Peculiar Peach Trees

Skip Richter answers your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Richter shoes.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Mill the crazy bit in the bassa gas baby, can
you a shrimp? Just watch him as world gods the grass,
said gas? Can you dis many.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Who takes the soup bopasic in the bay.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Bringing the grasses like gas and again you date smost
the globles back ticking, not a sound in the glassy,
said gas. And the sun bemon of twe presit in
the grassy, said gas baby. Can you yam body first

(00:44):
starting in and out of treating in the basses.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I guess became you dig. Everything is so clean you
can see and never thing is so you can be
and it's rat nice many.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
So redy so ready so ready, So you get yours who.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Niggas you can do you think at all? The baby
nick Shigen digg thinking can you so bas like gas?

Speaker 5 (01:44):
Let me can you damn it?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Starting in treas like gas maybe called you did everything
here is something he can see everything.

Speaker 6 (01:58):
He is so.

Speaker 7 (02:05):
Good morning, Good morning gardeners. They all doing today. We
are looking forward to a day of visiting with you
up the things that are of interest to you regarding gardening.
I know everybody's got holidays on their minds right now.
But there's things still going on out in the botanical

(02:26):
world outside the outside the window. Our lawns or gardens,
or trees or shrubs, or vegetables or herbs or flowers,
you name it. Got all kinds of things to talk about,
and we'll be doing that a little bit today. Let
me give you a phone number. If you would like
to give me a call, you can do so at
seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

(02:48):
That's how you get in touch with me if you
would like to visit about something regarding your garden. By
this weekend, we were uh down in the Houston air
In fact, this past week excuse me, I was down
in the Houston area and visiting a number of our
garden centers and things as I like to do, and

(03:08):
stopped in at Plants for all Seasons and looking at
some of the things that they had there, and they
still stocked up pretty good. But things you need. I
need to pick up some materials in order to create
some of the potting mixes that I do. What I
will do is, you know, there's a lot of potting
scows out there, some excellent potting stows out there, many

(03:30):
of them. But I'm always wanting to tweak stuff, and
so I was going to be planting some things that
just need outstanding drainage. Some of them were cacti and succulents,
and some of them were tropicals, but they just needed
a chunkier mix than most on the market, and I
was looking for something a little bit chunkier. So I

(03:53):
purchased some materials to let's say, chunky it up a
little bit. And I just want to talk about that
a little. When you're doing your potting. Number one, do
start with a quality mix. There's a lot of stuff
out on the market, so by big national names and
things that it can be okay, but a lot of

(04:13):
times they're not. They're just mucky. They hold too much water,
that's the bottom line. And when the whole too much water,
it ends up creating a very I call it mucky
potting mix. The particle size is small, they pack out
down together. There's not a lot of air space between

(04:35):
the particles. That's the biggest thing. You know, if you
were to think about this, if you take a bunch
of mults just chunky malts for outside in the flower bed,
and you were to hold it in your hand, there's
a lot of air space between those giant chunks of mults.
On the other hand, if you were to take something
like let's say, granular sugar and hold it in your hand, well,

(04:57):
there's not a lot of air space between it. They're
small particles, they'll fit together pretty tight and there's not
a lot of airspace. It's the same with potting mixes
that we have, and so I'm often adding a larger
particle of pearlite or some small bark chips in when
I'm really trying to improve that drainage a little bit more.
And there's other things that you can use for that.

(05:19):
But anyway, that's what I was doing, getting some stuff
to pot up some special plants that I just wanted
to give a little bit better drainage to. We kill
more house plants by overwatering than underwatering. But let me
say something that I say what I just said. That phrase,
I say it all the time, and it actually is

(05:40):
not one accurate. We really, yeah, we kill them bout overwatering,
but it's not overwatering that kills plants it's lack of
oxygen that kills plants, and overwatering causes a lack of oxygen.
But if you have a really well drained mix, it
is all almost impossible to overwater it because every time

(06:02):
you put water and it just runs out the bottom
and there's always air sprace around the roots. And so
a quality mix with some good particle size is very
helpful to avoid overwating. Now, if you don't water regularly
with that kind of mix, it can dry out on
you and the plants can suffer a little bit. So

(06:23):
I have to be careful with that, and that's why
they make potting soils that are a little smarter, smaller
particle size, just so that you water it and if
you forget for a while, you're probably okay, and so on.
I don't like to go that route. I have killed
too many plants by keeping them too soggy wet, especially
those like so occulents like cacti and even some of

(06:45):
our other tropical plants that just stay too wet. So anyway,
that's what we're doing while we're there. My wife found
a to lenzia, and I don't know if you know
what to lend, but it's basically it's ball moss. Ball
moss and Spanish moss, though you know, hang down from trees,

(07:06):
are attached to trees. Those are talansias, and they're they're
related to pineapples, and if you look closely at the plant,
you can see it's like a little pineapple top coming
out in a whole bunch of places around on it.
And they're talansias. So she wanted a talansias. She loves
the talansia. And I was just sitting there looking at it. Uh,
And my thing was, you know, I could climb a

(07:26):
tree for you and get you some ball moss if
you want. Well, anyway, I thought that was funny. Oftentimes
I'm the only one in our conversations that thinks something
is funny. She has a great sense of humor, but
I have a let's say, my sense of humor never
really grew up too well. Anyway, that we got a tulanzi,

(07:48):
brought it home. Those things they call them sometimes airplants
because literally, I mean think about ball moss. It's not
sapping juices out of the limb that it's growing on.
It's just attached to the limb. I've seen as growing
on high lines and balls was a parasite and it
needed plant juice to keep going. Could he grow on
a power line, of course, not or a fence post
or I've seen it, but a little tiny babas on

(08:10):
a barbed wire fence seriously, So yeah, it's an airplant.
What happens is he gets some moistures from rain or
some nutrients as well. Sometimes you know, yellow birds stop
there and poop on the on the branch and and
it gets washed into that too. These plants are very
good at surviving on very little Anyways, they're kind of fun.

(08:32):
You can hot gloom to a piece of wood and
create a kind of attractive little arrangement. So that's what
we're up to. Hey, I've just talked past a break.
I think I'm gonna stop here. I'll be right back.
Hang on and hellos, welcome back, shout, welcome back to
the garden line.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Good have you with us?

Speaker 7 (08:54):
Get close to Christmas thing and everything slows down. His
brain goes on other things didn't gather with family, I
don't know, gifts and stuff. The uh those calls on
garden line slow down a little bit. In fact, they'll
let quite a bit and uh it gives me a
chance to just drone on about various things. I'm gonna

(09:16):
I've got a couple of topics I'm gonna talk on
about today, but my favorite topic to talk about is
whatever is of interest to you. And I mean that.
So I've got some folks that had emailed during the week.
They'll probably call back call in as a follow up,
But we're here to basically answer the kinds of questions
that you have. And uh, I like to remind everybody

(09:37):
that there, in my eyes, there's no such thing. From
garden line standpoint, there's no such thing as a stupid question.
There is just those that don't get asked, and they
need to get asked. So if you have a question,
don't worry about it. Other people have that question too.
Maybe this is the first time you've ever grown a
plant and you need to call in and ask does
the green side go up or down in the ground.

(09:58):
I can help you with that. I won't I won't
give you a hard time about it. Seriously. My point
is just this, if you have a question, other people
will also have that question. You should ask it. That's
the way it is. That's how we learn by asking questions.
Even questions that you may feel like are stupid, you know,
but they're not.

Speaker 8 (10:18):
They're not to me.

Speaker 7 (10:19):
But that way, now, there are such things as stupid answers,
and so the pressure's on me. I'll worry about the
stupid answers. You just asked your questions. We don't worry
about that at all. I talk to people all the time.
I hate this, but I talk to people all the
time and they go, yeah, I never want to call
in because I don't want to be in the air
and stuff like that. Man, come on, man, people like

(10:42):
you are all over the place listening to this radio
show that I want to call in. They're afraid to
do it. Just do it anytime you won't do it.
I'm not saying, you know, I need to get people
a call right now. I talk for four hours. But
my point is just how can I help you. Let's
figure out how to do that, and let's get you
the help you need. If there's any doubt in your
mind about something that you're thinking about doing, maybe you

(11:04):
want to do, or you're wondering about doing, ask before
you do it. I see. In fact, I have a talk.
When I was a county horticulture agent, I had a
talk that I gave and a lot of times as
a matter of fact, and the title of the talk
was it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The whole talk was full of pictures of people's actions,

(11:28):
horticultural actions that at the time seemed like a good idea.
And then you take a picture later and you're kind
of like, Okay, I get that. Here's one of them
taking a plant and planting it too close to something.
Maybe it's a tree too close to the eaves of
your house or a power line by the ways. You know,

(11:49):
the power line company will trim your trees for you
for free. Yeah, you won't like what they do. They'll
just chop everything that is near a power line, or
any in the next few years is going to be
near a power line. It's called a butcher job. Yeah,
you don't want that. Pick a tree that's smaller planet,
you know, planet further away. I won't go about it.
Just the main thing is, don't do that. I have

(12:09):
a picture of a shrub row that was planted on
each side of a sidewalk, and so when they were planted,
there was these little tiny shrubs on each side of
the side. They probably put away from the sidewalk, and
people are thinking, oh, that's cute, that's fine. Well when
in the picture years later, those shrubs are like four
or five feet apart, so I mean sorry, four or

(12:33):
five p watt feet wide. And so when I take
this picture, there is like a foot and a half
space to walk down that sidewalk between these two rows
of shrubs. And because they're not trimminum and they're just
too close, they're too big. The shrubs are too big
the species for that space. They're planted too close to
the sidewalk for that space. And now when people come

(12:57):
visit you, the family has to all hold hands and
sprint down the sidewalk to burst through the gauntlet to
make it to your front door. That's not that's not
what we're after. That's what I'm talking about. But just
ask questions, especially pruning questions, because once you do what
you think is seems like the right thing to do,

(13:18):
if it's wrong, then you have in the case of
a structural situation like a tree, you could have marred
it for life. And people do all the time. It happens.

Speaker 8 (13:28):
People that.

Speaker 7 (13:31):
Are going to come out and do the work for
you also make some pretty serious mistakes. There is a
there is a Facebook page called Crimes against Horticulture. I
believe that's the name of it, and it is hilarious
the things that people send in pictures and stuff. It's

(13:52):
just it's just crazy the stuff that people do. Now,
some of it is just them trying to have fun,
you know. I mean, if you want to if you
want to take some evergreen shrub and trim it to
look like gumby and stick two googly eyes on it, well,
I mean, go for it. That's your yard, that's your shrub.
But other things are just seem like a good idea

(14:13):
at the time, so we don't avoid those things. Don't
hesitate to give me a call before you buy a plant.
It's another reminder that when you buy a plant, buy
it from one of our local independent garden centers. These
folks live here and they have for a long time.
These folks garden here and they have for a long time.
These folks are there every day talking to customers, seeing pictures,

(14:40):
learning as they go on the job. And when you
walk in there, you're going to come out with good
advice and with plants that want to grow here, plants
that want to grow here. So spend time and spend
your money in those places. These folks are there to
help you. You got a problem, you walk in, ask
a question, you get an answer. In a lot of places,

(15:03):
they hire people to work in the green part of
this giant store, but that doesn't mean they know anything.
And I would just say, and I'm not here to
dis an individual. I mean, I'm sure that some stores
have hard people that know what they're talking about and
so on. But my experience is about eleven times out

(15:27):
of twelve I get an answer that's I can just
tell them that they start to answer, it's like, okay,
I shouldn't ask that question because here they're filling space
with words, but the words aren't right. So anyway, I
love our independent garden centers and you should too. I
enjoy visiting with them as a visiting with some of

(15:48):
the folks that plans oral seasons as I was talking
about earlier this week, and just just kind of picking
their brain about some things, asking some questions. And as
I did that, it's like, yeah, they know what they're
talking about. Mind being appearing to be the dumb one
asking a question. You know what about this or that?
I kind of learn a lot about what people know

(16:10):
pretty well that way. So that's my recommendation. Spend your
time and money on these independent garden centers that know
what they're talking about. That'll sell you plants that want
to grow here. So there you go. Maybe you moved
here from another area like the Midwest or California or
some other place, and what you used to do back

(16:33):
where you lived before doesn't necessarily work here, you know.
I love I love Forsythia, beautiful yellow blooms for one
of the first harbingers of spring in the Midwest and
other areas a little further north than us, And it's
a great plant, but it's just not for our area.
It's not the best one for our area. I love
going to Colorado. One of my favorite pine type trees

(16:56):
is a blue spruce evergreens and it's just gorgeous, and
you need to go to Colorado and visit them. Don't
bring them home. They don't grow here, see what I mean.
There's a lot of plants like that. Lilac when I
lived I spent three years in Missouri. When I lived there,
we had a lilac in the front yard and oh
my gosh, the perfume fragrance of those blooms is outstanding.

(17:16):
We have our own plants that a perfume fragrance, but
they're not going to work here. If you miss lilacs,
then buy lilac scented perfume. Get you a crape myrtle
and spray it every day with a lilac perfume, and
you will have your version of a lilac, or at
least as close as I can get you. Well, that's
the fact I'm talking about. People prune trees don't know

(17:39):
what they're talking about. Hey, who does? And that's the
folks at Affordable Tree Service Martin and his team. They
know what they're doing and they're not going to do
that kind of hatchet job. That just seems like the
right thing to do. They know how trees grow, they
understand how they work, and they prune them properly as
a result. So that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

(17:59):
None of these hot rack jobs. What's a hat rack job? Well,
that is a tree that's been pruned and sawed off
and all you got big is big stump limbs sticking
up in all directions like you'd hang giant hats on
not a good pruning technique, not at all. Those kind
of heading cuts they result in re sprouting. People do

(18:21):
that to crate myrtles a lot. They just hack them
back and then you get this crow's foot of growth
going straight in the air. Structurally a mess, a mess,
and it it harms the beauty of that beautiful plant.
Let's take a little break here. We'll be back with
phone calls in just a moment. Stick around. Welcome back, you,
welcome back to the garden Line. Glad to have you

(18:42):
with us this morning. Just go on out to the
phones and look at a visit this morning with Beth
from Humble. Here we go, Hey, Beth, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (18:53):
Good morning, good morning. I'm concerned because they're not printing
the Old Farmer's olm on neck that I always go by,
that gives you a day by day, you know, the
vegetable planning dates, the best days to plant them, you know.
And I wonder if you know somewhe where I can
find something. I subscribe to the Texas Gardener now, but

(19:16):
it doesn't have like specific dates. You know, certain things
like the Old Farmer's Almanac did.

Speaker 7 (19:25):
Right right? Well, what you can do got a couple
of things you can do on that. Actually a farmer's almanac.
When you think about it, when something is printed, you
know well well ahead of time. Sometimes the things that
are predicted are kind of like how could you predict that?
I can know that, And you know it's kind of
like the weather. You got to get within about three
days to be pretty sure what the weather is going

(19:46):
to be when when it's predicted. I would suggest you
go with There's a number of options out there there.
I have actually a little vegetable planning chart that I
can send you that recommends the times for plant various
types of vegetables through the year in the Greater Houston area.

Speaker 9 (20:09):
And if that would be great, Yeah, I would like
that Texas Gardener. But you know, I like the Texas Gardener.
It has a lot of good things in it. In fact,
out the year advertisement in the back page.

Speaker 7 (20:26):
Yeah, but I'm friends with the editor. Jay's a great guy.

Speaker 9 (20:31):
Yeah. If I could just get a copy of that
for the twenty twenty six gardening planning times, I'm sure
appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (20:40):
Okay, well let's do this. What I will do is
I will let's see what I can do. I'm going
to put you on hold here in just a little
bit and then you can get an email, and if
you'll email me, I'll be happy to to send you that.

Speaker 8 (21:02):
Now.

Speaker 7 (21:03):
There is a there is a h a website and
I'm trying to find the website now for the Garden
Academy here in Texas. It's uh, it's called the garden
Academy dot com. The Garden Academy dot com. And Angela Chandler,
who I've had here on on garden Line, has put

(21:23):
together some information on there, and I'm gonna go right
now and see it. She had a little chart that
she did. I think she did it for Arbor Gate.
Uh see, I'm gonna have to find it. Angela, if
you happen to be listening, would you help clarify this.
She had a really nice planting chart that she put
put together there, and I'll have to look around and
see if I'm not finding it right now as I

(21:45):
look for it, uh, but I'll be. I'll be hunting
for that. But I'm gonna put you on hold. Don't
go away, Beth. My producers like to pick.

Speaker 9 (21:53):
It up and I'll give you a nail. Thank you
very much, Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (21:57):
You bet, you bet? There you go, all right, yeah,
I need to find that. Why am I not finding
what I'm looking for there? Well, anyway, well I'm sure
it's on there. I look around a little bit to
vegetable planting calendar. There it is, so the Garden Academy

(22:19):
dot com and under you know the information of vegetables,
there's a vegetable garden calendar and real nice. It's prints
out on legal paper. It's got a lot of good
information in it, very very helpful for you. So I'd
recommend you take a look at that too. It's a
good one. Bob Randall in his book has a very

(22:47):
intricut gardening calendar based on weather data all kinds of
things here in the Greater Houston area, and it actually
varies the planting time for different parts of the area,
which is which is kind of interesting. You know, if
you're in Galveston, or if you're in downtown Houston, or
if you're out in Katie that the weather temperature time

(23:08):
wise is different in those areas. And so that Bob
went into great links Bob Randall for his his book,
and you need to you need to check that out
because that that is also helpful. Let's now run to
Jim in a Tascasita. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden mine.

Speaker 8 (23:28):
Good morning, Good morning. And that Bob Bridle book I
heard is really really good.

Speaker 10 (23:32):
It really does help a lot of people learn from it.

Speaker 8 (23:35):
Yes, sure, here we go, h.

Speaker 10 (23:40):
Leaf hopper, nymphs.

Speaker 11 (23:43):
Boy, they attacked my sweet potato plant, and I mean
within a couple of days they put.

Speaker 8 (23:49):
Holes in my leaves.

Speaker 11 (23:51):
I tried using dawn, I you know, mixture of water
in dawn. I tried other things that are out there.
What do you recommend, because what do you recommend as
a broad spectrum? Or is there such a thing as
a broad spectrum?

Speaker 8 (24:08):
Uh? Chemical?

Speaker 7 (24:10):
To you, there are. So I'm gonna take a little
longer to answer this because I think it I think
your questions are bear going into. First, I'll start with
the last one, the broad spectrum. Uh, pesticides can in

(24:30):
my opinion, the way I like to put it to
make it understandable, is pestides can be divided into two groups,
eras and grenades. Okay, Now, if I look at a
group of people and you throw you throw a grenade
out there, everybody's in trouble, right, I mean it's going
to take out the good guys, guys the whole And
and that's true with vegetables as well. Arrows. You shoot

(24:50):
an arrow into a crowd, and it hits one target
and it takes it out. It's the military equivalent of
a surgical strike. U. But there are like BT kills
just caterpillars. It's an arrow you spread on a grasshopper
and a ladybug in a caterpillar, and only the grasshopper,
I mean, only the caterpillar is gonna be killed by

(25:12):
whereas the broad spectrums kill everything. The problem with broad
spectrums is when you kill everything, it's like slapping the
pendulum of a grand five o'clock in one direction. It's
gonna come swing in the other direction after in response
to that, and you end up getting an outbreak of pests.
And so I generally try to avoid broad spectrum. Now

(25:32):
there are times when you need to use them because
of the situation, but in general, when about the leaf hopper,
though I generally ignore mine. Now, I know they can
do some considerable damage, but they do have their natural
enemies which tend to bring them back. But I'm telling you,
sweet potatoes produce a lot of foliage, and they they

(25:55):
can just keep putting more solar panels out there to
capture sunlight. I'd saying leaf hoppers don't hamper production at all.
But I do tell you that's one situation where I don't.
I generally just don't spray. But if you wanted to spray,
go with a broad spectrum that is short term that
you do it. It kills everything, but it breaks down

(26:16):
fast and pyrethern pyretherne or pirie thrum, either one will
We'll do that. It's only gonna last you a few
days out there in the environment, but it gives you
a real good knockdown, and you can it's an organic
and you can find the pyrethern in various forms, not
a synthetic perretherid. I'm talking about the organic pyrethrine. The

(26:38):
synthetic porethroids are much more persistent.

Speaker 8 (26:44):
That's a great answer.

Speaker 11 (26:46):
I really do appreciate an alf the analogy between a
grade and the narrow.

Speaker 8 (26:50):
You're absolutely correct. Thanks a lot, skip, have a great day.
Thank you, all right, Jim, thank you.

Speaker 7 (26:56):
Let's take a little break here and we'll be right
back with your calls at seven one three two one
two five age seven four.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
We're back.

Speaker 7 (27:05):
Welcome back to the guard Line. We're gonna dive right
back into the phone calls now and head up to
northwest Houston. We speak with Darryl this morning. Well, hello Darryl,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (27:17):
Good morning, Well, good morning Skip. I wanted them. I
got a question, but I also wanted to thank you
for mentioning to landsas this morning. I've had those things
for several.

Speaker 13 (27:29):
Years and they're there are They're very interesting.

Speaker 12 (27:32):
That that's the plant for dummies if there ever was one.

Speaker 8 (27:34):
No water, no dirt, well, very little water.

Speaker 7 (27:37):
Anyway, I'm telling you that's true.

Speaker 12 (27:42):
But I mean, they're come in so many different colors,
are not necessarily colors with shapes and sizes.

Speaker 8 (27:47):
It's it's they're really addicting.

Speaker 12 (27:49):
But my main question was, Yeah, I have some blueberries,
some blueberries and some pots. So I was wondering if
it was too late to uh to plant now I've
cleared a spot and I have them in pots. That
I was just I want to put them in the crowd,
but I don't. I mean, I don't have to do
it now.

Speaker 8 (28:06):
It's just curious, it's.

Speaker 13 (28:09):
It's too late to do anything.

Speaker 7 (28:10):
It's absolutely no, it's a it's a great time to
do that. All winter is a good time to plant
fruit trees and shrouds and trees and everything like that.
So that I go ahead and put them in. Make
sure you got a good acidic soil mix for them,
uh and uh fertilize them with us.

Speaker 12 (28:27):
The thing correct. Yes, I used the six two four
in the think bag.

Speaker 8 (28:31):
So it's with that, with that sudvice excellent.

Speaker 14 (28:36):
Okay, oh yeah, that's.

Speaker 7 (28:38):
An excellent product by by micro Life. You bet all right, well, Darrel.
Oh yeah, I appreciate your color.

Speaker 8 (28:45):
Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 7 (28:46):
I have a good day, Yes, sir, thanks for calling. Yeah,
the uh tolensias, the ball moss I. You may have
heard if you listen to Gardline all the time, you
probably have heard you say talking about mother in law's tongue,
also called sense of aia, also called snake plant. It's

(29:07):
the tall, upright, very rigid, flat leaves coming straight up
out of the ground. I say that if you can't
grow mother and lost tongue, I can't help you because
that plant it is, it puts up, It likes a
lot of light. It doesn't want to be in full sun,
but it can be but it tends to get sunburned.

(29:27):
But it likes bright light, but it can grow in
amazingly low light conditions. It likes adequate moisture, but it's
very tolerant and able to go through periods of drought
and things. And it just has that versatility that kind
of makes it hard to kill. And I trust me,

(29:47):
My mother, my sense of areas have called the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants to report me
on many occasions. And I'm telling you it's because I
know how they are. I'm just not worried about them.
I'll stick them, you know, in a pot somewhere around
the corner. And we had a little sum at a
kind of enclave, kind of entrance way around the house

(30:11):
that it was off to the side, and I just
kind of forgot them over there. It's like, oh occasionally,
oh yeah, I guess the water that thing, and they
do just fine. It's a really easy plant to grow,
and so I guess I need to add that if
you can't grow ball moss, I can't help you. And
that's the delancius. Actually, some talentsius are a little more
particular than others. Some of them are a lot easier

(30:32):
to grow, but whatever, either way, that's a good plant,
good plant to do. Moss Nursery done in Seabrook, Texas.
They got a deal going right now, and I'm telling
you you need to hear this. If you buy a
gift card for fifty dollars or more for Moss Nursery

(30:52):
this month December, they will give you a free gift
card for fifteen dollars. You can use it in January
next January. So if you're thinking about you know, well
I want to get more from my dollars spend and stuff, well,
this is a great opportunity to do that now. Most nurseries.
It's down there in Seabrook, Texas on Toddville Road. Here's

(31:16):
a phone number two eight one four seven four twenty
four eighty eight. Two eight one four seven four twenty
four eighty eight. When you go there, check out the greenhouse.
The greenhouse for all the houseplants and things that they have.
They've got their succulents in there, and I'm sure you
can find delancius in there as well, string of you

(31:37):
name it, and then beautiful tropical foliage, all kinds of things.
It's one of the first places I go when I
go to Moss Nurses to go check out that greenhouse
because it's so cool. I love it. They have a
lot of beautiful, beautiful little water features, you know, just
decorative little things that you can set in the patio
and the yard that are really pretty. If you need

(31:58):
some vegetables, I've got a stock of vegetables back in
over there too as well, and it's time to get
those things planted. Beautiful ornaments of all kinds for your
yard and always a nice, nice selection of all kinds
of plants. They're at Boss Nursery in c Brook, Texas
now their fall and winter hours or Monday through Saturday

(32:19):
nine to five and Sunday ten to five. Simple a self. Alrighty,
well here we are music. I did an hour just
really go by. I cannot. I can't believe it it did.
It absolutely did. Appreciate you listening in the garden line.

(32:39):
I want to remind you about my website, Gardening with
Skip dot com that we had a little bit of
a scare on a frost freeze the other day, but
we got others that are coming. If it's like any
normal year, we have whatever normal mean. You can find
my publication on protecting plants against frost and freezes. Why
not get it now? Read it now, get the stuff

(33:00):
you need so you're ready now so that when it
comes you sco outside and do it. You don't have
to worry about trying to shop and everybody else is
cleaning out the stores or protecting materials gardening. Let's skip
dot com. We'll also find my lawn schedules on there
and other stuff as well.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Ricords, crazy.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Trim. Just watch you as so many birthdays to seep
dot bazy gas not sorry, gas sand beam and starting

(34:03):
and see.

Speaker 7 (34:08):
We're back, folks. Welcome to garden Line. We appreciate you
tuning in. I hope you're enjoying the show today. If
you have a gardening question, here is a number to
call seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four be happy to help you with that. I was

(34:31):
trying to decide I've got several things I wanted to
talk about today, but I thought one thing I'm gonna
do is I'm going to go through if I can
get through them all. Fifty common gardening and landscaping mistakes
that I see people make. I was talking earlier about
the gauntlet planting things too close. In fact, that's on
the list here. But let's just go through some of these.

(34:52):
By the way, don't let this stop you from calling
you call away. I've got I've got plenty of time
to go through all these, and we'll just kind of
work our way through them. Number one, guess what number
one mistake people make could be in my list? In
my list, what do I say all the time? Brown
stuff before green stuff? Right, brown stuff for greens. Lack

(35:13):
of soil preparation before planting. You out there, you're shopping,
You see a planet's got a big flower on it.
You take it home. You got a planet, you won't
have it. And you look around and you pop PLoP
that poor plant down into an unprepared plot, and it's
just maybe it lives, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it lives.
They just doesn't perform its best. It doesn't give you

(35:36):
what you dreamt of when you saw that thing in
the garden center. You're going to bring it home with you.
Prepare the soil before you plant. What is preparing the
soil mean. Preparing the soil means in our area, especially
those of you who have a heavy clay soil, adding
organic matter to the soil and building up a raised
planting bed. Raised beds drain better. Adding organic matter in

(36:00):
to the soil helps improve internal drainage and the soil.
Adding expanded shale into the soil several inches thick, I
mean like three inches thick. You can mix expanded shell
down into the soil and make a significant difference in
terms of that soil's internal drainage. That clay and an
expanded shell tends to hold its structure over time better.

(36:22):
Organic matter decomposes away. It's still great to use, but
you got to improve the drainage of the soil. You
got to improve the aeration, the oxygen content down in
the roots. Prepare that soil ahead of time, and add nutrients.
Now a soil test. Doing a soil test that helps
you know what nutrients you need to add and what amounts.

(36:43):
We've got lots of great fertilizers that will guide you
with a good blend of nutrients that almost always is
going to be right or at least close enough to it.
But a soil test tells you exactly what you need.
Your neighbor may have so much phosphorus they never need
to add another drop. They have a lack of phosphorus
and need to add some. In our urban lots where

(37:05):
soil is brought in and turned upside down and you know,
all kinds of things, there's a variation. It's not like
you're in a farm field where there's some degree of
uniformity within a small area. But have a soil test done,
add the nutrients you need, mix them in. By the way, phosphorus,
for example, it doesn't move down in the soil well,

(37:26):
so it's better to have it mixed in down deep
if you can do that. But lack of soil preparation
for planting, that is mistake common garden landscape mistake number one.
All right, let's go out now to Katie, Texas and
we're going to visit with Todd this morning. Hey, Todd,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (37:47):
How you doing skip? My question is is it too
late to put ricey down? And would it affect the
Saint Augustine?

Speaker 8 (37:55):
Is it bad for it?

Speaker 10 (37:56):
And then what would the watering schedule be?

Speaker 7 (38:00):
Yeah, real good questions, Todd. It is not too late.
We try to get it on a little earlier than this,
but you can still do it, and we live far
enough south here in terms of climate where we can
get away with a little bit later planting. You want
to put it down at the right rate, depending on
whether you have annual or perennial or more commonly a

(38:25):
mix of the two, annual and perennial. Just just look
at the bag the information, go on line, find it
for the kind of rye you got, and put it
out at the right rate. Water in real good as
far as watering. In the cool season, we get quite
a bit of moisture and we have demands that are
very low. But again because for further south, we can

(38:48):
have a week of mid to upper seventies in the
middle of winter here, and so you do need to water,
but I would say water as needed rather than metelling
you put on an inch a week or a half
inch a week. You're not going to have to water
that much. I mean just water is needed to help
it get going early on. As it germinates and gets going,
that's when it's more critical that it has some frequent

(39:10):
little waterings to help it get going, because it has
no resiliency. Once it gets root system down, it's it's
going to be resilient and you don't have to worry
about so much. Now as far as the Saint Augustine,
when you plant rye, when you overseed with rye, you
are basically planting a billion weeds in your Saint Augustine lawn.
If you were to ask Saint Augustine how it looks

(39:31):
at it, that's what it would say. Why would you
want to put all these weeds in me? Well, in
the winter time is not a big deal. The grass
will grow with it. But in the spring and the transition,
when the grass is trying to wake up and the
rye grass is at its happiest at that point, it
is competition and it's a bunch of weeds in it now.
In time, as it heats up more, that rye grass

(39:53):
will die back and the Saint Augustine gets the upper hand.
But properties that are overseeded Saint Augustin or typically that's
a lot a lot of times that's done on Bermuda
lawns and commercial properties. It is a stress to the grass.
So that's the trade off, and everybody gets to make
their own decision on what you want. If you want

(40:15):
to mow and do a little watering and stuff during
the winter time to have that green, you can do it.

Speaker 13 (40:24):
Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (40:27):
All right, I hope that helped you.

Speaker 10 (40:32):
Have a good day.

Speaker 7 (40:32):
Bye bye Mark, Merry Christmas to you Todd as well.
That the uh yeah, the overseeding thing is uh. You know,
I'm I'm talking into it or out of it. If
you want the beautiful, gorgeous green lawn all winter, you
can do it. You just need to use a good
blend of annual perennial. You need to plant it right,

(40:53):
you need to take care of it and do that. However,
do you want to mow in the winter? Do you
want to water some in the winter when Saint Augustine
you sincely don't have to, uh? Do you want to
uh have that stress transition in the spring for your lawn?
So it takes a little bit of a toll, but
that's the tradeoff.

Speaker 15 (41:16):
You know.

Speaker 7 (41:16):
We we like black and white rules, right, that makes
everything clean and clear, we understand, Okay, I get it.
And in horticulture we don't get much black and white.
We get a lot of gray, or we get a
lot of you add to pins that's the biggest one
is it depends. All right, let's take a break here,
we'll be back with your calls. Seven one three, two
one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to your

(41:40):
odline playfully. Good to have you with us this morning.
You got a gardening question. I'll be happy see here
fifty eight seven four. I was talking earlier about Martin
spoon Bore Affordable Tree Service, Martin spoon Moore and talking

(42:02):
about the importance of people knowing how to do printing
properly what they're doing, and that is how things go
with Martin. You know, the family's been this business now
for gosh over fifty five years.

Speaker 15 (42:13):
And the.

Speaker 7 (42:17):
Important thing to know is you just don't turn people
loose with your trees that don't know what they're doing.
That's the bottom line. A bad printing job is, you
could say it this way, a bad printing job is forever.
You can butcher a tree to a point where, yeah,
you do what you can to try to bring it back,
but it will never be the same. You're ruin a

(42:37):
tree with bad prunting. And Martin Spoonmore knows what he's doing.
You can give him a call. Seven one three six
nine nine two six sixty three. If you haven't had
your trees looked at or pruned in the last couple
of years, you definitely need to get Martin a call
because some of you needs to get out there that
knows what they're doing. And this would be a tree
that's a small tree that you're training properly, not what

(42:58):
seems best to you, but someone who knows train it properly. Uh,
all the way up to big giant trees. The tree
is the most valuable plant in your entire landscape, and
it just you got to turn it over. Somebody knows
what they're doing. Every tree that Martin prunes, by the way,
you get a free deep root feeding on that tree.

Speaker 15 (43:16):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (43:17):
So that's a really good deal.

Speaker 8 (43:19):
Right now.

Speaker 7 (43:20):
Again the number seven one three, six nine nine two
six sixty three. When you call that Martin or his
wife Joe or Martin's mom. This is a family business.
As I said, Uh, Mom, Judy, one of them is
going to answer. And if they don't, then you call
the wrong place. Seven one three, six nine nine two
six sixty three. Affordable Tree Service. Don't delay, go ahead

(43:43):
and get on the schedule.

Speaker 10 (43:45):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (43:45):
This is prime time for getting pruning done on our plants.
I was talking about fifty common gardening and landscaping mistakes,
and first one was lack of soul preparation before planting,
or two planting in poorly drained areas without building raised beds.

(44:07):
You may have a spot that is that a little
bit of sun you got in your landscape. You got
a rose bush because they need sun. Right, anything that
produces fruit and flowers and roots in the vegetable garden
that you eat, they need full sun, as much sun
as you can give them. But this area doesn't drain well. Well,
don't flop a plant into those poor drained spots. Give

(44:30):
them a raised bed, raise the swell up, or at
least do something in the way of subsurface drainage to
take the excess water away. Roots need oxygen. Did you
know that? I know they're underground. You think of your underground.
How do you breathe?

Speaker 5 (44:46):
Well?

Speaker 7 (44:46):
Roots need oxygen. There's oxygen in the soil until water
fills up the soil particles and there's in the spaces
in between the soil particles and there's no room for air.
Then they don't get the oxygen. You start to run
into problem very few plants can tolerate submerged conditions. Build
a raised bed if at all in question, and or

(45:10):
get some good internal drainage done. Number three, Oh boy,
here we go choosing poorly adapted disease or past susceptible
varieties and species. There is a lot of stuff that
gets sold that shouldn't be planted here. That is just

(45:33):
the bottom line. That's a fact, and we have so
many good options I mentioned earlier. Don't bring a blue
spruce home from Colorado. Don't if you move from the Midwest.
Don't bring your forsythia with in your lielaocs with you.
Those don't grow here, just like a citrus tree, and

(45:53):
it's not going to grow up in Chicago, and an
azelle doesn't need to be in Phoenix, Arizona either. These
are that's an acid loving forest for or loving species.
You got to plant things that want to be where
you are. That is important, and so choose species that

(46:14):
are adapted. One way to know that is to go
to an independent garden center where they know what they're
talking about, and they're not going to stick something on
the shelf just because National corporate headquarters is having them
shipped all over the place or whatever however that goes,
however that's done in those companies. There are a lot
of plants that are sold in Houston that shouldn't be

(46:34):
planted in Houston, period period. So don't assume if it's
for sale that that means I don't mean on sale,
I mean for sale that it should be planted here.
Plant things that want to grow here. That is the
best thing. Now, there's things we can do to adapt. Okay,
if we can create soil conditions that are very adapted.

(47:00):
You know, you got to Katie and you're maybe you're
on what used to be a rice paddy at one
point in time, or south of Katie, and you know
that kind of soil didn't that's not where azalias are from.
But you can bring in a quality, acid loving soil mix,
and you've got a kind of a shady spot where
you get bright light but not direct sun all day.

(47:21):
You can plant a zeli and take care of it.
You can be done. But in general, in general, you're
going to have to plant things that want to be
where they are or find a way to make them
at home. And you can't build a refrigeration box over
the top of plants. That want to be further north
in the winter time. Here, all right, Number four, we're

(47:42):
clicking through these over watering. A little bit of water
is essential, too much water is not. And the number
one thing is I said I think I said this
maybe to start the show off. The reason overwatering is
a problem is because it drives oxygen out of the
room system. Too much water is not the problem. Lack

(48:03):
of oxygen is the problem. So when we overwater, we oversaturate,
and you're gonna get roots that are dying. They're shutting
down first because they they It's kind of like you
hold in your breath, right, if you can't get oxygen,
you can't hold your breath for a little while, but
not for a long long time. And as they start

(48:26):
to shut down, and then they start to die back,
and then root rots come in. Do you know that
there are there are root rots of plants here in
our area? Lots of plants can get these that the
root rot spores. Instead of floating through the air like
a normal spore you would think I'm doing from one
leaf to another a fungal spore, these have tails and

(48:48):
they swim like tadpoles. The spores can move underground in
the water film from one one plant root over to
another root. And that is all promoted by overwatering. If
you weren't overwater and they would have a hard time
doing that. Overwatering is not good. Plus it waste money.
Waste money. You're paying for that drinking water and you're

(49:09):
putting it on a plant for crying out loud, don't
waste it. So don't overwater. If you've got to, get
you a timer on your irrigation, if you got a
if you got a if you're a hose end, a
hose dragger, that's fine, get a timer on the faucet
on the outside of your house. Make sure and don't overwater.
That's important. All right, That got us through four of them.

(49:31):
We'll continue here in just a moment. We're going to
go out to Swingy, Texas now and talk to Mark. Hey, Mark,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (49:38):
Hey, good morning there.

Speaker 6 (49:40):
I was wondering my peach trees still have leagues on
as Does that mean I still got to keep watering them?

Speaker 16 (49:46):
I just plan it'll Uh.

Speaker 7 (49:52):
When'd you when'd you plan?

Speaker 2 (49:53):
The mark.

Speaker 13 (49:55):
Back towards the beginning of summer.

Speaker 7 (49:59):
Oh, yeah, there, they're fine. No, you don't have to
worry about them.

Speaker 8 (50:02):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (50:02):
I mean, if we went you know, it is kind
of warm, it's going to be warm for a little
while for this time of year.

Speaker 16 (50:09):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (50:09):
And and you know, if you if it got too dry,
I could see giving them a little bit of water.
But the bottom line is those needs would be coming
off and and uh, we just don't have to worry
about it a lot. And if it was a brand
new tree you just plant it this fall, absolutely you
would want to water it. But one planet, you know,
way back when months ago, it's gotten the tree system

(50:30):
is spreading out, so it's not quite as touching go
as it.

Speaker 6 (50:33):
Wasn't a pint of it, Okay, okay, Yeah, it's just
you know, I know, it's kind of an odd winter,
so I'm I'm surprised that the.

Speaker 8 (50:46):
Yeah, I just I'm trying to make ye I've got
one under beech tree.

Speaker 7 (50:53):
No you don't. That's a that's one of the best
tempered fruits we can grow as peaches here. And so
uh yep, that's it.

Speaker 8 (51:00):
Now.

Speaker 7 (51:00):
Like I said, if you if you want to give
it a little bit of water, if you can dig down,
let's say you dig down about four inches or five
inches and the soil still feels dry there, then go
ahead and give it a little bit of water. I
don't think that's what you're gonna find, but if it is,
give it a little bit of water. But basically the
tree's gonna.

Speaker 13 (51:16):
Be okay, okay, sweet sweet, perfect.

Speaker 8 (51:21):
Well.

Speaker 13 (51:21):
I really appreciate you, all right, Yeah, ever your slf
Marry Chris, you've bet that.

Speaker 7 (51:25):
Thank you you as well, Mark, Thank you very much.
I appreciate that very much. Alrighty yeah, uh. Winter watering
in general, we don't have to do it, but never
say never, right the there's always exceptions to the rule,
and you just got to use common sense on these
things and sometimes dig down and that I've Rather than

(51:47):
telling somebody put this much of water on every this often,
I like to just say, use your hands, dig down.
If you down four or five inches, feel in the soil.
You don't know that things will need water or not,
so if you're not sure, feel the soil, well, see
what you think. Let's take a little break here for
the news. We'll be right back with your questions. Welcome
bout your garden, folks. Glad to have you listened it

(52:13):
in Today we are going to head out and talk
to Mike in Bay City next.

Speaker 17 (52:19):
Hey Mike, welcome to guarden Line hell Skip, Yeah, thank
you very much.

Speaker 8 (52:25):
I got a question.

Speaker 17 (52:26):
I sent some pictures in. I don't know if you
got them already. I wanted to discuss. Okay, that's on
my peach tree. I've got this. I guess it's mealy
bug or something like that. I don't know, or some fungus,
but hopefully the picture of good enough. Here's the deal.
What I wanted to ask you about this. This has

(52:49):
been going on for a long time, like for over
a month, I guess, and I've gone out there every
week and sprayed it with like meme oil, you know.

Speaker 8 (52:58):
And here's two things.

Speaker 17 (53:00):
Either my name while is not good, or they don't
I mean they're dead or whatever that is is dead
and it's just staying on her. I thought it would
maybe disappear, you know what I mean, And it hadn't
disappear or falling off the limb or whatever.

Speaker 7 (53:17):
Yeah, that's a type of peach scale insect on there.

Speaker 15 (53:21):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (53:21):
And for those people listening that can't see the can't
see the picture that I'm looking at, it's a peach branch.
But it's covered with like a just a lot of
white flaky stuff all over it, and it's a serious
infestation of scale. So you should have you probably have
some dead twigs on that branch and definitely struggling. Niam

(53:43):
oil isn't oil, so it could help scale what they
do during the growing season as it begins to warm up,
they have a lot, a lot of babies that go
crawling out from under the mama scale and basically go
around and increase the infestation. And at that stage they
don't have any protection, so even things like nem oil
can be helpful in controlling them. We hit this time

(54:07):
of the year and we need to use more of
a dormant oil.

Speaker 16 (54:10):
Now.

Speaker 7 (54:10):
I wouldn't do it now, I said this time here,
I mean winter. I would wait until we get into
the dead of winter, all the leaves are off the tree,
but before any of the buds start to push, because
dormant oil will burn tender new growth, whether it's a
bloom or a shoot. So let's get into January sometime
and then do a dormant oil spray. And when you

(54:31):
do it might just make sure you cover every square
centimeter of branch surface because dormanoil is not a poison.
It only smothers the scale you get it on. So
incomplete coverage means incomplete control. But that's when I would
do it. Don't do a dormantol spray right before freeze
if you're going to freeze in the next so let's

(54:52):
say day and a half, two days, just don't don't
do a dormant oil spray, but mix it up. Keep
it shook up because it separates, you know, as you
expect oil and water to separate. It does separate out.
But if you keep it shook up when you spray,
then you'll you'll make sure and get the right concentration
out there with your spray.

Speaker 17 (55:13):
I don't know why I think a memeoil it is
the same as a dormant oil, but it's not.

Speaker 7 (55:16):
Huh well it it ISNM oil is a type of
a plant oil, and we have there's just different ways
we put this really terminology, Mike, But I said, I
cann't I divide them into dormant oil and horticultural oils
that are lighter weight. So a dormant oil would be

(55:37):
real viscous, you know, if I mean, we're going to
exaggerate here. But like motor oil, you know, very heavy
and stuff, and a horticulture oil is almost watery. It's
very lightweight. It evaporates a way faster and stuff, which
is why it doesn't kill as well on a scale.
But if you if you throw that oil over the
top of the scale, if you coat that branch, those

(55:59):
scale can't breath and they will die.

Speaker 17 (56:01):
Okay, Hey, so if there's something else about this as
kind of unusual. Of course, that branch, one big branch,
got a couple other branches off of it. It doesn't
have leaves, of course, and it's maybe because of that
scale only all of I still got leaves on all
the other branches. Figured they'd be gone here before long.
But that branch had about eight or ten blooms on it,

(56:25):
you know, about a few weeks ago. I couldn't And
I don't know if it's because I thought it's dying
because of the scale, and said, well I better put
some blooms. I don't know why it put blooms out,
you know, on that branch.

Speaker 8 (56:39):
Nothing else at it normal.

Speaker 7 (56:41):
Yeah, plants that normally bloom in spring, they can have
a stress related fall bloom that that can happen We
see it a lot on pears where we go into
a drought at the end of summer and the tree's
not getting water maybe, and that pear tree starts dropping
its leaves and then it almost goes into a I
don't know false dormancy is the right term, but it

(57:03):
goes into a type of a dormancy, and then when
it gets water, it suddenly says, oh, I've been dormant.
It's spring. I'm gonna bloom. And it's not a good
name that blo.

Speaker 17 (57:11):
Okay, well, hey, I appreciate dample, and hey, enjoy you.
I listened to you all time. Enjoy your show, and
go in nice Mike, I.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Appreciate all right, go in.

Speaker 7 (57:24):
Oh that'll ry Mike from Jordan in Texas. I was
talking to I was talking to my sister Judy the
other day. She came to Texas and visited. So that's
good to talk to you.

Speaker 18 (57:36):
Go back already, yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 7 (57:39):
She's back and back.

Speaker 17 (57:40):
Thank you.

Speaker 13 (57:40):
All right.

Speaker 7 (57:41):
You take care of sir.

Speaker 8 (57:42):
Okay, bye bye, hy bye bye.

Speaker 7 (57:46):
All right. Well, small town Jordan, dun Ton. When I
lived there was eight eighteen hundred and forty five people.
We had both I joking. They say, we have both
city limits signs on the straight same post. But it's not.
It's not that small. It's bigger now. But anyway, Yep,
grew up in a small town. I am very grateful

(58:09):
for that fact as well. All Right, folks, if you've
got a question, you'd like to give me a call.
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Ace Hardware stores are still stocked up and ready to
go for everything you need for the holidays, and that
would include Christmas lighting, all kinds of holiday lighting.

Speaker 13 (58:31):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (58:31):
They have the thing I told you about before, and
that's lights by the foot where they can actually measure
it and create light strings exactly the link that you need,
which is I think a cool thing. How many times
I just did the other day As a matter of fact,
I was putting lights in front of something and I
kind of got the end and I ran out of lights.
And then maybe you've had the opposite where you get

(58:52):
the end. Now you've got two more feet of lights.
What are you gonna do with the lights by the foot?
That's what you can do with those. Uh, they've got
all the decorations that you need for make and the
inside of your house just festive. But they also have
holiday shopping. If you got any holiday shopping left, you
got people on your list, the people that are hard
to shop for, maybe go to your local Ace Hardware
store and look at what I'm talking about. You're gonna

(59:14):
find stuff that you didn't know was there, because that
is how the new Ace Hardware store is. They are
amazing beautiful gifts. Everything from quality hand tools you know
with brands like a du Ault, my favorite print, Craftsman, Blackendecker,
Stanley Milwaukee, and so on, to beautiful decorations indoors to

(59:38):
the holiday ornaments, holiday decorations for the table, you name it.
Ace Hardwaretexas dot Com. Ace Hardware Texas dot Com. While
you're in there, get your clamp lights for when you're
gonna need them for when things get cold. Make sure
that you are stocked up on propane. They do have
propane as well. The hardware stores make sure that everything

(01:00:01):
you need is ready to go. Ace Hardware Texas dot Com.
That's where you'll find my Ace Hardware stores, including stores
like for example, Spring Ace on Spring Cypress k and
m Ace and a Task a seat on Timber Forest Drive,
Crosby Ace on FM twenty one hundred bayke of eighth Ace,

(01:00:23):
that's south of Kemo Grand Avenue.

Speaker 11 (01:00:25):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:00:26):
Here, let me give you a few more. How about
Victoria ACE on Navarro Street, Champions Ace on Spring, Cypress
in Spring Katiace on Pinoak Road, and Single Ranch Ace
on South Mason and Katie. Those are just a few,
and there's a lot more Ace Hardware stores you'll find
at Ace Hardware Texas dot Com. Take a little break

(01:00:47):
and we'll be back with the last segment of this hour.
Welcome back to the garden Line, folks holidays season. You
got a gardening question, here's a film number seven to
one three two one two five eight seven four Evans
one three two one two five eight seven four. All right,
if you would like to give me a call, we'll

(01:01:08):
talk about the kinds of things that are most of
interest to you. So that's how we'll do this. By
the way, if you are planning on doing any kind
of a landscape renovation, any kind of a landscape renovation,
let's talk about that. There's a lot of things that
you can do to enhance the process. There's a lot

(01:01:31):
of principles that we can follow that make for long
term success and make for more esthetic, make for more esthetic, beautiful, beautiful,
attractive landscapes. And that's what we're aiming for right. We
want to make sure that you get the best success
you can, that you are happy with what you get,

(01:01:52):
and all takes is following a few principles. So we
can talk about some of those things as well. I
want to get back to the fifty common landscape and
gardening mistakes as we draw this year to an end.
I've been a county extension agent horticulturist with Texas A
and m Agrolife Extension. I was for thirty five years
in my career and been doing radio on a couple

(01:02:15):
of different shows over the years. Now garden Line, uh,
and I've seen it. I've heard it a number of
different site visits to places, and you know, you just
kind of over the years, you pretty much see every
mistake that's made. And I've made my own share, so
it's not just me observing others, it's me learning from

(01:02:35):
my own mistakes. And so we're gonna go We're going
to continue going over those let's see number to where
we are, Oh number five shallow frequent water. We just
talked about overwatering, where you saturate a root system plants
roots can't get oxygen shallow frequent watering. This is especially
true of lawns. You've been a little squired on the lawn, uh,

(01:02:58):
you know, third of an inn of water or something
like that. And then you do it just every two
or three times a week. And what you do every
time you water, you wet plants. And when you wet
plant foliage, you promote disease. That's how it works for
especially fungal and some bacterial diseases. It promotes a disease.
You would rather water as less often as you can,

(01:03:21):
but when you water, you want to fill that root
zone with water. Now I just said overwatering is a problem.
Overwatering is when you continually keep it saturated and the
roots can't get oxygen. A good soaking followed by a
drying out period is ideal. That is exactly what you're
looking for. And when you do that, as the water

(01:03:41):
then moves down into the soil and it begins to
dry from the surface, moving downward, as the plant roots
use it, and as evaporation takes it, it gets oxygen
down in the soil. That's the proper way to water.
If you want to get the most for your watering nickel,
give it a good soaking, and then wait and don't
water again. If it's a lawn, you don't need to
water more than once a week. You just don't. And

(01:04:02):
I know some of you are going no, I got
a water twice a week. Well, if you've been pampering
your lawn or mistreating your lawn really with too much,
too frequent watering, back off gradually. But in general, once
a week's enough. I've got areas of my lawn that
I watered once ever two weeks and some even three
weeks this summer.

Speaker 8 (01:04:21):
So you can do it.

Speaker 7 (01:04:23):
You can do it, and that gets you the most
for your gardening dollar with a minimum amount of leaf wetness,
which then results in disease issues that you're going to have.
So let me just let me put this a different way.
Sometimes analogies or things like this help people. If you
were to take an inch of water, you're going to

(01:04:43):
put an inch of water in your lawn. You're going
to pay for an inch of drinking water to put
in your lawn. If you put on four applications of
a quarter inch versus one application of one inch. Is
there a difference ab when you put a quarter an
inch of water down This is an exaggeration, but when

(01:05:04):
you put a quarter of an inch of water down,
you wet the grass blades, and you wet the thatch,
and you essentially get no water in the soil. A
little bit of water the very surface of the soil,
but not even an inch deep. All right, that's so
you do that four times. Now you've wet the lawn
four times, increased diseases more because of it, and you

(01:05:26):
have not put anything into the bank account to speak of.
If you put one inch down at one time, then
it wets the leaves, it wets the thatch, and the
sprink door keeps running, and it goes down and it
soaks down, and it gets into the soil and it goes,
depending on the type of soil, six inches or more
deep into that soil. And now you've got something to

(01:05:47):
the bank account. So the one inch you paid for
of your drinking water, you've gotten the soil for the
plants to use, as opposed to just basically contributing to
the humidity of Houston. Because when the water goes off
the wet leaves, the wet thatch and everything. It evaporates,
and we all thank you for contributing to the humidity,
which we have plenty of around here. So that's just

(01:06:10):
a thought. Shallow frequent watering, don't do it deep and frequent.
Number six planting sunlovers in the shade and shade lovers
in the sun we have some Most plants need a
lot of light. Some plants can do with less, but
all plants need some light. Okay. So if you want

(01:06:34):
fruit from fruit trees, if you want flowers from roses
and other flowering plants and bedding plants and so on,
you need sunlight because it takes a lot of carbohydrates
to make fruit and to make flowers, and you need
more sun for that. Some plants don't want the full
brun of the sun, so azaleas would like a little

(01:06:55):
break from the sun. Japanese maple very beautiful tree. Problem
that happens. Here are two things with Japanese maple. Is
number one, we plant them without good drainage and good
soil prep because they definitely want a nice woodland soil
to grow in. But number two, we put them in
too much sun. They need light, they need bright light,
but they don't need to be baked. And if it's

(01:07:16):
the thread leaf types of Japanese maple, you know, Japanese
maple can have a leaf that looks more like a
sycamore shape, or they can have very thread like your
little fingers going out from your hand. Those thread leaf
types are even more prone to problems when we get
them in too much sun. So there you go, too
much sun, too much shade. Let's see, we're gonna wind
this hour up here.

Speaker 8 (01:07:37):
In a minut.

Speaker 7 (01:07:37):
I'm gonna give you another one trying to grow along
in too much shade. There's another one that happens a lot. Listen,
you see these new neighborhoods go in. They're out on
the prairie. There's not a tree in sight. They plant
a few little trees in the yard, and it's all
sun for the grass, and grass wants that. Grass is

(01:07:57):
sun lovers. Grass hates trees. Trees take grass. Over the years,
the trees get bigger and bigger, it becomes shadier and shadier.
You gotta have sunlight for grass to grow. The most
shade tolerant grasses, or you're saint Augustine, probably followed by
the fine textured Zuysias. There's broad, wide textured leaves in

(01:08:23):
Zuysia and fine texture the fine textures Usis and Saint
Augustine to the most shade tolerant we have. If you
can't grow those there, you either got to create more
light with a chainsaw or you gotta find something else, don't.
You just can't make up the sunlight with fertilizer or
water anything else. Give them sun for a lawn to

(01:08:43):
be successful.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with skin brickyard.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
It's just watch him as a sad.

Speaker 7 (01:09:20):
Sum Hey, welcome back to the guarden line. Are folks
here we go?

Speaker 8 (01:09:31):
We see?

Speaker 7 (01:09:33):
Do you realize we're halfway through the show today? That
seems not possible? That isn't that is? It always goes
faster for me. They say time flies when you're having fun.
Have you ever heard that time flies when you're having fun?
I'm having fun. I hope you are, by the way,
I always this is my dad joke side of me.
But Kermit the frog actually says time is fun when

(01:09:55):
you're having flies. But anyway, but I warrant you. Let's
go out to and we're going to talk to Curtis today. Hey, Curtis,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:10:05):
Go on and skip. Hey, uh, I don't need any
recommendations this time for children's book. However, I did want
to figure out what I did wrong with Your assessment
is on me using that nemol starting back in pubbly July,
because I started seeing these tiny little white, very tiny
white little flying insects, right, and of course they have
this old work that get between the skin of the leaves.

(01:10:30):
I doubted it, probably uh once the week, especially on
the new is the new growth and it never it?

Speaker 7 (01:10:41):
Never you talking about cyrus, Curtis, Yes, Cris straight, Okay,
all right, go ahead.

Speaker 13 (01:10:48):
So yeah, after going through the entire bottle over a
matter of I don't know, two months, maybe three, you know,
just doubting mostly just the new growth, right, because I
wanted to be preventive. I mean, why yeah, white spray
the ones that were already effective, and I'm going in
there mashing these tiny little worms that are underneath the skin.

(01:11:10):
But I figured i'd at least get the new glows
and spray boats. Never did a thing with constantly being
infested with that. But also the follow up to that
what's up with this tree? Also now that it's getting
all this really dark actually looking powder, adhesive powder that's
on these leaves.

Speaker 8 (01:11:29):
So there, okay, So.

Speaker 7 (01:11:33):
The powder you're describing it is a mold that's growing
on sugary substances that were secreted by some insect on
the tree, most likely on a citrus. We're talking about scale.
But other insects can do that. Meai bugs can do that,
white flies can do that, Aphids can do that. That

(01:11:57):
is secrete a sugary substance that the the uh mold
grows on. But I think on cetera. So you're probably
looking at a scale for that. Now do you happen
to know which name you used? Was it a name
oil or was it a name that had a different
name in the ingredient than oil?

Speaker 13 (01:12:20):
I mean, I mean, if you want me to stand
bag these folks find it's actually uh, it's okay.

Speaker 7 (01:12:31):
We'll talk about I'm gonna while you're while you're looking,
I'm gonna talk about it a little bit. So we
don't have dead air here.

Speaker 19 (01:12:38):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:12:38):
There comes in two basic form Okay, comes in two forms.
One is nim oil and when you look at the
ingredient it'll say like whole clarified hydrophobic or something nim oil,
and the other ingredient will say ASA directin and as
a directin is a z A d I R A

(01:13:00):
c h t I N a's derracked in. So both
products are called name uh. And depending on the manufacture
of the product, a lot of people make name products. Uh,
it may be aneme oil or it will be a
asodractin type of product. And so if OI okay, good

(01:13:24):
and that that gives me the answer, that gives me
all right, Well here here's the thing. So when you
use kneme oil that is uh it has a little
as directing him, but not much at all, and uh
it you you end up. It works very well as

(01:13:45):
an oil. So if you were spraying spider mites under
a leaf, or spraying aphens, or spraying young scale crawlers,
not necessarily the adult scale and name scale crawlers, you
can control all those with NME oil. If you want
some thing to go into the leaf and kill a
leaf insect, the worms you're describing that are mining inside

(01:14:06):
the leaf, you need an as of directin form that
soaks into the tissues.

Speaker 19 (01:14:11):
UH.

Speaker 7 (01:14:11):
The nerdy fancy word for it is trans laminar movement,
which means across the leaf neme to do that, and
spinosid can do that. And for your citrus citrus insects
you're dealing with that that particular insect cetrus leaf miner,
either a spinocid product or a name with as of

(01:14:32):
directin would be your two best.

Speaker 13 (01:14:35):
Okay, I mean, it doesn't seem to be affecting the
growth of the thing's only about six eight feet tall
or whatever. But I mean it just continues to pomp out.
But they're they're they're just making the leaves grow wrinkly, obviously.
And yeah, so neither one of them sentmental point of fatality,
either the either the black ash that's on the leaves

(01:14:57):
and or the okay, cool.

Speaker 7 (01:14:59):
Yeah, but I think the black ash you're saying, I
don't think that's from the the citrus leaf miner. I
think you get something else going on, and that would
be a case. We're an oil spray directed upward to
get all the bottom sides of the leaves. You're name oiled,
But you got to spray upward because oils don't poison,

(01:15:22):
they smother, and so you got to give all those
scale they're typically underneath the leaves, and they may be
on the stems, the young stems too, but that you
can control those with that. But yeah, if you promise
not to tell anybody, I'll tell you that I let
my citrus trees go too far this year and they
the leaf miner got them really bad. But all those shrinkled, crinkled,

(01:15:47):
curled up leaves. Leave them on the plant because the
leaf miner's already probably gone out of those and done.
It's leaf cycle life cycle. Leave them on the plant
because they're green and they still are producing some carbas so.

Speaker 13 (01:16:01):
Correct at lower levels. Okay, last thing about how many
years should I expect until it should render fruit? And
I don't even know what this thing is. I forget
I've slept since then. But I mean, I'll just grab
a seed anywhere all the time, just for the challenge
of seeing that if I can get it.

Speaker 7 (01:16:18):
Oh, okay, okay, So this is not a grafted plant.
This is a seed you started correct affirmative. Okay, So
if you start them from a seed, it's it varies,
but I would expect it could take a number of
years before you get fruit. And I just there's too
much variation in there. But you know, we would say

(01:16:41):
maybe you'd be looking at seven years, maybe you're looking
at twelve years. I mean, there's a lot of variation
in them coming from seed.

Speaker 13 (01:16:51):
Okay, all right, and thank you for the time doing it.

Speaker 7 (01:16:57):
Yeah, yeah, Curtis. And but to say, if you planted
it from a seed that's genetically different than any other citrus,
and so you can name it the Curtis whatever, Curtis
Lemon Curtis.

Speaker 13 (01:17:11):
Probably a wedge of onion that I got at Papasitos
or something, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:17:17):
Okay, all right, we'll have fun. Thanks for the call,
appreciate that you take care, you bet. We're going to
take a little break here. Fabian in Beaumont. You'll be
our first stop when we come back, all right, welcome back,
Welcome back to the garden Line posts. We're gonna jump
right in here and head to Ooma, Texas and talk

(01:17:39):
to Fabian this morning. Hello, Fabian, welcome to garden Mine.

Speaker 13 (01:17:44):
How you don't skip I have a it's an autumn member.
I sent your picture of that doesn't look very healthy.

Speaker 17 (01:17:56):
I don't know what to do for it in this
way for a couple of months now.

Speaker 7 (01:18:02):
Okay, So that azilia is really struggling in the root system,
and the primary thing that's going on is it needs
certain nutrients. And I can't tell you exactly which ones.
It's probably some micronutrients involved, and probably a lack of

(01:18:23):
nitrogen is involved as well. If I were you, I
would get a product. There's a pink, pinkish red bag
from Microlife for acid loving plants, and I would get
that and I would sprinkle about a well, probably somewhere
between a quarter and a half cup around those plants.

(01:18:43):
They In fact, I would go with a half cup
sprinkled all around that plant, not just in one little spot,
but as far out as the branches go all around it.
Scratch it into the marts, the pine needle malts that
you've got over those things and watered in really good.
And it's not going to change fast. This is going
to take a while. But I would do that again
in the spring as they start to put out some

(01:19:05):
new growth, and then watch the watering. If the soil
is soggy wet, that's not good for azilias they want
to be moist all the time, but they don't want
to be under water. So try to keep them moist
all the time without creating just a swamp around that plant.
And I think with that fertilizer in this you will

(01:19:27):
be good to go.

Speaker 13 (01:19:28):
Now.

Speaker 7 (01:19:29):
You could also as we get into the springtime, you
could also do some folier feeding of them. In fact,
I would. You know, one other thing that I might
do is get a seaweed, a liquid seaweed type application.
Microlife has them, and the folks at Medina Fertilizer also

(01:19:50):
have an excellent seaweed product, and I would drench the
root system with that spray the foliage, drench a root
system with that. I would do that now, and then
I would also do it next year as we come
out in spring for a few times the seaweed. But
between those two, try to get those nutrients available to

(01:20:12):
that plant. Said that it has the best chance of recovering. Okay,
thank you, you bet all right, take care, keep me
posted on that, continue on it, thank you. Alrighty. Let's
see here we had a call. We just lost them here,

(01:20:33):
so well, I guess we'll come back to that. In
just a moment, I was discussing the fifty common gardening
and landscaping mistakes that I think I see more often.
I probably forgot one or two in here, but I
tried to limit it to fifty. The next one is

(01:20:54):
planting vegetables and flowers at the wrong time. It is
important to plant things at the right time. For example,
now is not a good time to plant tomatoes. Of
course that's ridiculous, but it also is not good to
plant tomatoes, you know, once we get into late April

(01:21:14):
and May, because it's gonna get too hot for them
to set fruit before they reach a point where they're
setting fruit. Now, if you've got a cherry type tomato
or a grape type tomato, they do better setting fruit
in the heat. But there's a right time. There's the
best time to plant things. And the same is true

(01:21:36):
with flowers, you know, pansies or I don't think that
april's a good kinda pansies in the ground because it's
gonna get too hot. It already is probably too hot
by April with our weather here. But seriously, planting them
at the right time very important. There's lots of charts
out there that are available for our area to tell
you when to plant things, plant them at the right time.

(01:21:57):
Some of the going back to the vegetable. If you
like cool seasoned peas, that would be like snow peas,
sugar snap peas, or the English peas, the shelled English piece.
There's a window for those. They don't like the heat,
and they don't like freezing weather. The blooms and small
fruit can be killed in freezing weather, and so you

(01:22:19):
got to get them planeted at the right time. So
find out plant at the right time. Especially for those
of you who have moved here from other areas. You
got to get on the right schedule for where we are.
Let's go out to Conroe now and we're going to
talk to Andrew. Hello, Andrew, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (01:22:38):
I want to skip.

Speaker 7 (01:22:41):
Warren.

Speaker 8 (01:22:42):
How are you this morning?

Speaker 14 (01:22:44):
Good?

Speaker 8 (01:22:45):
Good? Hey.

Speaker 10 (01:22:45):
I send them a couple of pictures. Don't want to
be in some bananas on a banana.

Speaker 8 (01:22:51):
Tree, okay, And there's a and you said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
go ahead.

Speaker 10 (01:23:03):
There's some there's some black spots growing on them and
they don't really rub off. It seems like it's under
the the uh in the fruit. I guess, not on
the fruit. I just was curious of wanted could be
a fungal disease.

Speaker 7 (01:23:20):
That that is very unusual. So hm hm, very interesting.

Speaker 13 (01:23:27):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:23:28):
It could be fungal and it could be bacterial, and
it's hard for me looking at those photos to tell
for sure. I that is very very unusual. What kind
of banana is that?

Speaker 8 (01:23:42):
By the way, blue java, blue java.

Speaker 7 (01:23:47):
It's beautiful color banana was Yeah, I can't. I can't
tell you if it's bacterial or fungal. And it's important
that I would be able to tell you that because
in order to get a good a good answer, you know,
you kind of need to know which which you're dealing with.

(01:24:07):
Let me think about this, just maybe we try something here.
I'm gonna go back out. I'm gonna try it. Let
me look at I've got some information here that I
can refer to. I just way that is very strange.
It looks to me like I'm gonna guess that it's fungal.

(01:24:30):
That is my my best guess.

Speaker 8 (01:24:33):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:24:33):
There are a number of of things that can affect
the bananas, and most of those that we deal with
are fungal. Possibly it could be it could be something else,
but I'm gonna I'm gonna go with fungal, all right. Uh.
And if that's the case, then some sort of a
superficial spray of something that you know would be a

(01:24:58):
fungal fight er a fung a sigh, and we could
recommend some different ones to try would be needed on
a fairly regular basis in order to control that. And
that's going to be done when it's growing. It's way
too late now to do anything about it, so you
have to wait until next year or next time you

(01:25:19):
get a bunch of bananas on there and to do
your fungal spraying, I would use either a product containing
dacanil or chlorothalonil as the ingredient on there, or possibly
you might want to switch to a different fungicide. I
would have to check, though. I don't this the first

(01:25:41):
time I've ever recommended a fungicide for bananas, so I
don't have, off the top of my head know which
ones would be best for this. If you wanted to
email me, I'd be happy to search into it more
when I get a chance to go online and do
that and send you a better answer than I'm giving
you right now.

Speaker 8 (01:26:00):
Okay, Okay, If you're interested the fruit, go ahead.

Speaker 10 (01:26:06):
I would just say the fruit's probably I mean, it's
never gonna probably ripen, or if it did, it wouldn't
be edible at that point. If it's spungle, great, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:26:17):
What I wouldn't. I wouldn't give up on it. I
think the interior could be Okay, this is doing damage
to the skin around it, but I don't I don't
think this one will go to the interior of the banana.
You've lost a lot of area on it. But don't
give up just yet. Let's see how it turns out.
And I would appreciate you letting me know how it

(01:26:38):
turns out. I've never had bananas that had this degree
of a spot on them before, so I would like
to know how that does. But don't give up. I
think there's a good chance you may still get some bananas.

Speaker 8 (01:26:51):
Okay, I'll keep with it.

Speaker 10 (01:26:53):
There was another picture in that email of a camellia
and there's some white spots and it almost looks like
lebbing out. Just curious if that's white flies, it's not.

Speaker 7 (01:27:04):
Well, that is called te scale. Yeah, well, it looks
like T scale to me. If they haven't, if they're
not getting up and flying around it, definitely not white flies.
But typically with the T scale you're going to see
a white if you get real close with the hand lends,
you'd see a white streak and then at the end
of it there would be something that is more like

(01:27:26):
the scale itself. But I would I would use a
horticultural oil spray on those at this point. You can
also use a dormant oil. Just make sure and dilute
it to the degree that the label.

Speaker 10 (01:27:40):
Says, okay, excuse you, only from the mugs. That's kind
of yellowing.

Speaker 13 (01:27:51):
I guess there.

Speaker 7 (01:27:52):
Yeah, that's because the scale has stuck its mouth part
in the leaf and it's in sucking juices out, maybe
even injecting a little bit of toxin in there on that.
But that's what I would do on that. I'm gonna
have to go to a heartbreak here, Andrew. I'm gonna
put you on hold, and if you will send me this,

(01:28:13):
remind me of what we're talking about here. Now, I've
already got it. I've got your address. I'll just go
ahead and hunt it down. I'll try to get you
an answer. Thank you. I appreciate you you doing that. Sorry,
we have to run on suddenly. When we come back,
Randy in League City, you're going to be our first stop.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
All right, folks, Christmas.

Speaker 7 (01:28:32):
For those of you who want to know that is
Michael Bubla Shaniah twenty Welcome back to Guardline. Glad you're
with us today. We're going to run out here in
just a moment of the phones. I mentioned earlier about
Medina having a liquid seaweed product, and I want to
talk about that a little bit. Medina liquid seaweed is
it's got a little bit of potassium in it, but

(01:28:54):
the main reason we're putting it down is because of
all the growth hormones and other compounds that are in there.
It's got mike nutrients and other growth hormones and things
very beneficial. Did a bunch of online researching myself about seaweed,
looking at research trials and things. Seaweeds from all over
the world have long been used to benefit plants, but

(01:29:14):
plant hormones such as side of canons and oxens and gibberrellans,
they make plants to do what plants do, and that
is very important to have. And when you get a
plant that's struggling along, a good dose a drench of
liquid seaweed is helpful. It also helps when you're putting
new plants in as well. People like to spray it
prior to cold, all kinds of stresses, drought, stress in

(01:29:35):
the summertime. Liquid seaweed helps fortify a plant in ways
that help it to deal with and recover from stress.
And folks at Medina have got an excellent product. Medina
Liquid Seaweed comes in a gallon, also comes into court
that has a little handy attached dosing device where you know,

(01:29:56):
like if you're going to put X amount in a
gallon of water or whatever, it's like the is already
there to measure that out, all attached to the bottle.
Really cool from the folks at Medina Medina Liquid Seaweed.
Let's it out now to League City and we're going
to talk to Randy this morning. Hello Randy, Welcome to
Garden Line.

Speaker 20 (01:30:14):
Hey Skip, I have a crape myrtle tree and it
seems to be growing a lot of moss on the branches. Now,
this is not Spanish moss, and I don't think it's
ball moss. It's something different and it seems to really
attach itself and it's very hard to get off the tree.

(01:30:35):
Is there some kind of spray or other remedy I
could use?

Speaker 7 (01:30:43):
Yeah, what that's called is lichen. It's actually not a moss.
It is a symbiotic relationship where algae and a fungus
type organism they're living together forming this in many forms.
Some are flat with frilly edges like in some of

(01:31:04):
your pictures. Some look like little miniature shrubs or trees
growing upward off the branch. Usually they're kind of a
grayish bluish gray color, but they can also be an
orange color, and they vary depending on the kind they are.
They're not a parasite of the tree, although when you
get enough of them on a tree, it can cause

(01:31:26):
the branch to die just from the effect that has
on gas exchange on the branch. But mainly they're a
sign of the plant struggling rather than a cause of
the plant dying. But as far as sprays, copper based
sprays can be effective. Remember copper can burn some kinds
of plant tissues, so dormant season would be a good

(01:31:46):
time to do that a copper based spray just before
the new growth begins in the spring. You can control
them that way. Just know this that everything you do
to like and is temporary. You may get rid of
some of it, but it's going to come back. It's
just part of being in an environment like we're in
where they can thrive.

Speaker 20 (01:32:05):
So really there's not a lot I can do other
than that spray.

Speaker 7 (01:32:10):
Yeah, other than the spray to get rid of some Yeah,
what I would do is make sure your crapes have
adequate vigor. That would be fertilizing and watering. Make sure
they got adequate vigor to just kind of outgrow the
problem and not worry about them a lot. You can
do some pruning. Branches that are declining or even already dead,
that have the liking on them, you can prune those out.

(01:32:32):
I would take that approach as opposed to the spray
approach myself.

Speaker 20 (01:32:37):
Okay, thanks.

Speaker 7 (01:32:40):
All right, Rennie, thank you appreciate very much that call.
Let's go now to Ruthie out in Hockley. Hey, Ruthie,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:32:51):
Hi Skip, thank you.

Speaker 19 (01:32:53):
I sent you a picture pretty recently about some ants.
They're the ones that go away down and bring the
earth up. I need to know what kills them. I'm
using ortho, but it's not really getting them, and I'll
go to.

Speaker 7 (01:33:12):
I think you said orthene. Right, Okay, So here's the
problem with leaf cutter ants. They they don't respond really
well to our regular baits like you would use for
fire ants in general, they don't respond well to those.
They leaf cutters. They have a giant cavern underground and
they take leaves down, stick them to the ceiling, grow

(01:33:34):
fungus on them, and eat the fungus. So they're not
eating leaves even though they're taking the leaves off of
your plant. Leaf cutter ants are farmers and they're taking
them in there, and they farm fungus and their chambers.
So fascinating what I've done a couple couple of things
with them. One is every one of those fresh mountains
where there are leaf cutters coming out, and they come

(01:33:56):
out at night, and they there's so many of them
running up and down they make trails. You can see
the trails through through the weeds and grass. If you
will dust the opening of each one with orthene just
a little bit. Here's what you're wanting to do. Get
a little in the hole, little around the hole. So
every ant that comes out tracks orthene on its body.
Uh and orthine is poisonous to that ant, and so

(01:34:19):
as they grim themselves and things, they pick it up.
That doesn't kill the colony. But if they never can
send an ant out to go forage and periodically you're
just dusting with orthene. You you suppress it and at
least prevent lose. I had a peach orchard and I
lost two and a half trees in one night just
to go. They defoliated. I say lost. I lost the

(01:34:43):
foliage on two and a half trees overnight. There are
some combination baits that some pest control operators have tried
that they claim success for. I'm not going to go
into that on the air, but if you wanted to
email me, I can send you the information I have.
There's no recommendation, no guarantee in this, but there's a

(01:35:03):
kind of mixture that they put together and do some
things with that they claim helps. If you want to
give that a try, I'd be happy to send you that.
I did email you recommendation.

Speaker 17 (01:35:16):
I did email you pictures. So you have my email address.

Speaker 19 (01:35:18):
It's under Huge Horse Lover. Oh yes, yes, anyway, my
husband has license. Okay, we have a license. We're on
a ranch and we can get chemicals. If there's a
chemical that needs a license, my husband could do that too.
If you could recommend something.

Speaker 7 (01:35:34):
Yeah, I don't, I don't know a good one. I
need to get some research entomologists again to see if
anything's happened in the last couple of years on it.
But uh, okay, that's that's an issue. But I'll send
you something. I'll send you something, all.

Speaker 8 (01:35:48):
Right, Ruthy, Thank you, appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (01:35:50):
Thank you, you bet, thank you very much. Appreciate you
hanging around Neilson Nursery and water gardens. If you have
been out there there in Katie, Texas, you got If
you're coming from the Houston direction, which I would recommend
you go to this place. It is your destination. Nursery
on the west side. You head out of town, you

(01:36:10):
turn north on Katie Fort Ben Road, and it's just
up the street on the right hand side. They still
have Christmas trees. They still have some Christmas trees left
out there. All of the plants that we talk about
here the uh oh, my goodness, my music is playing here.
All of the plants that we talked about for holiday times.

(01:36:31):
For example, that would be Christmas trees, punts etis, Christmas cactus,
interior plants. They've got the Norfolk pines that are decorated
and all their aquatics and stuff. All the plants. They
are on twenty five percent off right now, so this
would be a good time to pick some up. Even
if you have some pots, you set on the porch
and get around to planning and taking care of later.

(01:36:52):
Just go out to Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens. Here's
the wes site Nelson Watergardens dot com. While you're at there,
you can grab you some vegetables. I got some nice
transplants ready to go and talk to them about getting
a beautiful water feature set up for your year. Maybe
it's something as small as a piece of pottery that
the water recycles over the top and you know, go

(01:37:14):
or goes over the top and recycles back through. Maybe
it's a full fledged beautiful fountain with a waterfall. They're
experts at doing that as well. We see here. I
need to run to a break, Bill and Conro. You're
the first up when we come right back. Welcome back
to garden Line. Good to have you with us today. Boy,
we're rolling here. Head on out to the phones here

(01:37:38):
and go to Conroe, Texas dot Bill this morning, Hey Bill,
welcome to garden Line. Thanks for hanging around.

Speaker 21 (01:37:46):
Yeah, no problem, Good morning. Hey, I've got a lot
of green grass that's just hanging in there really well.
And I've been fighting brown patch and takeoll for months
and months and it's done. It's kind of stabilized now.
But I guess my question is, with the warm weather
coming up, would it be appropriate to do a funguside

(01:38:07):
treatment to kind of get ahead of what might happen?

Speaker 13 (01:38:15):
Uh?

Speaker 7 (01:38:16):
If when was the last time you did a treatment?
And do you recall what you used?

Speaker 13 (01:38:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 21 (01:38:22):
I used the it was about a month and a
half ago. Is oxystroban.

Speaker 7 (01:38:32):
Oxystroban? And is it the only application of azoxystrobin you've
put on this fall?

Speaker 21 (01:38:37):
No, I've used a perconaisil too. I kind of alternate
between the two and I do it about every three
to four I was doing it.

Speaker 7 (01:38:46):
But how didn't say don't do it now?

Speaker 5 (01:38:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:38:50):
I wouldn't say don't do it now. You could. You
shouldn't have to do this many treatments on those diseases,
but if you wanted to go ahead and do one more,
I think alternating. I think alternating is fine. Uh, it's
just it's most important when we alternate, to alternate between

(01:39:12):
different chemistries within within the plants.

Speaker 5 (01:39:16):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:39:16):
When now, when you say brown Patrick, you're seeing kind
of a yelling or is it in circles or can
you kind of describe what you're seeing for me.

Speaker 21 (01:39:24):
I'm seeing both the the yellowing and the brown in circles.
That's why I'm thinking it's brown patch. And then I
have areas where the whole thing is playing died. I
was kind of like the two pay you just looked
it up it was, and I didn't have I don't
know very much of that, but I assume that's the
take all.

Speaker 7 (01:39:44):
Yeah, yeah, the take all and the propacannas all. Let
me just check on the I want to make sure
I get these these right. Uh, it's not a parent
here what I'm looking for. But anyway, Yeah, propa conna's all,
that's a three. And what do the other uses? I stroban? Yeah,
those are too good. That's a good rotation. We have

(01:40:04):
to rotate in different families of funguses, otherwise it's rotating.
Is not really rotating two things that work different ways,
and propoconazole and azoxystroban or a good mix. I would
if you look at my schedule, I've also got that on.
When you're dealing with take all root rote, especially in
a spring application, So that would be the next one

(01:40:25):
for sure to get. But if you wanted to do
one more now, I just wouldn't do them more than
about every month. That ought to be about the rights
schedule for those.

Speaker 21 (01:40:34):
Okay, then all right, second question undred eighty degrees. Do
you know the product that has a that's plastic but
has some kind of backing that's maybe a non plastic
backing that so when it freezes it won't kill the leaves.
That makes sense having it some month.

Speaker 7 (01:40:54):
Oh, I see, I see what you're saying. Yeah, no,
I don't. And if stuff touches the problem. The problem
is it's like like let's say it's cold and you
go out and you touch a piece of metal, and
I don't mean freezing cold, I mean just cold, you
know how the cold kind of it's like it's seeping
into your finger. It's drawing the heat out of your

(01:41:17):
finger into that And that's what the plastic is doing
when it's touching. But a lot of things can do that.
But I'll tell you I don't worry a lot about it.
I covered a fruit tree the other day that's very,
very sensitive to cold, and the plastic touched some areas
and I've got browning on those areas, but a little

(01:41:37):
browning on the periphery is nothing in terms of loss.
You know, it's not pretty, not pretty. But the thing
I like about plastic is that it holds the dead
air space in there, and that's important. You don't want
the air escaping and cold air moving in in its place.
You just don't want to leave it on too long.

(01:41:57):
I left mine on a couple of days. When I
took it off, it was like a rain underneath there,
all the condensed water and whatnot. But that's the trade
off with it.

Speaker 21 (01:42:07):
Okay, very good, very good. One another really quick if
you have a second. You know, when you get a
new pot of plants and a gallon and you pull
it up and you got all the roots and you
start you cut them up a little bit and pull
them apart. What about it for a four inch pot?
I mean, you know, they're kind of down at the
bottom sometimes.

Speaker 8 (01:42:28):
A little bitty.

Speaker 7 (01:42:29):
Yeah, it just did a little bit. Yeah, take I'll
pick out that right. Yeah, just just tease those roots
apart a little bit and you'll.

Speaker 8 (01:42:37):
Be all right. That'll work for me, all right, thanks?

Speaker 7 (01:42:41):
What, Yeah, that's one way to think about that. That
helps you understand kind of what you're trying to accomplish.
And that's just loosening up those outer roots. Good luck
with Bill and hey, good questions, and thank you very much.
I appreciate that. Listen. ACE Hardware Texts dot Com. ACE
Hardware Texas dot Com. That's what you need to know.
Hardware Texas dot COM's where you find your local ACE

(01:43:03):
Hardware store, which is where you find all of your lighting,
holiday lighting, your holiday gifting. And I'm telling you there's
you walk in and you're going to see stuff. A's
like I never even thought about getting that person. This
the person that is hard to shop for. ACE Hardware.
Acehardware Texas dot Com. There's a store Lake Conroe's on
A one oh five on the west side of Lake Conrod.

(01:43:26):
There is Jnr's Aceumporter on thirteen fourteen League City Ace
on West League City Parkway down there southeast of Houston.
Suppose you need to go, trust me, ACE Hardware Texas.
Don't forget Texas dot Com. Well, got another hour left
in US today. If you have a question, would like

(01:43:48):
to give me a call seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. We'll be back to do
that I'm going to continue on with my fifty common
landscape and gardening mistakes that I've seen over the yours.
We're gonna be back. We'll probably be finishing those up
again tomorrow as well.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
Stuck around. Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with skimp, Richter.

Speaker 2 (01:44:15):
Shoes mill crazy here, gas trim. You just watch him
as we'll go.

Speaker 3 (01:44:30):
Man it b takes the seapot, basic bays gass back,
not a sign.

Speaker 2 (01:44:42):
Gas. The sun beaming down between.

Speaker 7 (01:44:51):
Hey, welcome to garden Line. Yeah, we're still going. We
got another hour in us today. You got a question,
all right, here's an answer just called seven to one
three two one two five eight seven four simple as that. Okay.
I saw a sign in a in a store one

(01:45:11):
time and it said something like answers, Uh answers are
a dollar apiece. Answers that require thought or five dollars,
answers that are correct or ten dollars. And dumb looks
are free. So I can't do a dumb look on
the radio, but that would be free as well. Glad

(01:45:35):
to have you with us. We are here to help
you have success in all of your gardening endeavors, and
that includes By the way, gardening includes a lot of
things that are peripheral to what you would think of
as gardening, like birds, for example, bringing birds to the landscape.
By the way, I need to get out and fill
my feeders. I've got some of the Winter super Blend
from wild Birds Unlimited on hand, and I actually have

(01:45:57):
several wild Birds Unlimited blends. And Winter super Blend is
especially good one for this time of the year because
as the days get short nights of course longer, birds
have less time to be out there finding food, and
Winter super Blend is high in fat and protein just
to help them get through. Help fuel those birds through
the cool season. Also, you know, you get a freezing

(01:46:18):
here and a lot of the bugs and things they
might have been feeding on out there or not as available.
So Winter super Blend from Wildbirds Unlimited, by the way,
go to Wildbirds Unlimited and get you your Christmas gift
for that person that is so hard to shop for.
I promise you're going to go in there. You're gonna
find something really cool. It may be a hummingbird feeder.
I know it's not time to feed hummingbirds, but they

(01:46:41):
it may be something like that that that's what they're
into is hummingbirds. It may be a bird house, it
may be a special blend. Maybe they they have not tried.
Wildbirds Unlimited quality blends where everything that goes in the
bag is something birds want to eat. Whereas the cheap
bird seeds you see around or literally cheap, they're not

(01:47:01):
inexpensive because about half I've seen up to almost three
quarters of it being those red bebe there's certainly two thirds,
and birds don't eat that. They don't want to eat
that stuff. That's the last thing they're interested in. They're
kicking on the ground. Most birds don't want it. Wild
Birds Unlimited bird seed blends are quality and that would

(01:47:23):
be a nice gift to go along with a little
bird feeder. I think there's probably people on your list
that you're thinking that would be the perfect idea. Six
wild Birds Unlimited stores in the Greater Houston area. Six
So wherever you live in the area, you're going to
find some cool stuff. And if you've got somebody that's
already a burder and they don't have a certain kind

(01:47:45):
of feeder, I promise you wild Bird has a quality
wild Birds Unlimited has a quality version of that exact
feeder and you need to you need to get by
there and check them out. So six stores. Go to
WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward

(01:48:06):
slash Houston to find the wild Bird's unlimited store near you.
Let's go out now to Spring, Texas and we're going
to visit with Neil this morning. Hey Neil, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:48:17):
Hey Skip, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 18 (01:48:21):
My question was in the winter, this colder weather, do
you still leave your lawnmower setting on malt or does
that cause thatch build up because the colder weather doesn't
break the grass down as well.

Speaker 7 (01:48:37):
No, it doesn't call caused thatch build up. Grass cuppings
are pretty simple carbohydrates in terms of how fast they
break down, they're very easy. What causes the thatch more
would be during the growing season when you overfertilize, create
a lot of runner growth, a lot of nodes along
those runners are those are almost like wood. They're slow

(01:49:00):
to break down, and so you create that h that way.
But no, I would I would leave it on mulch
and chop it down. Here's the other thing too, that
that that does kneel. Now, this isn't a huge difference,
but it is a small difference. Every time you chop
up clippings and drop them down, they fall down into
the grass and areas where maybe a little sunlight was
reading reaching the soil, so a little sweed seed could germinate,

(01:49:22):
get a little bit of light and have a chance.
You're blocking that light. And so it's kind of like
mulching your lawn literally by covering up the bare soil
areas in your lawn. So I would every chance I
get mult those clippings back in.

Speaker 18 (01:49:37):
Okay, And those runners you talk about from over fertilizing,
are those purple because I occasionally get these kind of
purple runners.

Speaker 10 (01:49:48):
They're bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:49:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:49:51):
Do you do you have Saint Augustine lawn?

Speaker 8 (01:49:55):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (01:49:57):
Okay, does it happen to be a tam or what?
Do you know what variety?

Speaker 8 (01:50:03):
If not, that's fine, I have I have no idea.

Speaker 7 (01:50:08):
Okay, some some Saint Augustine's are worse about that. Florida
town makes some purple runners that are kind of distinct.
That's not a problem at all. It's just an anth
sign and pigment down in there in the runner.

Speaker 2 (01:50:21):
Uh and uh.

Speaker 7 (01:50:23):
I guess certain kinds of nutrient things or certain kinds
of stress related things might affect it a little bit.
But I've never seen anyone anywhere, any research talk about
purple runners as a problem specifically that you need to
do something about. So I think you're I think you're.

Speaker 8 (01:50:42):
All right. Well, thank you so much, Thanks sir, you have.

Speaker 7 (01:50:46):
A wonderful holiday season. Now. I appreciate all kinds of
questions and calls. I got the stump the jump today.
I got the stump the jump question. It was about
banana leaf spots, and I'm working on it. I see
who is who is it that that called me? That
was Andrew and Conrad Andrew. I'm still working on during
breaks here. I'm going to get the bottom of this one.

(01:51:07):
Because not a common crop here in the Houston area bananas,
although people have grown the plants for years and you
can occasionally get successful harvest. By the way, you probably
already know that, if you're still listening, Andrew, you need
to harvest those before we get a freeze and bring
them inside and hang them up when you are ready

(01:51:29):
for them to ripen. You you can do different things,
you know what you know how they get bananas turn
yellow for the grocery store. Here's what they do. And
I was at an HTB warehouse in San Antonio. And
when I say warehouse, I mean a giant room, giant
room like a gymnasium kind of deal, and it was

(01:51:49):
full of bananas. And they move ethylene gas in there.
And ethylene is a natural plant produced gas that causes ripening.
Does other things too, but it causes ripening, and so
they'll basically put the ethylene gas in there and those
green bananas are exposed to it for a period of
time I don't know how long that is, and then

(01:52:11):
they take it out and they can send those green
bananas everywhere and they will start to ripen pretty quickly. Now,
if you have green bananas at your house. I did
this the other day, by the way, I took some
apples and put them in a little bag with the
green bananas, and apples produce ethylene naturally, and by doing that,
it's sped up the formation or the yellowing and ripening

(01:52:34):
of those bananas on that A negative, boy, here I go,
I'm nerding out today, but I don't know, maybe you're interested.
A negative of this is if you had tulip bulbs
at your store. That you've stored in the refrigerator crisper
in order to give them that chilling before planting. You
don't want to put apples in that drawer because apples

(01:52:56):
produce ethylene or give off ethylene, and ethylene messes up
the development of those tulip blooms. I don't know exactly
how that works, but it does. And so don't don't store.
If you're going to store bulbs in the fridge, give
them their own crisper, own spot off to the side,
you know. Don't mix apples and things in there with them.

(01:53:17):
All right, how did I get to talking about that? Oh,
apple question or banana question? That's how we got there.
Plants for all seasons. If you are a green thumb,
you take pride in your lawn, take pride in your garden.
You need to visit plants for all seasons. This is
a place that green thumbs know about for sure. If
you're a brown thumb, remember there's no such thing. But

(01:53:38):
if you think you have a brown thumb, you want
to turn it green, you need to visit plants for
all seasons. Full Service Garden Center, family owned and operated
since nineteen seventy three. Plants for all seasons. Just in
there the other day. They got a nice selection of
all kinds of things related to the holidays. You're still
in doing a little holiday shopping. Nice selection of house plants.

(01:54:02):
They got a sale on their four inch cyclone right now,
there's such a pretty low plant and a nice selection
of pottery as well. But go inside. Don't don't leave
there without going inside and looking at the gift shop.
All kinds of quality tools like Falco seeds, other things
that someone on your list would appreciate. Plants for all seasons.

(01:54:23):
They are on Tumba Parkway Highway to forty nine, just
north of where Luetta comes in. Seven to one, excuse me,
two eight one, three, seven six sixteen forty six. We're
going to take a break and we'll be back with
your calls. All right, there we go. I did not
know Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel, that's fun. I didn't know

(01:54:49):
Jimmy Fallon could sing, but he can the prize surprize
Megan Trader. All right, So we scraped the bottom of
the bowl looking for all kinds of songs, maybe that
you haven't heard before. I got I got a good
one for you. Tomorrow coming up, so stay tuned for that.
Good to have you with us here. I'm waiting on
a phone call to get all posted on the board. Here,

(01:55:11):
I wanted to mention to you that in our soils,
these clay soils, when they get wet, they swell. When
they get dry, they shrink, and that movement creates problems. Now,
I know, the last thing going in the holidays you
want to talk about is oh, my gosh, do I
have foundation problem? You got plenty of other things to Listen, boy,
you've got family problems coming in the door. So the
in laws and the outlaws, like I like to put it, well,

(01:55:35):
it's okay, listen, you need to call foundation repair service
that knows what they're talking about, and that is Ty
Strickland's fix my slab foundation repair. Listen. Ties a straight shooter.
He tells you he's going to show up, and he
shows up on time. He gives you a fair assessment,
an honest assessment, and he charges a proper price and

(01:55:56):
he fixes it right. That's how it works. On more
than when it came that I'm aware of. You know,
tis come out to a place and it's like, yeah,
those cracks are due to foundation movement. But it's not
enough to go into great links to try to fix it.
Right now, you're okay, Let's just try to keep your slab,
you know, even evenly moist so it doesn't shrink and
swell so much. And let's just watch it and see

(01:56:18):
how it goes. And then there are times we know
you need to move in now before some significant damage
is done. That's what I like about Tie. You can
trust him fixmslab dot com. Been doing this twenty three
years two eight one, two five, five forty nine forty
nine two eight one, two five five forty nine forty nine.
Give Tie a call. If you got cracks in the

(01:56:40):
sheet rock, something's moving. If you got doors sticking and
then they're not sticking and then they are sticking, something's moving.
If you got cracks in the bricks on the outside,
something's moving. Have them take a look at it. Give
yourself some peace of mind. You'll tell you what you
need to do or if anything is needed to be
done at that point. Let's go out to Houston now

(01:57:01):
and we're going to visit with Matt this morning. Hey, Matt,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 14 (01:57:06):
Good morning. You can hear me Okay, yes, sir, So
I've got a question for you.

Speaker 22 (01:57:13):
Probably about i'd say about ten years ago, we cut
down a tree and they did a lot of the
stump and removal as far as probably we could see.
But that section of my lawn for the last probably
the last ten years always has this funk. I think
it's a fungus and it reminds me of hard foam

(01:57:35):
that we would insulation foam. But it creeps up every
so often and patches, and what I usually do is
just carve it out and pitch it. But is that
part of that that root structure and that tree that
is creeping out through the soil, or is that some
other type of fungus that's in my lawn.

Speaker 7 (01:57:54):
Well that's a good question, Matt. It actually is a fungus.
It's a it's a decomposer fungus. We have a lot
of different fungi out there that love to decompose wood,
and they have different looks. There's one that occurs in
flower beds a lot in the mult and it's called
scrambled egg fungus because it looks like scrambled eggs. The

(01:58:15):
one you're describing sounds a little more like kind of
a shelf fungus of one of the harder, almost like
it's been shellacked over the top or something. But there's
every kind you can imagine. Some make the little mushrooms
and some don't. And in time that wood's going to
go away with decay, and you shouldn't have that continuing
to happen there. But as long as there is a

(01:58:37):
root in the ground, those kind of decomposer fungi are
going to happen. Just like you find a fallen log
in the forest and the shelf fungi are sticking.

Speaker 14 (01:58:45):
Out the sides of it, and those aren't Those aren't
topic or anything.

Speaker 8 (01:58:49):
Goofy.

Speaker 22 (01:58:50):
I remember a guy coming and looking at my yard
one time and said, be careful handling that stuff. Is
there anything to worry about with handling that type of fungus?

Speaker 7 (01:59:00):
Nothing that I've ever heard of?

Speaker 8 (01:59:01):
Now, I don't. I don't think so.

Speaker 7 (01:59:03):
Now you wouldn't want to stick any kind of mushroom
that pops up in the yard in your mouth.

Speaker 19 (01:59:07):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:59:08):
You know, some people go out and they forage for
mushrooms and they know what they're looking for. I don't,
So I'm not gonna think I know what a mushroom
is and put it in my mouth. But as far
as handling it with your hands, I've never heard of
anything like that.

Speaker 22 (01:59:23):
This is definitely definitely not want that I would put
my mouth, but appreciate it.

Speaker 13 (01:59:28):
Thank you for the.

Speaker 12 (01:59:33):
All right.

Speaker 7 (01:59:33):
You know, Matt, they say that there's a there's two
kinds of mushroom foragers. There's old mushroom foragers and there's
bold mushroom foragers. But there's no old bold mushroom folagers.
You never know what you're doing talking about. There you go,

(01:59:54):
all right, thanks a lot, There you go. What is
the other thing they say about mushrooms? Oh, you can
eat any mushroom that you see. Some of them, though
you can only eat once, just in case someone half
heard that. What that means is some of them will
kill you. All right, don't want to be don't people
don't always listen to everything I say? Can you imagine that?

(02:00:17):
All right, let's go, let's go to Galveston and talk
to Bill. Hey, Bill, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 23 (02:00:23):
Thank you very much, Kip. I want to give a
shout out to one of your of your advertisers, Ace
Hardware here Charmers Hardware and his crew are wonderful.

Speaker 7 (02:00:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 23 (02:00:35):
We've been going to them for the last six months
or more and they're just they're wonderful people. Especially like
the door of the sign of their front door which says, yeah,
we offer free free rides to the looking at a
police car if your shoplift.

Speaker 7 (02:00:53):
It's a it's a it's a humor that gets a
message across. That's good.

Speaker 13 (02:00:58):
That's true.

Speaker 5 (02:00:59):
I'm out here doing for Blue Santa here in Galveston,
and I heard you and hoo'sting to you, and I thought, well, yeah,
Mark and his crew really needs a needs a some
uh some shout out and tell people how we how
I appreciate him. So that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 7 (02:01:16):
Well, that's good. That is is very good. And then
the Chalmers Ace on Broadway Street there in Galveson, that's
a great ace hardware store as well. So thanks for
calling and thanks for being out doing that Blue Santa.
That's a that is a good work. I appreciate you
doing it.

Speaker 5 (02:01:33):
You're welcome, Thank you very much.

Speaker 7 (02:01:36):
All right, there you go.

Speaker 12 (02:01:38):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (02:01:39):
Southwest Fertilizer is it's the place where when you when
you need a product, when you need a tool or
something along those lines. You know when you walk in,
they're going to have what you need, and that is
so important. I had a shopping experience the other day,

(02:02:00):
specifically what I was looking for. I went to three
different stores trying to find something. This wasn't a gardening item,
it it was something else. I went to three different
stores trying to find it. None of them had what
I was looking for. That's not the experience you have
at Southwest Fertilizer. If you need a fertilizer, organic or synthetic.
If you need a disease control, organic or synthetic, If

(02:02:20):
you need an insect or spidermight control, organic or synthetic,
whatever you're looking for, they've got it largest selection of
all of those kinds of things in the whole region,
as well as the largest selection specifically of organic price.
If you're an organic gardener, don't let the word pesticides care.
You know there's an organic pesticide and the best selection

(02:02:42):
is there at Southwest Fertilizer. Ninety foot wall of quality
gardening tools, perfect for Christmas gifts. I don't know what
else to say. They're a corner of Bisonette and Runwick.
When you walk in there, I can promise you some things.
I can promise you you're going to get the best
selection you're going to find anywhere. I promise you you're
going to find quality products, not junk. And I promise

(02:03:02):
you that you're going to receive friendly service. Take them
a picture, take them a sample from a plant. You
go in there, they know what they're talking about. Bob
and Aaron and the whole team there at Southwest Fertilizer
corner Bisinet and Runwick, that's where you need to go.
All right. I was doing some tool sharpening the other day,

(02:03:27):
and by the way, always make sure you use sharp
pruners when you're peruenning. And here's the reasons. Number One,
they make cutting easier the wear and tearing your joints,
whether it's your knuckles and hand joints, or whether it's
your shoulders or elbows or whatever. If you're using loppers,
it's less stress on you. Secondly, it makes cleaner cuts.

(02:03:50):
It's more likely to make a nice clean cut that
heals fast. And that's what you want to do. Keep
your prunter sharp, because I was working on sharpening some
of mine, and I also so always put a coating
of oil on them. Uh that metal can corrode, it
can rust. It just depends on what kind of metal
you're dealing with, uh I, whether you're using the you know,

(02:04:12):
the WD forty kind of product or just a coating
of oil. Always keep those surfaces coated, especially as you're
if they get wet. You don't want them to get
wet about when you're cutting through plant juices and sap
and things like that. You need to clean that off.
You need to get them oiled and before you store them.
And a good quality pair of printers will last you

(02:04:33):
a very very long time. I was out sharpening some
that I had the other day. Time for me to
go to a break here, I'm just looking at the
clock coming up. Uh if you would like to give
me a call, We've got one half hour left today
and guarden line seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We'll be back in just a second.

(02:04:55):
Don't go away, let's go here. We got a half
hour garden line left, Flynn, do you will talk about
So we're going to jump right in, head out to
the phones to Spring Branch and talk to Sam this morning.
Hey Sam, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (02:05:13):
Well, thank you for answering our call. I want to
know about Midnight Blue What is it Midnight Blue Hearts?
I saw it on Facebook night and and all they
hew for is seeds, and I'm wondering, you know, if
there is robust if they say they are, and what you.

Speaker 13 (02:05:36):
Know about them.

Speaker 7 (02:05:39):
Midnight blue Hearts? Yes, but you probably have heard of P. T. Barnum.
Have you heard of pet Barnum before?

Speaker 18 (02:05:50):
Oh?

Speaker 16 (02:05:51):
Yeah, Okay, that's that's all you.

Speaker 7 (02:05:56):
Need to know about Midnight Blue Hearts. Now, you know,
plants can get all kinds of names and stuff and
you never know. But there is a deal. And for
those of you listening, uh, please hear me. This is
this is a bunk. I'm about to tell you what
to go look at. So you know what's Sam's referring to.
If you go to like, go to Etsy, that's that's

(02:06:17):
one of the places where horticultural nonsense often shows up.

Speaker 5 (02:06:22):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (02:06:22):
But and you type in midnight blue Heart plant on Etsy,
you will see what I'm talking about. There's actually last
time I did that, there was actually one called purple
Persian Shield. That's a legitimate plant, your tax, legitimate everything else.
They they they take filters and they do that and
they create colors that are not there. They glue different

(02:06:45):
kinds of plate. Well you were you were wise to
figure that out, and I appreciate you calling, but it's
just crapy stuff. One of these.

Speaker 16 (02:06:59):
What other blue? One of the blue plants? She wants
blue plants and you know that robust blue, that really
deep blue.

Speaker 13 (02:07:08):
What what you suggest on that?

Speaker 7 (02:07:12):
You know, off the top of my head, I can't
think of a blue foliaged plant there. Maybe we're not.

Speaker 16 (02:07:18):
They're seasonal though, the ones I've seen on splay as
and whatnot. There's a flower or something.

Speaker 5 (02:07:31):
Oh well, no fern plants.

Speaker 8 (02:07:37):
Yeah, okay, well, well.

Speaker 7 (02:07:40):
I can't think of blue foliage plant. But from flowers standpoint,
there there are a number of things out there. There's
blue hedrangas, for example. There's salvias that have a beautiful
blue foliage. There's a morning glory morning glories that can
come in blue. There is uh uh oh gosh, what's

(02:08:02):
the one? This is one I should have thought of first. Plumbago.
Blue plumbago comes.

Speaker 15 (02:08:08):
To uh not, maybe we could do the uh.

Speaker 7 (02:08:22):
Well, you can you can do that. You can spray
paint them, I guess if you want to go that
route now. Seriously, blue blue plumbago is probably one of
the best landscape plants because it blooms all summer and
has a sky blue light blue flower. Of course, our
blue bonnets, blue bonnets that we have, there's one called
lobelia that has small blue flowers but makes enough of

(02:08:44):
them to be very very noticeable in the springtime. The
annual you can plant now for spring ballooms is uh
is called uh not Delfinium larkspur blue larkspur. But I
would say if our plant blue plant and the landscape,
I would do a uh Salvia mystic spires, and I

(02:09:07):
would do a plumbago as being two of the best.
If you want in the summertime an annual vining pee
with the deepest blue flowers you're gonna find, that is
it's called blue pea vine, blue peavine. The genus is Clady.
But those are those are some blues for her. I mean,
people are sitting there yelling names that I can't hear

(02:09:30):
at me on the radio. But another one is oh gosh,
uh yeah. Anyway, there's a bunch of mine. I could
give you for more names, but those are.

Speaker 23 (02:09:39):
Some appreciate the.

Speaker 13 (02:09:43):
It was too good to be true.

Speaker 7 (02:09:45):
Thanks for calling it. That's okay. It gave me a
chance to gripe about Etsy and Pinterest and whatnot. Thanks
a lot, sir, you too.

Speaker 8 (02:09:57):
Bye bye.

Speaker 7 (02:09:59):
Yeah the is boy that happens. Maybe I'm making I'm
going through a list today of common gardening mistakes and
landscape mistakes. I need to make a skips rant list
things that I can gripe about incessantly. So anyway, here
here's some more. Let's go through some more of these
common landscaping mistakes. We're gonna have to pick this up

(02:10:21):
again tomorrow, so if you've been interested in this, don't
go away. Not training trees when they're young, not ding
trees when they're young. Listen, when a tree trunk comes out,
puts a low branch out to the side, that branch
is never gonna move. The idea that a branch down
low will be higher when the tree is older is
not true. All that tree trunk does is gets bigger

(02:10:43):
in diameter and the branch gets bigger in diameter. The
center of that branch is exactly where that branch was
when it was young. You gotta train them narrow branch
angles narrow vs. You know, hold your two fingers up
like the sign of victory. That is too narrow of
a branch angle. Hold up your index finger and stick
your thumb out. That's a good branch angle. That's what

(02:11:04):
you're looking for about a sixty degree angle or something.
And there's variation in there. But you see what I'm
talking about. Not training them when they're young. Problems get worse,
not better. You gotta train them when they're young. The
second one that goes right along with it before I
take a break here is training trees and shrubs incorrectly,

(02:11:26):
doing it wrong. It just you ruin things. They don't
get better. You train things incorrectly, you're gonna have weak
branch angles, you're gonna have poor growth. You're gonna have
lack of blooms. You're gonna have like a shrub hedge
that's no leaves at the bottom, and the leaves are
all up on top because you let it get top heavy,

(02:11:48):
make a spread out at the top, rather than training
it properly. Always always, always learn what you're doing for
you go out to train. All right, here we go,
we're gonna take a break. One short segment left time
for one Callops. We got our last little segment this
morning and this Christmas season. I hope you are enjoying

(02:12:10):
listening to Gardline. We've got a number of things that
we've talked about today, going through our fifty common gardening
and landscaping mistakes, and we are only ten in.

Speaker 8 (02:12:22):
So there we go.

Speaker 7 (02:12:23):
We're talking about pruning before we left. Let's keep going.
By the way, if you're interested in these, I'm going
to continue on tomorrow morning, so we'll be here from
ten to from six am to ten am tomorrow morning.
We can continue on this list. We'll see how far
we get today. Pruning flowering trees and shrubs at the
wrong time. Here's the deal. If you have an ornamental
flowering tree or shrub and you prune it when the

(02:12:48):
plant has formed buds but they haven't opened up yet,
you're taking away blooms. So, for example, if it is
only blooming in the spring like a Ladybank's rose, like
a flowering quints, like a spirea or bridles wreath, those
are three examples of mini plants. You don't prune them

(02:13:09):
until after they bloom in the spring. Azolia is another
good one. Especially there's just a spring only blooming azolias.
You wait until after they bloom and then you prune them.
If you have one that blooms in the summertime, that
is blooming on new growth, so you can prune those
at the end of winter and they will put out
new growth and bloom on it, just like if you

(02:13:30):
hadn't pruned them. It's just fine. But if it only
blooms in the spring, you don't prune it until after
it blooms. If it repeats, like, let's just choe rose,
I said Lady Banks. There's a lot of climbing roses
are once bloomers. They bloom in the spring, and that's it.
What is the Peggy Martin it's so popular. That's primarily
a spring bloomer. You get a little bit sometimes at

(02:13:51):
other times, but not really so spring bloomer versus a
rose that repeat blooms like Knockout that's planted all over
town everywhere, and many many other roses. They bloom over
and over and over again. You can pring those in
the winter time because they're gonna put out new growth
and bloom and it be just fine. Number twelve bad
printing cuts do not leave a stub or it will

(02:14:15):
die and that dead piece of branch, the dead piece
of branch will be in the way of that plant
closing over that wound with callous. So now you have
a dead piece of wood that's in the way of
healing the h not healing, closing over that wound, and
you get decay that moves down into the tree from
that outer dead rotting stub that you left behind. Don't

(02:14:39):
cut too close to where a branch attaches. If you
kind of picture a let's say an upright trunk, you know,
like a picture of telephone pole kind of thing, and
then you've got a branch coming off the side. And
as that branch comes in for most plants, as it
approaches the trunk, it flares out and it gets bigger.
So if you all the way against the trunk, you're

(02:15:01):
making a bigger wound than if you cut out just
a little bit where the branch starts to get bigger.
Right in there, that's not a stub that is leaving
the area that heals the fastest and best. So I
know that's probably hard to picture, but you can go online.
If I'm not proper pruning cuts, you can you can
get good ideas of how to do it. Don't do

(02:15:23):
it the wrong way. I see so much people doing
it the wrong way because they own a saw and
they want to just get it done and they don't
know what they're doing. You can know what you're doing.
Just spend some time figuring that out before you do it.
Number thirteen Misusing weed killers. Oh gosh, we can spend
the show on this one. Weed killers have ingredients that

(02:15:47):
are specific to certain kinds of weeds. We have weed
prevent doors. Those are called pre emergent. You put them
down in weed seeds can't sprout in a steh. They've
tried to sprout, but they can't put on a root
and they don't make it. Those are pre emergents. They

(02:16:08):
do nothing to stop a perennial weed coming back out
of the ground because it's not coming from a seed.
It already has a froot system. It's already in there.
Post Emergent is killing weeds that exist, so they don't
stop weed seeds from coming up. They just kill the
weeds to spray them on. And then there is the

(02:16:32):
pattern not patterned, spectrum of weeds that a weed killer
works on. Some just kill grasses. You can spray them
on your broad leaf petunias and pansies and it won't
hurt them at all because they just kill grasses. Some
of them kill grasses and broad leaf weeds, and some
of them are more specific for broad leaf weeds. So yeah,
and then there's the particular weed itself. Not just like

(02:16:55):
you wouldn't go to the doctor and there's one medicine
for everything that ails you, Right, that's not the way
it is. You don't go to get a weed killer
and there's one weed killer forever plant or every weed
that's in your lawn. Sometimes we have to recommend specific ones.
And then there's timing. If you don't put on a
pre emergent before the seeds germinate, you've wasted your money.

(02:17:16):
There's a couple of exceptions that have a little what
we call kickback that the weeds sprouted, but it's not
getting going good yet and you can control it. But
in general, timing is very, very important when it comes
to broad leaf weeds. We just got through having all
those fall aster also called slender aster in our gardens.

(02:17:37):
Once weeds begin to set flower and set seeds, they're
reproductive and the weed killers don't work. As well, so
timing should have been earlier on those. That's a complex thing.
I guess I ought to write something for the website
kind of going into that, because there's a lot to
say about that. But don't misuse weed killers. I don't
recommend using weed and feed combination products and winter and

(02:18:01):
early spring. I just don't. The best way to go
about a weed killer is to use a product that
is for the weeds you have, and then use a
fertilizer at the right timing that you need for that.
If you use a weed and feed early in the spring,
either you're doing it early enough to prevent weeds, if

(02:18:21):
it's a pre emergent weed and feed which is too
early to fertilize, or maybe you're using a post emergent
then and it's a little early to be fertilizing. Okay,
so that's number fourteen. Let's see I give you one
more before we go to break here, or before we
end up planting invasive plants. Oh my gosh. Some plants

(02:18:45):
take over the world and you don't need to plant them.
They just they're not good to plant. Some of them
affect nature by crowding out native species when they escape
from your landscape into the areas around. Don't do that.
Don't plant plants that you're going to wish you never
plant it again. They're hard to get rid of. The

(02:19:08):
plants are just once you plan them. You got a problem.
Either you live with them or get a back home
and take out the whole yard. I don't know that's
an exaggeration. The point is, don't plant things are invasive.
If something on this package says recedes, that means beware.
That means it's bad to have it. Just means beware.
Talk to you tomorrow morning.