Bare Lawn Care

Skip Richter takes your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shoesmill, the crazy man in the bassis gas, can't you
a trim? Just watch him as well?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Go grass gas? Can you?

Speaker 4 (00:20):
There are so many.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Good things to super operation in the bay b grassies.

Speaker 5 (00:25):
Like gas again you dass back and not a sign?

Speaker 6 (00:32):
The bassis and.

Speaker 7 (00:33):
Gas and.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
The sound, the demons of treating.

Speaker 6 (00:40):
The gases like gas.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Baby, can't you.

Speaker 5 (00:42):
Jam starting and treating the gases.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Like gasc You did? Everything is so can see and everything.

Speaker 8 (00:55):
He is sung in the.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Tram Well, good morning, Good Saturday Sunday. Gosh, I'm already,

(01:32):
I'm already a day behind. Good Sunday morning. Glad to
have you with us here on garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
If you have a question you'd like to call in
about seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I had a really good time out of Nature's Way
Resources yesterday. They always put on a good show out there,

(01:55):
and they had their Fall festival and thanks to all
the folks that came out. You guys have had more
questions than I think I've heard in a long time.
It was good to see everybody and tall gardening and
WHATNOTU Nature's our Resources is just such a great place
to go. You know, they had us in the back.
We were kind of past all the plants. You know, they've

(02:16):
got a two acre nursery out there, fruit trees and
natives and house plants and vegetables and all kinds of stuff,
lots of native plants anyway, and it was a nice
it's a real nice shaded area. While we were there,
you know, I was giving away some of their fine
leaf mole compost. What does that find mean? Well, it
just means they screened it really fine, so when you

(02:37):
put her on your lawn, it just settles right down
in the lawn, down into the soil surface, which is
what you wanted to do. But it's a high quality product.
They've been making that since well, they were the first
one to put leaf moll compost on the market. So
several people took advantage of the the Peggy Martin Rose special,
which I believe let's see Peggy Martin is going on.

(03:00):
Let's see. Yeah, I went on all the way through
yesterday and they had the rossoil especially they went with it.
It was kind of cool. Don't forget if you want
Nature's Way Resources products and you're not a but you're
not in a place. We can hit all the way
up to where they're located, up almost to Conro where
fourteen eighty eight comes into forty five. You can get

(03:20):
it at Central Rock and Molts. They now carry the
Fine leap Mole compost. Not all the Nature's Way products,
but the Fine Leaf more composts that's located it and
Yale Street, Central Rock and Malts. If you want to
get that Fine Leap Mole compost, you can get it
a little bit closer to you down in the Houston area. Anyway,
check out Nature's Way website learn about all their other
products because they have a lot of good ones. Nature's

(03:42):
Way Resources dot Com is a website if you want
to go check them out. So let's see here. I
have got a lot of things I need to get
done around my property. I don't know where you are
with this, but I'm very aware of the fact that
fall planting season is upon us. There's not a better
seasoned to plant than what we're in right now, and

(04:03):
it's time to get out there and get that done.
I hope to continue. I've been doing some soul preparation
because I do practice what I preach, getting the soil ready,
getting composts, getting raised beds when it rains too much.
I'm still working on the irrigation system, adding more drip in.
I don't know if you have any drip irrigation around
your property, but you ought to think about it. Drip

(04:26):
irrigation is just a it's just an efficient way to water.
And when I say drip, I want to clarify a
little bit. There's there are technologies that go beyond just
a hose with a hole in it leaking water out,
which is what people think of when they see drip.
But the micro jet are also called shrubblers, and there's

(04:51):
all variations on it. But it's a little tiny sprinkle
on a stick.

Speaker 9 (04:54):
You know.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
I've got something that are about stick's about six inches high.
So you push it in the ground and the sprinkler
is only a few inches above the soil. But it
spreads out in kind of like a star like pattern,
like if you type an asterix with a typewriter or
make it asterisk with your computer. How those points go
out in all directions. That's how the water spirts out
of this thing. But it stays down real low to
the ground. But what's a bigger area than just a

(05:17):
little drip which is only wetting you know, one single
point in the ground, spreading out a little bit from there.
I love those things, Like I said, they call them shrubblers.
Sometimes you'll see them microjet. Generally, microjet sprays on a
taller steak a little wider out. But you don't just
have to use drip. My point is, though, you got

(05:38):
to get your you know, bed by bed, area by area,
get your sprinkler system or your irrigation system set up
to do that. It is so much more efficient. It
doesn't we the foliage every time you wet the foe.
Let's say you got a rose bush. Every time you
wet the foliage have more diseases. So don't mess with that.
Just get get yourself set up so you can do
the other way. And it's not hard to do. You

(06:00):
hire somebody to come in and do it. There's professionals
that come in and they can do that kind of thing,
but you can also do it yourself. You know that
it's not that difficult. To just go ahead and do
it yourself. So I would recommend you do it, though
it doesn't have to all be done it once I've
got some of my drip as part of my clock.

(06:20):
You know, the little clock in the garage that waters
your lawn tells it when to start and stop watering.
You can put a zone or two on drip irrigation
on there, and I have a zone on drip, and
then I have a drip system that hooks up to
my garden hose. Now here's to do it yourself for
I don't care if you have zero do it yourself skills.
You can go down and get you or order you

(06:42):
a low clock that screws in to the water faucet
and you set it. There's various levels of those. Some
of them have several zones to them where you can
hook up more than one garden hose to them. But
you set it and then you hook it up your
drip system and it say min I can tell it.
I want to water Monday wednesdaye in, and I want
you to water at eight in the morning, and I

(07:02):
want you to water for an hour because drift puts
out water slowly, so you water longer. With it anyway,
you should consider doing that. It sure does help. I
realize we're kind of getting out of the irrigation system,
but it's still a good time to get that done
whenever you do have time to get it done. All right,
that's simple enough. Kingwood Garden Center and Warren Southern Gardener

(07:26):
and Kingwood really cool places. I talk a lot about
their plants and pots and other things that they have,
but they've got a really nice greenhouse with some really nice,
attractive i'll call them house plants that don't really care
for that term, because no plant is from a house's
but they can grow in our house or that we
can use us similar plants out in patios, depending on

(07:49):
the type of plant they got. One that they got
in called the ghost cactus. It is really cool.

Speaker 9 (07:55):
It is.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
It's not that, you know, it's not a little cactus
like you picture a prickly pair with thorns. It's more
of an upright branching plant. But the sides of it
are just a silvery white color, so it looks like
a ghost. It's really cool. They have a lot of
other things. You know, if you like cacti, they've got
cac di even in hanging baskets, little clusters of cactus
and other things. It's always good to get out there.

Speaker 9 (08:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
They're open daily until four pm. The actual Warren Sethern
Gardens store is North Park Drive, the Kingwood Garden Centers
looking on Stone Working excuse me, located on Stone Hollow.
They're open seven days a week too, which is nice
to be able to go this afternoon. Be a good
time get out there and go visit those folks. Let's

(08:42):
take a quick break when we come back. Joe and Kingwood.
You're going to be our first stup. All right, we're back.
We try to start you off on a little easier
music first thing in the morning. I know you're trying
to wake up. We're going fire it up a little
bit later. Welcome back to Guardline. Good have you with us. Listen.
ACE Hardware Store is the place where you go for

(09:03):
you fill in the blank. You know you used to have.
Their motto is like ACE is a place. I don't
know if they still say that or not, but ACE
is a place for and you can fill in the blank.
You can fill in the blank with air filters, stuff
to repaint or reseal your decks, propane for your gardening, gardening,
for your barbecuing out there, quality hand tools. Do you

(09:24):
need to get some safety supplies like fire alarms or
fire extinguishers. Do you want your holiday decorations like Halloween decorations,
fall decorations. ACE is a place, and certainly it's a
place when it comes to gardening for the fertilizers you're
looking for the things that are seasonal for right now
that I keep talking about, we need to do ACES

(09:45):
got you covered on that. You can go to ACE
Hardware Texas dot com, don't forget the Texas Ace Hardware
Texas dot com and find the ACE Hardware stores near you,
such as Ospo's ACE on Circandole up in the Woodlands,
or All Seasons a Swip and willis on Inner North,
Euvaldi ACE on the East side of Town on the
Valdi Road in Houston, Bay City, ACE on Seventh Street,

(10:07):
Chalmers ACE on Broadway Street down in Galveston. Just a
few examples of the many ACE Haardbare stores you can
find in our area. Let's now head out to the
phones and we're going to visit with Joe this morning
in Kingwood. Hey, Joe, welcome to guard.

Speaker 10 (10:21):
Good morning, Good morning, skip. Is it better to apply
a barricade and fall special today or should I do
it on separate days? And is there a preferred sequence?

Speaker 4 (10:36):
There's no sequence. There's no special days. You can do
them on the same day, or you can do them
a week apart. However, I will say this that I
would get the barricade on soon because we get a
little break in the weather and some rain, and those
weeds are gonna start popping up, so you want to
have it down ahead of time. You didn't mention eagle
turf fungicide, but if you deal with brown patch, the

(10:56):
big brownze circles in your yard, that's another one you
need to get down ahead of time. So you could
do I'll just use this listening again, but you could
do barricade and then put down the fall special and
then put down the Eagle turfungicide all on the same day,
three separate applications, and then water them all in with
a half inch of water and you're done.

Speaker 10 (11:20):
Sounds like a winner. I appreciate the help, all.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Right, sir, thanks for the question. Appreciate that all those
good guys. If you're wondering, ask first. I often get
questions where someone already did it, you know, or maybe
they they're telling me about some plants they just put in,
and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, you just spent money
and got them home, put them in, and those plants
don't need to be planted here, you know, And that's

(11:45):
a that's discouraging. So I don't want you to go
through that. Give me a call. Let's talk about it.
First seven one three, two, one two, five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We were just talking about the Fall Special and then
nitrofoss Texas three step, and that is those that that

(12:05):
is the Texas three step what I just mentioned to
Joe there, and that is the Fall Special fertilizer, the
barricade to stop weeds, but when they try to sprout
and make weed plants, it stops them right there. They sprout,
but they never become a plant because it shuts them down.
And then the Eagle Turf fungicide. All of these need

(12:27):
to go in the soil. The barricade has to be
washed down in the surface of the soil. The fertilizer
has to be washed down into the soil where the
roots are, where it can take it up, and the
eagle turf fungicide also needs to go down in the
soil because the roots take up eagle. And that Saint
Augustine yard you have now has the fungicide flowing through

(12:48):
its plant system so that when bron patch tries to attack,
there's something there to fight against it. And that's how
those three work. Now you're going to find nitro frost products,
you know, the whole Texas three step than other products
at places like Bearings Hardware on Westeimer. You can go
to enchanted gardens out there in the Richmond area, or
go to Plants for All Seasons on two forty nine,

(13:09):
just some examples of places that carry those night FoST products.
You are listening to Garden Line and we're here to
answer your gardening questions. I like to say it this way.
I want you to have a more bountiful garden, a
more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. That's
the whole package right there. That's a trifecta. You should

(13:30):
be able to enjoy your garden. It should bring value
to your home. It should bring just happiness to your heart.
To be able to get out and work in nature,
to step back and look at what you've accomplished to
bring in fresh produce that you grew yourself and picked
that morning. Like we like to say that produce is
about fifteen hundred miles fresher or twelve hundred miles fresher

(13:52):
or something like that, depending on where it came from.
But you can do that. That's part of the fun
thing of gardening and the health benefits of gardening as well.
A should mention that the folks at Sienamaltch just continue
to make quality mulch products. That is what they do.
They have for a long time now offered some of

(14:14):
the best products that you can get for making your
lawn and garden more successful. Brown stuff before green stuff,
we like to say on guarden line, because that foundation
is everything. After you put a plant in the ground,
you are seventy five to eighty percent of the way
to success or failure because you've chosen the plant variety

(14:37):
or species and it may be a good one, it
may not be, but you've chosen it. It's in the
ground now, or the seed it's in the ground now.
You've either prepared the soil or you haven't. Huge huge
important there. It's kind of hard. Once you got a
row rose bushes to rototill the soil and put in
organic matter and things. After the fact, right, it's either

(15:00):
honey or shady. The plant's going to have an opinion
about that. It either drains well or it doesn't. The
plant definitely is going to have an opinion about that.
When you walk away from a seed or a transplant
that you just put in the ground, you're seventy five
percent of the way to success or failure. Start with Cienamals.
Go out there, get their veggie nerd mix, get their composts,
get all the thing. They have lots of different products,

(15:21):
and then while you're there, pick up the nutrients that
go in the ground. That's part of preparing the soil.
Whether you like to purchase microlife or Medina or nitrophoss
or Nelson or azamite, and if you like airloom sols products.
They carry the veggie nerd mix out there at Cienamals.
Lots of options. It's a one stop shop. You just

(15:42):
head in there and you put it in your truck
or trailer and head home or call them up. If
you're within about twenty miles, they'll deliver it for you.
For a fee. But however you go about it, just
go about it fall as planting season. Don't delay. Go
to c animals dot com find out more. But do something.
Do it very important. Let's set out now to Cove, Texas,

(16:05):
and we're going to talk to Dentis this morning. Hello Dennis,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (16:09):
Thank you. Skip A real quick question this morning. I've
got three fig trees. They're probably ten years old, and
you know it's long past fruiting season. Leaves began sort
of bawling off back in even before we started losing water.
But I just it just occurred to me, after watering
everything else yesterday last night, I wonder if I should

(16:32):
still continue to water the fig trees. I don't mind,
but you know, if they're not really going to use
the water, right to be wasting.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
It now, you don't really need to. If your soil
were really, really dry, I would say, well, let's moisten
it a little bit. It's just about the fig needs
some moisture all the time. I need something moisting the soil.
But figs are going into their winter season, and you
know we can we can stimulate new growth with fertilizer,

(17:03):
but we can also stimulate it with you know, a
good dosal water. So you know that doesn't mean you
let them go completely dry. It just means, you know,
we can back off now save like you said, save
the money, and your figs will be fine.

Speaker 11 (17:17):
And that that would in general be true of anything
deciduous as they start to lose or leaves and really
can kind of let go with watering and unless it
just gets we really head to an official drought right right.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
And even even things like our lawns. You know, Saint
Augustine technically does not go dormant, but what it does
is it slows growth to the point that it's essentially
not using much water. But we've got a lot of warm,
sunny days all through the winter, so there is some
water use. Generally because of the cool temperature and the slow, slow,

(17:55):
slow rate of water uptake, you don't have the water.
But theoretically you get some seventy five degree days and
stuff in the wintertime, and that soil gets dry and
it hadn't rained, you could make a case for occasionally
giving a little bit of water. In general, I say,
we don't need the water during the wintertime. And if
you go to my schedule, which is on my website

(18:16):
Gardening with Skip dot com. On the lawn care side,
I have a little blue bar going across it and
it's the watering bar. And just I know this is
going beyond your question, Dennis, but there are other people
that have these kinds of questions listening. If you look
at it in January, there should be zero supplemental water
needed based on average annual rainfall and what our lawn

(18:36):
uses in February zero. By the time we get to March,
it's only a half inch a week. And oh, by
the way, generally October and November or one half inch
a week months for the lawn. December is zero also,
but every year is different, so we go into a
we ever had an eight week drought in the middle

(18:57):
of winter, I'd say, better water your lawn.

Speaker 11 (19:01):
Okay, thank you very much, Skip.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yes, sir, you bet appreciate that call. Yeah, that is
that is the case. That's another reason why it's good
to rake the leaves off the lawn. You know, you
you leave fallen tree leaves laying on the lawn for
an extended period of time, that lawn, now bermuda grass
goes pretty dormant. I mean it. It pretty well shuts

(19:27):
down to the point where onlike golf courses Angingsbury round
up on long bermuda grass and it doesn't kill it
because it's dormant. It kills all those winter weeds that
are sticking up. I don't recommend that for the home
lawn at all, at all, at all, but I'm just
saying bermuda grass hits the stage where even the herbicide
n're gonna kill it because it's it's that asleep, if

(19:50):
you will. But we we do want to make sure
that you know, we provide adequate adequate sunlight as well,
because they are Saint Augustine especially and centipede are taking
up sunlight during the winter times. Zys you get to
a degree as well, and so you leave very shaded

(20:12):
and it's not going to be good for them and
at least stresses them, if not worse. So make sure
and do that. Also. Another thing it does is it
keeps the perfect climate for we diseases to occur. It's
like brown patch. You know you want you don't want
your lawn to be continually wet. If you water all
the time, you're going to encourage brown patch to occur.

(20:32):
If you overfertilize with nitrogen, you're going to encourage brown
patch to occur. If you leave leaves sitting all over
the lawns so that it creates this humid, constantly wet
underneath those leaves, you're going to have more brown patch
problems because the disease, it's a fungus, it loves wet conditions.
So there you go. That makes a little bit of sense.

(20:54):
I a lot of times will just mow over my
lawn with a mulching mower and grind those leaves up
and let them go right back down into the turf.
Uh it. You know, you think about it, Well, it's
not going to cause a problem with all those leaves,
well not really not if you get them off the
off the top and get them down you know, at
the runner and soil level down there, you can do that.

(21:16):
You can also, I generally don't do that because I'm
gathering those leaves to use this mulch. I got a
lot of places for composts and mulch. I need leaves,
and so I generally don't mow mine back into the turf.
Butt I have in the past. And you can do
that if you have a light. Now, if you've got
leaves that don't chop up well, or if you've got
a mower that doesn't chop things up well, then that's
a different thing. You know, live oak leaves and then whatnot.

(21:38):
I generally have trouble mowing them back in. But just
a thought, just something to keep in mind. Let's go
to our mid hour break here when we come back.
We'll come back for your calls. At seven one three,
two fifty eight seventy four, they did the mom This
is a good signed for October. The bombos heavy. All right,
welcome back to Guardline. Get to have you with us

(21:59):
this more arning Have you been to the Arborgate lately?
They are loaded up on fruit trees. It wasn't too
long ago they got a whole big shipment up they
always do, you know, they carry fruit trees year round.
By the way, for those of you who don't know,
the Arborgate is in Tumbul, Texas. If you go to
Tomball and Head West on twenty nine to twenty, or
if you're in dumble Head West on twenty nine to twenty,

(22:20):
just outside of town, there a little bit about a
mile and a half from two forty nine on the
left hand side. You're going to see the arbor Gate.
Remember there's that nice new parking lot in the back.
Or you can go off Trischal Road. So Trishle is
like a little loop. It starts at twenty nine twenty,
goes behind Arburgate and comes back to twenty nine twenty.
So whether you get on Treshel before or after, if

(22:41):
you miss it and you see the Arborgate, just keep
going there. You can catch the other than the Trishle
swing around the back of it there, because that's a
really good, safe access, easy access parking lot, all weather
and one of the best things new things that they've
done up there in a good while. It's a it
is a game changer really because you know how popular
arbor it is. I mean, everybody goes there. So whatever

(23:03):
you're looking for, are you looking for fall color? Some
really good fall color out there?

Speaker 9 (23:07):
You know.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
I talk about the soil all the time, and they
have their own one two three completely easy system. It's
an organic food that is for anything with roots. That's
one way to put it. In other words, use it
for what you want to use it for. Organic soil
complete and the organic compost complete too. Now the soil
and the compost both have expanded shale in them, and
both the soil and the compost are available by bulk.

(23:30):
If you would like to have them deliver, you just
have to contact them and arrange that wherever you are,
they'll they'll bring it to you. But when you're at Arburgate,
check out all the cool bling that goes along with
all of this. As you walk through, it's almost like
going to a kind of botanical garden, and there's so
many plants and pathways to walk and see and do.

(23:51):
It's a lot of fun. Spend some time out there.
Check stick your head in the gift shops. They're awesome,
unbelievable cool stuff. But if you've been to Arbrogate, you're
you know all that. Let's head out now to Cyprus
and we're going to talk to Terry this morning. Hello Terry,
welcome to Goard.

Speaker 9 (24:09):
Good morning. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you
taking my call. I've got about thirty or forty off
all sized red potatoes that have started the sprout, but
our heartsted from my summer garden, and I'm wondering if

(24:30):
would I be wasting my time to put them in
the ground or I don't think they're gonna mate, wait
until February to plant, you know, they'll be gone then.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, but yeah, you're right.

Speaker 9 (24:43):
God, probably there's half inch all sprouts on them when
they you know, they're just begging to be planting. And I,
you know, with a follow the the phreezes and everything.
I just don't know. If I just wouldn't be wasting
my time.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
You you would, uh, Terry, if you ever want to plant
potatoes for fall, you need to. You probably need to
do that. Late late August would be a time that
I would toward the end of August that gives them
time to grow and and do all that before a
frost hits. I don't know. Maybe you get away with
let's see where you're located during early September a little

(25:23):
late for it.

Speaker 9 (25:24):
But yeah, well I've got three months. Okay, Well you've
got to be pretty well answered, well assault you know,
but well, thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Well, thanks for calling. Yeah, it's good, good that you
called the check because you never know, never know you better.

Speaker 9 (25:46):
Yeah, that's true, that's true. All right, by.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
There you go. You know, I learned something every day
in guarding that that that call just reminded me that, uh,
if when you stop learning, you start down and you
may be your whatever field drin you may be well,
let's just taking a really good example. You may be

(26:11):
a physician, and the day you quit learning, your patients
are beginning to be progressively in trouble because you need
to be on top of things. You need to know
the latest right, you need to know it, and things change.
What we used to think is not true, was it?
Will Rogers sounds like Will Rogers that said, it ain't
what I don't know that concerns me. It's what I

(26:32):
know that ain't So that's true with me. You know,
there's a lot I don't know about gardening. There just
is because it's limitless. I could spend five lifetimes and
I'd be scratching the surface still. But it's when I
think I know something and it ain't right anymore, or
it never was right or whatever, that's the concern. And

(26:52):
that's how it is regarding It's always a learning thing,
which I love that. I think that is one of
the most invigorating maintaining the youth, our youthful minds and
attitudes and things that we can have. It's because you
always get to learn something which is fun. Let's set
out now to Jim and a task Casita. Hey, Jim,

(27:15):
welcome to guard Line. Hey, well, thank you for taking
my call.

Speaker 9 (27:19):
Skip.

Speaker 12 (27:19):
You were talking about grass a few minutes ago, and.

Speaker 9 (27:22):
Here's the situation.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Do lower your blades when cutting and trying to pick
up those leaves mulching?

Speaker 4 (27:35):
I don't, I don't. I just mow at the regular level.
You don't want to mow low going into winter. Now,
some people in the spring of the first mowing, they'll
mow low just to get all the old, dead debris
and stuff out of there. But every time you mow
low now you're opening the soil up to sunlight and
it's going to be followed by a weed problem if

(27:55):
you haven't done something to prevent them. So I don't
go into winter mowing low.

Speaker 12 (28:00):
And what level do you cut?

Speaker 4 (28:04):
It depends on the turf. Saint Augustine, Well, is it
a Saint Augustine lawn?

Speaker 12 (28:10):
Yes, sir, Yes, Sir.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
Saint Augustine. I wouldn't go below two and a half.
I generally mow mine at about three and a half.
Actually I like it a little taller. I think it
just especially in a shade, you do need to be
at the three and a half level so you have
more solar panels to capture the sun light that's already
limited because it's a shady spot. But three inches would

(28:36):
be kind of a sweet spot. I think on that
in the But I mow at three and a half
most of the time.

Speaker 12 (28:42):
Well, thank you very much to take him a call
and have a blesseday.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
All right, you bet, thank you, Jim. I appreciate that.
Let me say something else about mowing based on Jim's question. There,
when you mow, you cut off a third of the
leaf blade. That's the goal. So if you mow at oh,
I don't know, let's say an inch that we're going

(29:06):
to be extreme. Then when it's an inch and a
half it's time to mow again. Well, how long does
it take to or half an inch? I mean not long.
If I mow it at three inches, well literally it
would go to four and a half before I have
to cut back to three again to cut off that
one third. You see what I'm talking about, So mowing
low number one. Saint Dustine didn't like that, but some

(29:27):
turf can take it. Some bermudas and some Zoysius can
take that. But the lower you mow, the more often
you need to mow, because to let it get way
taller and cut half the grass blade off when each
time you mo is more stressful to the grass, and
we'd like to avoid that. That's kind of what we're
talking about here. Okay, So just kind of keep that
in mind too as you're doing your mowing plans. And

(29:47):
that's also on my schedule, which you'll find at Gardening
with Skip dot com. Houston Powder Coders is the biggest
powder coder in this region. They work magic. You ought
to go find them on Facebook or go to their
website Houston powder Cooders dot com. Look at the work
they do, Yeah, I like, I'd like to say, you
may not even have an outdoor furniture that's metal. But

(30:11):
after I saw what they did one hundred plus colors,
and I visited the shop and looked at everything that
they do, It's like, now I'm driving down the road
looking for rusty metal. Our old metal people are throwing away.
I'll take it to Houston Powder Coders and I got
something brand new. When they get through, I mean it
looks like brand new. They know how to do that work,
they'll come pick it up. They'll bring it back to

(30:32):
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one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight two eight
one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight Houston Powder
Cooders dot Com. Let's take a break, we'll be right back. Well,

(30:57):
good morning, folks, Welcome back to the Garden Line. Jeez ge,
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help
you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape, and more
fun in the process. I hope you're enjoying yourself this morning.
We got plenty more to talk about today, and if
you've got a question, you can give me a call.
Seven to one three two one two five eight seven

(31:19):
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Someone was showing me a video they took of their
fig tree that they had a little camera, you know,
those those wildlife cameras that capture things at night. Uh,
And they were looking at what's coming, what's what's getting
on their fig tree and doing things at night, and
it was kind of cool. I believe we saw a

(31:39):
raccoon come in through there and they had said they
had had some possums and things as well. You know,
when you're dealing with wild varmts like that around the house,
there is someone who can help you with this. This
is they're called pest Bros. Pest Bros. And now when
I talk about pest Bros, I'm usually talking about their
mosquito buckets and the fact that they have a ten
year fire, ten year termite control product that they put

(32:03):
in a little trench around the house. That is, you know,
minimum pesticide application, very little exposure for any dog or
pet or person the kiddo that be out there. And
they're good at that. They know how to treat effectively,
they know how to do so in the safest possible manner,
so you get a real nice long term result with
no worries. But when it comes to varmits outside, rats

(32:27):
are another one. I used to have a fig tree
and the rats would come down the fence and jump
on that fig tree at night and eat rats from it. Well,
if you're dealing with varmits like that called pestpros. That's
just one of the many things they do. They service
all the way from Texas City, all the way up
to the Woodlands, and from way out in Baytown on
the east, the way out in Katie on the on
the west. This whole region here they've actually covered d

(32:50):
pestbros dot Com. Don't forget the word the in the website,
the pest b r osbros dot com, thepestpros dot com
to eight one six four six seven zero two eight
one two o six forty six seventy. Let's go out
and out to League City and we're going to talk
to Tom this morning. Hey Tom, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (33:11):
Hey morning, how are you.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
Good morning. I'm doing.

Speaker 13 (33:18):
I have some irises and a neighbor gave Tommy and
was wondering, what it's the proper time to plant those.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
Oh, you plan them in the fall. This is a
fine time to plan them.

Speaker 14 (33:32):
You know.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
If you want to wait and plan them in the spring,
you can do that too, But I would plan them now.
It's a little bit better to get them in the ground. Remember,
don't plan them too deep. Just follow whatever instructions you have, well,
actually someone gave them to you, so they didn't come
with any instruction. But you barely put those little rhizomes
just just barely under the ground, right at the ground level.

(33:53):
That's how they grow. Throw some compost or some composts.
A little bit of compost or mix it in the
soil below them is even better. And then when you
finish out, get you some old tree leaves when they
start falling, grind them up with them, owre a little
bit and throw them around those as a nice molt,
and that'll keep the weeds down and the iris is happy.

(34:14):
Protect those rhizomes of I love to do that, but.

Speaker 13 (34:18):
My trees that I have are pine needles, so don't
think I want to do that.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
You can actually the pine needles.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
You know.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
It's kind of funny. How what do they say? Familiarity
breeds contempt, meaning if you're if something just everywhere you
don't you don't appreciate it.

Speaker 13 (34:38):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
We're kind of still in pine country in most of
the listening area over here, but if you go like
over to Austin and stuff, you'll see bales of pine
needles that that have been shipped in from Georgia or
someplace the harvested them. And so pine needles are of
valuable molts in places where they don't happen. But yeah,
you can grind them if you run over them a

(35:00):
little bit, grind them up a little bit. They stay
either way, they stay in place real well. But there's
nothing wrong with mulching with pine straw.

Speaker 13 (35:08):
Okay, Well, somebody lied to me because I was told
that pine needles that's what they produce the turpentine with,
and that kills your vegetation.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
Well it doesn't. It don't kill your vegetation. Now, it's not.
I've seen pine needle melts in flower beds many times.
It doesn't.

Speaker 13 (35:29):
It is.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
There is a truth in the fact that in the
pine tree the compound that we used to make turpentine
is present. That is true. They're actually called turpenes is
the chemical name of those kinds of compounds. But you
can use pine straw. I mean, you know, I don't
know that I would just use fresh green pine needles

(35:51):
ground up around them, but dry pine straw it is
just fine. And if you got a pine tree, you
know it's dropping all year, you're always getting it off
the lawn. The lawn doesn't want to go row underneath
that either, but you can. You can use it if
you want to use it. If not, get you another
multi in multimum. It doesn't matter. All they care about
is that they're most in.

Speaker 13 (36:10):
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to
put them around my trees that I have a you know,
a six inch brick flower bed or whatever you want
to call it. But around those right those trees have
some uh big roots, so uh if and you know,
I don't want to damage my roots, of course, uh

(36:32):
but right well they when I when I make the
bed of compost, will they grow around the roots as
they mature.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
They will their their roots will. As you get close
to the base of any tree, there's a lot of
wood in the ground and not as much soil per
cubic you know, per cubic foot of volume. It's there's
a lot of root wood and less soil around there.
And so for any plant, you just don't have me
to be like it's if soil was filled with rocks,

(37:03):
I mean, you'd have less soil in that area. Also
one other thing about that that location tom oftentimes it's
a little on the shady side to keep irises happy.
So just make sure they are getting some sun there.
If it's a high enough tree with a high enough canopy,
they're probably gonna be okay. But but irises do want

(37:24):
some sun, not.

Speaker 13 (37:26):
Full morning sun where I'm going to have them because
they're they're on the what the eastern side of the house,
so the sunset won't hit them in the afternoon.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
All right, Well we'll do this, then plan them. See
how they do. And if you don't like the performance,
they're easy to move and there they don't mind being
moved around.

Speaker 7 (37:49):
All right, yes, sir?

Speaker 13 (37:50):
Okay, well I figured you. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Okay, thank you, Tom, appreciate the appreciate the call very much.

Speaker 9 (37:59):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
Micro life is all about microbes. That's why it's called microlife.
And why are we all about microbes? Well, it's because microbes,
first of all, they run the world. And I can
drone on about that some other time. And I really
mean that when I say that. The microbes in the
soil make plant roots happy, and they give plant roots

(38:23):
what they need, and they protect plants as well. You know,
if I were to tell you, you know, I'm gonna
spray bacteria on you. You'd be like, I'm gonna get disease. Well, yeah,
they're bacteria that cause disease, but they're also bacteria that
fight disease. When you have you ever used BT to
kill caterpillars, that's a bacteria it is. They're a bacteria

(38:44):
that take nitrogen out of the air and they put
them in the soil. Microlife has their fall fertilizer. It's
called brown patch, and it is a great fertilizer for fall.
But it's loaded with sixty three different strains of bacteria
and fungi and all the things that help protect plans.

(39:04):
And so when you're putting it out, you're putting the
nutrients out, but you're also adding to the microbial community
in a good way to help fight disease. And that
is what micro life products are all about. And this
brown patch is new exception. You need to get it,
you need to put it down now. It's easy to find.
It's in a brown bag. I was creative. Brown patch
brown back easy to remember. All right, they're in an

(39:28):
hour that went fast. Well, let's come back next hour
and do some more of this. If you would like
to be first up next hour, and you can give
us a call during break, just be the first up
seven one three, two one two five eight seven four.
Next week, next Saturday, I'm gonna be at Arborgate, arbor
Gate up there in Tomball. And now if you've never

(39:49):
been to Arburgate, you gotta come. I mean, forget cnme,
just come come to Arbor Gate and see the place.
But for all those of you who know here's this
is the most north in Northwest that I'm going to
be all for the rest of this fall. So come
out then check it out. Those who live in your
kind up college station out of sod Hey plans. Next Saturday,

(40:12):
I'll be at Arburgate from twelve to two.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Welcome to Katie R. H. Garden Line with skin Rickard's.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
Crazy gas trim.

Speaker 6 (40:29):
You just watch him as well. Googles so many goes.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
To Sea botasy in gay gas gassacad.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
Not a sound gas gas sun and welcome back to
garden Line. We're ready to go. We got another hour,
hereat we got another three hours. Glad you've joined in
with us. Looking forward to visiting with you about the
things that you are interested in, the things you are

(41:08):
curious about. It is time to put out your Nelson
plant food carboload. Carbo load is in carbohydrates. That's what
gets our grass through the winter. The carbo load is
a ten ten twenty fertilizer. It has also it also
has a pre emergent herbicide in it. Now, the premergent
herbicide has to be put down before the weeds sprout,

(41:30):
so it helps also to get your fertilizer down sooner
rather than later now, so the grass has more time
to take it up and you know, do the things
it does with it to make it more cold hearty
and to make it come out stronger in the spring.
Carbo looad is in a purple bag by the way,
if you're looking for it in the garden center. Carbo
load purple bag ten ten twenty with the pre emergent herbicide.

(41:52):
So what does this mean. That means you put it
down and you watered in with about a half inch
of water. That moves the fertilizer into the soil and
the herb side into the soil surface. And that way,
when the cool season we'd start to sprout, there already
is the presence of that preventative product to prevent the
weed seeds from ever becoming weeds. They just can't make

(42:14):
it past that, all right, So it's time to do it.
Carboloads available a lot of places, and from the folks
at Nelson's, you know, Nelson Plant Foods, a family owned
Texas brand. Nelson family has been are in the Katy
area since gosh, the late eighteen hundreds. I believe they
make their own fertilizers right here locally, including the turf
Star carbo load.

Speaker 7 (42:35):
Are.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
We are entering that season of the year when we
get the transition when we go from way too hot
to nice and pleasant and mild, and it sure does
us feel good, you know, those of us who've endured
the summertime are glad to have that kind of weather
to get back outside at all times of the day.
You know, in the summer, I typically will do my

(42:57):
work early in the morning and maybe late late after noon,
although it days pretty warm pretty late. But boy, this
time of the year, it's like it's easy to do,
and there's not a better time to plant. Whatever you're
going to plant, get it done, especially trees and shrubs
and other woody ornamentals like woody vines and perennials as well.

(43:18):
Do better planted this time, plus then we have the annuals,
annual vegetables, the annual flowers. So let's get out there.
Let's get some good work done on those. Let's go
out to Magnolia now, and we are going to visit
with thelorus this morning. Hello Dolores, welcome to garden Line part.

Speaker 7 (43:36):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 15 (43:38):
I have quite as different colors, but I have on
the leaves there will be a spot that's almost translucent.
And also there's been a little brown sposs around in
this translucent and I use them all that has not helped.

Speaker 7 (43:57):
I've used vinegar that has not helped.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
Okay, well, the vinegar will even burn them, so be
careful with that, I would. Well, what's probably happening is
you probably have some little insects that are sucking juices
out of those lantana leaves. We got a couple of
things that hide under the leaf, and even when you
turn the leaf over, there not there because they hop
away real quick. But at this time of the year,

(44:24):
it's not worth doing anything because the lantanna's are about
to go into their fall and shut down anyway, and
so there's just not much benefit if you killed whatever
was doing it. Immediately. It wouldn't make much difference in
term of the health of the plant at this point,
so I wouldn't worry about it. But next year watch
them and when you start to see little specks in

(44:44):
the leaves, that means those insects are present, and that
would be a time to get in there with a spray.
You could spray an insect aside. It's better if you
can spray up under the bottoms of the leaves, which
on a little l antenna plants kind of hard to do,
you know without stew been over and turn sprayer upside
down to get under there. But that that would be
the best place. The alternative would be to put a

(45:07):
systemic in the ground, but then you got an insecticide
going up where anything visiting the flower might have exposure,
which we would rather avoid that, okay, And.

Speaker 7 (45:21):
To the soil product would be the best product that.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
In the soil, A product that yeah, the more common
product available for that.

Speaker 7 (45:33):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
There are several brands, but the ingredient is called a
meadow cloak bred. Do you happen to have a pen
and pencil handy.

Speaker 7 (45:41):
Or uh huh, yes, I'm.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
Just gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna spell it out here.
It's I am I D O C L O p
R I D E med dough cloak bread. It isn't
found in lawn products to kill grubs. It's an ingredient
found in products to kill creat myrtle barks, veil. And

(46:06):
but it's the ingredient that you're looking for, and you
want it in a form for applying to the plant.
You drench it into the root system and the plant
roots take it out. You don't spray it on the plant.
You drench it into the roots. And then anything that
sucks juices, well, I would rather than use the word spray,

(46:29):
I would say, think of a watering can with the
product mixed to the way, and so you're you're going
to water them with it because the roots take it up.
And now the plumbing of the plant has this product
in it. So when something goes and sucks juices out
of your plant, it gets that that product and it
kills it. So it's not something we apply to sit

(46:52):
on the leaves. It's something we apply to go in
the roots.

Speaker 15 (46:56):
Okay, I'm about ready to, you know, trim them all
back anyway.

Speaker 7 (47:02):
For the fall. And yes, because I do that.

Speaker 15 (47:07):
You know, I'll trim those backs now. Should I go
ahead and do this treatment now or in the spring
when it starts they start button backed out.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
I would not do it. I would not do it now,
and I would wait.

Speaker 13 (47:21):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
And and when we get into spring and they're up
and they're going really good, you can do it maybe
mid spring something like that. This typically this problem shows
up as we get in well into summer and on
like that.

Speaker 16 (47:36):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
It takes a little while for the product to move
into the plant, So you don't want to wait until
you've already got major problems on the plant. But I
would say mid to late spring you could. You could
do this, and that would be a pretty good timing
for protecting those plants.

Speaker 15 (47:52):
Is there anything between now and mid spring that I
could do to people? Should I just keep pick trying
to click the leaves off.

Speaker 4 (48:04):
No, just lead and let it be none to worry about.

Speaker 11 (48:07):
Now.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
And once we get a good hard freeze, you can
cut those antana back to a few inches above the ground.
If if you have a little bit of molts you
can put around over the top and the base of them,
just to protect them a little bit. Should you have
a really cold winter there in magnolia. You know, you
never know when something hits it'll be a little bit
better if you multi men real well, and then they'll

(48:29):
take it from there.

Speaker 7 (48:31):
I did much a well last week.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
All right, well, there you go.

Speaker 7 (48:40):
Good luck with that you take and you's a product.

Speaker 15 (48:43):
Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
There's a product next spring, you bet. I sure don't care, alrighty, yeah, uh.
The there are a lot of problems that we see
in the fall, and I talked about this when I
was out at Nature's Way Resource yesterday. People see plant
leaves on the ground and they have leaf spots and things,

(49:07):
or they look at a plant they've got leaf spots
on them, and the leaves look horrible like fig trees
right now. They don't look very good. Mostly, So what
we want to do is we want to ignore that
because these leaves are coming off. As the leaves get
old and weak, the spots and issues, or they attack
them even more because they just don't have the defenses up.
The plant's about to kick them off anyway, the leaves.

(49:29):
So just ignore that in the fall, don't worry about it.
Some diseases will rake up the leaves to get them away.
From the plant just because they have spores and it
makes it easier to reinfect next year and stuff. But
in general, just don't worry about spraining those things. Now
that's a general case. There's always exceptions to every rule.
Let's take a little break and we'll be right back

(49:50):
with your calls. All right, welcome back. Good to have
you with us on garden line. You got a question,
give me a call. Seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two and two
fifty eight seventy four uh. Intended forest down in the
Richmond Rosenberg area is just a It's a great place

(50:11):
to go you you, I promise you will enjoy shopping there.
It's just the whole layout of the thing. It's just
a cool place and the friend friendly folks that help
you there, and people that know what they're talking about.
You go in, you got a question, They point you
in the right direction, they answer your questions. You know
you maybe you're going I want to create a pollinator gardener.
I want to bring in more butterflies, or I want

(50:32):
to have hummingbirds, or I need something that will grow
in the shade, or I would like to expand my
herb garden. What do you got, Well, plan to be
there a while because they got a lot. When it
comes to fall vegetables, when it comes to herbs, you know,
falls the best time plant herbs. You can plant almost
any herb in the fall that you plan any other
time of the year, and in many cases these perennial herbs,

(50:54):
it's better to plant them in the fall. I guess
one exception would be basil. You know basil, it likes
hot weather, so we don't plant it in the fall.
But all the other herbs, fall planting is awesome. You
need to get them out there. And Chended Forests has
got you covered on all of that kind of thing.
You check it out. Check out their pumpkins, dude, By
the way, their pumpkins right now. They got fifty percent

(51:16):
off on their pumpkins. And when I say pumpkin, I
mean white pumpkins, and orange pumpkins, and turks, turban squash,
and small tiny pie pumpkins, a large giant Jack o'
lantern pumpkins. They got it all. They also have a
sale thirty percent off their mums chrys anthems. You know,
fall is mum's season. This is when we put these
things out to decorate, to create a whether it's Halloween

(51:39):
or Thanksgiving or just fall in general. Go to in
Channa Forest. Check out what they have. And I'm just
sitting here mentioning a few things. There are so many
cool things that they have at an encented forest. While
you're there, check out the house plants and things they've got.
They have some plants to eat bugs. Okay, you got kids,
you need to go buy there. They're called corn plants.

(52:00):
And everybody knows about venus fly trap.

Speaker 13 (52:02):
Right.

Speaker 4 (52:03):
There's another one called octopus plant. It's got long it
almost looks like an octopus with those long curly arms
going out in all directions. It's got all sticky things
that grab the bugs. There's one called a pitcher plant.
It's one of their carnivorous plants. Bugs go to the
top and they fall down in the bottom where they're
digestive juice. Is Does that sound like Rocky horror picture

(52:24):
show for those of you old enough to remember that anyway?

Speaker 9 (52:27):
Or no? What is that?

Speaker 4 (52:28):
What was the movie A Little Shop of Horrors? That
was a little Shop of Horrors where there was a
plant that eight people?

Speaker 12 (52:36):
All right?

Speaker 4 (52:36):
Anyway, I digress go to Enchanted Forest. They're on FM
twenty seven fifty nine just outside of Richmond Rosenberg toward
the direction of Sugarland, just south of fifty nine. Enchanted
Forest Richmond, TX dot com. That's the website, Enchanted Forest,
Richmond TX dot com. Go check them out. Let's head

(52:59):
out out to West Chase and talk to David this morning.
Hey David, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (53:05):
Thanks Kip.

Speaker 17 (53:06):
It is probably a real simple one, just wondering when
I should when I can think about planting pansies here
in Houston.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
You know, they're already available in a lot of garden centers.
If we don't have too hot of a weather, you
can plant them now. You can do that. I generally
will let it get into late October early November before
I put mine in. But for me, it's also related
to maybe I got warm seasoned flowers that are still

(53:36):
looking good, and so I'm going to leave them in
until they start to go downhill and then put the
pansies in, you know, just as a trade off. But
in general, they don't want to be in hot weather.
We're having mild temperatures and we should continue to have
mild temperatures, so I'm not worried about planting them now,
I just wait a little bit later for mine.

Speaker 17 (53:56):
Okay, great, Well, actually I've got the exact scenario you describe.
I've got some nice weather flowers are flourishing, so I'll
just wait a bit.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And you know, in the long run, you're
gonna get more color out of the whole deal because
the pansies are not going to just take off and
be instant color right away in a large way. But
what you've already got is that, and so when it's
time to pull those out, the pansies will be even
happier to go in, and you can you can get
a good transition. Good question. Thanks, all right, you bet

(54:30):
take care I find the right buttons here on my computer.
I sitting here, I would I lose track of where
the mouse is. Well, southwest fertilizer, A corner of this
and that and runwick. You know, if I if I
had time to do a one second commercial, maybe I
need a second and a half, I would just say
go there. They have everything. That's that's the whole deal.

(54:53):
And it's really true. It's truly too. This place has
been around for seventy years and it's because they take
care of customers because when you walk in there, they
don't go, yeah, we don't have any of that, or
what is that? We don't even know what that is. No,
they know, they know what it is. You can bring
them a sample, you can bring them a picture. They'll
look at it. They can tell you what you need
if you need something, and then they walk you right

(55:14):
over to it and they're gonna have options. They're gonna
have more than one option. That's just what it's like
around Southwest Fertilizer. It's a place to go for anything
you need. If they don't have it, you don't need
it because they have it. That is how it works.
Southwest Fertilizer dot Com seven to one three six six
six one seven four four six six six one seven

(55:35):
four four corner of Busins Nett and Renwick, Southwest Fertilizer.
We're gonna go now to Guitar Tave on Lake Conroe. Hey,
Guitar Dave, how you doing.

Speaker 9 (55:46):
Hey? Hey, it's it's a little cool out here. The
wild wants to put a.

Speaker 18 (55:51):
Water and system in around, you know, for the grass
and stuff.

Speaker 12 (55:55):
What tell me what to do?

Speaker 4 (55:57):
Yeah, well, first of fall, you do whatever your wife,
You do whatever your wife wants to do. That that
I mean, I've been married for Mainstince nineteen eighty three.
I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.

Speaker 10 (56:11):
And so.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
Okay, Seriously, for a watering system, you want to get
somebody because the most water systems.

Speaker 9 (56:23):
For brother in law. She has a brother in law
that does it. But I want to know does it
go closer to the house?

Speaker 18 (56:32):
And oh my main question is when it freezes over
here on the lake Conrod, what do I have to do?

Speaker 9 (56:38):
Turn it off?

Speaker 4 (56:40):
All right? So here's the deal. You want a designer
that can that can make it right because most watering
systems are not efficient. If you were to take little
rain gages and put them all over the average yard
and turn it on, you'd have after x minutes, you'd
have some that have a quarter inch in them and
some that have three quarters of an inch in them.
I mean easy, how ununiform the application is. So a

(57:03):
good person that knows what they're doing, not just who
knows how to glue PBC and do that. If you
can do roators, rotors are better. There's standard rotors and
there's multi stream roadors. They put out water the most
efficient way, so you're not spending money on drinking water
and wasting it. And they pop up out of the ground,

(57:28):
but so solid sage sprinklers pop up too, So that's
not the distinguishing. It's with the rotor. You have one
or two things. It pops up out of the ground.
But then you have a stream. Let's say it starts
on the left and it goes all the way over
to the right, you know what I'm saying, And then
it comes back all the way over to the left.
There's ae gear in there running it. Multi stream roaders.

(57:50):
If you were to just take your fingers on your
hand and kind of go from left to right with
all your fingers separate, each of those is a little stream,
and it's like the stream appears let's say on the left,
it drifts across to wherever you want it to stop,
and then it just goes away. And while new streams
are constantly appearing. Those are very efficient, and that's a
better way to water if you can do that. As

(58:12):
far as winter time, a system needs to have some
way of protecting it from the cold. They're you know,
cold cold wrapping and things like that. Most of the
pipes are put down low enough to where you don't
need to worry about it. But talk to your irrigation installer.
They can tell you the things you need to do.
Anything exposed, anything above ground exposed is going to have

(58:35):
to be protected. But most of these are put down
at a depth where here in our area we don't
have to worry about it. We don't have freezes, it
freezees a foot deep here.

Speaker 18 (58:45):
Yeah, I've been using one of those soaker hoses around
here that it's been doing a good job. But I mean,
I know I'm only sixty four, but I'm getting a
little old andre you know, creaky to where I can't
drag it around all the time.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
I know what you're talking about. When I was a kid, Yeah, yeah,
when I was a kid, dave h Snap, crackle pop
was the sound of my breakfast food. Now it's the
sound of me getting out of bed. Do you know
what I say.

Speaker 9 (59:20):
There too?

Speaker 14 (59:21):
You know.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
Well that hey, ready to go to go.

Speaker 7 (59:29):
There you go?

Speaker 9 (59:29):
All right?

Speaker 4 (59:30):
Thanks, all right, stay out of trouble, Stay out of trouble.
Bye bye. We've got to have a little fun here
on guardline, don't we. Absolutely? Hey, Quality home products is
where you get a generator. It just is. Yeah, you
can buy generators all over town, but Quality Home Products
is where you need to go to get them. And
I'm telling you why. And it's not just my opinion.
It's the opinion of fourteen thousand people who gave him

(59:51):
five star reviews. It's opinion of seventy seven thousand homeowners
who have benefited and enjoyed their service. It's the opinion
of the Better Business Bureau Award group that's given them
the Pinnacle Award eight times in a row. I mean,
it's the opinion of the Houston Chronicle best of the
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(01:00:13):
owned since nineteen eighty nine. Financing options are available. Call them.
They'll walk you through the whole process, making sure you
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That's why. That's why people are pleased with Quality Home

(01:00:36):
Products of Texas. I wouldn't even shop anywhere else but
for me, I'd just go straight there because nobody matches
them when it comes to service when it comes to
customer satisfaction, quality Home Products of Texas seven to one
to three quality Quality TX dot com Quality TX dot com.

(01:00:58):
I got to go to a break here in just
a bit. If you would like to call seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four, give me
a call. Next Saturday, I'm going to be at the
arbor Gate in tom Ball. That's right. And if you ever,
you don't need a reason to go to the arbor

(01:01:19):
Gate other than it's the arbor Gate and it's always
worth going to. But I'm going to be out there.
Come on ahead and see me. We're going to be
doing some cool giveaways. Beverly's got a bunch of stuff
put together. We're also going to be answering your gardening questions,
doing diagnosis. Yeah, bring me the bags or whatever. We'll
take a look at it. Weeds, to identify bugs, to
identify issues, bring me photos, let's talk. I'm gonna have

(01:01:41):
some Texas Gardener magazines on hand to give away for
those of you who haven't subscribed yet. Just come on out.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
All right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
We're back, Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you
with us. Hey, you got a question, I'll provide an answer.
Hopefully it'll be a correct one at least still sound
that way, do my best seven one, three, two, fifty
eight seventy four Okay, joking aside, Yeah, we love to
answer gardening questions. We love to help gardeners have success.

(01:02:11):
That is the thing. If I could wave a magic
wand and everybody who goes out and buys a plant
and brings it home would have success with it and
would enjoy that and would feel like that they had
a more beautiful landscape, or maybe grow food for their
own kitchen table that is tasty. It could be vegetables,
it could be herbs for seasoning. I'd be very happy

(01:02:33):
with that. I think that's what gardening should be about,
and we do all we can to help you realize
just that. Hey, RCW Nurseries. They're open today, by the way,
from ten am to five pm, so you can get
out there and be a good thing to do this afternoon. Listen.
Fall us for planting, falls for planting. Fall is for planting.
Fall is the best planting season. How many ways? How

(01:02:55):
many times do I need to say it it is.

Speaker 9 (01:02:57):
It is.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
It is because the plants have all winner to establish,
to settle in, get those roots set up and go
in and ready to go when the hot weather hits
next year. So what if we could have the best
planning season of the year and have a really good
deal on plants.

Speaker 9 (01:03:15):
We do.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
It's called RCW Nurseries. Azelas, camellias fifteen percent off, creat myrtles,
thirty percent off, perennials thirty percent off, select roses and
citrus trees forty percent off, metal yard art, concrete yard
art thirty percent off. And then boog and villas. Even
I know we're coming to winter boom villas, aren't You know?

(01:03:36):
They're not a winter flower, but you can protect them,
especially when you get them for fifty percent off. Right
now at r CW Nurseries. They're located at Tomball Parkway,
which is Highway to forty nine and Beltway eight in Houston.
Our CW Nurseries. You need to go by there, and
today would be a good day to do that. Let's

(01:03:57):
go out to Richmond now and we're going to visit
with Allen this morning. Hello, Alan, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:04:04):
Good morning, The question I have. I just finished building
a house on about two acres of land and it's
a very sandy hand and I need I need the
plant grass and I need to know what what do
I need to do to prep that? And what type
of grass would you recommend?

Speaker 4 (01:04:23):
All right, well let's start off. Is this gonna be yeah?
Is this gonna be in a lot of sun? Or
is this gonna be in a somewhat shady area. It's
a lot of sun, a lot of sun. And is
this grass that just to be just to be honest,
you're basically growing to look at. Or is this grass

(01:04:43):
that is going to get a lot of wear and
tear and play and whatnot on.

Speaker 9 (01:04:47):
It just to look at?

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Okay, that's fair. That's what most lawns are for. So
you got a couple of options. I, personally, Lee would
consider a Zoisia out in that area that that I
think that would be a good grass for you. Uh It.
Saint Augustine is the number one grass planet around the

(01:05:12):
Greater Houston area. And there's nothing wrong with Saint Augustine.
It just is a little less drought resistant than st
than Zoysia tends to be. Now that doesn't mean you're
not gonna water zoisier. It just means it's it's a
it's got some underground rhizomes, and it's it's a it's
a tough grass. I like for an area like you're
talking about. I like the variety called palisades. Palisades.

Speaker 12 (01:05:36):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:05:36):
There are many good zoysias, and you don't If you
can't find palisades, just get another one. Tell the person
you're buying grass from you want a Zeisia japonica japonica
type uh in that area. And I think that's going
to probably be the simplest and easiest care for you,
and I think you're gonna be happy with the results.

Speaker 16 (01:06:00):
Okay, Now to prep it though. Right now I got
all weeds and maybe a little bit of wild permuta
here and there.

Speaker 12 (01:06:08):
So what do I need to do to prep that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
You need to today or tomorrow. Spray those weeds that
are perennials especially, and spray every sprague of wild bermuda
you can find with a product to kill it. You
can use a product containing glyphas eight. That was what
used to be We used to call it round up.
Now it's not. Glyphaset is sold in other brand names

(01:06:32):
in the home market. But you sprayed on it, it
goes down and it thoroughly kills it. There are other
things you can use that will kill bermuda, but not
as well.

Speaker 9 (01:06:42):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
And we're going into fall, and when the when the
bermuda slows its growth, those products aren't going to work.
So that's why I said today or tomorrow. Kind of facetious,
but trying to make a point. Do it as soon
as possible, then, uh, whenever, if your if your area
is drought stressed right now, you need to water it first,
and then a few days later spray the gloves said

(01:07:04):
on it. Okay, about two weeks after that, if it
hadn't gotten too cool on us, which I doubt it will,
you you would look any sprigs that come back up.
Do it again. And then the final thing is I
would do it again in the spring, because getting bermuda
out of other grasses is not easy to do, and
so if you can eradicate it before you plant, it's

(01:07:27):
much much better to go that way, and then in
the spring you would be able to do your your planting,
begin doing your planting.

Speaker 8 (01:07:35):
Did spring, Okay, that's the way.

Speaker 16 (01:07:39):
Is that seed or sprigs or what.

Speaker 4 (01:07:44):
It is it is a sod just like Saint Augustine.
Oh okay, yeah, put the squares out there, all right.
And if you want to learn more about it, If
you want to learn more about it, Alan and I
would encourage you to do this, go to a website.
It's called Aggie Turf Aggie Turf and the rest of
the website is dot tamou dot ed U t A

(01:08:07):
m U is in Texas A and M University Aggie
Turf dot tam dot edu. And at the very bottom left,
when you go to the page, you'll see Texas turf grass,
turf grass, weeds and other things you can click on.
Click on Texas turf grasses and there's a whole page
on each turf grass where you see a picture of
it and where you learn about it, what its pros
and cons are. And go look at the Zoisier page

(01:08:29):
and see if that looks like something you'd like.

Speaker 16 (01:08:34):
All right, I appreciate it, all right.

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
Sir, Thank you lot, appreciate that call you take care
all right?

Speaker 9 (01:08:41):
Thank you?

Speaker 4 (01:08:41):
All right, there you go, Yeah, I do like that grass.
Uh night frost Texas three step is a fall winner riser.
It is a barricade which is a weed prevent and
it is a eagle, which is a disease prevent. One, two, three.
You can put them all three on the same day.
Three trips out across the lawn and you're done, watered

(01:09:03):
in with a half inch of water, and you've taken
care of these things. Do not wait to do it.
Do not wait until after their diseases. This is better prevented.
Do not wait until after their weeds. They're better prevented.
And get the fertilizer down while the grass has time
to benefit from it. All three nitro Foss, three step,
winter riser, barricade, eagle, turf funge a side. Where do

(01:09:24):
you get them? Well, you can find night Fross products
at Fisher's Hardware and Laport. You can go to Stanton
Shopping Center and Alvin Arbrogate and tombaal carries night Fross products.
And by the way, I'm going to be there next Saturday.
If you didn't hear me say that already, from twelve
to two. I hope you'll come on out. But gets
you some three step and get going. It's time to
do that. Let's head out now to Fred in Kingwood. Hey, Fred,

(01:09:46):
welcome to garden line.

Speaker 8 (01:09:48):
Good morning, thanks for taking my calls.

Speaker 11 (01:09:49):
Kip.

Speaker 8 (01:09:50):
I've heard you talk and you were just talking about
nitrofoss winteriser, which I think you've said in the past
is very high in potassium number correct. And I've been
using Microlife consistently for five to seven years now, both
in the spring and then in the fall with the

(01:10:12):
Microlife brown patch five to one.

Speaker 4 (01:10:15):
Tree brown patch right soon three does that have.

Speaker 8 (01:10:20):
I'm wondering if the Microlife has the potassium that you
think you get from the microlife sorry from the uh yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:10:28):
The DIF.

Speaker 4 (01:10:30):
Yeah, it does. It's got enough of it in it
for that. And also as you use the Microlife, you're
in and you're out, you're building that soil over time,
and it just it works well. Now, if you were
to do a soil test and your sole test said
you need more potassium, then if you want to do
it organically, I would. I would get a product called

(01:10:52):
kmag or soaplemag that is a boost of potassium and
it's a mind out of the ground product that you
can do. But I'm not going to tell everybody to
go out and do that, because I'm going to say
if a sail test says you need it, then do it.
Don't just do it because but you stay with your
micro life brown Patch.

Speaker 8 (01:11:13):
Yeah, thank you so much, appreciate it.

Speaker 11 (01:11:15):
Bye bye you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
Bet thanks Bred. Time for me to go to break, folks,
I'll be right back. He welcome back, Welcome back to
garden Line. Appreciate having you listening in today. It's always
good to talk to folks that listen to garden Line.
I like meeting folks too that come out to the

(01:11:37):
appearances that I do out here, people that are listeners.
That's always kind of fun. So I'm going to be
at Arburgate next Saturday from twelve noon to two pm.
Twelve to two I'll be out at Arba Gate. It's
always fun to come on ourt Arboragate, and they always
put on a good show out there. I think I
have a lot of giveaways. Beverly has been pulling some
things to be given away as we go through the

(01:11:58):
day out there, so I hope you'll come on out.
I might have some Texas Gardener magazines on hand. I
have my schedules on hand and mainly just Q and
a time. If you want to bring samples and pictures,
that's fine, we can do that. If you just want
to ask questions, we can do that. If you just
want to sit there and chew the fat, we can
do that as well. I thought it's good to get out,
like being out where I am actually getting to eye

(01:12:20):
to eye talk to the people that I talked to
on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Well three sixty tree stabilizers
or a product. It's a new, well fairly new as
far as products go to the market, but it is
an unbelievable new addition to the lawn and garden supply

(01:12:40):
category equipment category, if you will. It is a plastic arm,
a very strong stabilized plastic arm that holds onto a
post and holds on to the tree. You just plant
it and they work so well. They're so easy. You
can just hammer a t post in, attach this to it,
attached to the tree, and you're good to go. Two
things about it, I'll well several things, but one is

(01:13:02):
there not all those wires that are stretched down to
the ground on a steak the trip over to moor
round to do all of that, you just put into
teepost you know, probably what a foot and a half
away from the tree or roughly that distance, and you're
good to go. That's easy. Secondly, it holds the tree loosely.
The strap on it is a soft rubber strap and

(01:13:23):
you can set it tight or loose or whatever. Set
it loose so the tree can move a little bit.
That makes better strength in the trunk. It is a
better way to establish a tree. Three sixty tree stabilizers.
You're going to find them at plants for all seasons.
You're going to find them done at Sienamlts. You're going
to find them at Buchanans Native Plants as well as
up at RCW Nursery and at Arbor Gate and down

(01:13:47):
in Jorges Hidden Gardens down in the Alven area. Easy
to find them. They work. You need to get one
and hold on to it because they're going to last.
Let's set out to pair Land now and talk to Jim. Hey, Jim,
welcome to the garden line.

Speaker 9 (01:14:03):
Good morning. I was wondering with the thought I'm then
a little.

Speaker 12 (01:14:08):
Late this year, and is it too late to put
out some barricade.

Speaker 4 (01:14:16):
No, but do it right away. You know, we get
a little cofront with some rain on it, and those
weeds are going to start popping out of the ground,
and they may pop in just with our irrigation, as
this temperature is cooling down now. But go ahead and
get it done sooner rather than later and you'll be
good to go. Just make sure and watered in with
about a half inch of water third of an inch
to a half inch water to get it down in
the soil surface. All right, Thank you, sir, Yes, sir,

(01:14:40):
thanks for the question. Appreciate that. Always good to get clarification. Hey,
Medina has to Grow six twelve six. It's an outstanding product,
as are all the Medina products. Six twelve six has
got an extra boost to phosphorus. You can use it
in a lot of ways. You can, you know, use
it as a fertilizer for your plants that you have
out there. You can use as a folio spray you wish,

(01:15:00):
and I'll burn your plants. I use it in transplanting.
I will sometimes I'll take a container and just have
a bucket with some Medina has to Grow six to
twelve six mixed in water and I'll set that container
down in the bucket and just let it soak that up.
It wets that root ball, which is really good and
it provides that nutrient right down there at the roots.

(01:15:20):
Where it's needed and then set the plant in the ground.
Another alternative is set the plant in the hole, take
a watering can full of medina. Has to grow six
twelve six plant food and just drench it really good,
fill up with soil, drench it again. I'll typically do
it at planting. I'll do it again a week later,
and a week again, a third time a week after that,

(01:15:41):
so that you got three good soakings with the medina
to get those plants off to a good start so
they hit the ground running. You know, you can find
those medina products everywhere. Our feed stores carry them, or
innevatant garden centers carry them. Certainly, you go to Ace Hardware,
you go to Southwest Fertilizer. It's easy to find medina
products here in the greater Houston area. And it's fall

(01:16:01):
planting seasons, so you definitely need some of that on hand.
Nelson Nursery and Water Garden out there in Katie, Texas,
it's a great place to go visit now. They are
a national leader when it comes to water gardens. You
go to Nelson's, you are going to talk to folks
that know more than most people around the country. Name

(01:16:22):
in that business, How to build a water garden, how
to take care of the water, how to manage a
water garden. If anything, you feel like, well this isn't
working right, you give them a call. They know what
to do about it. That's what they specialize in. But
they're a nursery, a very good nursery as well. Whatever
the season is. Do you want fall color, they're loaded

(01:16:44):
with that. Do you need pumpkins, Oh, they got those
of course. And they even have a little area where
you can just set the kids on a haybell and
take pictures with the pumpkins for your little fall picture
season as well. They got camellias in right now, which
is a good thing. Those are beautiful cool season bloomers.
How about your lens? Does your landscape look good every
month of the year, What about December? In January? Maybe

(01:17:06):
you need a camellia That would be a good one
to add the landscape because they work really well. There
it's all there adding Katie. It's Katie Fort Benroad just
north of I ten. Nelson Nursery and Watergardens Nelsonwatergardens dot com.
Go check them out. Someone asked me the other day,
I get this question all the time, I want to
put out fertilizer, but I also want to put out

(01:17:28):
the azamite. Can I do them at the same time.
The answer is yes. But listen to this. First of all,
azmite is fertilizer, it's micro nutrient fertilizer. But you put
out your fertilizer and your azamite in separate applications. You
can do them one right after the other, and then
water it all in at one time. That works just fine.
You can get as mite all kinds of places too,

(01:17:49):
feed stores, independent gardens, centers, ace hardware stores, you know
the Southwest fertilizer. Of course, Asimite is a product that
provides the nutrients that are needed in very small amounts
that are essential for plant growth. And I always encourage
people get a soil test so you know what your
nutrient situation is. But azimite in general is a good

(01:18:11):
application to put down there on your lawn. You can
also use it in vegetable gardens if you want more
nutrients in the vegetables that you're growing. You don't want
anything to be lacking or whatnot. Well, a forty four
pound bag covers six to twelve thousand square feet. A lawn.
A ten pound bag will cover a thousand square feet
a vegetable garden area. So there you go, Asimite. Go

(01:18:32):
to Asimite Texas dot com and learn more about this
product that's mined out of a soil naturally in Utah.
There one another hour when it always time flies when
you're having fun. Krmit the frog says, I know you've
heard this before. I'm a dad. I tell dad jokes.

(01:18:54):
I tell them over and over again. I'm a dad.
Karmath the frog says, times fun when you're having flies whatever,
stick around if you want to give me a call.
Seven one three two one two. We've got to open
lines right now. Seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. You can be one of the first
ones up if you call pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rickard's.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
Shoes, crazy heresies, gas.

Speaker 13 (01:19:25):
Trim.

Speaker 6 (01:19:26):
You just watch him as Woloss gas.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Us so many good things to supposing quick gassies like gas.

Speaker 5 (01:19:39):
Can you dass back? Agad not a sun glassy gas
The sun bemons out between.

Speaker 9 (01:19:53):
The gasson gas.

Speaker 4 (01:19:57):
Starting. Alrighty, we're back. Welcome back to the garden line.
Good to have you with us. What we're going to
talk about today, Let's talk about fall color. Talk about
fall color. There are a lot of great plants that
just bring color into the cool season. Some are best

(01:20:18):
in fall, some or just take winter cold very well.
I was just checking out Buchanans Native Plants, which is
on eleven Street in the Heights, by the way. They've
got a whole list of fall color plants that they carry.
Their pansies. Of course, everybody knows pansies and biolas. Those
are the main flowers of our cool season gardens around here.

(01:20:40):
But there's other good ones. Stock. Have you ever grown
stock before? It has a really nice little floral fragrance,
very pleasant floral fragrance. It does well a snap dragons
or a good one for fall as well as a
lissome cascades down over the sides of containers really beautifully,
So if you're doing a fall container, you got to
have a listen it. It is also good, by the way,

(01:21:02):
as a border to flower beds and things. It makes
a nice little mounding plant that attracts several beneficial insects,
n astertiams, that's another genoman astershams, petals or booms, or
or edible kind of have a peppery flavor to them.
And then there's colendula. Colendula is also called pot marigold
because it looks sort of like a marigold, but it's

(01:21:23):
a cool seasoned flower that does really well. By the way,
if you go by Buchanans, their holiday clearance is on
right now, thirty percent off all their holiday decorations, the pumpkins,
the moms, the whole nine yards right there at Buchanan
Plants in the Heights on eleven Street by the way,
in the Heights, So go check them out. I was

(01:21:44):
like to stop in Buchanans sign up for the newsletter too.
By the way, it is outstanding newsletter that they have
their bikinnons. We're going to go to Tomball now and
visit with Matt this morning. Hello Matt, Welcome to garden Linet.

Speaker 9 (01:21:58):
How to skip?

Speaker 12 (01:22:00):
I sent you an email.

Speaker 19 (01:22:01):
I'm not sure if it's all that important that you
see the picture, but we're about to move into a
new home that we just built, and it's got it
backs up to two forty nine and there's a concrete
wall that is part of our backyard and we'd like
to plant some shrubs to create a nice tall heads.
So I want to if you had any suggestions on
what would what.

Speaker 9 (01:22:21):
Would be good.

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
Okay, well, you've got a couple of options. There a
wall like that that's a pretty good size. Well, it
looks like it's over six or seven feet in the
tallest places, or is that just an optimist? I think
I think it's eight feet eight feet Okay, good, Well,
so you're gonna need something a little bit taller. There

(01:22:45):
are a number of hollies that do really well for
that kind of situation. And so there they are shrubs,
they're somewhat columnar, they do spread outward some and so
that's just to keep in mind as you share them.
You can kind of keep them a little thinner. That
does really well. There are a number of plants that

(01:23:07):
can form a hedge. There is a Japanese u yew
that gets quite tall and can form a hedge. So
it you know, something gets built right across the fence
from you, it'll help block that. But then there's another
option too, and that would be to put some sort
of a panel up against that fence, like a livestock panel,

(01:23:31):
and plant an evergreen vine on it. We have some
beautiful evergreen vines. There's a Confederate star jasmine, also called
star jasmine. It is a really good one. It's evergreen.
And there's some others too. I could give you more examples,
but that way you would have a very narrow hedge.
You would still block the wall, and in the case

(01:23:52):
of Confederate story, you get a little bit of a
fragrance out of that as well. Okay, cool. You you
could do a mix of the two too, just to
break it up so it's not not monotonous.

Speaker 9 (01:24:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:04):
You could do a few hedges with maybe a sixteen
foot livestock panel in between each one that you would
have the vine on.

Speaker 9 (01:24:12):
So just some different ways to do it, Okay, Yeah,
I could see that that could be really cool. All right,
alrighty okay, I think that's it. I appreciate your help.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:24:26):
Well, good thanks for the call. Look forward to seeing
how that all turns out someday. All righty, well, you're
listening to garden Line our phone number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give me a call.
Let's talk about the things that are of interest to you. Uh,
microlife fertilizers, there's so many different ones right now. The

(01:24:47):
fertilizer of the day for microlife is their brown patch
because that's what we put on our lawns in the fall.
Microlife brown patch brown bag chuck full of all kinds
of beneficial microbes. Say purposefully added sixty three different strains
of beneficial microbes to microlife brown patch. So that creates

(01:25:09):
an environment that's very hostile toward diseases. When you bring
in good microbes, they're good because they help by bag
bad microbes. That's kind of how that works. This is
the time also for fall planting. And when you are
doing fall planting, you can mix microlife fertilizer in the
planting hole if you want. Normally I say don't put
fertilizer in the planting hole. Salt based fertilizers can burn

(01:25:32):
plant roots. Microlife you can mix a little in there.
You put it on the surface too. As you go forward.
You can drench these plants in as you water them
with something like the Ocean Harvest. That's a blue label product.
Ocean Harvest blue label. It's a fish based product. You
mix it in water. I would just say, put it
on with a watering can and get those plants off

(01:25:53):
to the best start that you can with these quality
products that are available from microlife. That is what they
are designed to do from the beginning. If you if
you've had struggles with plants before, often the struggle is
due to it was put into the ground into unprepared soil.

(01:26:15):
The way I like to put it. If you enjoy
Peter Piper picked a peck peck of pickle peppers, you
will like to know that you don't PLoP an unprepared
You don't pop a poor ol plant and an unprepared plot,
because that plant isn't going to establish as well you
want to. You want to amend the soil, create a
nice soil blend. And I don't mean throw compost in

(01:26:37):
the planting hole. You take a clay hole, you throw
compost and it's too a plant on it. It is
not going to do well. In fact, it'll become an
underground bathtub that holds water and then that organic matter
decomposes without oxygen and it gets pretty nasty done in there.
Amend the whole area and then plant your plant. Then
dig the hole, plant the plant. After you've amended the air.

(01:27:00):
That is the best way to go about it. But
get your plants off to a good start. Take care
of the soil first. Let's go out to Stafford now
and we're going to visit with Elena. Hello, Elena, welcome
to guard Line.

Speaker 13 (01:27:14):
How are you.

Speaker 4 (01:27:16):
I'm doing great?

Speaker 11 (01:27:17):
Thank you.

Speaker 20 (01:27:20):
I was calling because I have poison ivy in my
flower beds in front of my house. And I also
have a real ground cover. It's got like little blue
flowers on it that I don't like, and I'd love
to get rid of it. But I have roast bushes
mixed in and all that too, So I gotta watch

(01:27:42):
my rose bushes that I want to kill.

Speaker 21 (01:27:45):
The poison ivy and the ground cover.

Speaker 12 (01:27:49):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:27:50):
And the groundcover is not in your lawn. It's in
the flower bed.

Speaker 20 (01:27:53):
Right, my own cover.

Speaker 21 (01:28:02):
It's that like little first flowers on it that I
don't like, watch but I want to kill.

Speaker 4 (01:28:17):
Do you have that, Elena? Do you have a radio
going in the background? Could you turn that off?

Speaker 20 (01:28:28):
Turned to write out?

Speaker 7 (01:28:29):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:28:31):
Yes, all right, good. So here's what you're gonna do.
If you go to my website gardening with skip dot com,
there's a little device called a weed wiper that you
can make yourself. It's really easy to make, and it
puts sponges on it, and then you get a product
that contrains the ingredient, trichlo peer. And if you go

(01:28:53):
to my website, there's two things you need to look at.
One is the how to build skips weed wiper, and
the second thing on the website is called herbicides to
use on Skip's weed wiper. And it'll tell you these
you don't have to write down. Now, you know what
I'm saying. But triclop here is the ingredient you use
for poison ivy and other brushy weeds. And you put

(01:29:15):
it on the sponges of the weed wiper you build,
and you can reach right under the roses and squeeze
it onto the leaves of the poison ivy and it
won't get on your roses because it'll kill roses if
you get it on them. But with a weed wiper,
you can do this very carefully, and you can go
in there and you're gonna have to do it a
few times because you're not gonna get it all the

(01:29:36):
first time, but it will get rid of that poison ivy. Now,
the blue flowered vine. I don't know which one that
would be that you have, But you're not going to
use weed wiper on a vine that's just a groundcover,
because I mean, you know that is going to be
harder to control. You can go in there and pull
the vine out and then multch the area very well

(01:29:58):
with a good thick and it probably will keep it out.
If it's a perennial vine, it'll still come through. But
when it does, use the weed wiper on it as well,
and you can control it without hurting your rose.

Speaker 7 (01:30:13):
Okay.

Speaker 20 (01:30:14):
Also, I noticed that my the poison ivy is wrapped
around my Stexas jasmine tree. It's kind of around the base.
It's wrapped itself around it, And I don't want to
kill my Kexsi.

Speaker 4 (01:30:30):
Okay, what you can do for that, you can. But
if it's a thicker poison ivy vine, sounds like this
vine is not real real thin, thin, skinny. It sounds
it's a little bigger if it's wrapped around the tree.
Is that correct?

Speaker 9 (01:30:46):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:30:48):
Okay, So go to the bottom and take a little
saw and cut off that poison ivy without cutting through
your tree. Just cut through the poison ivy vine and
get it out of the way. And then immediately when
you make the cut, within the hour, you want to
take the same product you're putting on the weed wiper,
the tricle peer, and you're gonna dab it straight out

(01:31:09):
of the bottle right onto that cut. You can use
a little one of those foam brushes you get it
a paint store for painting the little tiny skinny ones.
You can just dab it right on that fresh cut
and it will go in there and it will kill
that poison ivy. So that will also work. It's just
a different application method for that situation.

Speaker 20 (01:31:29):
All right, Well, that sounds great.

Speaker 12 (01:31:31):
I have to try that.

Speaker 20 (01:31:32):
I said, I am terribly alert and that little blue
groundcover is everywhere and I pull it out, but it
keeps coming back.

Speaker 4 (01:31:46):
Well, in that case, let's do this. I'm gonna put
you on hold as we go away here. Don't don't
hang up yet. My producer's gonna give you an email,
and I want you to take some close up pictures
of that groundcover. Make sure before you send the pictures
they're in good sharp focus as close as you can get.
Take some pictures and send them to me and let
me look at what it is. I may change my
suggestion a little bit, but thank you, Elene. I do

(01:32:08):
appreciate you calling today. You know, the if I taken
my break for this first segment, I don't think I
have a believe we're going over. Let's go ahead and
take our break right now and I'll be back alrighty,
a little sleep at the wheel. You haven't figured it
out already. I'm a fan of western swaying, among other

(01:32:28):
types of music. Listen to Guardline very long. You'll get
some weird kinds of music too. Hey, the folks at
Perscapes they know how to create the most beautiful landscape
that you possibly could have. You know, I'm a plant collector.
I like plants, but I'm not a designer. So like
I like to say, those of us who are plant collectors,
our landscapes look like a bomb went off and a

(01:32:49):
garden center and everything rooted where it landed. It's a
little harsh, but you get the idea. Peerscapes can create
beautiful designs and maybe you don't want the whole landscape done.
Oh they can do that. You can have them come
in and do things like fix a poorly drained area.
You can have them come out and check your irrigation system,
make sure things are working right, do the repair that's

(01:33:10):
needed to make sure you're getting a nice even watering
all through your yard. You can them come out and
do landscape lighting, do hard scapes. They do it all.
If you'll just go to the website, you'll see what
they do Piercescapes dot Com. And then you're gonna want
to call them at two eight one three seven oh
fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty.

(01:33:31):
Those of you up in the tombol are you got
a great feed store right out there on the west
side of town. It's called D and D Feed. It's
three miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine
to twenty in Tomball. This has been around since what
nineteen eighty nine, D and D when it first opened up,
and it's just a great place. They carry all the
products you need to have success with your lawn and garden.

(01:33:51):
Of course, they are feed stores. They got quality feeds.
They also have quality feeds for your pats, you know,
high end feed lines like Starpro or Diamond or Victor
or Origin uh. And then when it comes to your
lawn and garden. We're talking about fertilizer products from companies
like Nitrofoss and Microlife and Nelson and Medina. We're talking
about heirloom soils products to create the beautiful soil conditions

(01:34:16):
to have success. You know, brown stuff before green stuff.
Just stop in at D and D Feed again. They're
on twenty nine, twenty three miles west of two forty
nine outside Tomboal two eight one three five one seventy
one forty four two eight one three five one seven
to one, four to four. I was checking out plants

(01:34:37):
for all seasons the other day. I always like to
go by there. You know, the folks at Plants for
all seasons, they are experts at plants. They've lived here,
they've gardened here, they've run the shop there since nineteen
seventy three. You think they you learn a little bit
when you live plants day in and day out for
that long, and that's what you get. That's the kind

(01:34:58):
of information and service and I expertise that you've come
to expect from them. They are true lawn and garden experts.
Now you can bring them a picture, you can bring
them a sample. They'll take time. Maybe you want to
have a beautiful landscape this fall, but you don't know
how to design, you don't know how to do color.
You don't know which plants would be the best. We'll
talk to them. Maybe you're gonna do a beautiful series

(01:35:19):
of containers for color on your patio. They've got the containers.
They'll take you around, they'll show you the plants that
go well together. They'll make some suggestions for you, or
if you want, they'll plant and put together a container
for you. You can just buy the whole thing ready
to go if you're want to go that route. Plants
for All Seasons two eight, one, three, seven, six, one

(01:35:42):
six four six, or the website Plants for All Seasons
dot com. They're located just north of Lueta on f
on Farm to Market to forty nine, which is Tombol Parkway.
So if you're heading up toward Tombaal exit Luetta Crossover,
Luetta and they're right there. There you go. We're going
to go to Kingwood Down and talk to Fred. Hello Fred,

(01:36:02):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:36:04):
Good morning again, Skip. I appreciate you taking my call.
I have before I ask my question, I have two
accolades I'd like to pass on to you and maybe
a little bit of story fashion. Randy Lemon for twenty
twenty five years hooked me on garden line and well

(01:36:25):
loved him as we know, but you skip, you ruled
me in. That makes sense to say that.

Speaker 4 (01:36:35):
Thank you, right.

Speaker 8 (01:36:37):
I appreciate everything you do every every weekend. My question,
My question is, yeah, Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden.
As you know, we're bought out a year or so
ago by a corporate entity. I think it's a private
equity company, but it's still a corporate entity. And I've

(01:37:00):
noticed some meaningful customer related changes that have occurred over
the past year or so, and I'm wondering if if
you've had a chance to talk with the new owners
and find out what's going on and give that feedback
to us. I could give you some feedback now or

(01:37:20):
else the air if you prefer.

Speaker 4 (01:37:22):
Well, I'm going I'm not going to do that on
their I have I have not noticed that there, but
I hear what you're saying that actually the same folks
that owned it, the warrants, they're still involved in the
operations there of it. So I'm not sure what your experienced,
but I'll tell you this, If you go and talk
to the managers there, they will they will care and

(01:37:44):
they will listen to what you're saying. If you would
like to email me something, that's fine. I'm not gonna,
like I said, I'm not going to do that on
the air, right, but I'd be happy to hear what
you have to say. I'll tell you what I'll do.
I'll put you on hold and my producer can give
you an email if you want to do that. But
I would encourage you to go into them because Denise,
Bernice excuse me, Bernice Warren, she is still involved in

(01:38:08):
the operations of it. And Michael still managing there at
the store. He is very good about that too, And
I think they would appreciate hearing what your experiences are.
And I just believe they'll take care of that.

Speaker 8 (01:38:22):
But yeah, I would like so, I'll I'll get that
if you can put me on holding, get me back
to Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:38:31):
All right, My producer will get that to you. You bet, Yeah,
I do. I do know. They're active and actively involved
in anybody can have an experience par con at a
place you never I mean, you know, you never know
for whatever reason. But I still believe that is a
great place to go visit and to purchase your stuff.

(01:38:51):
Southwest Fertilizer down south of the southwest part of the
town on Bisonet and Renwick. Right there in the corner
and Renwick, they carry all the products that you're gonna need.
And it does matter that you go to a place
that a has the expertise to help you, so you
don't go home with a product that is wasted. You know,

(01:39:12):
you go into some big box store and you have
somebody come wait on you that doesn't know anything about plants.
Maybe they were working in something not even related to
the green industry before they got hurt on there, and
then they go find a bottle of something that has
a dead looking bug on it and they go, this works. Well,
that's not how you go about it. You go where
people know what they're talking about. And that's the kind

(01:39:35):
of sponsors we have here in Southwest Fertilizer is a
prime example of that corner of Bisonet and Renwick, Southwest Houston.
You go there, you ask your question, you bring them
a picture, you bring them a sample. They send you
home with what you need. You need quality tools, you
need a lawn repair, machinery repair service. You need, whatever seeds,
whatever you need, They've got it at Southwest Fertilizer. Just

(01:39:57):
go visit them and check it out if you want
to give them a call. Fir seven three six sixty
six one seven four. I'll be right back. Thank you
to have you back here on the Garden Line. Looking
forward to helping you have success with your garden and landscape.
Give us a call, let us help you do that.
We're going to start off by going out to spring

(01:40:20):
this hour and talking to David. Hello, David, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:40:24):
Good morning, skit.

Speaker 22 (01:40:26):
I send you some pictures of a highbiscus. Uh, three pictures,
It's three. I took them on the pictures of three
different days there. But I sprayed with horticultural oil and uh,
the one with the yellow leaves, it got worse. It
most probably lost half the leaves on it.

Speaker 9 (01:40:48):
Uh.

Speaker 22 (01:40:50):
I sprayed it early in the morning and uh it
did get hot that day. Is that what caused all
the leaves to fall off?

Speaker 7 (01:41:00):
Or should not?

Speaker 22 (01:41:03):
High biscus?

Speaker 4 (01:41:06):
I'm looking, I'm looking. I saw the pictures that looked
it was a beautiful looking hibiscus. I'm trying to find
now great, Uh yeah, but that's yeah, horticultural oil hot
summer day, Well, on hot summer day, horticultural oil can

(01:41:30):
burn burn plants. But you shouldn't see just the old
leaves turning yellow. That looks more like a some moisture
fluctuation change and got a little dry and then got
wet or uh something. The oil, if it was going
to burn, it would burn, especially the tender new growth too.
And so I don't think that was the horticultural oil

(01:41:51):
result that you had. From a distance like that, I'm
just seeing it's the older leaves that are turning yellow,
and that's not unusual. You know a lot of plants
do that. You got Apothus ivy in the house. You
let it get a little dry, and then you water
it and it picks up. But all the old leaves
turn yellow and fall off. It just kind of what
they do.

Speaker 9 (01:42:08):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:42:09):
From a distance like that, that is all I see.
So but I don't think it's a horticulture oil. I
think you're good to go. Just watch when you're going
to be. We haven't had the temperatures that worry me most,
but when we get in summer and you got you know,
mid to upper nineties, and it is you spray in
the oil on a hot day, that's when we can
run into some of those problems. I think it'll perk

(01:42:30):
back up, all right.

Speaker 22 (01:42:33):
I'm going to go back to Randy's old method there.
Just to spray it with a water hose. That's what
he all said to do there. Just spray it real
hard with a water hose there. And I used to
do that twice a week and that worked pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:42:47):
Well, what do you spring it for?

Speaker 9 (01:42:52):
Bugs?

Speaker 22 (01:42:52):
I think they're merely bugs? Or they bite When I
pull a budge off there, they get in my arms
and they bite like crazy. So some kind of bug
that's biting me too.

Speaker 4 (01:43:03):
That's that is weird. If you can at all capture
some of those bugs and get a picture of them,
what I usually do, Glenn, is if you'll capture them,
get them in a jar or bag, seeing them in
the freezer for ten minutes, and then pull them out
and they won't run away. You can take a good
close picture of them like that. Or let's see, you

(01:43:25):
were in League City, so you're down south in Spring
the Oh you're in Spring Okay, I'm going to be
at Arborgate next Saturday, this coming Saturday from twelve to two.
If you could capture some, get them in a bag
and bring those in because mealy bugs don't bite. And
I don't know what you're seeing, but I'd like to

(01:43:46):
see those bugs. Maybe we could get to the bottom
of it that way.

Speaker 22 (01:43:50):
Okay, all right, one more question?

Speaker 4 (01:43:54):
Yeah, can you hear me?

Speaker 9 (01:43:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 22 (01:43:56):
Last time I talked to you, he had a comedy
for getting rid of Bermuda Saint Augustine.

Speaker 13 (01:44:01):
You sent it to me, but I lost it.

Speaker 22 (01:44:03):
Could you send that to me again?

Speaker 7 (01:44:04):
Please?

Speaker 13 (01:44:05):
I'm ready to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:06):
Yes. Didn't you just email me about that yesterday?

Speaker 22 (01:44:12):
Yes, yesterday? Yeah, but I didn't get her.

Speaker 4 (01:44:14):
Good. Well, I marked the I just have been busy.
I marked the email and I will respond to that
and provide you the remedy. You know it's expensive, right,
but but I can ye. All right, I appreciate it,
all right, David, thanks the call. MM love by Heirloom Soils.

(01:44:39):
What a great place you go to airlom Soils out
in Porter. You can pick it up by the bulk there,
put it in your truck, put it in your trailer
if you don't have a truck. Or trailer. Well, you
got two things you can do. You can call them
and you can have them deliver it in bulk to
your driveway, or you can call them and have them
bring supersacks out. It's a three super sacked minimum. Each

(01:44:59):
super by the way, is a qbicyard of whatever products
you're needing. Set it right there in your driveway. It
may be their leach mole compost, it may be their
veggie and herb mix. It may be their rows and
other bloomers blends. Lots of good products from heirloom soil.
Second thing you can do is just go to a
garden center somewhere and a feedstore, hardware stores. I mean,

(01:45:21):
there's lots of places. Heirloom soil products can be found
by the bag, Southwest fertilizer cation by the bag. You
can go out there, you get those bags, bring them
home and do what you need to do. Whether it's
a potting soil, whether it is a potting mix for
cacti and succulence, or whether it's one of these great
products for garden beds like the veggie Nerb or the

(01:45:42):
rosemex or one of the many other products that they
have heirloomsoils dot Com. That's what you need to remember.
Heirloomsoils dot Com. Go check them out. We're going to
head out now to talk to Glenn in League City.
Hey Glenn, welcome to garden Line SKIP.

Speaker 7 (01:46:00):
Thank you.

Speaker 23 (01:46:01):
I set some pictures of weeds that are invading my lawn.
I have Saint Augustine and it usually starts towards the
latter part of summer and it goes into the fall,
and it's been every year.

Speaker 16 (01:46:18):
And I religiously follow your guide for long care and
insect care, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:46:29):
Okay. The first weed is a weed that is called lesbidisa,
and Lesbidisa is a very tough weed. It happens to
be a tap rated weed. So when you see a
little spreading lesbi disa plant, you can reach down and
grab it where it comes out of the ground and
pull that whole thing up. And if the soil is moist,

(01:46:50):
it's not that hard to do, and at this time
of the year that may be your best approach to
do it. You can also spray them, but it takes
a pretty part and broad leaf weed control product to
kill les mediza, and so you know if it were
mine and it was kind of here and there, I
just handpull them and do it that way. If not

(01:47:12):
you can you can get a product, but some of
those are kind of hard on Saint Augustine. And I
see your grass is struggling a little bit in that
picture with the less mediza. Anyway, it looks like you
got a little bit of takeof patch maybe active in there,
So I would I would try to avoid any insult
to injury with a spray at this point in time

(01:47:33):
until you get that grass back in top shape. The
other one is bermuda grass. Bermuda grass gets in Saint
Augustine and it's very difficult to control. The previous caller
was asking, there's their products that professional landscapers can get
a hold of that will kill bermuda out of Saint Augustine.
It's a regiment. A lot of those guys don't even
know about it, but it can be done. Otherwise you

(01:47:55):
end up living with the two. If you mow high
and water regularly, you have Saint Augustine a little bit
of an edge. If you mow low and let it
get droughty at times, it gives bermuda a little bit
of an edge, and the sun bermuda may have an edge,
and the shade Saint Augustine has an edge, and so
you end up with this coexistence where you just either

(01:48:15):
put up with the blend or you do one of
two things. You have somebody come in and go through
the regimen to try to get the bermuda out of there,
or you kill out entire areas of everything and then
reside with the Saint Augustine once you have the bermuda
thoroughly removed.

Speaker 16 (01:48:32):
Okay, all right, okay, third.

Speaker 4 (01:48:35):
Weats, third wets one of them. Two Yeah, No, there's
a there's one that's got little thorns on the stems
and when you touch the leaves they fold up. That
That one is another very woody broadleaf weed. You can
control it with products, but they're pretty stout and they're
kind of hard on Saint Augustine. But you can do that.

(01:48:57):
And so I don't know. In my yard, I probably
would try to pull all those runners up and lay
them on top of the ground, slide something underneath them, uh,
you know, like a piece of cardboard or whatever, and
then just spray that runner without getting it on your grass, uh,
and then and then pull that back out and and
try to do it that way, and then there's a

(01:49:17):
mallow weed in there. That are any broad leafe we
control product will do, I would say, right now, the
thing is to get that lawn healthy. That's the first thing.
Go to my website, look at the look at take
all root Rot, and that the publications I put on
about take all root Rot. On my schedule, it tells
you when to control take all root Rot, and that
is October and November. Uh, and so read all that

(01:49:38):
up and let's work on the lawn and uh, as
much as you can handpull the weeds, do that. Otherwise
we want to get a good dnse lawn and then
then we can tackle the weed problems when the lawn's
not too weak. I'm gonna have to run.

Speaker 16 (01:49:53):
I'm sorry, go ahead, Yeah, no, go ahead?

Speaker 12 (01:49:58):
Cake is it called cake all root Rot?

Speaker 4 (01:50:02):
Correct? That's a look at schedule for October November take
all root Right. Well, I was talking about getting the
lawn healthy with controlling the disease and you know, proper
watering and fertilizing and whatnot. I'm not sure what else. Hey,

(01:50:26):
I've got to run. Hang on if you want to
hold on a minute, I'll try to. I'll try to
come back to you, but I'm on a heard break.
I'll be right back, folks. All right, I need a
caller to tell me who that is singing. That would
be an easy welcome back to the guard Line. Hey,
if you've never seen a movie, it's an old movie.
Well old you know. It's not Humphrey Bogarto. It's it's

(01:50:49):
been out a long time ago. It's called The Doctor,
and it stars William Hurt and some other good, good
folks in it. It's a very interesting movie. I thought
it was really good. Anyway, the the other doctor and
the practice kind of teased him because he was a
little bit he had issues. Anyway, teased him about being
the witch doctor by singing that song to him. Anyway,

(01:51:09):
William Hurt and the Doctor, good movie. All right, there
you go. See another service we offer on Guardenline recommending movies.
That's a dangerous thing.

Speaker 9 (01:51:18):
By the way.

Speaker 4 (01:51:19):
Usually when people tell me a movie is great, I
watch it and I'm going, yeah, not really, and when
I and vice versa. So there you go. I just
took a chance. I think you'll like it. You're listening
to garden Line. Our phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four Nitropos Texas three step.
You know what, I talked to a lot of folks

(01:51:40):
that have weeds in their lawn and other issues and things,
and it always goes back to the same thing. Mow water, fertilized,
take care of the lawn, make it denser, denser, denser, denser,
and most weeds will be taken care of by that.
So if you take the Nitropos three step, this is
the final fertilization of the year. It's the fall special winter,
a riser by nitropos. You put it down now, and

(01:52:02):
then you put down the barricade, which is for stopping
weed seeds from becoming weed plants this fall, which they're
about to start doing they are, so don't delay. And
then the third step is an eagle turf fungicide which
creates big which goes in the plant to prevent the
brown patches, big brown circles that happen in the fall.
You've seen those things. When you get a big bronz circle,

(01:52:23):
that means the leaves got rotted off the runner by
the disease. Brown patch also called large patch. Now, so
when that happens what happens The sunlight hits a soil
and here comes weeds. So you need to create density
in your lawn. That's a number one goal through the year,
and it starts right now too. From this point in time,

(01:52:44):
fall fertilization, fall applications of the three step. That's what
we're doing to help shut these things down and grow
yourself out of weed problems by building a dense, healthy turf.
That's the best way to go about it. Night Fast
Texas three step. You're to find it a lot of places.
D and D Feed and Tombol they carry night Foss products.
Fisher's Hardware and mop Bellevue and Lake Hardware and Ankleton

(01:53:07):
are just a few of many places where you can
find night Foss products around the greater Houston area. So, yeah,
on weeds, you know I talk about, well, spray this
on it, put that on it, stop that. You know,
those are all fine, that's all important and stuff, but
you don't want to live on a pesticide treadmill is

(01:53:28):
the way of dealing with problems. When the patient is
the problem. The patient is your lawn. The lawn is thin,
it's not healthy. So the way to have a healthy
lawn is not just constantly fighting weeds chemically. You do
that when you need to, and you often do have
situations where that's warranted, for sure, But you grow a

(01:53:49):
healthy lawn, You grow a dense, healthy lawn.

Speaker 10 (01:53:53):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:53:53):
Organic gardening is built around the soil. It's built around
creating strong, healthy plants. That that is the bottom of
organic gardening. It's not organic chemicals. It's growing, getting good
soil and growing healthy plants. And if you're not an
organic gardener, you still should want to have good, healthy
soil and grow healthy plants. That's the first step, not

(01:54:16):
quote killing it with something whatever else is going on
out there. I hope that's clear. I hope you understand
what I am saying. What I'm not saying is I
say that, all right, wild Bird's Unlimited. There is a
deal that ends today, So you need to hear this.
Their fall feeder swap ends today. In the fall feeder swap,

(01:54:38):
you haul them any old feeder in I don't care
what condition it's in. You take it to them. They'll
give you a nice discount on a brand new Wildbird's
Unlimited feeder. And that's a great deal. You don't commind
a better deal. And this only happens right now, it
ends today. Okay, find your local Wildbird's Unlimited store. There's
one in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. There's one in Cypress

(01:55:00):
Barker Cypress. There's one in Houston on bel Air. There's
one in Pairland on Broadway, one in clear Lake on
El Dorado, another one in Houston on Memorial Drive. WBU
dot com forward Slash Houston. That's where you find all
of your wild Birds Unlimited stores. And they are stocked

(01:55:20):
up and ready to go for this fall and winter
feeding season. And they got a lot of good stuff
in there. You just need to go and just talk
to them, ask them questions, you know, say, what would
attract this bird in or you know what, what's this
kind of feeder for. I mean, they're so knowledgeable and
they're so helpful, and it is a lot of fun
to learn all that. And the best place to learn
about birds is that a wild Bird's Unlimited Store. I

(01:55:44):
hope you'll take advantage of that opportunity. We are coming
close here to the end of this little segment. I
do want to remind you that I'm going to be
at arbor Gate arbor Gate on Saturday. This coming Saturday,
which happens to be October eleventh, excuse me, October twelfth, eighteenth.
Good night. Next Saturday is October eighteenth. There we go,

(01:56:07):
and I'm gonna be answering gardening questions. I'll be there
from twelfth to two. Now, it's always fun to go
to Arburgate, so come on out, take advantage of it.
See all of the plants and the products, and blame
for the yard, and really nice gifts in the gift shops.
It's just it's a good time to be out there.
And I promise you this. When you go to Arburgate,
people that come up to you, they're gonna come out.

(01:56:28):
They're going to ask you how they can help you,
and then they're gonna take you and help you. They're
not going to point across the nursery and go, well,
look in that green stuff. Maybe there's one over there.
I don't know, we used to have one. They're gonna
walk you to it and they're going to show you.
And if you have questions, they can be You think
they're silly questions, Well they don't look at them that way.

(01:56:48):
They patiently answer your question because they've heard them all
many times. They're professional. That's how they do it. Come
on out and see me there at Arburgate. Let's make
sure you get your questions answered. Bring me samples, bring
me pictures. We'll go through all that. We'll just talk.
I'll probably spend a little bit of time just kind
of visiting about some things that I think are important

(01:57:10):
this time of year for you to know. So I
do promise you a good time. It will be a
good time. Arburgate Garden Center. It's on the it's west
of Tumbull on twenty nine, twenty the date October eighteenth,
the time twelve to two.

Speaker 7 (01:57:25):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (01:57:27):
Let's get us a cup of coffee. We'll be back
and keep this going.

Speaker 1 (01:57:41):
Welcome to kt RH Garden Line with Scamp Ricker's.

Speaker 3 (01:57:47):
Crazy Just watch as world us so many sept Sandmon.

Speaker 4 (01:58:22):
Hey, welcome to guard line. Guess what we got an
hour left today? So if you've got a gardening question,
that'd be a good time. It's to call seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. We're glad
to help you with that.

Speaker 12 (01:58:36):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:58:36):
If you have not had your trees looked out in
the last couple of years, you really need to have
somebody look at them. Somebody knows what they're talking about.

Speaker 24 (01:58:43):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:58:44):
Taking care of trees is important for several reason. Number one,
there is literally a liability risk of trees that break
and fall and do things. There's a loss of property
damage and things like that. But there's also the beauty
and value of a tree. A tree is the single
most important a valuable plant in your landscape. Treed shade,

(01:59:04):
they provide a beautiful shade. They provide beauty for the home.
They do so many things, a cooling effects of trees,
and just you know, you don't want it takes a
while to have a big, beautiful tree, and you don't
want it to not be taken care of. Proper pruning
from the time it's planted all the way the time
you know it goes away someday, which is hopefully many

(01:59:26):
many decades down the line before that would happen, is important.
And affordable tree service. Martin Spoonmore's company, they can do this.
They'll come out. He's doing is he's booking up his
schedule for dormancy's and pruning right now, and you need
to call him get on the schedule so that you
do get your trees looked at it. He'll take a
look at him and make an assessment. We'll talk about

(01:59:47):
what needs to be done. Any pruning that's needed, he'll do.
And if he prunes a tree, by the way, you
get a free deep root feeding on that tree that
he pruned. And so that's another nice extra added bonus there.
You can call Martin at seven one three six nine
nine two six six three seven to one three six
nine nine two six six three. If you want to

(02:00:08):
learn more about the services they offer at Affordable Tree Service,
you can go to the website aff Tree Service dot com.
Aff tree Service dot com.

Speaker 10 (02:00:20):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:00:20):
Yes, trees are important. And by the way, if you're
gonna plant a tree, let's talk. Let's talk about the trees.
Get some good advice on the best trees to plant
in your area. And because you're looking at a long
term investment, you know, we have trees that are not
good long term trees. I call them trash trees. That's

(02:00:41):
a little harsh. But I also call them woody weeds sometime.
But and that's also harsh. But it's almost true. It's
close to true. In fact, no, it is true. Uh, hackberries,
you know, I know their native I know they're growing
out there, but that is not a great yard tree.
It's got a lot of issues. A lot of things
can happen to hackberries. The wood strength and everything is

(02:01:03):
not always great, especially as it gets decay in them.
Another one, and I'm not a fan of mulberries. Mulberries.
I know they produce fruit, and if you want to
grow one for fruit, that's fine, but typically the birds
eat the fruit, they poop the seeds everywhere, and mulberries
become a woody weed. That's an issue with them. I'm
not a fan silver maple. We've got some maples that

(02:01:26):
are decent maples for our area, but silver leaf maple
is not one of them. It has issues. And I'm
not going to go into all the issues on each
of these trees. I'm just telling you those are trees
I wouldn't choose. But there's some great trees that I
would choose, Some beautiful elms, some beautiful oaks, many many
beautiful types of oaks. There's flowering trees that would be

(02:01:48):
really good to include in a landscape. And from the
time you plant that tree, first of all, pick the
right tree, and then plant it right and enjoy the
benefits for years and years to come. When you pick
the wrong tree, about the time that tree should be
looking good, you're taking it out. That's what I'm talking about.
I remember years ago they used to put Arizona ash

(02:02:09):
trees in landscapes all over the place. It was a
cheap tree to put in cheap developments, and it happened,
and about thirty years after they planted them, they ended
up becoming hat racks as people had to chop them
off with chainsaws, and they were splitting, they were falling apart,
and right then when they should have had a beautiful
thirty year old oak or nice tree of another type,

(02:02:33):
they were taking those darned things out because they should
never been planted in the first place. So we don't
see Arizona ash much anymore, thank goodness, but we do
see others. So planet quality tree, it's a long term investment.
Let's go out to Paarland and talk to Donnie. Now, Hey, Donnie,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:02:54):
Thanks Skip.

Speaker 12 (02:02:56):
Yeah, I was just calling this morning to see if
you knew of a place where I could donate a tree.
I have like a three gallon tycamore tree that I
actually accidentally grew pretty well, and I don't have a
nice of planet, so.

Speaker 4 (02:03:15):
Okay, I don't off the top of my head. But
you know, as you're saying that, I think about, uh,
you know, things like school yards. Uh, and I think about,
let's see what will be some other good good examples.
You know, if you look at nonprofit organizations and whatnot,
you know, if they have a property, things they're they're

(02:03:36):
they're pinching every penny trying to make things go as
far as they can. So that might be a place
to provide something like that, just an idea. I have
neighbors and others that would like to have that tree.
You know, every year we do the Arbor Arbor Day
types of tree plantings throughout the region, and uh, those

(02:03:58):
times are when we're putting a lot of it and
kinds of trees out and getting them established. But parks
and uh you know, uh, I don't, but the Houston
Urban Forestry Council does a massive tree planting uh in

(02:04:19):
the spring each year. They may do that in the fall.
I don't know, I can't. I've forgotten. I used to
used to be part of that and now that dates
are escaping me. But that would be a group that
you might, you know, talk to about things. They bring
in companies and everything, and they go out and just
plant a bunch of trees. But I think that I
gave it would be a good place to start.

Speaker 13 (02:04:42):
Okay, well, I appreciate it, sir.

Speaker 4 (02:04:44):
All right, thanks Donny, Thanks thanks for calling. Yes, sir,
thank you appreciate you asking uh Nelson plant foods, plant
food of the season. Actually they got two. I'm gonna
talk about two. One is carbalow. That's for your lawn.
That feeds the lawn the perfect blend of nutrients for
the fall. Go in into fall, go in strong, be

(02:05:05):
winter hardy, come out strong. That's carbelode purple bag. It
also contains a pre emergent herbicide. And this is the
one time of year when the time to put on
a herbicide and the time to put on a fertilizer overlap.
A pre emergent fertilizer overlap. And that's what carboloid is.
And so if you're going to get benefit from that,

(02:05:26):
you got to do it now. Don't wait until weed sprout.
It's too late. You got to do it now. Get
the carbolod down watered in. It'll move the nutrients and
the weed prevention into the soil surface and do that
second product from Nelson is Genesis. Genesis is made for transplanting.
You mix Genesis into the soil or potting media that

(02:05:48):
you're going to put a plant in. So, if you're
going to grow a big container of flowering vegetable or
flowering vegetable i'lly nice flowers or vegetables for fall, you
mix Genesis into that potting mix that you're planting those in.
If you're going to put a rose bush in or
a tree in, you mix it into the soil that
you're going to plant that plant into and it works.

(02:06:09):
The folks at Nelson have created this Genesis blend, a
very nice organic blend with micro riza back here in
fungi that all help out with that soul microbiome. And
you're going to find it by the jars and a
lot of garden centers around the Greater Houston area. Let's
take a little break right now and we'll come back
with your calls at seven one three, two, one two

(02:06:29):
five eight seven four. You got to throw a little
creepy floor welcome back to the garden line. Hey, it's
good to have you with us. Uh, have you been
to jrae Is Hidden Gardens. It's down south of Houston.
For those of you down south, it's your hometown garden center.
It is down between Alvin and Santa Fe. If you're

(02:06:51):
in Alvin heading towards Santa Fe, it's on the right
down a street called Elizabeth Street down that direction and
jraei Is. He's really good at bringing in some quality
woody ornamentals, trees and shrubs and fruit trees and things
like that. He always has fruit trees available there. He's
always got the other things you need, you know, herbs

(02:07:12):
and vegetables in their seasons and things. It's a good
place to go. H He is still socked up with
a lot of those things. And if you just swing
by there, I think you'll enjoy it. He's open Tuesday
through Friday from nine to three and Saturday and Sunday.
That would be today from eight to four, and it's
Elizabeth Street and Alvin. If you want to give him

(02:07:33):
a call seven to one, three six, three two five
two nine oh seven one three six three two five
two nine oh. Now, by the way, Jorge carries the
three sixty tree stabilizer, So you're going to plant a tree.
First of all, you can provide you the tree. He
can come out and plant the tree for you if
you want to do that.

Speaker 13 (02:07:52):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:07:52):
And then he's got that tree stabilizer. It's very important
for taking care of those and making sure your tree
gets off to a very very good start. That is important.
Also when you're at horages, look at the look at
the fall color beautiful, beautiful, got some nice snap dragons
in and other things that will make your lawn look
really good, your lawn and landscape. I should say, let's

(02:08:17):
go to Karra in Sugarland.

Speaker 13 (02:08:18):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:08:18):
Hey, Kara, welcome to garden line.

Speaker 9 (02:08:21):
Hi.

Speaker 25 (02:08:21):
Yes, thank you so much for your help.

Speaker 4 (02:08:24):
How can we help today? You bet?

Speaker 25 (02:08:27):
Yes, I am having a problem with my oak trees
have been for the past month leaking a bunch of
sap onto our cars and on the sidewalks with the
acorns fall when.

Speaker 4 (02:08:40):
They fall off. Okay, is the sap like a hard, sticky,
dried type sap or is it something that's kind of
a slimy watery thing or what kind of sapat sap?
Or you see.

Speaker 25 (02:08:59):
It's very watery and then it's sticking to there's no
like color tent to the stap, I would say, it's
pretty watery.

Speaker 4 (02:09:10):
And then last, last, okay, last questions are are these
little tiny droplets like almost a mist size droplets or
are they regular like drops of water size.

Speaker 25 (02:09:22):
Droplets, like regular drops of water?

Speaker 4 (02:09:27):
Okay, all right, well, uh, not a way to stop
that up there in the tree. It's just it is
what they're going to do. Uh, you just have a
parking car somewhere, so throw something over the car and
to avoid that that unpleasant situation. But there's yeah, there,
it's not a it's not like, oh, the tree has
this disease or or thing, we got to spray it.

(02:09:50):
And because we're not, it's not going to do that.
It's just a matter of okay, just one of the
things that certain kinds of trees especially are bad about doing.
But yeah, do you notice anything when you look at
the tree, like the tree doesn't look healthy or something, or.

Speaker 25 (02:10:06):
No, it looks healthy. I just we we have a
lot of oak trees, and our neighbors have some and
and uh they were telling me their trees have never
dripped as much stap as ours. Like it's just kind
of a nu sence, but I'm glad to hear that
it's probably.

Speaker 7 (02:10:23):
Not anything.

Speaker 4 (02:10:27):
Bad. Yeah, so the tree looks healthy. Okay, okay, well
sounds good.

Speaker 25 (02:10:33):
Well I appreciate, I appreciate.

Speaker 4 (02:10:35):
All right, you bet, you bet you with that? Sorry?

Speaker 11 (02:10:42):
You bet?

Speaker 4 (02:10:42):
Thanks? Sorry having to deal with that that mess.

Speaker 8 (02:10:46):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:10:46):
League City feed is down in Leake City. Of course,
no surprise there, right, But where is it in Leake City? Well,
it's a few blocks south the Highway ninety six on
Highway three. Now, this is what I call an area
hometown feeds store. So by that, I mean if you're
in Santa Fe or San Leon or clear Lake City,
I'll come into Reale Baycliff Webster, Lamark Dickinson. You get

(02:11:09):
the idea. This is your hometown feed store. It's been
around since well I don't know what the year, but
it's been around over forty years ago. Now it was
when it was actually built. Third generation of the Thunderberg
family now running that store. And when you go in there,
you're going to find the products you need to deal
with pests and weeds and diseases. And you're going to
find the fertilizers you hear me talk about from nitrofoss

(02:11:31):
and azomite and microlife and Nelson plant food, for example,
and they also carry bags of heirloom soils there at
League City Feed, just another reason to go in and
stop buy. Also check out their premium pet food while
you're in there. Remember they're open from nine am to
six pm Monday through Saturday. They're close today nine am

(02:11:54):
to six pm, so you can stop buy after work.
The League City Feed again a few blocks south of
ninety six on Highway three. Let's go to.

Speaker 10 (02:12:05):
Is there?

Speaker 4 (02:12:08):
Am I saying that?

Speaker 9 (02:12:09):
Right?

Speaker 4 (02:12:09):
And Clairelake? Hello?

Speaker 12 (02:12:13):
Hey, no, it's one.

Speaker 4 (02:12:14):
Hello, Hello, yes, yes, one, How are you doing?

Speaker 14 (02:12:20):
Thanks for taking my call?

Speaker 9 (02:12:22):
Uh? We we my wife and I'm good. Questions for you?

Speaker 14 (02:12:26):
That's okay. The first question is we're planting a summer
red maple in our yard. We're living through lake right off,
very close to the Bay area and and uh to me, no,
So my question is what do you think about the
summer red maple? You sing us the truth thrive where
we're at. And the other question is we have Virginia.

Speaker 12 (02:12:48):
Bundy weed in our grass.

Speaker 9 (02:12:50):
Okay that I want to get rid of?

Speaker 4 (02:12:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, Virginia button weed is a is
a pain at this point. It's a little late in
the season to do much to stop Virginia button weed.
But if you pull it up, you won't get rid
of it. But all those runners are full of little

(02:13:13):
buttons with seeds on them, and if you can get
that out of there, that's going to be all. You're
pulling thousands of seeds out of your lawn that you
won't have to deal with next year. So I could
make a case for going ahead and as much as
possible getting those pulled up and out of there, but
as far as controlling it next spring. When the button

(02:13:34):
weed begins to regrow, it'll go through the wintertime and
then you'll see it kind of in the leaves all
look kind of burgundy colored when the weather's cold. But
then the fresh new growth comes out. And when you
get two or three inches of fresh new growth on it,
spray them right then with a product called celsius, like
the temperature fahrenheit and celsius. In fact, there are two

(02:13:54):
products right called celsius Celsius Celsius is you're defined in
garden centers and stuff and spread it and then be
ready to do it again, probably about six weeks later.
Because Virginia button weed is not killed with one shot
of anything. So if you if you will hit it
with that twice, that'll be the best thing. And knocking

(02:14:17):
it out. Now, keep in mind that the wetter the
soil is the happier the Virginia button. We does, so
cutting back on watering to where you give a good soaking,
let it dry out a little bit enough to keep
your your lawn happy. But not watering, you know, twice
a week every week. Uh, try to minimize that and
it'll slow the button weed down a little bit while

(02:14:38):
you're trying to keep it in control.

Speaker 14 (02:14:41):
Okay, I'll give that, Yeah, yeah, And I do pull
it up occasionally in clumps. And why almost least like
at least like a hole in my.

Speaker 12 (02:14:49):
Yards when I pull them out.

Speaker 4 (02:14:51):
Yeah yeah, So what do you think?

Speaker 12 (02:14:55):
What's your thoughts in red maples?

Speaker 19 (02:14:57):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (02:14:58):
Red maples are an okay tree for down here. They
My only one of my beefs on red maple in
general is they make kind of narrow branch angles. Uh,
so that you got to watch them as you prune
them to make them have nice wide branches. And you
said this one was called summer red.

Speaker 9 (02:15:19):
Summer red.

Speaker 14 (02:15:20):
Yes, we're getting them from Moon Valley nursery.

Speaker 4 (02:15:24):
Okay, well, uh, I have not tried summer red down here.
That's one that's planted a lot further up north, but
I I can't comment on that specific type of red
maple in general. Okay, we do have some good red
maples here. I know the folks up at Buchanan's Plants
they carry a few really good, nice red maples up there.

(02:15:48):
And and it may be that Hora Hidden Gardens has
some too, by the way, but anyway, it would be Okay,
are you wanting it just for a big shade tree
or what are you what are you wanting out of
the tree?

Speaker 14 (02:16:01):
Yep, shade tree?

Speaker 4 (02:16:04):
Okay, okay, well it's an option.

Speaker 16 (02:16:07):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:16:08):
You know, we have a lot of other trees. The uh,
the Chinese elm does really well. Often they're called drake
elm because like the duck drake, because some of the
drake is a variety. Not all Chinese elms are drakes.
They don't need to be. But drake elms make a
nice broad shade tree. They casts a lighter shade, so

(02:16:31):
it's easy to grow lawns, and in some cases even
some shade loving flowers do very well underneath it. That'd
be another option for you.

Speaker 14 (02:16:39):
Yeah, we're planning in a location that will help with
the with the late afternoon sun that goes into our
kitchen window and kind of warms up that part of
the house.

Speaker 4 (02:16:52):
That's a really good idea. Yeah. I've got a wall
like that on my house. It's a brick wall. And
I the other day it was like a dusk, it's
our are you starting to get dark? And I walked
around that side of the house and I could feel
the heat radiating against my arms as I walked by
that brick wall. So, yeah, you're you're smart to plant
a tree like that. You know.

Speaker 14 (02:17:12):
Well, I'll have to give credit to my wife that's listening,
but she's been very quiet.

Speaker 4 (02:17:18):
Well, always give credit to your wife, especially when she's listening. Hi,
how are you.

Speaker 8 (02:17:25):
I'm good?

Speaker 5 (02:17:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 14 (02:17:31):
Yeah, I'm gonna go have other other callers that probably
want to talk to you and ask you questions.

Speaker 4 (02:17:36):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 14 (02:17:36):
We appreciate it and we love your show.

Speaker 12 (02:17:37):
We try and listen to you as often as we can.

Speaker 4 (02:17:41):
Thank you one, and I appreciate you all listening. Call
back anytime we can help. Look forward to doing that.
Take care. Uh, I you know what I'm getting close
to a little break here. I just want to tell
you about ACE Hardware stores again. ACE Hardware has everything
you need for whatever season you're in. You know, right
now we're in the fall decorating season, so Halloween and Thanksgiving.

(02:18:04):
They have decorations for that at your local Ace Hardware store.
But that shouldn't be a surprise because ACE is the
place where you get all kinds of things you need.
If you will go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com,
don't forget the Texas Ace Hardware Texas dot Com, you'll
find all my ACE Hardware stores in this region goes
all the way down from port A, all the way
across to Orange, Texas, and certainly all through the Houston area.

(02:18:26):
Stores like Lake Conroe ACE on one oh five West
Jnr's up in Porter's Great Ace on thirteen fourteen, up
in Porter League City, ACE League City Parkway and Texas.
I've been there recently, Hardware City on West Memorial Drive
in Houston. And let's go all the way down to
Rockport and talk about Rockport ACE on State Highway thirty
five North. That's just a few of the many ACE

(02:18:48):
Hardware stores you'll find when you go to Ace Hardware
Texas dot com and find your local Ace Hardware stores.
You're going to see that they are not like your
father's hardware store. Everything dad's hardware store had, but way
way more. It's a cool place. It's a place you're
gonna want to go and just wander through and look

(02:19:09):
and see. This is cool stuff, really cool stuff. Your
local Ace Hardware store. And while you're there, it's barbecue season.
You got to get out there and get your barbecue
pit and all the accessories for it. And boy did
they ever have quality brands at your local Ace Hardware store.
Be right back, I was born and visit in Texas.

(02:19:31):
Listen a lot s so much to me.

Speaker 10 (02:19:35):
Go.

Speaker 4 (02:19:36):
Mad girl comes from down into.

Speaker 11 (02:19:42):
See.

Speaker 4 (02:19:43):
All right, take a little break here there you go.
All right, some listeners send me an email about answering
the questions and un let's just go ahead and give
credit where credit is due. Yeah, let's see. H James
sent me an email and he said that that was
David Seville who did the Witch Doctor novelty version. That's right,

(02:20:04):
Alvin and the Chipmunks. There you go. That's it. You
too can be a chipmunk if you've got a helium balloon.
That's all it takes. Remember that, Remember the sore throat
you had after you did it. That's right there you go. Hey,
you're listening to Garden Line. We are in our last
half hour of the show. So if you have a question,
they can't wait till next Saturday. Now would be a

(02:20:25):
good time to call. Seven to one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. I want to tell you
about B and B turf Pros. B and B turf Pros.
They are pro They're professionals at it. Their family owned business.
They provide quality work, They provide honest work. They do

(02:20:45):
things right. What's important to them is customer satisfaction. That
is it. They make a personal connection with their clients
and with whatever you have them come in and do,
they're going to do a good job of it. They do,
for example, the compost top drevet and aeration. So you
have them aerate your lawn, you have them do a
compost top dressing over the lawn. That compost falls down

(02:21:07):
into the holes that the aeration core aeration has made
and it just breathes life into the soil. It brings
microbe's real happiness by putting that organic matter there's decomposing
down there around them, around the root zone of your grass,
and it really makes a difference in making your lawn better.
Price is start around five hundred dollars, depending on the

(02:21:29):
size and the travel distance spot to you of this,
that's a lot cheaper than replacing a lawn. So if
you get a lawn that's struggling along and you want
to kick it into gear, I would call BB turf Pros.
Bbturfros dot com is the website Bbturfpros dot com. The
phone number seven one three two three four five five
ninety eight. Now, the next question is where do they operate.

(02:21:50):
They operate between Sugarland and Missouri City, all the way
down across Interstate forty five, all the way down Highway six,
you know, Manvel, Alvin, CNR col all that up up
to Pear Pearland, Friends Wood and over League City, Dickinson,
you know the other side of forty five. They service
that area as well. B B turf Pros. They do
good work. You're listening to Guardenline and we're here to

(02:22:14):
help you have success. Been kind of a steady day
on the phones, and so I've had time to wander
into some of the other topics that I like to
cover as we we at this time of year. I
just want to remind you that as you're getting out,
you know, I'm the broken record about fix the soil.
Fix the soil before you plant, make it right, make
them happy, take care of that. Do what nature does.

(02:22:37):
You know, Nature over time builds soil. That tropical rainforest
that for decades and actually centuries has been dropping leaves
and parrot poop on the ground in the jungle and
it rots away and the soil gets better, and earthworms
and soil microbes and all that do their thing, and
it's just rich. And you may have heard stories. We

(02:22:58):
hear this, hear this years ago than we do now.
But people will go in and they'll strip away the
rainforest and they will farm that land and get incredible yields.
But with the heavy rainfall and the lack of rebuilding
the soil, the soil gets poorer over time, where they're
needing to move back and further into the rainforest to

(02:23:21):
get more rich soil because nature bills soil slowly over time.
But we can do the same thing in our gardens,
and we can do it fast and you just buy compost,
you just buy bed mix. If you want to create
a natural scape, you can grow plants that do the
same thing. You know, a mixture of grasses and lagoons

(02:23:43):
that putting nitrogen in the soil and the grassroots, you know,
grassroots bill soil. It is it is true. I think
about I just did the tropical rainforest. Think about the
Great Plains, the settlers and the Kanostova wagons coming across
the Great Plains, moving west, as we say, out of
this country from the the European settlers. When they did,

(02:24:06):
they said grass as deep as a horse's belly, and
they were just acres and acres of beautiful, beautiful meadow. Well,
who took care of that lawn? You know who's fertilizing
the lawn?

Speaker 13 (02:24:16):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (02:24:17):
Well, nature was now, it wasn't treated like a lawn
where you needed the extra fertilizer to get it nice
and green and dance and all that. But it grew.
And here's why grassroots live about a year. So picture
a clumping grass plant. It could be a beautiful native
let's see merely m uhl y ly type grass. It

(02:24:39):
could be a pampas grass if you want to do that.
Those roots coming down into the ground are going to grow,
push their way into the soil, open a chain pathway
through the soil, live about a year, and then they
die and a new route forms up at the crown
of the plant, at the base of the plant, and
it leaves from there and goes back down in the
soil to do the same. And so if you were

(02:25:01):
to do a time lapse picture of a clumping grass
on the prairie, or really your lawn grass for that matter,
you see a root grow and die, and then another
one from that growth point grows and dies, grows and dies,
and so as it does, it leaves chambers open in
the soil for oxygen to move down, for water to
move down. Earthworms will go through there and they'll eat

(02:25:22):
up that organic matter because that's what they like, and
then they release in their droppings in their castings really rich,
micro rich stuff, and the soil just gets better and
better and better. So it's almost like in super super
hyper slow motion. Over time, organic matter is getting mixed

(02:25:42):
into the soil like you would do if you took
composts down on a rototiller. So we can short change
that process or make that process faster by adding it ourselves.
But just know that nature does that, and grass does that,
and healthy grass makes its own soil better. Now, when
the grass is struggling, when the lawn is compacted at

(02:26:04):
a heavy clay, no good oxygen down in there, that
kind of setting ain't good and the grass doesn't want
to grow right, And we step in and we air
rate and we do a lot of things, but you
get a good, healthy lawn and it actually builds its
own soil slowly over time in terms of the quality,
the little structure of the friability of the soil, the
oxygen levels moving down into the soil and so on.

(02:26:25):
So there's a little there's a little soapbox for a
while there. But I hope that, hope that makes sense,
because it definitely definitely works. So what we're going to
do here, I've got a little less a little under
a minute for I'm going to take a break. Our
last segment is coming up, and it's a short one.
So if you got any questions, please do call soon

(02:26:46):
so we can get those in. Typically people, I'll call
it once at the end. And I have trouble working
everybody in, so I don't want that to happen. Seven
one three, two one two five eight seven four of
that is the number. I want to remind you that
I'm going to be at the arbor Gate this coming
Saturday from twelve noon twelve pm to two pm either
for two hours, and come on out and see me.

(02:27:07):
We're gonna have a good time. It's always is fun.
Go into the arbor Gate. Throw some family members and
friends and neighbors whatever. Throw them in the car, bring
them with you so you all can have a good time.
You'll have a blast. Somebody who does not even care
about plants, you take them to the arbor Gate and
they're gonna have fun. They're gonna suddenly you're gonna find
them bringing home this little plant along with all the

(02:27:29):
the pizzazz for the garden and the landscape that the
arbor Gate sells to beautified things. So come on out
next Saturday, Arborgate twelve to two. I'll be there. I'll
be answering questions. All right, let's take a break. We'll
be right back with your calls. The late Don Walson.

Speaker 9 (02:27:48):
This was.

Speaker 4 (02:27:51):
The tune from hang on just a minute, don't turn
it out. This was the tune from second Hand Lions.
Remember the movie second Hand Lions. I got a reisted anyway,
another movie. We're saying, all right, that's it. This isn't
a music show, but we do like to do music.
Thanks for listening. Let's run out to Spring, Texas and

(02:28:14):
I'm going to talk to Mike. Hello, Mike, Welcome to garden.

Speaker 12 (02:28:17):
Hi, good morning.

Speaker 7 (02:28:20):
Have a question of garden growing.

Speaker 9 (02:28:23):
I have a question about growing.

Speaker 24 (02:28:27):
I have a question about growing citrus trees and containers.

Speaker 9 (02:28:31):
Okay, And I was wondering.

Speaker 4 (02:28:34):
If you could tell me Don's still singing to you.

Speaker 9 (02:28:38):
Oh, yes, sir.

Speaker 12 (02:28:39):
I was wondering if you could tell me what size tenors.

Speaker 9 (02:28:41):
I've had set suma oranges.

Speaker 11 (02:28:43):
And I've had Meyer lens grown in the ground.

Speaker 13 (02:28:46):
They froze out when I got gold a couple of
years back.

Speaker 12 (02:28:48):
I want to put them on a palate. Want to
put the right size.

Speaker 24 (02:28:51):
Container so I can grow them and manage them, uh
and move them into in the wintertime.

Speaker 9 (02:28:56):
What what size containers?

Speaker 5 (02:28:57):
So so.

Speaker 4 (02:28:59):
The answer is the bigger the better. But so practically speaking,
if something is about the size of a half whiskey barrel,
that should be sufficient for a satsuma and for a
mar lemon. For most limes also would do well in that.
I don't use whiskey barrels because they rode out too fast.
But something with about that volume of soil, if you

(02:29:22):
could get that, it can do it. And something smaller,
but it just it's just more touching.

Speaker 8 (02:29:28):
Go.

Speaker 4 (02:29:28):
You know, you're watering it twice a day in the
summer trying to keep it from going into drop struss
because it has no soil at all, hardly. So about
a half whisky.

Speaker 9 (02:29:35):
Barrel, like, okay, that works.

Speaker 16 (02:29:38):
Then you can put that nicely on a pallet around
with a poor clift, So thanks.

Speaker 9 (02:29:43):
Tony, Yeah you can.

Speaker 4 (02:29:44):
I also, you know what I use too is a
dolly and put a strike around it to hold that
plant to the dolly. And I'm telling you, with one hand,
it could be a heavy old container. Just put your
foot against the wheel, lean it back, and you move
it around and you don't break your back. So that's
just another thing I have. Those people that don't have

(02:30:05):
flug lefts, no.

Speaker 24 (02:30:07):
Well, definitely, but I have seen people actually put them
in those carts that you use for moving soil, like
a four cubic eight cubic ft cart and that whether
you're already get a wheel.

Speaker 12 (02:30:19):
And you get a handle and you can move them
around like that. So I guess there you go there
pressure all right, sir, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:30:27):
There you go, you bet, Mike, thanks for the call.
Appreciate that. Speaking of that, that reminds me I haven't
mentioned this on the air wall.

Speaker 10 (02:30:36):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:30:36):
You can also plant in a wheelbarrow, and I love
planting and wheelbarrows. I started off with an antique wheelbarrow.
It was a rusty old thing. It didn't even have
a regular tired, had iron spoke tires, you know those
really old cartwheel type tires, and it had holds, and
it rusted out and stuff. I put some flashing metal
down in the bottom, you know that aluminum and not

(02:30:58):
eluminum galvanize type flashing, and it just kind of stuck
it in the bottom so it holds some soil, and boy,
that was a beautiful thing. And I planted all kinds
of stuff in that wheelbarrow. And now, if you're a
flower grower, you could just imagine this. Imagine cool seasoned flowers, pansies,
maybe some ornamental cabbage and kale, maybe some biolas. Got

(02:31:21):
a lissom spilling over the sides. I mean, imagine that
you could do that. Imagine a fall garden with I
have done this. I had a wheelbarrow and it had broccoli,
it had spinach, it had lettuce, it had kale, what else.
It had some other things in it. It was cool
seasoned vegetables, oh, swiss charred, some things were colorful leaves.

(02:31:42):
So it was really pretty. And you roll the wheelbarrow
out to a sunny spot in your yard. And when
you got if you have to moh, you just move
it over, you know, as you mo past it, move
it over a little bit and set it back down again.
And so you can move that wheelbarrow wherever there's sunlight.
You don't have to have a flower bed in the
right spot. Your wheelbarrow is a flower. When you get
a frosty night, when it's gonna get cold enough, and

(02:32:04):
at times I got cold enough to hurt broccoli, I
just rolled it into the garage that night and rolled
it right back out. I mean it's almost effortless, and
it gives a neighbor something to talk about. Now they're
already talking about you and me, but it gives them
something to talk about. That's kind of fun. So maybe
try that this year. Get the kids involved. If you
want to get really gaudy, you can paint the thing

(02:32:24):
with giant flowers on the sides and whatnot. And you know,
and now they can talk about you and say they're
with the neighborhood. You know, they've turned the place into it.
I don't know what. Well, have fun. That's the rule
of gardening. Have fun. Speaking of having fun, Enchanted Gardens
in Richmond Rosenberg is a great place to go to
have fun. It is a blast to go out there.

(02:32:46):
They're open to day. By the way, you should get
out there this afternoon. They're opening ten to four. When
you're out there, look at all the fall decorations. If
you like the colors of fall, you know, typically it's
the yellows and the burgundies and the rust coloreds and
the orange and so on like that. They've got tons
of flowers with all of that, beautiful gift shops loaded

(02:33:06):
with good things. They have a pumpkin house set up.
You need to go take the kids to see that.
On the outside of the house in the front there's
just a whole wall of pumpkins, and inside the house
some of the most beautiful house plants you've ever seen,
really really pretty out there at Enchanted Gardens. They're on
the Katie Fullshir side of Richmond FM three point fifty nine.

(02:33:27):
Here's the website. Go to the don't excuse me, go
to Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com Enchened Gardens Richmond dot
com and check it out. Sign up for the newsletter.
While you're there, learn more about it. There's always events
going on. In fact, what's happening next Saturday. Oh, they're
having the iron basket making. Take These iron baskets are

(02:33:49):
just they're just gorgeous. I mean, the baskets themselves are cool,
rustic looking things, and then you plant them and they
show you how to do it. And it costs to
do these things, so you need to get a hold
of them out there at in Chenning Gardens. Make sure
they have space, and if they do, sign up so
that you can come. While there. Find the brown stuff,
nature's waste, soil, airloom, soils, soil, microlife, nitrofoss nilson, medina, asimite,

(02:34:12):
you know, all these fertilizers. They're there at Ingented Gardens
out in Richmond, Texas on the Katie Foster side of
Richmond FM thirty fifty nine. I hope you have enjoyable
afternoon too. By the way, this would be a good day.
I mean, if you want to get out and do
some garden work, you can do that. That's fun. It's
not work. That's fun. Go visit a botanical garden in

(02:34:34):
your area. That is a nice thing to do this afternoon.
Get some inspiration, Go visit some nurseries and garden centers,
get some inspiration. Or just driving you know you're driving out.
I love to go through neighborhoods. I don't care where
I'm going. I could be going shopping somewhere, I could
be going to a meeting, I could be on my
way to church or something, and I just take a

(02:34:54):
different pathway through and see the neighborhood, see the plants
that people put out, the design the landscapes. Get inspiration.
Gardening is to be fun and enjoyed, and the better
you get at it, the more fun you have. That's
just how life works. It doesn't matter if you're playing flag,
football or gardening or whatever. The better you get at it,

(02:35:15):
the more fun you have when you do it, and
you get better day by day when it comes to gardening,
you do. I have learned what I learned through years
and years and years of doing and learning. I'm always doing,
I'm always trying. Don't be afraid to fail. I posted
something to Facebook the other day about I give you
permission to fail. It is okay to fail. As mister

(02:35:39):
rals doctor Ralston said at the guy who founded the
botanical garden out there in North Carolina. To be a
good horticulturist, you got to kill a lot of plants.
And that is true. So you have permission to kill plans.
Not that we want to. I'm just saying it's okay
if you do. Because every time I kill a plant,

(02:35:59):
I learned something. Every time I try something new that
doesn't work, I learned something. But you know what, sometimes
I try things new that do work. Why don't you
do that at your house? How do you want to
decorate this fall? What do you want to grow this fall?
What are you going to do in front so when
people drive by the house it just looks good. What
kind of container plants do you want to put out
front so that when you drive up, you're proud of

(02:36:22):
the place. Little by little, plant by plant, seed by seed.
Whether you go out and buy nice, expensive gorgeous plants,
or whether you grow them your own from seed or
cuttings or what you do, you have fun. That is
the only rule is to have fun. Oh okay, wait,
I know there's the hoa. I'm not going to get
into that. That's a whole other thing. There's a reason

(02:36:44):
for them. You're glad to have them when people don't
trash the neighborhood, right, but have fun at your yard,
enjoy yourself. That That would be my suggestion to you today.
And one way to have fun is to come see
me out at the Arbigate next weekend. I'll be there
on Saturday, the eighteenth, Saturday, from twelve to two. Come

(02:37:04):
on out and see me. Look forward to seeing you
out there. I'm going to have some things on hand
to give away the Arbigate folks. Beverly's got a bunch
a bunch of surprise things that she's going to be
putting out. Will be given away from time to time
as we're there. Bring yourself out, but don't come alone.
Bring your kids, let them be part of it. Bring
the neighbors, come on out. Let's have a good time

(02:37:25):
at the Arborgate Next weekend. In the meantime, I hope
that you've heard what I said about having fun this week.
Whether it's this afternoon or during the week, get out
there and do some guarding. In the meantime, do some learning.
There are lots of good websites to learn things. The
Aggie Horticulture website. At A and M, the fruit section

(02:37:46):
is outstanding, the vegetable section is outstanding. Both of those
have a publication of every kind of fruit or vegetable
you want to grow. Just go read those, check them
out their full color. They're free and beat that price
again next Saturday.