And so that's
what I would do. It's a simplest and you'll have
that thing anytime you plan anything, whether it's a crpe,
myrtle or a tree or whatever. It'll hold them well.
And that's what I would recommend. It's the simplest, fastest, easiest.
You're not you're not hammering steaks in the ground and
trying to make guy wires, you know, to hold it

(02:03:55):
down and stuff. Just to get you a three sixty
tree stabilizer and that'll do.

Speaker 11 (02:03:59):
It about two of them. I've got like three or
four of the kind of leaning. So I'm surprised they
do something one day. This is a good nursery. I'm
not going to say the name, but yeah, there's no
no good.

Speaker 1 (02:04:12):
Support them well, and the nursery didn't grow them, you know.
The nursery wasn't the grower for them either. So anyway,
just just just do that, Just give them a little
bit of support and hold them, hold them in place,
let them move though, make sure they move a little bit. Uh,
and then I'd probably leave it on there, maybe about
six months, just depending on how they're holding up. You

(02:04:33):
can check them and then take it off. You shouldn't
have to leave it on there a very long time.

Speaker 5 (02:04:38):
Okay, thank you skip.

Speaker 1 (02:04:41):
Hey John, thanks a lot, appreciate appreciate your call, very much.
Good to talk to you. I have forgotten to tell
you guys about this, but we are entering the early
part of tinchbug season. If you go to my lawn
pest disease, and we'd management schedule. You will see that
June is when we do two things. Number one, if
we've got chinchbug issues or soide web worm. It's early

(02:05:03):
for sodeweb worms, although they could occur early, but it's
a little bit of a long shot on them for
right now. But chinchbugs could begin now and by the
time we get into in August, even early September, those
things really built up. But now is your first treatment
for grubs. If you have an issue with grubworms in
the soil, now's the time to do it. Look at

(02:05:25):
my schedule. I've got a treatment for grubs for June,
and then I have a different thing we put down
in July and August. I can go into that more later.
For now, bug Out Max granules. Bug Out Max Granules.
It's a great lawn and garden and control from nitrofoss.
So you're going to find it in places nitrofoss is sold.

(02:05:45):
You go to d and DE Feed Up in Tomball,
you go to RCW Nurseries, you go to ACE Hardware,
Citium Memorial Drive, you go to Langham Creek Case hard
Run five twenty nine. You're going to find nitrofoss products there.
But now's the season for down, the month for putting
down the bug out max to shut those turf insects down,

(02:06:06):
especially the grubs and secondly the early chinchbugs. All right,
I'll cover it. Let's go now to Meyerland and we
are going to visit with John. Hello, John, Welcome to
garden line. How you doing skip?

Speaker 19 (02:06:22):
I got a bunch of good boves, I got a
bunch of news citrus, and I don't have a fits
or anything like that. But something is eaten the green,
you know, the tender new growth right down to.

Speaker 6 (02:06:37):
The to the limb.

Speaker 19 (02:06:40):
I have no idea what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:06:44):
Well, it's either going to be a caterpillar or a
beetle most likely, Uh, I would I would guess it's
a caterpillar. But if you look around on there, you're
not seeing any critters around.

Speaker 19 (02:06:56):
I'm not seeing anything. And I've been spraying for you know, bugs,
caterpillars and suck.

Speaker 6 (02:07:05):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:07:06):
Can you tell me what you've been.

Speaker 10 (02:07:09):
What's that?

Speaker 5 (02:07:11):
What?

Speaker 1 (02:07:12):
What have you been spraying? Do you remember what product
it was?

Speaker 4 (02:07:15):
Uh?

Speaker 19 (02:07:16):
The stuff for for vegetables and fruit trees that have
got from Southwest or Lauser.

Speaker 1 (02:07:24):
Okay, Uh, you were gonna say, could it be something.

Speaker 5 (02:07:29):
Mice.

Speaker 1 (02:07:33):
I've never known mice to do that, Okay, I I
just don't. That doesn't sound right to me the mice.

Speaker 12 (02:07:41):
So uh, it's.

Speaker 19 (02:07:46):
As soon as any new growth comes out, it'll get
a good start, and then the next day it's gone.

Speaker 2 (02:07:57):
Here.

Speaker 1 (02:07:57):
Here's what I would do. I would get go out
there at night, you know, go at like ten o'clock
at night or ir relate your up and just get
a flashlight and look around on there. Because some of
our critters are nocturnal, some of the caterpillars are nocturnal
in others and maybe you can catch something in the
act that would be helpful in knowing what to do.

(02:08:17):
I don't know what's the insecticide in the product you
bought there at Southwest, but you know, if it were
a BT ingredient and you had a you had a
you know, a grasshopper or a beetle or some other
chewing past, BT wouldn't work. That's why I ask, you

(02:08:37):
know what's in the product, But if you can catch
them in the act, I would I would try that.
If not, there are some other products that you can
use that kind of kill all insects. But here's here's
something we could do. I'm gonna I think we're winding
this up because I'm not coming up with a good,
definitive answer for you. I'm gonna put you on hold,

(02:08:58):
and if you want, my producer will give you an email.
If you'll take a picture of the damage, and then
you will take a picture of the label of the
product you're using and email them to me. I'll look
at that and I'll give you a second opinion, Okay, John,
all right, yeah, yes, sir, real quick.

Speaker 19 (02:09:19):
Down on the bay on San Antonio Bay, is the
soil there too uh pH off?

Speaker 2 (02:09:27):
Too much for citrus and hibiscus.

Speaker 19 (02:09:31):
Down around sea drift?

Speaker 1 (02:09:34):
I don't think so uh not, you know, just as
a general region issue, I don't believe so. So uh
Are you seeing symptoms on the plants.

Speaker 19 (02:09:46):
No, I haven't planted anything, but I don't see anybody
else doing it.

Speaker 1 (02:09:52):
Oh well, if you've got a like a clay or
a sand either one, get a lot of composts, build
up a raised mound, mixing in the soil rug it,
or get a good bed mix to build up a
raised bound. They don't want to sit in wet conditions,
and then you ought to be able to grow any
of that down there?

Speaker 2 (02:10:08):
Ye twenty three, but is one hundred feet?

Speaker 1 (02:10:15):
Yeah, well give give up, you know, give them up
a raised box or something to grow in that that'll work.
Thanks sir, appreciate, appreciate your phone call. Uh, let's see here,
where are we all? We got a little bit of time.
I wanted to mention that you know talking about Nelson
plant foods all the time, and I've been telling you
recently about this Slow and Easy. Slow and Easy is

(02:10:36):
a very slow release fertilizer for your lawns. It it
has a high nitrogen content, but that nitrogen is leaked
out in small amounts over four months or at least. Okay,
so you put it down now and it covers you
all the way to fall.

Speaker 8 (02:10:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:10:55):
It has some some ingredients that I think are really interesting. First,
while the slow release prevents burned you know, you don't
burn your plants with too much the form of nitrogen
in it, there will be some taken up on that
by so microbes and things. Also, it has an acidifying
element to it, and it's not going to take your
lawn from a pH eight to a pH six. Don't

(02:11:17):
worry about that. But gradually, over time it's helping bring
that pH down a little bit. And turf cress does well.
It does well in that you're going to have a
little less iron deficiencies as you bring that pH down
in your lawn. Slow and easy has multiple beneficial effects,
mainly feeding the lawn gradually so you still get a
good root system. You don't have to mow all the

(02:11:38):
time trying to keep up with it because you've overdone
the nitrogen. It's slow and it's easy, and it's from
Nelson Plant Food That makes plenty of sense. Highly recommend
that one. Hey, let's go to Richmond. Now we're going
to talk to Terry this morning. Good morning, Terry, welcome
regardan Yes.

Speaker 6 (02:11:56):
Sir, well, thank you.

Speaker 20 (02:11:58):
My question is Dylan with uh more of my yard.
I've learned from you that I do not need to
bag my clippings. Uh But in my backyard, I have
two large magnolia trees that put out lots of big
leaves all the time. So okay, I just continue just

(02:12:18):
to multch them up or or what what do I
need to do?

Speaker 6 (02:12:24):
Well?

Speaker 1 (02:12:24):
I took the call right before I have to go
to break so here's what we're gonna do. Hang on,
We're gonna go a little break here, and I'm gonna
come back because I want to talk to you, to
you about a little bit more than just a few
seconds here. Okay, okay, but we will we will come up.
Just hang on and put you on hold and we
will come right back to you.

Speaker 5 (02:12:42):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:12:42):
Obapalooza is Saturday, August second. It's from eight to four
and it is an organic extravaganza is basically what it
amounts to. You can get more information by going to
OBA online dot org slash register. O h b A
online dot org slash register. Joe Gardner Joe Lemple will

(02:13:02):
be there speaking and so will I hope you can
make it all right? There you go. If you can
tell me who that is singing that, hey, I'll be impressed.
And b you won't have any weeds in your yard
this year. That's a guarantee.

Speaker 2 (02:13:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:13:17):
It's all about soil, isn't it. It's brown stuff before
green stuff. And when I think about someone getting started,
I always tell them build the soil first. And heirloom
soils has a blend for every situation. I don't care
what you're going after if you are wanting to grow
vegetables and herbs or for that matter, flowers too. Airloom
Soils has something called Veggie and Herb Mix. It does

(02:13:38):
really well. If you're trying to spread something over the
soil in where you're going to put a lawn, you're
filling in, you're getting it all ready, you're kind of
mixing it in and everything. They've got something called the
Premium lawn Mix. That's something you buy by the bulk.
It's top soil list. It's made with masons and compost
and bed mix. Great for that soil prep. Very economical too.

(02:13:59):
Leaf Molkompo for top dressings are just using in your containers.
Maybe you grow succulents. How about cacti in succulents. How
about a potting soil called the Works. I've used the
Works potting soil for years. It is an excellent blend.
It drains well and yet it holds water. You keep
hearing me say, with clay soils, you need to add
expanded shale, you need to add compost. Well, they have compost.

(02:14:21):
They have expanded shale, and they have expanded shell and compost.
How do you want it they've got it, and then
quality bed mixes of two. Course, all you do is
go to airloomsoils dot com, Heirloomsoils dot com, look at
the soil calculator, find out how much you need. It'll
tell you, I mean it down to like how many
five gallon buckets of soil do you need? Or are

(02:14:42):
there in a qbcyard or whatever. They will deliver. They
will also you can also go out there to porter
and pick it up. And then if you go to
garden centers, feed stores, all kinds of places all around
town that carry airloom salce products, you can find it
by the bag and big beautiful bags, really really nice products.

(02:15:02):
I know that because they use them, because they work
all right, Heirloomsoils dot Com, go check them out. We're
going to go back now to Terry and Richmond, and
Terry thank you for hanging on while we went to
break there. So your bottom line question for those just
joining us on the air is that you have magnolia

(02:15:23):
leaves and they're big old leaves and they're everywhere, and
what do you do about them? You know, do you
grind them up and mulch them or what Magnolia leaves.
I'm pretty sure that you could roof your house with
them and they last longer than a thirty year shingle.
But when you break them up and that glossy coating
is broken up, microbes can get to more surfaces on

(02:15:44):
the leaf and they break down fairly fairly, well pretty quickly.
So I would run them over with a lawnmower or
anything to break them up a little bit and then
use them as mulch any and everywhere you want to
use them. They're just fine. Just don't I just wouldn't
do them whole.

Speaker 20 (02:16:00):
Okay, good, well, I got on the question that was sure.
Let me ask you what the other thing my front yard?
I got these oak trees. At times I get overwhelmed
with leaves there. So do I just try to munch them?
Or do I need to remove as much of the
oak leaves as possible or kind of what is my

(02:16:21):
game plan for my oak? And everything's on Saint August,
you know?

Speaker 1 (02:16:25):
So yeah, okay, well on on on the oak leaves.
You can again, I would the same kind of thing.
They do have a little bit of a coating on them.
They are high in tannins. But I from what I'm
seeing I just wouldn't worry about them. I knew a
guy who had giant compost beds and they were made

(02:16:45):
out of nothing but oak leaves and sheep man are.
This was Central Texas, hence the sheet man are and
they did great and the plants thrived in it. And
so H just grind them up a little bit. Uh,
And it works well. I use live oak leaves, and
then when you get to the bigger oak leaves a
kind of meat, you know, closer to the size of
your hand, like red oat and white oat. Those are

(02:17:07):
even easier to grind up in you. So yeah, listen,
Nature takes every leaf on earth and it turns it
into soil. Whether it's a pine needle or a magnolia
or a live oak, all of those fall on the
ground and become soil again as part of nature's design.
So don't be afraid to use them. Okay, thank you
very much, Thank you, Terry, and thanks for hanging on

(02:17:28):
during the break. You bet good to visit with you. Hey,
we've got time for another call here before we go
to break seven one three two one two k.

Speaker 2 (02:17:37):
T r H.

Speaker 1 (02:17:38):
If you would like to ask a gardening question, I
tell you that you need to go to Moss Nursery.
I don't care where you live, you need to make
a trip over that. That'd be a great outing. My
idea of a good day would be I run down
to Keema Greb or go to Moss and then go
to Keema and get some lunch on the boardwalk or
something like that. But Moss Nursery eight acres cram full

(02:18:00):
of gorgeous plants. This is a seventy year old family
operated nursery. When you go to Moss, you allow yourself
some time. You're going to wander, and you're going to
go through and see some of the best pottery anywhere
all over the place. You're gonna see beautiful flowers. You
got shady areas. Go get some Terinia also called wishbone

(02:18:22):
flower at Moss Nursery. They are loaded. They just got
a big shipment of them in. Do you like the
daisy like flowers, like rubekia, and like echinaesia, a purple
cone flower or purple cone flower, and all those other
cone flower colors I have Now Moss just got wishma
non They are stunningly beautiful. You need something that can
take so much heat. You could probably lay it on

(02:18:42):
Interstate forty five and it would survive in the summer.
That's called Venka. The Nirvana series of Venca is resistant
to a fungal blight, a bacterial blike excuse me, that
used to wipe out Venca, but Nirvana's resistant. They have
Nirvana and all kinds of beautiful colors, not just the
standard pink and white Vinka, but they've got some beautiful

(02:19:03):
lavender colors. They've got some rose colors. They are awesome
for lots of sun and lots of heat. You just
give them some water and they're gonna do super, super fine.
I could sit here and spend a whole show just
talking about mosterners shoe. Let me give you one more.
They have a great selection. A new arrival of mallow

(02:19:25):
hibiscus that is rose mallow or swamp mallow. That isn't
the tropical hibiscus which Moss also has. Of course, have everything,
but it's a perennial biscus. It dies to the ground
in the winter and it comes back out in summer
with dinner plate size gorgeous blooms. Just go to Moss
and check them out. While you're there, say congratulations to
the employee. Of the month. His name is Cat Cat.

(02:19:46):
He's a cat. He is employee of the month for
June of twenty twenty five. Now I've watched Cat Cat
at Moss and I can tell you this. He's a loafer.
He does not do good. I don't know how. I
don't know who he bribed to be employee of the month.
But say hey to cat cowboy while you're down there.
All right, well, here we go. It's time for me
to take a little break. When we come back from break,

(02:20:08):
Nick and Cyprus, you are going to be our first up.
I want to remind you Oba Palooza one more time.
I didn't quite get it in last time. Oba Palooza
obaonline dot org, OHBA online dot org. Slash register. It
is a full day of training eight am to four pm,
including breaks. Now it does come for a cost. You

(02:20:29):
got it. You got a register for it. But you
are getting some of the best speakers all day long.
Joe Lample who is Joe the gar Joe Gardner. I
don't know if you have seen the guy on TV
or podcaster. He's awesome. He's really really on target guy.
He's going to be there as a headliner speaker, A
lot of the rest of us are also going to
be speaking. I'm going to be talking about vegetables for heat,

(02:20:51):
for hot weather, things to grow in hot weather. Come
on out and see us August second. That's a Saturday,
eight am to four pm. I won't get there till
after ten obviously because I'll be doing this, but coming
out to Oba Palooza obaonline dot org slash register, we'll
be right back. All right, you're back here. We are

(02:21:11):
on guardline having a good time. Listen if you are
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own to pay for air conditioning electricity. In other words,
Arctic Insallation Solutions is who you need to know about
Arctic Houston dot com. So Arctic Insallation Solutions, that's a

(02:21:32):
company website, Arctic Houston dot com, and it's Arctic arc
tic Houston dot com. I still haven't learned how to
spell Arctic eight three to two five A six twenty
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all your customized insallation needs. They can do things like
putting a radiant barrier up in the attic on the rafters.

(02:21:53):
It's ninety seven percent of the heat gets radiated away
to lower the attic temperature about thirty degrees or more.
Now they can also put in fiberglass insulation. They can
do any kind of insulation you need. I mean, there's
all the different variations on high you insulate and attic.
They can do that. The one I think is probably
the most practical, fast, easy, and it works is blown

(02:22:14):
in fiberglass. Make a nice thick pillow of fiberglass insulation.
It holds its height very well R thirty eight value.
That is amazing good value. They can do that. They
can also put in a solar attic fan. This is
really cool. Sunshines makes it hot right. Sunshines makes that
attic fan power when it gets to eighty five degrees

(02:22:36):
or seventy five percent humidity. By the way, you don't
want your addicts being very very high humidity because you
get mold in things. The attic fan comes on and
moves fifteen hundred cubic feet of air a minute, and
that brings a really good ventilation up into the attic
and keeps it cooler as well. They deal a lot
of other things. They can do removal of old insulation.

(02:22:57):
They can make sure an air seal in the healing
all those holes around light fixtures or the AC registers
or even wall plates. When you steal all that up,
it is like taking a window that's sitting there open
in your living room and closing it. It is huge
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(02:23:18):
Installation Solutions, Arctic Houston dot Com eight three two fifty
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Let's head out now we're going to go to Cyprus,
Texas and visit with Nick. Hello, Nick, and welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 21 (02:23:38):
Hey, Skip, I believe that what the tractors you were
playing just a second ago.

Speaker 1 (02:23:41):
So ah, good good ding ding ding winter winter checking dinner.
That is the tractors. All right, I'm impressed. Go ahead.

Speaker 21 (02:23:50):
Well, I am actually in the backyard airity my long
a little bit, and I was going to put down
some compost over it. Now, I was wondering about the shells.
Should I put some shell in there? Because it's really
clay in this one area, clay man, how much shell
you know?

Speaker 3 (02:24:05):
Putting?

Speaker 1 (02:24:06):
Yeah, putting shell down in a lawn is just not
going to be a very effective or practical thing. Usually
with shale will lay about Let's say you just had
a horrible solid clay, you would lay about maybe three
inches of shell down and mix it as deeply as
you could, and then you would have these little porous
rocks like little lava rocks. If you look at them

(02:24:28):
under a microscope, you have a little pets and holes
in them, and they hold the clay apart for a
long time, whereas compost breaks down. But that would be good,
but in a lawn, just you're going to aerate periodically,
and each time you erate, the holes are probably gonna
be in a little different spot. And when you do
a compost top dressing of something like a leaf mold compost,

(02:24:49):
it's been screened down to very small particle size. You're
going to gradually be improving that lawn. And then the
roots of the grass also improve the soil and keep
it open too. So the healthier your grass is, the
better off your soil condition is.

Speaker 21 (02:25:04):
Okay, So so doing the aeration, I'm doing that literally
as we speak, so that I'll do that and then
just put the accomplist over top of that should and
water it in.

Speaker 1 (02:25:14):
That's it, get the aeration done, and then the compost
top dressing rake it around so it kind of falls down.
You don't need much compost top dressing, you know. A
third of an inch is probably enough in most cases
unless you just have a real big problem. But yeah,
that'll Hey are you listening to the guardline on your phone?
I am on my phone.

Speaker 21 (02:25:31):
I'm doing I'm doing eighth A June always tell us
to do it, so I was, okay, I'm going to
take this opportunity.

Speaker 1 (02:25:37):
You are the first caller that's that's said something that
let me know that that is good. It makes sense
to me if it was me listening, I'd be out
there doing work while I listen. So congratulations. I wish
I had a prize for the tractors and for listening
on your phone. But thanks Nick, I appreciate it, appreciate
your coming.

Speaker 2 (02:25:57):
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:26:00):
Good good for you. You take care. Yeah, so what
we're talking about there is there is a thing called
the iHeartMedia app. It's a little red square with a
white heart in it, And just go look in your
app store whatever kind of phone you have, and download
the iHeart media app fine garden Line. There's two in
the country that I know of. One is some lady
in the northeast. I think I don't know anything about

(02:26:22):
her or show. The other one is me and just
follow that show. So anytime you're outside working, turn your
phone on. You know, if you have earbuds, you want
to do it that way, that's good. But get out there,
and should you run across something when you're out in
the lawn or out in the garden, you could take
a picture of it, email it to me and then

(02:26:42):
call to follow up. And so, as I like to say,
it could be Garden Line live from your garden on
that morning. So just another way to listen that allows you,
you know, not to be tethered to a radio. I
think that I can't hold still long enough. If I'm
in a car, I can listen to but when I'm
in the house, I'm going from here to there to

(02:27:02):
the other, and so I just like to listen on
my phone. There you go. Well, here we are in
the beginning of summer and the beginning of hurricane season,
and hurricane season you know, whether it's a big one
or a small one in terms of how money storms
they expect. It's still is hurricane season and it is

(02:27:23):
still storm season two and last year, you know, we
had those two storms knocked out power for two weeks each.
That was a that was a mess. Well I think
one of them was related to the hurricane, the other
one wasn't. But you got to get your trees pruned
properly so they are as storm proof as they can be.
There are storms that can knock down any tree, right,
but if you prune them properly, it makes them a

(02:27:45):
lot stronger, and that starts. Pruning starts when you plant
the tree. It's not just like I got this big
tree that's a mess. I'm going to prune it and
then everything's okay. Yeah it needs pruning, I'm sure, but
from the beginning of the time you plant, you want
to prune your trees property to create as strong of
a brand structure as you can. That is the goal,

(02:28:07):
and Affordable Tree Service knows how to do that. Affordable
Tree Service been a Gardenline sponsor for many years back
when Randy was doing Guardenline. Long term sponsor during the
years Randy was doing this. Affordable Tree Service is a
family owned operation. Martin Spoonmore's company. Uh is I guess
they've been doing this for fifty years now in the
family somewhere close to that. When you call, you're going

(02:28:29):
to probably talk to Martin's mom. She typically answers the
phone there. Tell her that you heard about it on
guarden Line. Because they guardline customers are their top priority.
They take care of their garden line. They can take
care of all their customers, but they it is a
very special group and relationship between Guardline customers and Affordable
Tree Garden Line listeners and Affordable Tree Service So seven

(02:28:50):
one three, six nine nine two six sixty three seven
to one three six nine nine two six six three.
If you want to learn more about special services, they
offer specific ones aff Tree Service dot com. So they
do things like they can do the training and pruning.
They do consultations, which is well worth the money to

(02:29:13):
have them come out and doing that. They serve the
entire ktrch listening area. They do pruning, they do deep feeding,
they do pest control and disease control, and stump grinding.
If you're going to do any construction around a tree,
in construction includes a sidewalk and put over the root
system Callum First Affordable Tree Service seven one three six
nine nine T six six'. Three WELL i always say

(02:29:38):
this at the end of the, show but that went.
Fast they say time flies when you're having. Fun i've
been having. FUN i hope you have. Cormit the frog
says time's fun when you're having. Flies but that's just
a dad. Joke i'm a. Dad, oh don't Forget Father's
day coming. Up lots of great ideas for the gardening

(02:29:58):
father on your, list the father on your, list or
maybe for a hardware, stores a father that just love
certain kinds of power to. Them take Care dad this.
Weekend it's coming. Weekend you take. Care see you Next.
Saturday in the, meantime you can go to the app
or the website and listen to past. Shows