Everything About Generators with Quality Home Products

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip rictor
the bases.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
In the bass gas can use is trim.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Just watch him as well. Go start the gasses and
gas can you dare so many girl takes the soup
battage in the ways in the basses like gas and
began you date almost becomes back recond not a suns
the bassis and gas and you so themon of tweets

(00:39):
in the gases like gas can jam starting intreaming in
the basses.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Like gas became you dad.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Everything is so clean you can see and every thing
here is Sunday.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
You can be had the tram.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I don't know if we've ever played this much of
us song. Welcome to Garden Line, folks. It's good to
have you with us this morning on what is going
to be a nice Sunday morning. By the way, the
temperature is supposed to be good outside today or especially
earlier in the day, and then it heats up and
here we go. We got a little heat waves sitting
over the top of us. But that's okay. It's summer.

(01:27):
I think personally, I think we've gotten by with some
pretty mild temperatures for this summertime. It it really is,
has not been bad at least that's speaking from somebody
who's been sitting outside dealing with the heat quite a bit. Anyway,
if you'd like to give us call this morning, how
about let me give you the number. That way, it's

(01:49):
a little leisure to dolland seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two five eight seven to four. There we go. Well,
here we are and kind of pretty close to the
big middle of summer. You know, when we hit about July,

(02:09):
we start to get serious about the hot temperatures and
the rain typically dries up. Excuse me, We've had a
really good moist repeating series of rainstorms for most of
the area. And I know I've not watered my lawn
much at all. I think maybe once or twice i've

(02:30):
watered it. But when I water, I give it a
good deep soaking. But I do it on an obviously
an in frequent basis. And as you build a good
deep root system, you don't have to water as much.
That is one of the steps in good healthy lawn care.
Squirting the lawn every day does two things. Number one,

(02:52):
it causes shallow rooting, because that's where the water is.
You don't wet the soil very deep when you water,
and it just stays the roots they where there's moisture. Secondly,
it increases diseases. Gray leaf spot loves it when you
keep those grass blades wet all the time. When we
get to fall, brown patch large patch loves it when

(03:13):
you continually keep that wet. And so the more you
can let it dry out, the better off you are.
It doesn't mean you won't have any disease. It just
means you won't be the reason that they're they're kind
of mosquitos. You know, leave a bunch of water standing
out everywhere, and you're going to have mosquitoes caused by you.
You're a skeeter breeder. Well, when it comes to lawns,

(03:34):
the principle of watering is similar, and that the more
you keep it wet, the more diseases you're going to have.
That is true not just with lawns, but with other plants. Roses.
One of their nemesis diseases black spot. And if you
crowd your roses in, you know you got ten roses
you can't live without, and you got to bed eight

(03:54):
feet long. I'm being extreme there, but so you crowd
them all in so you can have all of them.
There's not good air circulation, so when the foliage gets wet,
it stays wet longer, and it's just a matter of
you know, a few hours more over time. Cumulatively, over time,
you're going to get some disease issues. So spraying with

(04:15):
the automatic pop up spray heads on your rose bushes,
what's the leaves, crowding them, keep them wet longer. Diseases
will proliferate. That's how that works. So we can do
so much culturally. You know a lot of times with
pests and with diseases, we talk about, well, spray this

(04:36):
or put these granules out to kill that pest, or
spray this to kill that disease or to stop that disease,
and those products. Yes, that works, but why not start
with doing everything we can to avoid the problem in
the first place. That just makes sense. That makes sense,
and that's called that is part of what is called

(04:56):
integrated Pest management ip. IPM was begun by a fellow
named Perry Atkinson when he was he was an entomologist
at Texas A and M. Years ago. Back in the seventies,
we're talking about creating a system where instead of just saying, okay,
we're going to spray over two weeks and kill everything
and that pecan orchard and we get the pecans as

(05:18):
a result. Well, instead they said, no, wait a minute,
let's think about how do we know when to spray,
when we need to spray, and when we don't. So,
as I was an agent first, I know I'm doing
a monologue here, but that's all right. As I was
an agent early on in my career, I can remember
the pecan spray schedule was ever two weeks. She sprayed

(05:39):
these fungicides and insecticides in order to have pecans at
the end of the season. And yeah, I worked in
terms of getting rid of the pests and things. There's
a lot of spraying. But I remember when it changed
and suddenly a recommendation came out that pecan orchards can
walk through his pecan orchard and turn over the pecan leaves,

(06:02):
the compound leaves that pecans have and count the number
of aphids on the leaf and do that with one
hundred leaves total a number of aphids or average amount
per leef, and then do it again a week later,
and do it again a week later, and what you
would see is maybe this week there were average of
two aphis per leief, and next week five aphens per leef,

(06:23):
and the next week nine aphids per leaf, and then
the following week seven aphens per leef. What happened, Well,
the aphids were taking off, but all of a sudden
they went down. Maybe lady beetles showed up, maybe lace
swings showed up, maybe paris sitoid parasitic wasps showed up.

(06:43):
Whatever it was, Nature took care of it. So there's
this threshold where once it hits I don't remember the number,
but let's just say it was eleven aphis perlief, that's
when you need to step in and spray because you're
about to have a significant outbreak that will reduce your
pecan yield. So that makes it. That was a technical
pecan production example of IPM. But we do the same

(07:06):
things in our yard when we view our plants, We
watch what's going on, and we know when we should
step in. And well, we don't need to simple as that.
So maybe we'll talk about that more as we go on.
But I just want to say that the solution to
everything is not just to be on a pesticide treadmill.
And I don't, I don't. I'm saying that, whether it's

(07:28):
a synthetic pesticide treadmill or an organic pesticide treadmill, not
a good way to go. Now, speaking of good ways
to go, you if you are looking to have a
beautiful landscape, and I don't care what you want. You
want hard scapes done, you want lighting done, you want
a revamping designed done, all of that. Purescapes. Purescapes is

(07:48):
a company you need to know and you can give
them a call at two eight one three seven fifty sixty.
You can go to their website piercescapes dot com. And
I always encourage you to go to the website. When
you go there, you're going to see the work that
they do. You say, oh wow, they do that too.
Yes they do, and they do good work. And I
don't care. If you want a complete landscape redo or

(08:10):
if you just want, you know, to create some new
beds or revampha bed or whatever you need done, they're
the ones to call to do it. Pierce Caapes dot
com two eight one three seven o five zero six zero.
Let's take a little break here and we will come back.
If you'd like to be the first up for garden
Line today, you can give us a call. It seven
one three two one two kt r H. Alrighty, welcome

(08:33):
back to the garden Line, folks. Good to have you
with us. Let's talk gardening. What do you want to
talk about? It can be any kind of topic. We
can talk about bugs or diseases or weeds, or how
about fun stuff, fruit and vegetables and flowers and herbs, lawns, trees,
whatever the topic is. You got one and one thing about.
One thing about horticulture is whether people know it or not,

(08:56):
just about everybody's involved in it. You may live downtown
Houston on the twentyth four of a high rise when
all you got is a little pathos plant in the window, Well,
give me a call. We'll talk aboutos. We're here for
all those kinds of things. Wild Birds Unlimited is the
store that I would say is the go to for

(09:17):
anything related to birds. If you don't learn about birds,
you maybe have You know you yourself are interested, but
maybe you have kiddos that are interested and learning about birds,
attracting birds in there's all kinds of information from books
to equipment, you know, bird feeders, bird houses, and certainly
the quality bird seeds. I'm still feeding the nesting super Blend,

(09:37):
which is exclusive at wild Birds Unlimited. Now there's six
stores here in the Greater Houston area, Kingwood, Clear Lake,
pear Land, and two in Houston and Cyprus. All those
places are You're lucky because you're right there where there's
a nearby wild Bird store and all of them there's
a store near you, no matter where you live that's
close enough to drive and get some good quality materials.

(10:00):
And when you when you go there, you're going to
find that the staff is incredibly helpful. Now, if you
go to the website WBU dot com, forward slash Houston
w b U dot com forward slash Houston, you can
find all the Wildbirds stores here. Well, not that'd be
a great outing for this afternoon stop in at a
wild bird store. Your birds asked me to say that.

(10:23):
By the way, Uh, let's go to Jersey Village this morning.
We're going to talk to George. Hey, George, welcome to
the first Timers Club.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
I know that's a good idea. I'll try that this
afternoon if it didn't get too hot. Put up a
nest for somebody to see what So what happens? My
question today is I tried by spouting sprouting some California
poppies and my brother sent me something, and I have
no luck. They don't come out of the ground at all,
out of the dirt. So what I do is spread
some potting soil on a pikechin pipe in a little

(10:57):
bit and then sprinkle the seeds across the spit. And
then my wife says, spray bottle it every day, make
sure sure that it comes up when they never do,
so tell me how to do this?

Speaker 1 (11:09):
All right? Well, first of all, we need to make
sure we got good seed, because you know, that's always
a possibility that the seed just isn't viable. It's unlikely,
but it's possible. Poppies should be planted in the fall
when we get to about September, late September. Even throwing
some poppy seeds out, scattering them out wherever you want

(11:31):
them to grow, just water them in really good. You know,
you don't have to go and try to bury each seed,
just shripe. And I mean you can kind of rake
over the area gently if you want, but you don't
want to get those seeds too deep because they're very tiny,
and then watered in and as we get into cooler
weather and stuff, they're going to come up. There'll be
little tiny plants. The California poppy will look almost like

(11:54):
a little fernie like leaf when it comes up as
a young plant. Some other types of poppies look almost
like a thistle. But they'll sit there all winter and
then in the spring they'll take off. They follow the
same schedule, George as our blue bonnets. Blue bonnets sprout
in the fall. You don't notice them Harley at all,
although they're there all winter, and then they take off

(12:15):
and do their thing in spring. And that's what your
California poppies. All right?

Speaker 4 (12:18):
All right?

Speaker 5 (12:19):
So does the birds open being Sunday?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, wallbird's unlimited with where you're living. You could go
to the one in Cypress and Barker Cypress cool. Yeah,
that's just across the street from you. Yeah, go check
them out. Thanks, all right? All right? Picked their brains too,
That's that's one of my favorite things.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
What's what's a good kind of bird nest to put up?

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah? Oh, they have some outstanding They have the plastic
gorgs They look like a gourd, but they're plastic.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
People used to drill a hole in the gordon hang
them up for or birds. I still do, but these
are easy to clean and whatnot. And then they have
purple Martin nests or boxes that are like little condos,
you know, that are on a pole. They have systems
that are so easy to clean. You can, you know,
because it gets kind of messy inside a bird nest

(13:18):
and trying to get your hand in there and clean
it all out is hard. But their their types just
come apart in a very simple, easy clean and they
even have a telescoping pole where you're not it's just
easy to send the thing back up in the air.
And that's where their expertise comes in. George's you know,
they'll tell you here's when you put those out. You know,
here's when you put them out, because there's a time

(13:38):
when purple Martins arrive each year and they know exactly that.
And yeah, so they can they can help you on that.
Maybe you have a few less mosquitoes.

Speaker 5 (13:51):
That's a good ideas.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yes, their nest is about the size of a half
of a walnut, you know, walnut half, and it's up
in the tree and so you're never going to see them.
And they typically I think they have like you'll see
little pieces of lichen or moss or something that they
build with. I'm not a hummingbird expert, but yeah, they do,
sure do.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Yeah, all right, well I'll find out about this with
the store.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Thanks very much, all right, you bet you take care
of Thanks for the call. I'm bye bye, Okay, Well
let's see here you are listening to guardenline. If you'd
like to give me a call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh, if you are

(14:44):
dealing with insect pests of your turf. And when I
say pests, I don't mean just things that eat your turf.
I mean things like fleas and ticks that are pests
of your dog, fire ants that are pests of us,
and certainly chinchbugs, sideweb worms when they show up night Foss.
Bug out max is a granule that you put out

(15:05):
and you water it in and the product on it
goes out into the saw and it lasts a good while. Now,
within forty eight hours it's going to have knocked out
whatever you got out there covers over one hundred and
thirty different kinds of insects. But it lasts a while too,
so you're not having to put it out every week.
What you'll find with it is that whatever kinds of

(15:26):
past you're dealing with, it will suppress them. It will
get rid of most of them that you have. And
it's kind of a put it down and don't worry
about it, go forward with it. But bug Out Max
is available a number of different places that carry night
Foss products. You know you're going to find night Foss products.
It plans for all seasons on Highway two forty nine,
Tombol Parkway at where Luetta is. You're going to find

(15:49):
it at RCW Nurseries as well an Ace Hardware. Citium
Memorial Drive is another place, as well as M and
D in Rosenberg, Richmond Rosenberg on Avenue. What is Avenue Eye? Yeah,
Avenue Eye. But don't let the fire ants and other
things get the best of you, that's for sure. I

(16:11):
yesterday was getting a few things done outside and uh,
just some planting and some care and stuff. I put
out some more flowers. I've kind of gotten behind this
year on some of the summer flowers, the cut flowers,
sunflowers and things like that, and I just planting some
of those and getting them going. I love cut flowers.
I think that's nice. It's certainly beautiful to have a

(16:33):
flower bed that's pretty. But I like to have a
section too where we can do cuts and bring them inside.
And there's so many good options for that, and so
many different kinds of seed. You get them from your
local garden center. You know, you've got all these different
kinds of flower seeds, good ones for summers, Zinnias and sunflowers.
Those are easy. And if you got kids, you gotta
have sunflowers because those are those are big and easy,

(16:55):
easy for them and they'll enjoy, you know, making a cut,
taking it to Grandma, just bring inside the house. But
you know, ain't getting some of that planted and done.
And I've noticed all my citrus trees, the citrus leaf
miners have really been crazy busy. And you know, those
things are funny. I don't. It's like you live somewhere

(17:18):
and you bring in a brand new plant and you
don't see any leaf miner damage on it, and you
put it out there, and all of a sudden they
show up. You know, it's like, Okay, where were you
guys living before I brought you a citrus tree? But
they are there. They are definitely that way. So what
do you do? Well? I mostly ignore them, except these
trees are young. They're very young, and I'm trying to
get them to grow. And leaf miners take away leaf area,

(17:41):
They cause leaves to crawl up, they take away some
of the green chlorophyll production by tunneling through the leaf.
And so for these young trees, what I'll do is
when I get a flush of growth, which I got
one right now, I will spray the leaves with spinocid.
Spinocid is an organic insecticide that soaks into the leaf
tish you. But leaf miners don't attack those older leaves,

(18:04):
the big, leathery, dark green leaves. They attack the young
tender succulement. So when you have a flush of growth,
you got spray with spinosid. And that's a little tedious
to do, but again for an older tree, I wouldn't
worry about it. For a younger tree trying to get
it to grow, I think it's worth some time to
get out there with some spinosid periodically and do that spraying. Now,

(18:27):
where do you get spinosid and other things? Well, I'll
tell you you get anything if it comes out of
my mouth as a fertilizer or a pastor weed or
disease control. You just go over to Southwest Fertilizer and
Bob will have it. And Bob's gotten probably more than
one type of spinosaid, I'm sure. But a Southwest Fertilizer
is a corner of Bissinette and Renwick in Southwest Houston.
The website Southwest Fertilizer dot com, the phone number seven

(18:51):
one three six sixty six one seven four to four.
If Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have it, you don't need it
because they have everything. Really nice to be able to
go into a store and know you're going to get
exactly everything that you need. If you're dealing with heat
and your air conditioner is working over time trying to

(19:12):
keep going well, Arctic Insallation Solutions is the one you need.
Arctic Insallation Solutions A R C.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
T C.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Houston dot com Arctic Houston dot com eight three two
five eight six twenty eight ninety three A three two
five eight six twenty eight ninety three from insulating, to
radiant barriers, to solar addic fans, to anything you need
to cut those bills. Call Arctic they know what they're
talking about, Arctic Insulation Solutions. Take a little break here

(19:45):
and we'll be back with your calls, including one from
Stephanie and Westchase. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have
you with us. You'd like to give me a call
seven one three two one two k t R eight
seven one three two one two k t R A.
It is if you haven't fertilized your your lawn this summer,
it is a good time to do that. And I

(20:06):
would recommend a slow release fertilizer if you want to
do it once and then be done until we get
to the fall fertilization on my schedule. And turf Star
slow and easy product by Nelson Plant Food that gradually
releases that nitrogen out to your lawn over several months,
and it has a perfect blend or ratio that is

(20:27):
of nutrients for turf grass. You know, back in the
day people used to say put triple thirteen on your
lawn and stuff. Yeah, we know not to do that now.
That's way too much of that middle number. So it's
more of a three one two four one two or
some similar ratio to that is ideal. And that's what
turf Star Slow and Easy is basically a great summer

(20:48):
application for your lawns. Now, you're going to put it
out at the right rate. The label tell you what
to do there, and it's going to have. It has
an acidifying factor in it that helps slowly, gradually rel
reduce that pH and your soil. And you know when
your wand's looking yellow because you can't get iron, well,
drop the pH a little bit and suddenly the iron

(21:08):
that therea becomes available. That's why pH won of the
reasons pH is so important. But Nelson Plant Food turf
Star Slow and Easy, great product available all over town.
Let's set out to the phones now, we're going to
go to Westchase and talk to Stephanie. Hey, Stephanie, good morning.
Welcome toguardline.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Hello, good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
I have some lantana that I've been growing. It's absolutely
carefree and after all this rain, it's now started showing.

Speaker 7 (21:42):
Its leaves are.

Speaker 6 (21:43):
Kind of gray and curling and drying up. It looks
like there's no insect on it of any kind, and
I'm wondering how to treat it.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Well, it's hard for me to know exactly what is causing.
Lantana has several things that can affect it. There's a
little leaf miner that'll chew through the leaves and then
the leaves lose their green and can shrivel a little
bit or turn that lighter tan grayish color. There's also
bugs that suck the juices out of lantana leaves and

(22:17):
that just causes an overall speckling that ends up turning.
You lose the color in the leaf and it heads
in that direction like you're describing. So it may be
that a pest is doing that. You could always treat
for them. Those pests tend to hide underneath the leaves,
and they're very hard to get a spray to because

(22:38):
you know the lananna foliage and the bush and everything.
Trying to get a spray in there on them is difficult.
But that's an option. What I would suggest instead is
give them a boost of fertilizer and give them some
water and try to push out some fresh new growth
and kind of outgrow that problem. That's probably the first
thing that I would try. You get you a fertilizer

(22:59):
like color Star comes in jars from Nelson Plant Food.
It works really well on that, and just follow the label.
Sprinkle it out there and then kind of I like
to kind of scratch mine into the surface, you know,
with a little tool or rake or something, just kind
of get it underneath the maltch and soil surface and
then watered in really good. You don't have to scratch
it in, but watered in really good and get those

(23:20):
nutrients and get a fresh boost of growth. And see
how that works. And if the pest just keeps staying
bad or the problem keeps happening, then probably gonna have
to resort to an insect control.

Speaker 8 (23:33):
Well, thank you very very much.

Speaker 6 (23:35):
I will start with the fertilizer and see where we
go from there.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Thank you so much. All right, you bet, thanks for
the call. Good to visit with you this morning. Plans
for all seasons. That garden Center on Tumbo Parkway Highway
two forty nine, right where Luetta comes in, just north
of where Luetta comes into two forty nine is a
place where you're gonna go and you're gonna find great plants.

(24:00):
You're going to find a continually evolving supply of all
kinds of things, you know, Like right now it's time.
If you want to have peppers in the fall, now's
a good time to get those plants out and plant them,
keep them growing. As the weather breaks a little bit,
they're going to start setting fruit even better. And the
bigger pepper bush you have by the time we hit

(24:22):
September October, the more productive it's going to be. And
so they've got them in. They've got If you like
hot peppers, they've got ghost peppers. They almost have to
keep the mulch wetter. It gets a hot, it sets
it on fire. That's a joke, by the way, hob
and arrows pekins until teppins and all kinds you know

(24:43):
set things on fire, and as well as other kind
of peppers too. Plans for all seasons easy to get to,
and the expert advice there alone is worth a trip.
Two eight one three seven six one seven four six
one three seven six one seven four six. We're going

(25:04):
to go now to Larry out in Sugarland. Hey, Larry,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (25:09):
Thank you, good morning. Quick question on what you would
recommend for leveling a yard that I need to you know,
bring it, bring some blue holes up, compost or what else.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
I would use something that's kind of if you can
get like a good quality topsail sandy loami type topsoil,
that's best, uh, and just spread it out there. And
then they make a little rake that you can use.
It's made to go over the yard they use it on.
You know, like if you want a golf course green equivalent,
it would spread the sand that they use on those

(25:48):
those greens out really well. But I just take a
garden rake, not a not a leaf rake, but the
kind with solid stiff times and turn it upside down
with it you're pointing up and then use it like
you're playing shuffleboard. And that's a really good way to
spread soil or molt or dirt over an area too, uh,

(26:10):
you know, without buying another tool, but that that would
be best. Sand is okay, but you want to stay
fairly close to the soil that you have. Ideally, the
problem with compost is then you're gonna have green. First
of all, you're gonna have green spots where you used
to have a hole, and now you have all this
compost there. So that's that's gonna create an uneven appearance

(26:33):
in your yard. And the second thing, Larry, is a
compost decomposes away. If you ever had a container on
the patio, after about two years, it's only half full
of soil instead of full because it's decomposing away. And
so in your yard, what was a hole and then
you fill it with compost, and in time it's gonna
be a hole again. Uh So that's why I would

(26:53):
go with soil, true soil.

Speaker 9 (26:56):
All right, very good. I appreciate your help this morning.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Thank you, yes, sir, thanks for listening this morning. Appreciate
that nice sunny day. You know this is I don't know,
it's neither here and there, but uh sometimes I'm sitting
in here doing garden line and I'm talking about things
and it reminds me of stuff that's outside in my

(27:19):
yard and I just want to go. Could y'all hold
on for a minute because or maybe it's something I
really want to get outside? And do you know talking
about planting those peppers a minute ago that they have
at plants for all seasons. I was just thinking, oh, oh,
I've got some plants I need to put out, and
there's some seeds I want to put out, and it's
like I got to sit here talk on the radio.
Come on, man, but we're having fun, all right, we'll

(27:43):
be back. I'm gonna take a little break here, hang
around if you'd like to give me a call. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey,
welcome back, Welcome back to the garden Line. Good to
have you with us, Glad to have you with us.
What do you want to talk about today? If you
got a question you would like to visit about, feel

(28:03):
free to give me a call. Seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. I have been working
on my schedules, you know, the lawn care schedule, which
tells you mowing, watering, fertilizing, how to grow a lawn successfully.
And the lawn pest disease and weed management schedule, which

(28:25):
is what goes wrong with the lawn and how to
deal with it pest, weeds, and diseases. And I've been
wanting to update them for a while based on some
new research that I've run across, based on a response
from my listeners where someone will ask me a question
about the schedule, and you know, I thought that was clear.
But I look at the schedule and I go, okay,

(28:46):
well maybe that wasn't clear, and so I can fix
that and just readability and some other things like that.
But I mean, I made a few fee changes on it,
nothing dramatic. If you got to no one and just
use it, it's fun. But about to post those, I'll
be letting you know, hopefully about next weekend, I'll have
those posted and available for the update. But again, don't

(29:12):
feel like your old schedule's bad. You know, I didn't.
I didn't tell you okay, let's quit fertilizing in the
summer or anything. I just I just made some adjustments,
so that makes a little bit more sense. It's always
hard to take something as what is the word, maybe
maybe just say complex as plant growth and development and

(29:32):
what and when bugs show up and those kinds of things,
and try to summarize it into a chart, especially when
I have people in Galveston reading it, and I have
people in Huntsville, Texas reading it, and so that's sort
of kind of hard to generalize. But anyway, I think
I've made it a little bit better. So I'm looking
forward to getting that posted and out there to you.

(29:52):
Quality Home Products of Texas is where you would find
your Generaic automatic standby generator. There's an at Some generator
works so well and they come in many different models
to suit the specific needs you have. But more than
the product, yes, the product is great, but more than
the product is a service from Quality Home Products of Texas.

(30:15):
From the time you sit down to choose the right generator,
they're going to help you find the right one to
the whole process of you know you've got to get permits,
they do that for you. They have all their servicemen,
electricians and stuff are all in house, so you don't
have well, somebody didn't show up the day to do this.
They have their own. And when it comes to customer response,

(30:36):
over fourteen thousand and five star reviews and the Better
Business Bureau's most prestigious awards has been won many times
by the folks. Equality Home Products of Texas. I'm going
to bring some money in on the eight o'clock hour.
Joey is going to come in from Quality Home and
we're going to talk about generators and not just you know,
their products like that, but more about what's the difference

(30:58):
in generators, know the different kinds, what should you ask,
if you're looking at it for a generator, what do
you want to look for, what kinds of technology is
available out there, and what might you want to consider
Because we are in the summer storm season, the hurricane season,
for sure, and it would be time to begin looking
into something like that anyway, Quality tx dot com. That's

(31:21):
their website, QUALITYTX dot com seven to one three Quality
seven one three. Craif if you know anybody who's thinking
about I've been talking about maybe getting a generator, make
sure they tune in for the eight o'clock hour to
day because they are going to get a wealth of
information to help them make a good decision on doing
just that. We're going to head now to Copperfield and

(31:42):
talk to Ken. Hello, Ken, welcome to garden Line hither.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
How are you.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
I'm well, thank you. Well.

Speaker 10 (31:51):
My question was the proper time to prone live oaks
and pine trees, And in googling, I've had about as
many answers as there are months of the year.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, that's right. The best time to prune trees period
is to at the end of winter, mid to late winter.
That is the best and the reason is the fastest
wound healing occurs in the spring. That's the fastest healing
of the year. The tree is dormant, the bark is
adhering tightly to the wood beneath it, so if something

(32:26):
should follow or tear, it doesn't tear this long strip
of bark off as readily as it would during the
growing season. But that's the best time. Now you can
do some pruning anytime you want to do it. Some
parts of Texas have a lot of oak wilt problems,
and there you get over let's say the hill country

(32:46):
just as an example. And it's not the only place
oak wilt occurs. It can occur here, and it has
occurred here in small spots before. But in those oak
wilt prone areas, we definitely want to prune in the
coldest month of the year or the hottest month of
the year, because the beetle that spreads it is least
active then. But for us in this area, unless your

(33:10):
neighbor next door had an oak wilt tree, wouldn't I
wouldn't worry about doing some pruning. The thing you, if
you have any questions about oak wuilt, is you always
I like to put it this way, prune with a
saw in one hand, and pruning paint in the other hand,
meaning you make a cut, you paint it. You make
another cut, you paint it, And by painting immediately after

(33:30):
you prune, you've eliminated the beetle issue with oak wilt.
That's another way you can do it. But as far
as the time of the year, it just doesn't matter,
except for the fact that you get a little bit
faster healing if you do it in the in the
mid to late winter.

Speaker 10 (33:46):
Okay, So so pruning right now, just going out into
having a service come in and prune pines and prune
oaks right now is pretty much as good a time
as any.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Well it is. Here's here's the thing. Would I rather
have pruned my oak back in the winter or now? Well,
I'd rather have pruned it back in the winter. But
I'm coming up on storm and hurricane season, and if
you've got a tree that needs some work, it's better
to go ahead and get that done rather than wait,
because you know that there's increased damage when a tree

(34:20):
is not properly print Okay, thanks, I generally tell yeah, ken,
I generally tell people that if you're going to do
major punting, save it for the winter. If you're going
to do a little printing here and there than any
time of the year. That's another way to look at it.
Thank you for Thank you for your call, sir. I
appreciate you. Take care alrighty uh. Houston Powder Coders is

(34:46):
the company that I talk about all the time now
and they're the biggest powder coder in the region. And
if you're wondering what's powder coating, well, think about think
about painting, but way, way, way better, a much better coat.
And these folks they'll come and get your metal furniture
or any kind of outdoor metal, cast iron, wrought iron, aluminum,

(35:08):
and they'll they'll bring it in their shop and they'll
turn it in like brand new. I mean, they really
do a good job on it. Any kind of issues
that it has, you know, maybe some of those sling
fabric or vinyl straps or rusty bolts or things. They
take care of that stuff and then they'll bring it
back to you if you're in the Houston area. The website
is Houston Powdercoders dot com. Go check them out. Two

(35:29):
eight one six seven, six thirty eight eighty eight two
eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight. I'm
going to go now to Nancy in spring. Hey, Nancy,
I'm bringing you on with about forty five seconds, but
let's see how far we can get and then we'll
come back after the break. I didn't want you out
to just wait.

Speaker 11 (35:50):
Okay, I have the first time growing in an egg plant.
It's a black beauty. It's about three feet all and
that wide, and at any given time in the past
four weeks or so, it's had like fifteen twenty ballooms
on it, but no eggplants.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, that happens all.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Male and female blooms. If that's an issue.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
It's not. Eggplant blooms are perfect flowers. They have both
male and female parts in them. It could be a
lack of pollinators in sects, bees, if you will doing that.
I just noticed sometimes eggplants do some dropping if they're stressed.
They may drop some blooms, like maybe they got a
little dry one time, and it's not enough to kill

(36:39):
the plant or anything, but it was just a stress.
It could be other stress related types of things. But
eggplants do are prone to that. But they do still
set fruit in the summertime much better than they should
set fruit better than your tomatoes are setting fruit, so
I would just watch the soule moisture, try to keep
it as even as you can. And you got a

(37:00):
great plant there at that size you're talking about, and
make sure and keep it healthy and going because it's
gonna continue producing and you're gonna when we get in
the fall, you're gonna have better yields on it. But yeah, OK,
that that would be my suggestion to it. Uh, just
kind of watch for the bees. Make sure you don't
use them insecticide that might kill them on the plant

(37:22):
or on other flowers you have nearby, because those are
the bees that are gonna also come to your eggplant. Hey,
I've got to run. I'm gonna put you on hold.
If you want to keep talking, just stick around. Well, well,
welcome back, Welcome back, Guardline folks. Good to have you
with us. I'm your host, Skip Richer, and we are

(37:43):
here to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape,
and more fun in the process. How about that If
you'd like to give me a call seven one three
two one two k t r H seven one three
two one two kt r h H outside yesterday taking
care of some things in the yard that I needed

(38:04):
to do. I was just looking around my patio and
I just step by step, I'm just creating a patio
that is a place I want to live. It's the
place I want to live in. You know what I'm saying.
We're talking about the outdoor strings of lights that are nice,
a barbecue pit, and you know, the nice cushions and
seating and fire table and all kinds of things. You know,

(38:25):
when I think about outdoor living and making it more enjoyable,
I think about ACE Hardware because ACE is the place
and you can fill in the blank. The place for
filling the blank. You can go to the website ACE
Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware Texas, don't forget Texas
dot com. That's my group of garden line ACE Hardware stores.
It stretches from Orange, Texas on the east to Rockport

(38:50):
PORTA range is down that direction on the south or
west end of the strip. Now, you know when you
go into an ACE Hardware store, you're going to find
each one is individual. They're owned by individual managers who
can put their personal taste into that store, and so
they're not no to exactly alike, or they do carry
your standard Ace types of things, but some of them

(39:13):
are a little heavier weighted when it comes to quality tools.
You know de Wault and Craftsmen and Milwaukee and Ace's
own standard brand and others. You're going to find all
kinds of things you just didn't expect to find in
a hardware store because it's up to the owner to
do that. But all of them are going to have
the things you need to have a beautiful outdoor living
area and to have a very very nice long landscaping garden.

(39:38):
That's the fertilizers, the pest control of the week, control,
the tools. They're all there at ACE Hardware Store. You
can also they make it easy so if you know
what you want or need, you can. For most things
you can simply buy online and then pick go pick
them up at your store. While are you there, sign
up online, that is, sign up for the ACE Rewards,
receive those discounts and special offers on available to ACE

(40:01):
Rewards customers. They email them directly to you. ACE Hardware's
are again all over the place, such as All Star
in Spring on Rayford Road, Deer Park on Center Street, Cypress,
Ace on Jones Road, k and m Ace on Timber
Forest Drive. That's in Atasca, Sita pat Coo Ace and
Alvin on West Willis Street and Sinkle Ranch Ace in

(40:23):
Katie on South Mason Road. Let's head now up to Brian,
Texas and we're going to talk to Jen. Hello, Jen,
welcome to garden line.

Speaker 12 (40:33):
Good morn, skif Are.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
You doing well? Thank you?

Speaker 8 (40:39):
We have some sunshine.

Speaker 13 (40:40):
The gusts from that are covered in those little white flies.

Speaker 8 (40:44):
We're having a hard time getting rid of me. Have
any suggestions.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
You know, white flies are a challenge to get rid of,
and they have natural enemies. And when we begin to
spray to kill the white flies, we end up killing
the things that normally keep them reasonably in check. And
so I always hesitate to get on a white fly
spray program because again you tend to as you spray,

(41:12):
the whole white fly control problem rests on you now
instead of on nature taking care of them. But if
you do something systemic in the plant, that can help,
because they are sucking juices out of the plant, So
a product that is drenched on the soil that goes
up in the plant. There's an ingredient called imiado cloprid

(41:32):
that's in a number of different things at your local
pest controls, supply places, garden centers, nurseries, hardware stores. Imido
cloprid is systemic. We use it to control the scale
that gets on crape myrtles, for example, in your area.
The other approach would be to spray the bottoms of

(41:56):
the leaves with a horticultural oil, a very light weight
we call them summer oils. They're not heavy like dormant oil.
They're lighter weight, but you would have to direct the
sprays to make sure that the oil coats all of
the bottom sides of the leaves. Because it's not a poison,
it smothers the white fly pupa and eggs that are

(42:18):
laid there underneath the leaf. Their people look like little
tiny fish scales flat, laying right up right on the
surface bottom surface of the leaf. So if you want
to use the oil sprays, do that once, maybe a
couple of weeks later, do it again. It's a little
tedious to try to get that spray where it goes,
but to the degree that you can do that, you
can shut them down that way without any residual poison

(42:41):
that might be killing other beneficial insects.

Speaker 8 (42:45):
What's causing those.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Well, they're out there in nature. We got a lot
of things that are out in nature, and there's sort
of a balance that is in general keeping. You know,
there's a reason why every plant you have isn't just
all covered with aphids every year. It's because there are
a lot of things that eat aphids, and the weather
can have effects on those things as well, and then

(43:11):
they have certain plants that they prefer. So it's a
combination of the lack of natural enemy activity on them
and the type of plant they're on in the weather
that we have that generally, though, I see outbreaks when
someone sees a few and then they start spraying insecticides,
and then it can tend to get out of hand

(43:33):
because the white flies rebound very fast.

Speaker 8 (43:37):
All right, Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
All right, good luck with that. And you know up
there in your area, Producer's co Op is going to
have everything you need. Up on North end of Brian.
They have an excellent selection up there.

Speaker 12 (43:51):
All right, make sure to thank you.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
All right, you take care, bye bye. Wife. Flies are
that kind of a problem. Happened to deal with those things? Well,
speaking of deal with things, mosquitos, Mosquitos are out and
about every time we get a rain, just set your
clock or set your calendar, because in a few days
you're going to have mosquitos lay in their little legs

(44:15):
in water that's standing in stagnant. They love stagnant water,
especially when there's some decomposing organic matter in it. That's
why a gutter underneath the underneath, the catch basin, underneath
your pots on the patio is such a good place
for them to breathe. Mosquita dunks is a way to
deal with it. It's unnatural disease and mosquitos. So these

(44:35):
are little donuts at floating water. One donut, one little
floating mosquito dunk will cover about one hundred square feet
of water surface and it'll last about a month. And
so it's slowly releasing the mosquita disease into the water.
And this disease only affects two insects. It's mosquitos and
it's the fungus gnats. They get in our pots too.

(44:58):
When you keep your pot too wet, you know, the
surface stays wet and you get decomposing stuff in these
little gnats. They'll control those two, but they don't hurt birds,
they don't hurt pets. They don't hurt beneficial insects that
come up to get a drink of water, so they're
a very safe way to go. Mosquito dunks are widely available.
You're going to find them at feed stores, ace hardware stores,

(45:18):
all our independent garden centers carry them and they work.
So if you're going to go on vacation you definitely
want to put some of those out before you go,
so when you come back, you know, has it been
raining and stuff, You don't just find yourself greeted by
this horde of mosquitoes. Well, let me take a little
quick break here and we'll be back with your calls

(45:39):
at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey,
welcome back to garden Line. Glad to have you with us. Hey,
if you won't give me a call, here's the number
seven one three two one two Katie rh We'll talk gardening,
the things that interest you. What are the questions you
have about gardening? Feel free to give me a call.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
I one of the things that I enjoy most, you
know about doing garden I is getting a visit with
the gardeners. I just enjoy visiting people that grow plants,
I find that people that garden or take care plants,
they just are as they say. Those are good people,
They're fun to talk to, and they just have a
different approach to life sometimes than the general population overall

(46:23):
might have. And so it's enjoyable. We can talk all
kinds of things plants because we have in common the
fact that we enjoy the fact that it's a relaxing,
enjoyable activity that you know, gardening is one of those
things I can't think of anything else in life where
you get the health benefits of exercise, you get the

(46:46):
health benefits of growing your own fresh fruits, vegetables and
herbs to consume. You get the mental benefits just of
growing plants, and the beauty that you create, and the
you know, garden are not just visual, they are also
sense and they are also sounds, and there's a whole
sensory experience that goes on with the gardener. There's benefits

(47:09):
for that, and people that discover that and get into
it and learn how to do it so they can
have success. It's rewarding and so I enjoyed visiting with
gardeners on garden Line. The thing that I don't like
is when someone makes a mistake that I could have
helped them avoid, and then they call about how to

(47:32):
fix it. You know, like I ran a trench through
my yard for a new water line and it went
about two feet away from a tree, and now the
tree is starting to die back. Well, it's hard to
fix that. It's not a quick, easy fix at all.
But boy, if they'd call me first, I could have
given them a lot of good suggestions on how to
completely avoid that problem. And so that's the thing. If

(47:54):
you're thinking about doing something, you're kind of wondering about it,
give me a call. Let's touch base, let's talk, because
it sure would be better to start things right. You know,
you plan a plant and you wait years, maybe it's
a true or shrub, and your years for it to
perform and do something, and you find out it wasn't
one that grows here, or you needed a second variety

(48:15):
for pollination, or you fill in the blank. Let's avoid
those things, all right, All right, that's my little public
service announcement. Medina products are quality products. They've been around
since the fifties, I believe, I know. They go back
a long long way. One of my favorite ones is
Medina plus Medina Plus has the original Medina soil activator,

(48:38):
the one that gardeners have loved for a long long time,
but they added micro nutrients. They added seaweed extract into it.
You get all the natural soil building advantages and those
extra ingredients make it a good fold of your feed
for your plants. It's not going to burn them. You
just make follow the label. Mix it in water. It's
going It's not a salt based thing. It's going to
burn them. It's got seaweed extracts to help plants achieve

(49:00):
their maximum growth and yield. And it's just ideal. Have
you got a plant that's been transplanted and you want
to cut down on the transplant shock, some folio sprays
would be a really good way to go. You want
to drench the soil of a new transplant, it would
be a great way to go with Medina Plus. Medina
Plus is available all over the place. I see it
in feed stores, I see it in garden centers, I

(49:21):
see it in ace hardware stores. I mean, these are
good products. They work. Let's head out to Texas City
and talk to Alan. Hey, Alan, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 14 (49:34):
Cool, good morning, Skips, well a couple of weeks ago,
I called you about I don't know if I had
chinchbugs or brown pats, and you needed some pictures. But
when they unable to send them to you, but I
went and bought products to take care of both. I
got home that day, I did find chinch bugs in
the yard, so I treated that with I'll forget what
it was, but it was nitrofalse product for chinchbugs.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 14 (49:58):
I took pictures yesterday morning get them to you while
your tree got was on and so I sent you
three pictures. So now I'm beginning. Now it looks even worse.
I went out to look. I don't see chinch bugs,
So now what if I actually have brown patch?

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Also, I saw I saw those pictures. Those are great
pictures too, by the way, thank you. Uh. I saw
the pictures, and it's neat. It's not chinchbugs. I'm sure
that it looks like take all root rot to me.
Chinchbugs almost always start off next to masonry like a

(50:32):
driveway or a sidewalk or something along those lines. And
your grass looks great all around the sidewalk in the driveway,
and as you go that yeah, and where you see
the decline out there, and that yellowing is because the
roots are being killed and they're not able to take
up the iron. Uh, and then the decline all the

(50:54):
way to death and UH. If you go on my
schedule at gardeningwith Skip dot com, there's a free lawn pest,
Disease and weed management schedule. It will talk about take
all root rot and things you can do. For now,
you want to make sure and keep the yard consistently
moist soil. Moist soil in the yard because the plants

(51:16):
losing roots and the temperatures getting hotter, and that's a
bad combination. So the roots that are still there need
to not lack for water. I didn't mean keep it
a swamp. It just means a little more frequent watering
than I normally would recommend probably on it. And yeah,
and so follow that. There's a products listed on the

(51:39):
schedule that you can use on the take all root rot,
and you know there are some other things you can
do of additional measures, but hopefully you've got enough green
grass in there that if it doesn't decline much further,
you should be okay. Sometimes I'll recommend that people get
a product from Fertile Ome it's called the it's a

(51:59):
liquid iron and other micro nutrients, iron and other micro
nutrients from fertilong. Okay, good, put in a hose in sprayer,
and what you're gonna do is you're gonna foli or
spray the leaves just periodically. Because it's like if if
a patients in a hospital and you can't eat, they

(52:20):
put an I V in you so they can feed
you because you can't eat. This grass plant can't eat
because it's losing roots. So you're basically doing the folier
with that. Uh, and so I would I would consider
that it's not going to kill takeoff atch, it's just
helping the patient hang on that. That's the campass of that. Okay.

Speaker 14 (52:45):
Children, the little critters have little X on their back right.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yes, uh huh, and when they're young, they have a
white bar. They don't have an X. They're more of
a brown reddish shape with a white bar across them. Uh.
But but yeah, but you're going to find chinch bugs
in almost any lawn. They're there. Uh, it's just going
to have an outbreak that there's so many that they
take the grass down. Okay, and that look for chinch

(53:10):
bugs in the zone between healthy and dead. That's where
you find the highest population. Okay, alrighty let me go.
All right, sir, all right, thank you very much. All right,
I appreciate your call. Take care. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
M hmm.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Let's go. Now where are we? Okay, We're going to
go to Stephen and Dayton. Follow Stephen. Welcome to garden line.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
Yeah, good morning, Skip. You got my pictures of my
come calot tree.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Oh, let me look.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Yesterday?

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Did you send those yesterday? Okay, Skip, Okay, I don't see.
I don't see the I don't see your name on
the would it have come from? Do you have another
name that you go by? Or oh? Come quite? Yes?
I see, I see spend.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Yeah my son.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Okay, okay, yes, I see those. And I have not
I started looking through some citrus uh research sites, and
I haven't found the disease yet, but it's just because
I haven't had time to really get through there and
look at it. What I'm gonna do is uh and
it is. It is a fruit rot disease, that's for sure.

(54:29):
You also on yours have something something sucking the juices
out of your plant. It's either scale or white flies
or aphids. Because there's a lot of sooty mold on
the top of the leaves and on the top of
the of the fruit.

Speaker 9 (54:46):
Today.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
When I saw that when I was getting down, I thought,
these leaves look gray.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yeah, that's not well. Uh, turn some leaves over and
see if I'm Nderneath the leaves you see little kind
of shar truce colored like fish scales, but very tiny
on the leaf. That would be that would be white,
could be that would be white flies on there, but
you'd also see the flies flying around. Look on the

(55:15):
stems for the scale. You may find some scale underneath
the leaves too that looks whitish. It just it could
be a number of things. The treatment you can use
a systemic. There is a systemic with a metical oprid
labeled for use on cet trus. But I would only
want to use it when you don't have fruit or
you're not about to get fruit on your plant. I

(55:37):
just don't like using systemics when I'm about to eat
something off the plant. So anyway, recommend Yeah, then just
hold off, yeah, hold off on, hold off on that
right now. Yeah, but let me let me have a
little more time to try to hunt that down.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Okay, I'm not always out in the shop. Uh. When
I came out this morning, I saw your address on
my book. That's a dang. I need to go get
my phone, so i'd give him a call.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
All right, Thank well, I appreciate it. But you'll get
an answer, Okay, Yeah, you'll get an answer from me
by email. Okay, all right, and that's just thanks.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
You got you got my address?

Speaker 1 (56:24):
I do I have your I'll reply to the email
you sent, Yes, sir, thank you, sir, appreciate that. Okay.
Nelson Water Garden and Nursery is out there in Katie, Texas,
and it's a destination water garden, it really is. Uh.
And it's a destination nursery as well.

Speaker 13 (56:40):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Now they became famous years ago in the water garden world.
I mean they it's they're very good at what they do.
And there's things that they invented, uh in the water
garden world that like the disappearing fountain that now is
used everywhere by everybody. But right now the garden center
is just looking good. The indoor plants a new stock,

(57:02):
just loaded with beauty. Trust me, you'd be very surprised
when you walk in and see the selection inside the
store of indoor plants. Just some of the best prettiest plants.
I always say they're ready to give us a gift
because they look so good. You know, they really are
nice now that shipment is in. Also, though outside you

(57:22):
want things for heat like zenias. Some of the bedding
plant types of zeneas. The Seesulpinia are pride of Barbados.
Oh mine just started blooming this week and they are gorgeous,
just beautiful, bright orange, yellow, range, reddish range of flowers.
It never gets too hot for them. They can take drought,

(57:44):
they can take you know, they just need sun. That's
what they need. And good drainage. Nelson Water Gardens got
them out there. Head to Katie Turn North on Katie
Fort Ben Road and it's just a little bit up
the street there on the right hand side, Nelson Water
Gardens and Nursery. Well, we're kind of on a hard
break here, Mike and Willis. You'll be our first stop
when we come back on the other side of the break.

(58:06):
Don't have enough time to do justice to your call
right now. Uh. If you have not checked out my website,
go to gardening with Skip dot com. I have it
to put educational stuff up there to help you with gardening.
It's all free. You download it for free. Mes schedules
are up there and other things. We'll be right back,

(58:26):
all right, Welcome back, Welcome back to Guardenline. Good to
have you with us this morning. You'd like to give
me a call seven to one three two and two
k t r H seven one three two and two KTRH.
I was talking somebody a minute ago about pruning. When
can you prune? What's a good time to prune? Is
it okay to prune now? And so on? Well, talk
to Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoonmore's company, Affordable Tree Service.

(58:50):
You can call them at seven one three six nine
nine two six sixty three. They know how to do trimming,
they know how to do feeding, anything you need to
be done to make sure your trees survive, to do
the pruning that makes them structurally more sounds. So when
storms occur, and I said when not if? When storms occur,
you are gonna do everything in your power to avoid loss,

(59:14):
a loss of the tree, a loss of property, your property,
God forbid, your neighbor's property. Uh. Trees are wonderful, wonderful
plants for the landscape, but we got to take care
of them, and Martin knows how to do that. A
fftree service dot com if you want to learn more
about the different services they offer, or just give them
a call. Seven one three six nine nine two six

(59:37):
sixty three seven one three, six nine nine twenty six
sixty three. You gotta get it done because when storms
occur it's a little light. Then oh well nope. You
can prune after storms occur, cutting down all the broken
limbs and things, but avoid it. Get this done soon.
Give them a call seven one three six nine nine

(59:57):
two six sixty three. Now we're gonna go up to
Willis and visit with Mike. Hey, Mike, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:00:05):
Hey Skim, I meant to call you yesterday, but I
was in and out of my truck because you had
that tree guide. But about fifty fifty fruit trees, they're
about ten years old. With all the rain and stuff,
they've really starting to have all new growth. And I
just wonder what your opinion is about summer pruning. I

(01:00:28):
had a big problem with bugs too. I lost my
old peaches due to the bugs. Anyway, okay, black little
bugs anyway that you know, they've really.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Exploded, you know, with all the rain and stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Well what kinds of fruit do you have? What kinds
of fruit? Trees?

Speaker 15 (01:00:51):
Okay, I've got door said apples and a carnival. We
got Asian pears, we got Florida peaches. Got a lot
of citrus in my greenhouse. About fifteen trees. Okay, there
are seventy gallon pots, but the apples and peaches, and yeah,

(01:01:17):
all the other trees. We got a few plumps too,
but I see they've got probably four or five long
new growth.

Speaker 16 (01:01:27):
On top of them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Okay, so so yeah, well so setting centrus aside, that's
a whole different animal. All those other fruit you're talking about.
When in the summertime, you're you're doing most of your
printing in the winter, first of all, mid to late winter,
but you print in the summertime to keep light coming

(01:01:49):
into the tree. Uh. They they will get tall and
as you see growing those shoots, and what they end
up doing is shading out their interior. So the fruit
you get is in a peripher it's almost like an umbrella,
with all the fruit being the where the umbrella is
and nothing down inside. So we cut out things we

(01:02:09):
call water sprouts that shoot straight up for the sky
and try to take over. You cut those out because
you want light continuing to reach the inside. Because right now,
all the way into early fall, your fruit trees are
going to be setting the buds for next year. So
without light, you will not get fruit buds down there.
So get some selective printing done to just keep those

(01:02:33):
interiors open where you get good light. In those those
sucker shoots you can see them on a peach that
are very blonde colored wood and very very vigorous. They
need to come out and that that's the primary kind
of pruning you're doing now, just.

Speaker 15 (01:02:50):
Kind of making it look like a wine glass type.
That's kind of way when during the winter time when
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
It, Yeah, prun and that's what I'll do. Yeah, peaches
and plums. Yeah, peaches and plums. Kind of a chalice
or or bowl type shape is what you're going for.
Open in the center. For apples and pears, you're looking
more that what we call a central leader. They have
a trunk going up the middle with branches coming out

(01:03:17):
at different levels in different directions. It's a different printing system. Hey, here,
this is what you need to do. Mike, If you
go to the Aggie Horticulture website, just search for Aggie Horticulture.
There's a section on fruits and nuts, and when you
get to that section, there's a publication on every fruit peaches, plums, avocados, citrus,

(01:03:40):
and there's and each of those will tell you how
to prune that species, and that would be probably the
best thing you could do. So you get pictures and
you know a little bit of species specific information. Yeah,
now I've looked all right, I have a video. If
everybody has.

Speaker 15 (01:03:57):
An idea, yeah, okay, we'll go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Well, yeah they had ideas, but there's research proven ways
that you know, we're this is they'll they'll tell you
the most the best way to have a productive tree,
and doing it right is important. So thanks for the call.
You're on the right track. That's a lot of fruit.
Normally I say when I help somebody, they have to
bring me half the produce. I don't know if if

(01:04:23):
I have a place to put the peaches and plums
from fifty differ trees. Thanks for your call. Thanks for
your call, sir. You take care of there in Willis, Texas.
I used to have a peach orchard up in Willis.
I did out east of town out County line. Is
it Kennedy Line Road? I think it's County Line road

(01:04:45):
that went out that way anyways, east of town. Uh,
several lakers peaches. Good place to grow peaches. Hey, if
you'd like to give me a call. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. I was talking
to some of the other day and you're normally, I'm saying,
use a slow release fertilizer on your lawn through the
Summer's that's a great way to go. But somebody who

(01:05:08):
wanted to use a faster release but divided into multiple applications,
and that's what they did, and they were using sweet green.
Sweet green from nitrofoss It works. My neighbor the other day,
it was gotcha about a month ago. We were talking
and he said, man, that's sweet grain works. Of course
it does. I don't talk about things that don't work.
That's what that's part of my standard there. But just

(01:05:31):
a small application here and there through the summer, all
about every six weeks, just small application of sweet green.
You're gonna find sweet green A dozens of great retailers
around town like Plants for All Seasons off Lewis at
Tamail Parkway two forty nine in Luetta, the Langham Creek
Ace Hardware on five point twenty nine near Cypress area,

(01:05:53):
the Bearings Hardware on West Timer and the one on
Bessonette both are going to carry Nitofos products. It's time
for me to go to a break and let's see here.
When we come back, we will be taking your calls
seven one three two one two KTRH. All right, folks,
we're back. Welcome back to garden Line. Good to visit

(01:06:14):
with you today. You know, I talk about Southwest Fertilizer
all the time, and it's just because you know, if
somebody asked me where can I get this or that
or the other, the answer is always going to be
Southwest Fertilizer. And I know some of you don't live
near the corner of Businet and Runway in Southwest Houston.
But I don't know folks that drive a distance to
get over there because they know I'm going to get

(01:06:35):
in there and I'm going to get two or three
or four or five things that I need. You know,
I talk about their tools. I talk about their products
for pest disease and weeds. I talk about their organic
selection like none other in the whole region. But they
also have a shop in the back. You need something sharpened,
you need to have some small engine repaired on. I
mean they can do those kinds of things as well.
And when it comes to tools, ninety foot wall of

(01:06:58):
garden tools, quality like Velco and Corona. Things that I
just am thrilled with, like the gardening kneeling seat, the
thing that I used to build a weed wiper, the
little grabber tool that used to be the weed wiper,
and soulni is. I don't talk about sol knives and
fact sometimes I need to go on a rant about
my favorite tools. But anyway, sol knives are really cool

(01:07:20):
tools and Bob has more than one type there at
Southwest Fertilizer corner of Businett and Renwick. They have friendly service,
they have quality products and unbelievable selection. That's what you
would expect and that's what you're going to get from
Southwest Fertilizer. Seven one three six six six one. Head
out to Tomball. Now we're going to talk to Mike. Hey, Mike,

(01:07:41):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:07:43):
Hey, good morning Skip. I sent a couple photos in
one is up my yard. I've got uh well, I've
got tiff tough grass, and I've got bermuda that's growing
mostly taking over the tiff. It's got some brown spot
tenant areas that I don't know if it's chinchbugs or

(01:08:05):
what it is. Lack of water. But I don't think
it's lack of water because I did the screwdriver test
and it came out, you know, it went down all
the way to the hill.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Good, good, well, and that that pattern I'm seeing in
the photo, the little splotchy spots here and there, that's
not lack of water. It's some sort of disease in there.
And you know, it could be take All actually does
affect bermuda as well as Saint Augustine. We just have
so many more Saint Augustine lawns that we usually see
it on Saint Augustine. But it could be take All.

(01:08:34):
There are some other diseases that can affect bermuda grass.
I would consider putting a product on that contains a
zoxy strobin, and the the only form of it used
to have a product called Heritage around, but it's pretty
much almost impossible to find now, but there is one

(01:08:56):
product I'm aware of that has it, and that's it's
Scott's disease X. The word disease with an ex. It's
god is oxystrobin in it. It's pretty widely available in general.
Follow the label, you put it down, you water it in.
It's systemic, the plants take it up from the roots.
It works on a number of different diseases. I would
try an application of that and watered in real good

(01:09:19):
and see how that responds. Normally we're doing those treatments
in the fall, but I would go ahead and try
one now on the bermuda, just so this doesn't spread
any further.

Speaker 16 (01:09:29):
Okay, I'll try that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's my best on that. Your other go ahead,
I would say. Your other question is about, yeah, you
got an allocacia or like an elephanear, somewhat like an
elephantare that has the in between the veins and the
older leaves. There's there's yellowing and browning occurring, and the

(01:09:52):
veins stay pretty green. Being on the older leaves. That's
going to be if I think that it, it would
be sunburned. You can get sunburn on some of those plants,
especially it's in a container, so it could be moved
to a spot where suddenly now the sun is baking
down on it or whatever. I think this is more
nutrient related. So when you're in a pot, there's a

(01:10:15):
very limited roots system that that plant could have compared
if it was in the ground. So if it stays
too soggy wet and roots can't get water or can't
get oxygen, you can have issues in a container. If
the container drains well, but maybe it dries out a
little too much. That's a lot of foliage to pump
that little container of soil dry on a hot day,
so if it got a little on the dry side,

(01:10:36):
you can get some damage. I think it's nutrient though.
I would get a complete fertilizer one that probably like
an organic type product that's going to have not just
the big three numbers on it, but it's going to
have a lot of the micronutrients and things in it
as well, and try that. You could you could sprinkle
some microlife six two four on the top of the pot.

(01:10:58):
You're not going to burn with that kind of scratch
it into the surface of the soil and water it.
You could also get a product medina plus and it's
a liquid, and you would drench that pot with it
when you water. Then do that for one or two
or three applications, following the label and see if that improves.

(01:11:20):
I see, it looks like the edges of some of
the other leaves are starting to yellow, unless that's just
the way the sun is shining on them. But you
can't fix the old leaves. You just have to remove those.
But maybe the fresh new growth will come out and
stay healthier as a result.

Speaker 16 (01:11:36):
Yeah, it's on my patio and it's kind of it's
on the west side, but it doesn't get a lot
of sun in the afternoon. It's pretty much shaded most
of the day and maybe an hour to look direct sunlight.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
Yeah, okay, Well I don't think it's sunburn, just because
of the way it looks and where it is and stuff.
So I think I think it's nutrients. That's my that's
my gut. And then try to keep the soul moisture
as consistently moist as you can. Uh. And I know
that's already a big pot, but if if you wanted
to keep it in a pot, maybe consider next season

(01:12:12):
moving it to a little bit bigger pot to give
it a little bit more room, and I think it'll
you'll you'll reduce your concerns about having to water so
often and so on.

Speaker 16 (01:12:23):
Okay, great, okay, all right, all.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Right, you'll take care. Bye bye bye bye. All right, folks,
you're listening to guard Line and I want to tell
you about brown stuff before green Stuff Central. That's Nature's
Way Resources. You go out to Nature's Way Rose soils,
leaf mold composts, fungo composts. They're still having their fungal
compost sale out there. It's an excellent product and it's

(01:12:49):
an incredible deal. Just need to call them to go
out there. Here's the website. Write this down, Nature's Way
Resources dot com. Nature's Way Resources dot com. Why you
got your pen out and you're writing. I also want
to have you write down the date of October eleventh.
I know that's a long time away. October the eleventh,

(01:13:10):
I'm going to be out there. They're having their Fall
Garden Festival and I'm going to be out there visiting
with you and answering gardening questions. I just jot that down.
I'll talk about it more as we get closer. We
just need to save that date because their fall garden
festivals are always outstanding and a lot of fun to
be able to do that. Leak City Feed done in
Leake City. I was there the other day visiting with

(01:13:30):
the Funderbergs. And they're open Monday through Saturday nine to six,
closed on Sunday. Here's the number, by the way for
I forget it. Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.
If you need fertilizers, they got Night to Fuss and
azamite and Microlife and Nelson plant food and they even
have the medina as well. Like I was talking about,

(01:13:52):
they've got heirloom soil products there by the bag. People
love that they're visiting with them and just talking about
all the different things.

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
Good supply. Can't beat it now. It's on Highway three,
a few blocks south of Highway ninety six in League City.
So all of these cities around, all the towns, this
is your hometown feed store. League City Feed. Oh and
it's old time fashion service, old fashioned service. You know
where they carry the bags out for you and stuff

(01:14:21):
like that. That's what you like, all right, folks. Music
means I got to quit talking. We got the eight
o'clock hour coming up, and I have a special guest,
and I hope you stick around for this. Joey Davis
from Quality Home Products is going to come in and
I'm going to pick his brain about generators, and not
just their generators. We're going to talk about, you know,

(01:14:43):
what types of generator technologies are out there? How does
someone know what they need? What questions do you ask
when you go somewhere and you're thinking about buying a generator,
and a lot more information like that. Okay, so stick around,
we'll be right back. Welcome back to Garden Line, folks,

(01:15:06):
Welcome back for eight o'clock hour. Here's what we're going
to be doing for those of you just now tuning in.
We're gonna be visiting with Joey Davis from Quality Home
Products and we're going to pick his brain on all
things generator. If you've been thinking about getting a generator,
you need to hear this because we're going to go
through We're not just talking about their products. We're talking

(01:15:27):
about you know, what is the technology and generators? What
are our options out there? How do you know what
kind of generator you need for your particular needs? What
should you ask somebody who's trying to sell you a generator,
and what kinds of questions are important and just kind
of understand the whole process of that. And we live
in Houston, and it's not what will storms arrive, it's

(01:15:51):
when will storms arrive, because they will. We got hurricanes,
we've got normal storms. Last well, last year was unique.
But we'll get into that as we talk with Joey
here in just a second. But if you would like
to ask a question about generators, the generator process and stuff,
feel free to give me a call. Otherwise, I'm gonna

(01:16:12):
ask you to hold all the calls until the nine
o'clock hour and we'll get back to gardening at that hour. Specifically,
right now, he's going to head out here and get
Joey on the line. Hey, Joey, welcome to garden. I'm
doing great. I'm doing great. It's good to talk to
you again.

Speaker 17 (01:16:30):
Man, you too, it's been It's a different situation than
it was last time we talked last year.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
That's for surely, isn't it. I tell you what, after
last summer, I think probably the easiest thing in the
world would be to sell a generator right now, because
last year twice storms knocked out power in Houston for
like two weeks at a time. I had my son
lives down there, and just oh my gosh, And so

(01:16:58):
I would think that there might have a little bit
of interest in generators after all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Yeah, you know, there's there's some carryover.

Speaker 17 (01:17:06):
But oddly enough, the real rush, the real you know,
the time that we really get busy is after a
hurricane or during a hurricane, and literally by that time,
it's just too late, you know. I mean, after Beryl
and the the ratio came through. I mean, it was
just an incredible uptick and the amount of people wanting
a generator. But unfortunately, when everybody in Houston wants one

(01:17:28):
at the same time, it really extends the timelines to
get one put in, and you know, the city gets
bogged down with permitting and the gas companies.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Get bogged down and that sort of thing.

Speaker 17 (01:17:39):
So this year is a different climate, for sure. I mean,
it's not crazy like it was last year. Sometimes people
have a short memory, but all it takes is just
the threat of a hurricane and it'll be just, you know,
a lot like it was last year.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
At that point, the question.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
Go ahead, go ahead, Well, I just said you rightious
ess in the infant Uh huh okay, well, uh, I
try to tell people when I'm talking about quality home products. Uh,
you know, call now because this is a process. You know,
it's not just like you get a generator tomorrow. So
could you tell walk us through, just real briefly, what

(01:18:18):
is the process for getting a generator?

Speaker 9 (01:18:21):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
Well, the first thing is people do and what has
to happen.

Speaker 17 (01:18:25):
Okay, there's a little bit of a delay, so I'm
sorry if I'm talking over here just a bit. But
what you first need to do is find out the
right company to use. And you know, in my mind
the three biggest things to look for is a company
that does not use subcontractors. That would be high on
my lists. They have to have factory training technicians, you know.
I mean you and I could install a generator now,

(01:18:48):
would it work?

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Probably not? But could we service it? Absolutely no?

Speaker 17 (01:18:53):
H You know, these these are these are very sophisticated machines.
You know, the smaller ones, the air cool units, they're
much like a motorcycle. And then when you get up
to the bigger ones, those are liquid cooled units, and
those are exactly like a car engine. You know, I
tell people. I've got a little mons to see X
thirty turbo and that's basically the same engine and the
liquid cools, and then they.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
Honda gold Wing is very much like that.

Speaker 17 (01:19:16):
Even though it's just two cylinders on the generators, it's
a nine hundred and ninety eight cc engine for the
most part for the air cool units. So they're very
sophisticated pieces of equipment and you have to know how
to operate on them. And when that's just it's paramount
that you know what you're doing, and you know there's
some other really important go ahead, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
No, go ahead. I'm sorry, the timing is off. It's
hard to not talk about it.

Speaker 17 (01:19:40):
It is. Sorry, I'll kind of delay myself a little bit,
but you know, it's really important that you don't use subcontractors,
that you have factory train technicians. You know, that would
be the first thing that I would look for. Other
things would be the number of texts they have. You know,
there's some small like mom and pop generator dealerships that
are they're fine, you know, they they do a very

(01:20:02):
limited number of generators a year, but they just have
one or two technicians.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
And then when you have a situation like barrel.

Speaker 17 (01:20:09):
That can really be a problem, you know, because you
need to have you know, a number of texts, a
number of vehicles that you can get out and change,
you know, change oil, do service, whatever you need to do,
and you don't want to be hog tied to the
number of technicians.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Or vehicles they have. That's what I would look for.

Speaker 17 (01:20:26):
You know that right now the climate is that there's
not very many locally owned and operated generator companies.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
I mean, that's kind of a we're quality quality, We're
kind of a relic from the past.

Speaker 17 (01:20:39):
It's still a family owned business and it's treated as such.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
So there's the customer service level.

Speaker 17 (01:20:44):
When you have that kind of situation is just much
much better than you know, the opposite of that, so
and which is very commonplace in the industry these days.
The other thing I would look for make sure that
they're insured, licensed, bonded, you know, in the license that's
the company and the master electricians, the master plumbers.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
You know.

Speaker 17 (01:21:06):
The bad thing is that a lot of companies will
tell you, oh, yeah, we're just like quality, we don't
use any subcontractors. But the reality is unless they have
their own master electricians, license numbers and their own master plumbers,
license numbers on their quothes and on their trucks. They
are definitely using subcontractors. So it's just really unfortunate. There's

(01:21:28):
a lot of unscrupulous behavior in this industry. I mean,
when I was growing up in the sixties in Houston,
that was the aluminum citing companies, and then lately, you know,
after every storm or cataclysmic event, we have all the
storm chasers that come in the length of time, you know,
and I'll just speak to that real quick, The length

(01:21:48):
of time a company has been in business is really important.
For instance, last year, there were over four hundred new generator.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
Companies that popped up in Houston.

Speaker 17 (01:21:58):
Now, the fact that it remains four hundred and I
would say at least ninety eight percent of those are
out of business by now. They come from other states,
and then they take people's money. Sometimes they don't even
install a generator. I mean, we've had multiple times with
people calling our switchboard literally in tears because they gave
somebody fifty percent down and now there's this there's no

(01:22:20):
phone calls back, there's there's this nothing, there's uh.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
There was just a lot of unscrupulous.

Speaker 17 (01:22:27):
Behavior, you know, after every storm. So those are the
things I would look for.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
In a company.

Speaker 1 (01:22:32):
Yeah, that's uh, that's all good to know. I'm gonna
we're up against our first break of three for this hour,
so uh, we'll come right back to you. And when
I come back, I would like you to kind of
give give our listeners a picture of when they call quality,
what is the process that they walk through? You know,
how do you what do you guys do in terms
of matching them to a generator? Talk about the permit

(01:22:55):
process and and uh, you know how long does this
typically take? And I know that, but I would just
like to get a picture of what does it take
from I'm calling you to I have a generator. And
we'll come back and talk about that in just a minute.
Thanks so much for being on All right, folks, I'll
be right back. All right, welcome back to the Guardline.

(01:23:16):
We're visiting with Joey Davis, the Quality Home Products of Texas.
We are talking generators, all the things that you need
to know as you consider purchasing a generator for your house.
And Joey, I think what I'd like to do right
now is shift gears and go through the process. You know,
I call you today and I say, hey, I'm thinking
about a generator. How do we get from there to you?

(01:23:40):
Guys walk away from the house and it's all set
up and ready to go. Of course, that's when your
service just begins. But how long is that process? What
happens first? How do you fit a generator to what
I need? You see what I'm saying, I like, just
kind of talk to us and help us understand.

Speaker 17 (01:24:01):
I mean, for us, it's seven one, three quality and
you're good to go. After that, it becomes pretty complicated.
But you really need a company that knows what they're
doing to get through that complicated process.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
So well, the first thing that would happen we would
come out.

Speaker 17 (01:24:16):
I mean one of my I've got a really strong
team of reps that work with me, and I do
all the training. I come from the construction industry and
the architectural design community, and we know what we're doing.
I mean, we understand that the importance really lies in
the training. But what will happen is one of our
reps will come out to the home and we don't

(01:24:36):
just come in and burn around and look at a
few things and say, hey, we'll send you a quote.
I mean, we spend hours sometimes with people because this
is a very important decision. You know, these things are
not inexpensive, and you need to make sure that the
company you're using is doing it right. So we really
take a lot of time in the home to make
sure that we can match up the right generator with

(01:24:57):
that particular family's needs.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
The industry on the whole has.

Speaker 17 (01:25:02):
Changed quite a bit over the last fifteen years. So
the reason I say that is because there's new technology
that allows you to get into a smaller generator and
still have the whole house on the generator. Back until
about fourteen years ago, the only thing you could do
is either get a real big generator, you know, the
full load transfers what they call it, or back in

(01:25:24):
the day they used to do what was called partial
load transfers. We never do those unless it's a really
huge home with multiple main panels, so that's kind of
a thing of the past for us. The most important
thing is to know how to design using managed load transfer.
But i'll get to that to just in just a minute.
I think you know what you're kind of looking for

(01:25:45):
is the process, and the first thing you do after
you choose a company and they design the right generator
for you and you know you get on your list.
Is that what's called an ATS approval would be needed
from the power company, and what that really is it
is just telling a power company, hey, we're gonna have
to disconnect your power for x amount of time and
then turn it back on. So that would be the

(01:26:08):
first thing you get if it's in a city. Then
you go through a permitting process. You know, a lot
of people don't understand that these are construction projects.

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
This is nothing like a portable generator.

Speaker 17 (01:26:19):
You know, you have to know what you're doing when
you're installing them and designing them, and you have to
go through the proper permitting process as well, because the
cities need to know that you know what you're doing
and that you're not breaking any codes because there are
a wealth of codes surrounding generators and it's a it's
a good idea for that to be because you know,

(01:26:40):
these are both you know, they're hooked up to natural
gas and they're you know a lot of electricity going
through them. They're providing electricity, so they can be dangerous
if you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
Don't know what you're doing. That's why it's so important
that everything is done correctly.

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
And permitting process we do. Y'all handle the permitting.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
That's exactly right. And I would be really leary if
you're living.

Speaker 17 (01:27:04):
In a city and a company tells you, oh, don't
worry about the permitting process.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
That is the most huge.

Speaker 17 (01:27:10):
Red flag in the world right there, because you have
to go through the permitting process.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
You have to go through the ats process.

Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
Joey, I need to cut in here. I've got a
caller that's been on hold. I want to bring them on,
and then I'd like you to pick up right where
I interrupted you. We're going to go to Lakeside of
States and talk to Maureene. Hey, Mareene, you're on guardline
with me and Joey Davis. I think you had a
question regarding generators.

Speaker 8 (01:27:37):
Yes, I do.

Speaker 18 (01:27:39):
I think mine is going to be very simplistic. I
already have a generator. I'm thrilled.

Speaker 8 (01:27:46):
And everything you're saying so far is true. You have
to have if.

Speaker 18 (01:27:50):
You want to be legal and do everything and expect
the best service from your generator. You've got to follow
all the directions. So that I did that, I'm very
happy with it.

Speaker 8 (01:28:01):
But here's a question.

Speaker 18 (01:28:04):
Will I ever have to be worried that center point,
which is my delivery of my natural gas for the
fuel for the generator, will that ever.

Speaker 8 (01:28:16):
Be taken shut down?

Speaker 18 (01:28:18):
So, gee, I have a generator, but I don't have
the fuel for it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
That is a wonderful question, truly, Martie. The situation is this.

Speaker 17 (01:28:29):
The only time that we've ever experienced any kind of
failures at all from the gas companies is after the
winter storm of twenty one and the reason for that
was down here, they didn't understand that they needed to
treat the natural gas with anti freeze like to do
throughout the rest of the northern United States. We're just

(01:28:50):
not used to permafrosts down here. So that has been corrected.
There just aren't any problems with gas anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
Now.

Speaker 17 (01:28:59):
Is it possible, Yes, it is, but it's much less
than one percent chance. I think it's like a ninety
nine point nine or excive me, eight nine percent chance
that your gas is going to be running.

Speaker 2 (01:29:11):
So it's a valid question, and it did present.

Speaker 17 (01:29:15):
It was a small number of our clients after the
winter storm of twenty one, but yeah, I mean we
did have a few people that had some gas problems,
but very very small percentage of our generators that are
out there had that kind of situation and we don't
foresee that ever happening.

Speaker 12 (01:29:30):
Again, that's a great listen.

Speaker 8 (01:29:32):
Then, thank you so much for your time. I'm going
to listening. If there's anything else I need to pick up,
I'll learn it from you. Good, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
Very good.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
Thanks Thanks Marine. I appreciate that. All right. So I
think we left you with the we did the permitting,
you're doing the permitting process, and then there where do
we go from there?

Speaker 17 (01:29:56):
So you know, the next thing that would happen is
we would get the permits and we would come If
it's a let me just kind of make this distinctionion
on a liquid cool, the larger ones that I was
referring to, like the car engines, those have to have
what's called a form and poor slab, so it's got
to be.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Concrete in those particular cases. Now, the vast majority of
our air cools used to be this forming poor concrete
as well.

Speaker 17 (01:30:22):
Now we have another kind of annection impath that's even
better for the air cool But the reason I say
that is the first thing that would happened would be
we would come out and form the concrete on a
forming poor area like a city that requires that, or
that would you know, it's a liquid cool.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
That requires it as well.

Speaker 17 (01:30:39):
And then the inspectors would come and they would check
that off, and then we would pour the concrete.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
They'd come back again and check that off.

Speaker 17 (01:30:48):
So it's a multiple step, you know, it's kind of
a back and forth between us and the inspectors. The
beautiful thing is all the cities love us because they know.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
That we pull our own permits, which.

Speaker 17 (01:30:59):
Again is a kind of an anomaly, or is a
huge anomaly really that we use our own people. But
the fact that the matter remains is that each step
of the way, and the next step would be the
trenching and the actually installation of the generator, that too
would be closely monitored by the inspectors. And therein is

(01:31:20):
why some companies, and I'm not gonna thrown anybody under
the bus, obviously, but some companies will kind of, you know,
kind of a whisper tone to the client, say hey,
let's don't worry about the permits.

Speaker 2 (01:31:31):
They're expensive. They are expensive. I mean in some.

Speaker 17 (01:31:34):
Areas they're very expensive and some areas they're very inexpensive.

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
They range from two.

Speaker 17 (01:31:39):
Hundred and fifty dollars to two thousand dollars, so there's
a big swing in that. But again, be really leery
about somebody that tells you don't need permits. So the
next thing that would happen would be we would do
the trenching. They would come out and measure the depth
of the trenches.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Believe it or not, it.

Speaker 17 (01:31:55):
Has to be eighteen inches deep for the gas and
the electric trenches. So once that gets done, we would
actually fill in the trenches around the conduit and the
pipe for the gas and then they would come out
as as we finished the installation, they'd come out once
again and actually inspect it one more time. So there's
a there's a lot of interplay between us and the

(01:32:18):
cities during that process. It might be five or six
times that the inspectors come out.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
You also have to get in.

Speaker 17 (01:32:25):
Touch with the gas companies, but that doesn't happen every time,
and literally the homeowner can do that. That's the one
thing that the homeowners can do. They can facilitate their
own gas pressure upgrades. And you know, I don't want
to go down too many rabbit holes, but that's just
the next step. So after that, you know, we would
come out and walk through the generator operation with the clients.

(01:32:48):
I mean, we do what's called the final walkthrough. We
show them exactly how everything operates. And you know, you
really need to know these things. And you know, in case,
I don't really know the worst case scenario, but you
didn't even.

Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
Know how everything operates. So that would be the next step. Okay,
I certainly can.

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
Uh, well, let me I want to go backwards just
a little bit. You were talking about getting a generator
that fits you know, what what I would need, let's
say at my house. Uh, and exactly. I I guess
there's some people that's like, well, I just need one
to you know, keep my refrigerator from all the food

(01:33:31):
goes bad when I'm on vacation or something. Uh. And
then there's people that work from home and they've got
to have absolute you know power for internet connections and
other things. And maybe the AC unit's going to pull
a lot of power. So you guys can have different
generators and then different degrees to which your power goes

(01:33:53):
through the generator. Am I asking that right? I'm I'm well, yeah,
you know what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 17 (01:33:59):
Yeah, So that we're dealing with design there and you know, equality,
we have very strict design criteria. We don't just go
buy code because we found that just go buying code, uh,
just going by code. Sometimes that is not sufficient, especially
if there's multiple air conditioning units, you know, and you

(01:34:19):
pose a question about the person who just wants, you know,
say the refrigerator in their lights.

Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
Well, in Houston, there's not a whole lot of folks
that want just that. You know.

Speaker 17 (01:34:29):
The air conditioning is you know, king down here. It
always has been. So it used to be if you
wanted air conditioning, you had to get a bigger generator. Nowadays,
there's no need to do what's called a partial load
transfer because the AC is kind of the driving driving
force and designing these generators. So we utilize what's called

(01:34:51):
managed load transfer. And it always it astounds me that
oftentimes I'll go into a home and maybe they have
had for.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
Joey. I'm sorry, I wasn't watching the clock. I'm five
seconds away from the hardest break of the hour, So
hold that thought. Sorry to interrupt like this. We'll be
right back to Joey. Hang around, guys, got a lot
more to talk about. Welcome back to the guarden Line's
good to have you guys with us. Let's see, I'm
gonna we're gonna bring Joey back on here. Joey. Uh

(01:35:23):
we got We're just gonna go to a caller first,
it's it's on the line here, and then we'll continue
with what we were talking about. Uh so, Alejandra, can
you put Fred on with us? There we go, Fred
and Kingwood. You are on the air with me and
Joey Davis from Quality Home Products. Hey, Fred, how can
we help hi?

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
Joey?

Speaker 4 (01:35:44):
Thank you so much?

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
Seriously? Uh oh, Fred, Fred, you're cutting out a lot
on us. I don't know if we if you can
do anything too, but we're not able to understand what
you're saying. Can you hear me now?

Speaker 4 (01:36:04):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
Better? Okay, okay, thank you? Sorry about that.

Speaker 19 (01:36:10):
We had our panel. We had the panel in our
garage upgraded and replaced in twenty thirteen a company called
mister Sparky and the house we lived in for forty
five years. We just thought it was a safety thing
to replace the panel. So when you come out and

(01:36:31):
evaluate a home, how often do those panels need to
be upgraded or replaced to be able to handle a
whole home generator. We currently have about ten slots that
are not used in our panel.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
So, man, that is a great question, Fred.

Speaker 17 (01:36:51):
So the reality is a lot of people do upgrade
their panels. We actually do that in house because again
we have our own master electricians that can do that.
The only time you have to upgrade a panel, there's
some specific manufacturers from back in the forties, fifties and
early sixties, zens Co and Zenzer. They have to be replaced.

(01:37:13):
In other words, the inspectors will make you replace those
because there are real hazards. Another one is called Federal Pacific.
You don't necessarily have to replace those, but it's a
good idea too, because they too, just they don't work
properly and they.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
Are a fire hazard.

Speaker 17 (01:37:29):
So the reality is not everybody has to upgrade their panels.
Maybe less than five percent, I would say, of our
clients have to do that, but there are a few
people that want to because they've been into the home
for a long time. But to your question, we only
really have have to have two slots in the main panel,
and we can create those by doing half height circuits

(01:37:51):
if we need to, so you know that will be
no problem whatsoever. You know, when our texture come out,
we'll we'll go over everything to make sure it's all
on the up and up, you know, especially when you've
had some work done recently like that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:05):
Does that help with your question or is there?

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
Yes? Yes, yes, you're so.

Speaker 19 (01:38:09):
Most likely because I've had mine in this old home
replaced in twenty thirteen by who I thought was a
reputable company, I probably have a panel that would not
need to be replaced because that could be another three,
four or five thousand dollars.

Speaker 17 (01:38:26):
Well, you're exactly right, And that's another beautiful thing about
quality is that while.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
We're out there, we do it.

Speaker 17 (01:38:33):
We do things like panel replacement at our cost, so
much less than the three or four thousand dollars that
you had to pay unfortunately. So again it's just part
of one of the services that we provide.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
You know, we're a generator company.

Speaker 17 (01:38:47):
But the fact that we have our own natural electricians
and journeyman electricians, we can do all that kind of
work surrounding the generator in terms of main panels and
subpanels and that sort of thing, you know, when it's required.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
All right, but yeah, we'll take a look.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
At fred sounds like You're in good shape there, Fred,
appreciate your call, right, take care, Thank you, Fred. Joey.
Before before I cut you off a while ago, you
were describing to me, like getting a generator and what
is it going to cover? What is it going to do?

(01:39:22):
What kind of generator do I need to do the
things I want? I think you were starting to explain that.

Speaker 17 (01:39:27):
Yeah, yeah, So what we do we take our time
with the families and we see what they really need.

Speaker 2 (01:39:36):
You know, what takes precedence.

Speaker 17 (01:39:38):
Now that all being said, the reality is most homes
that we provide power to with generators, we don't have
to lock things out.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
In other words, we don't have to lock out a
dry or an oven or any or sometimes an AC.
That does occasionally happen.

Speaker 17 (01:39:54):
But the reality is it's not a good idea anymore
in my opinion, to do what's called a partial load transfer,
because you're really missing out because with this new technology
called managed load transfer, it's like you're.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
Not robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Speaker 17 (01:40:09):
You can get a smaller generator and still have the
entirety of your house on that generator. So it's you know,
they're very sophisticated pieces of equipment. But what we would
do is find out exactly what each are.

Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
You have a question for me, skin go ahead, I
thought I heard.

Speaker 17 (01:40:26):
So what we do is we sit down with the
family and you know, we understand that time is an essence,
but it's important that we really understand exactly what a
client's needs are and we we really understand the house.
You know, we don't just kind of look at a
house and say, oh, you need this generator. We go
through it with a fine tooth call. You know, we

(01:40:47):
make sure that we really make we have a full
idea of exactly what's going on and to the earlier
caller's point, you know, if there's something that needs to
be replaced, we'll call it to your attention. But we
certainly aren't there to try to upsell them with, you know,
panel upgrades and that sort of thing. But this managed
loads transfer as a game changer because you know, back

(01:41:08):
until that came into being, you could just have a
partial load or a full load. Now with managed load,
generally you can get the whole house on a smaller generator.
You know, the goal is to get people down to
an air cool just because of the cost effectiveness of that.
But sometimes you know, then we go into ten thousands
private houses, they have to have a liquid cool generator.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
Okay, and all right, well did.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
You have a question for them? I feel like I'm
just talking over the years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
So no, no, that that's you're answering the question that
I asked. That that is good, good to know. And
I don't know if people are are aware, but you know,
for some of us that just grew up with the
generator was something you carried around the side of the
house and put gasoline in and pull the rope to
get it right. And yeah, these things they could they

(01:41:56):
come on when the power goes off, and we I
was amazed when you guys described to me how fast
they come on. Would you talk a little bit about
what happens when the power goes out and you're sitting
there watching TV or whatever, Absolutely what happens to the
generator and how fast does that happen?

Speaker 17 (01:42:13):
So what happens is, you know what we do is
we come in and install what's called a transfer switch.
And right now, in everybody's house, unless they have a generator,
their powers coming in through their electric meter and going
directly into their main panel. Well, when you have a generator,
you have what's called an automated transfer switch and that
rests between the two, so that is constantly monitoring a

(01:42:37):
person's service coming into their house.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
And when you have an.

Speaker 17 (01:42:40):
Outage of ten seconds with GENERAC and four seconds with Cohler,
when the when the power goes out for those lengths
of time, the transfer switch tells the generator to turn on,
and then at that point in time, it takes seven
seconds to spool up to sixty hertz, so you've got
a total of about fifteen seconds or so before your

(01:43:01):
power comes back on. So it's not just like a
flicker of the lights, but it's a very brief interlude
that you don't have power. I mean, the power comes
back on and you're living just like you know, there's.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
No hurricanes around you. When when Barrel came.

Speaker 17 (01:43:14):
In, you know, I had been up all night long
and the storm approached, and I told my partner, I said,
you know, I'm gonna go ahead and take a nap.

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
Real quick before the storm gets here. Well, I slept
through the front end of the storm with my generator
going the full of the whole time that was happening,
and it's just sixty from the basserd bedroom windows. So uh,
it's just you know, it's incredible that you're just living
like you know, like we are right now and the
storm raging outside.

Speaker 17 (01:43:41):
It's a it's a really good a feeling to have
that peace of mind.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
It really is.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
But I'm kidding, you know, when you when you talk
about you know, car engines and stuff like that, I'm
picturing something that's roaring so loud I can't sleep, And
so what what is what is done in these new
technologies to kind of moderate the noise a little bit?

Speaker 17 (01:44:06):
You know, it's interesting you say that the liquid cool
the car engine type, those are four cylinder and those
are operating at eighteen hundred rpm, so they're actually quieter
than the motorcycle style engines, you know, which are two cylinders.
So you know, I can't stand when people talk about
them being equated to the sound of a lawnmower, because

(01:44:27):
they're nothing like a lawnmer.

Speaker 2 (01:44:28):
You know, a line more is you.

Speaker 17 (01:44:30):
Know, you go through thick grass and it's this is
nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
It's just a constant thirty six hundred rpm for the
air cooled and eighteen hundred rpm for the liquid cooled.
And can you hear them. Yes, but like I said,
I mean I slept through.

Speaker 17 (01:44:45):
The front end of barrel with my generator six feet
from my master bedroom windows.

Speaker 2 (01:44:50):
So they're not so loud they're going to disturb your neighbors,
keep you up at night. It's a very pleasant noise
when you hear it, because you know you're being prepared.

Speaker 1 (01:44:59):
All right. Well, good to know, Joey. I'm up against
our final break and we're gonna come back. A little
bit of time left with you. We look forward to
continue on our visit with Joey Davis from Quality Home
Products of Texas. In just a moment, we'll be right back.
Welcome back to Guardline, folks. Good to have you with us.
Got one last segment about six minutes heure left with
Joey Davis from Quality Home Products of Texas, and we

(01:45:21):
are picking his brain about all things generator. For those
of you who thought about getting a generator, the process
takes a while, and so don't delayed. Don't wait until
the hurricane is bearing down on Galveston before you you
contact somebody to get a generator. Now that we're back
with Joey, Joey, could you talk just a little bit

(01:45:42):
about the maintenance of a generator, and then some of
the ways that you guys go forward in time. I
always say when I talk about you that when you
walk away from setting up the generator, it's just beginning
with the relationship. It really is. Man.

Speaker 17 (01:46:03):
Yeah, it becomes a you know, a lifelong relationship with
our clients. I mean, they know that they can trust
us to be there when the power goes out, if
if something is not functioning properly, we can generally repair
these on the fly from our office remotely. In other words,
all of our generators come with what's called top tier

(01:46:23):
cell based constant monitoring, very very important because that way
we can actually see what's going on with any particular generator.
And you know, if you have like a fault code
or a firmware update that needs to be done, we
can do that remotely from air Tex and forty five,
so we don't actually.

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
Have to go to the home.

Speaker 17 (01:46:42):
And you know, it's something that some companies are most
companies skimp on and think, well, that's just not that
big of a deal.

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):
It's a huge deal the maintenance.

Speaker 1 (01:46:51):
When the power goes out and you need your generators.

Speaker 17 (01:46:55):
I'm telling you, you know, and The reason that we
had such an incredibly low failure rate at BARYL last
year is because all of our generators have that top
tier cell based constant monitoring. Our competitors were just crushed
because many of their generators unless somebody tried. You know,
they still have that as an option for most companies,

(01:47:16):
but not everybody upgrades to that.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
All of our generators come with that, so you.

Speaker 17 (01:47:21):
Know, that's why other companies were really getting beat up
in the reviews.

Speaker 2 (01:47:25):
And you know, it's a good way to assess who
you're going to use is look at the BBB. You know,
equality we've won the Tentacle Award.

Speaker 17 (01:47:32):
You know, that's the highest achievement that you can get
with the Houston area BBB. We've literally won more Pinnacle Awards,
which is the top fifteen to twenty companies in Houston
of any sort, not generator companies. We've won eight of
those since nineteen eighty nine. You know, it's just crazy,
but the reality is the maintenance in the service is very,

(01:47:54):
very important. On all of our generators. We come out
twice a year now. The manufacturer just know, they just
require that we come out once a year. But just
like you know, when you have a car and you
wash it, it seems to drive better.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
And when you change the oil, it certainly drives better. Uh,
you know, we want we want to make sure that.

Speaker 17 (01:48:12):
All of our generators are properly functioning before the storm comes.
We don't want to wait till after the storm is
here and somebody's generators not working.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
That's not the time to be working on it.

Speaker 17 (01:48:22):
So we are very proactive and making sure we're at
the ready when we have storms coming in to the
point where we see people having even if they don't
need an oil change right now, maybe we go ahead
and do it right now because we know what storm's
coming in.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I mean,
just it's really really important.

Speaker 17 (01:48:41):
But just as important as the MAINNANS is the service.
You know, and I mentioned all these storm chasers that
come into town.

Speaker 2 (01:48:48):
You know, there is no service with them.

Speaker 17 (01:48:50):
You know, they have no factory train technicians, and by
and large they're gone, they're back out of state again.
When when something happens with us, you know we have
then we had the capability to get out in service
generators properly. And the crazy thing is if someone services.

Speaker 2 (01:49:06):
A generator in other words, not maintenance, not just changing
the oil or the spark plugs or the filters, but
actually works on the generator. If they're not a factory train.

Speaker 17 (01:49:15):
Technician, the warranty is immediately voided. So it's a real
slippery scope slope fare with the service. You know, you
want to make sure that the company you're using actually
has the factory train technicians, but the service is paramount.

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
You know, we had people after Barrel, you know, in fact.

Speaker 17 (01:49:33):
With a lot of people, thousands of people that had
these They were generator orphans. In other words, somebody install
their generator after one of these events that we've had recently,
and then they're long gone. Well now their generator's not working,
and you know they're they're blowing up our switchboard. Hey
I need somebody to come fix my generator, and they've
been out for three or four days.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
There's no way that we're.

Speaker 17 (01:49:56):
Going to be able to just jump right over there
and do that, because you know, we have a lot
of people we have to take care of. So man,
it's just so important that the company that you use
actually even those how to service these.

Speaker 2 (01:50:09):
In other words, they went to the factory training and
make sure that they're still here.

Speaker 17 (01:50:14):
The thing about quality, We are kind of opening up
our service capabilities for these generator orphans, so there's tens
of thousands of them in Houston actually, but the maintenance
and service man it is just right up there at
the top of how important it is to just make
sure you're using the right company, because you can't just
install theseend just forget about them.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
They're not like that.

Speaker 17 (01:50:35):
It's just like having a motorcycle or a car. You know,
I got my oil change yesterday. Maybe a little bit
too soon, but I'd rather do that than be the
kind of person that just waits until I've got ten
thousand miles a lot since my last oil change. So
we really make sure that we get that all right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:53):
Well we are, we are like less than a minute
away from music starting that we can talk into the
music for a little bit. Well, I know that last
year I got I guess it was barrel. But as
one of you guys told me how many phone calls
you were getting, and it was like, how do you
even get that many calls? I mean it was Yeah,
the home really did blow up, It really did.

Speaker 17 (01:51:14):
And we have like the most sophisticated phone system in
the world and it's still overloaded it because there's so
many people. You know, you could imagine spending this this
kind of money on something and it's just sitting there
in your backyard.

Speaker 2 (01:51:25):
It would not be good. So, yeah, we had a
lot of upset people.

Speaker 17 (01:51:29):
Not our clients, but you know, these the storm Chaser
companies that you know, they install a fair amount of generators,
But a generator sitting in your backyard not functioning is
not a good generator.

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
That's that is the truth. Well, Joey, it has been
great having you on. I really appreciate this information. And folks,
you know, when I bring a sponsor on on Guarden Line,
it's it's because I believe in the company, and I
believe that if I say this is a good company,
you're gonna get that kind of service that that you
will be happy with what you get. I think over

(01:52:04):
fourteen thousand people have given them five star reviews. Gosh,
you guys have so served well over seventy seven thousand
homeowners with your award winning service. I believe if my
number may be out of date, there there is a reason.

Speaker 2 (01:52:18):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:52:19):
Yeah, there's a reason that I talk about quality home
because I'm confident, you know, and I realized when a
hurricane hits and ten billion people are calling it, you know,
there it's a challenge. But these guys step up to
the plate. Joey, thanks for thanks for being on. No,
don't wait, in fact, when when don't call before garden

(01:52:41):
line is over, but then call them right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:44):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
Here you go, folks, we will be right back. All right, gardeners,
We're going to jump right back in here, go back
and talking gardening. I hope you enjoyed that at least
learn something from it. Generators is more interesting and complicated,
I think than a lot of people think, and it's

(01:53:09):
really exciting to hear about the technologies and then understand
the process too. Because I tell you you live on
the Texas Gulf Coast. Storms are a way of life,
and so having that security is a very helpful thing.
Let's head said, I'm gonna head straight out to the
phones right away. We're going to go to Sugarland and

(01:53:29):
talk to Fred this morning. Hey Fred, welcome to gardener.

Speaker 13 (01:53:32):
Good morning, Skip. I want to follow up on your
comments about trying to control aphids of white flies. We
got some high biscuits from a nursery and they were
kind of invested with white flies. I have the product
that you describe to use for systemic purposes, and it
says that you should not put it on plants when

(01:53:54):
they're flowering. Is that just to protect bees or does
it damage the flowers themselves?

Speaker 1 (01:54:01):
No, it doesn't damage a flower. It is to protect bees.
The systemic insecticides, and this is it's not a black
and white issue. Unfortunately. I had doctor Juliana Rangel on
June twenty first talking about honey bees, and that's been
one of the things that people are concerned about. And
you know the research out there. There are different products

(01:54:23):
that are systemic, and they vary in terms of their
toxicity a little bit, and then there's the question of well,
how much of that gets in the nectar or that
the bee would actually consume, and then how much of
an effect does it happen? And she was talking about
it being a it can have some effect on them.

(01:54:44):
Not you don't want to do anything that's not good
for honeybees. But sometimes we're in a situation where we've
got a major pest problem and we've got to deal
with it. So our strategies, fred or are when we
can avoid spraying blooming plant or treating blooming plants, we
do and then when we can't, we do it in
a season that there's not blooms on the on the

(01:55:05):
on the plants. You know, things go through cycles.

Speaker 13 (01:55:08):
And so that thing you talked about an oil of
light oil, it could be rubbed on or or put
on the bottoms of the leaves and all. Is a
name oil sufficient for this time of year?

Speaker 4 (01:55:19):
Or is that a winter problem?

Speaker 1 (01:55:20):
You could you know, you could use name oil kneme.
Oil has a little bit of the insecticide is a
directing and it there's two kinds of name. One is
the the insecticide component that's been extracted out of the
plant and made into a spray. The other type of
name is the name oil and it it doesn't have much,
if any of well it has some, but not much

(01:55:41):
of that is directing, but it works more like an oil.
But I was talking about general horticultural oils, summer oils
that they'll be called either horticultural oil or summer oil.
And they're just likely instead of being gooey there they yeah,
they kind of evaporate faster, so therefore they don't kill
passes well as a dormonol would the dorminos will burn

(01:56:02):
plants and and oil being you're basically smothering. Even eggs
have to have oxygen uh and and when you coat
an egg and oil, it's that insect's going to die.
When you have a pupa under the leaf or the
pests themselves and you get oil on them, it plugs
up their breathing holes, scales scale has to breed their

(01:56:24):
little holes. So oils kill physically by smothering the pest.

Speaker 13 (01:56:30):
One other quick question, these these insecticides that we use
like on grass and all. Are they do they kill
the good things that we get from like the microlife products?
Or are they safe to use?

Speaker 1 (01:56:42):
Like, well, they're not going to insecticide? Yeah, in general,
and inseecticide is not going to kill beneficial bacteria and fungi.
Beneficial fungi. Now, there may be some exceptions to that
that I'm not aware of, but in general that they're
not targeted at that they're targeted about the the systems
that insects have in their bodies to live. There are

(01:57:05):
good insects that can be affected, like you wouldn't expect
a lady beetle to be done in the thatch of
your Saint Augustine lawn or a lace swing or beneficials
like that. So putting those products out like that. Now,
if you had weeds in your lawn and they were
flowering and so honey bees are going to those flowers
and then you spray the lawn, yes, you you would

(01:57:26):
be putting a toxic product on the blooms that those
bees are going to.

Speaker 13 (01:57:31):
So I've been trying to pull the weeds like you suggest,
as exposed to the other I think all about the idiot.

Speaker 1 (01:57:36):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I really do that. Mostly there
are a few weeds like that said, you're not going
to get away with pulling it, but that when you can,
you do that. You know everything, it's always a trade off,
and I don't and I was talking about that earlier today.
I think I don't think you should be on a

(01:57:59):
pestus treadmill, you know, where it's like, here's all that
I'm just going to kill bugs and kill diseases with
sprays all year long. You know that that's not a
good long term strategy, But there are times when I
think it's reasonable to step in and do something. Of course,
everybody has their their range of comfort with insecticides, be

(01:58:20):
they synthetic or organic. Especially people are concerned about synthetic ones,
and I understand that, and it's your yard, your plants.
You do what you want. I'll try to advise you
as best I can according to the way you want
to do it, but used as directed, we minimize those
kinds of concerns.

Speaker 13 (01:58:41):
Unfortunately, those control because I just don't have any grubs.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
Well, that's true, and that's a good point Fred to make.
Grabs are in every lawn, and like if you turn
over some of your grass for some reason, you pull
up a weed and there's a grub attached to the bottom,
that doesn't mean you need to treat for grubs. If
you look at the research done by the entomologists, they

(01:59:07):
will tell you that it takes five to seven grubs
per square foot before they're doing enough damage to your
turf to warrant treatment. So you don't just treat for
grubs every year because you might have a grub. It
takes a significant amount to do enough damage to worry about.
Plants have ability to grow new roots and replace the

(01:59:29):
ones that got chomped off and so on. So yeah,
it goes back to that IPM that I was talking
about earlier integrated pest management. You know that I mentioned.
I don't know if you were listening, but I talked
about pecan leaves and how many aphits they have before
you need to spray. You could do IPM and a lawn.
If you think you got a grub problem, you just
take a butcher knife or a sharp shovel and cut

(01:59:50):
out a little one foot square, flip it over and
count the grubs and if you're seeing more than five
to seven, you do have a grub problem.

Speaker 13 (01:59:59):
If there's a idea that just some little pieces, look
now and it grows it all. So I thought a
lot put the insecticide on the loan and have it
out there.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
That's that's correct, that's the way to think. Yeah, no,
it's like I like to I like to make plant
and human analogies because that seems to work for people
understanding it. And imagine if a doctor said, okay, here's
here's five antibiotics. I want you to take them all
twelve months out of the year, every day of the year,

(02:00:28):
and here's the You see what I'm saying, It's like,
why that that's not good for you to do?

Speaker 11 (02:00:33):
That?

Speaker 1 (02:00:34):
But when you have a serious infection, you better get
anybody can deal with it, right. So it's the same
analogy for plants. Thank you, Fred, all right, you take care. Yeah,
it's good. It gave me an opportunity to make a
couple of points that I think are important. Let's take
a little quick break there, and if you would like

(02:00:55):
to give me a call, this's our last hour of
the weekend. Here we're in seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Arity is a good song
for Southeast Texas Louisiana. I talk about brown stuff before
green stuff, right, And I don't know if that terminology

(02:01:19):
resonates with you. It seems simple and easy to me,
So that's I like to say it. But the bottom
line what that means is, don't just grab a great
plant just to get in the ground. Expected to do well. First,
create the foundation. First, build the soil. First, improve the drainage.
Add the organic matter. Add expanded shale if it's a

(02:01:40):
heavy clay, if you need to do that. Add the
nutrients that you need. Not all nutrients just filter right
down through the soil, like nitrogen wood uh, and so
mixing them in ahead of planting time can be very helpful,
especially for things like phosphorus if they're needed well. Cienamultch
is the place to go if you need to build

(02:02:02):
good soil, and the reason is they have it all.
They have products from like airloom soils, veggie nert mix
for example. They've got their own composts and other things
that add to the quality of the soil so roots
can thrive. Things like nutrients for example Microlife fertilizers, Nilson
turf Star fertilizer and the jars from Nelson as well.

(02:02:24):
Medina products a nice selection of Medinat nitrofoss products, Azamite
for micronutrients. We talk about that all the time. Ciena
Maltch is down south of Houston. It's Cienna Moltz dot com.
That's the website, Ciena Maltz dot com. It's on FM
five twenty one near Highway six and two eighty eight.
Just go to cienamltz dot com if you're within twenty

(02:02:45):
miles of them. They'll do delivery for a fee, and
so you don't even have to have a truck to
go out there and get it, or you can just
take your car out and buy some things by the bag.
But whatever you do, first fix the soil, get some
rose sooil, get some compost gets, you know, saying it
by the way, while you're out there. If you're trying
to create a patio, they have gorgeous stone, beautiful selection

(02:03:08):
of flat stone for creating a patio. They have river rocks.
If you want to create one of those dry creek
bed type features in the landscape, cenemulch. That's it. And
you're gonna like them. They are friendly, they're fun to
talk to. I always like going out and visiting with
them out at Sienna Bulch. I mentioned that they have microlife.

(02:03:32):
They carry a wide variety of microlife. You know, microlife
has so dead gun many products. I mean, every time
you turn around, there's there's a microlife for this and
that and the other. You know, the green bag sixty
four we talk about it for lawns, use them a
whole lot of other things. But they have things like microlife, bianoculant.
It's got all kinds of beneficial microbes, all the good
guys that are out there fighting the bad guys, if

(02:03:55):
you want to put it that way. They have a
microlife that's acidic for acidic loving plants like azalias and
blueberries and camellias, for example. They'm a Microlife for fruit
trees and your citrus and things. There's a Microlife fertilizer
for pretty much anything you want to grow, as well
as some really nice liquids that make it easy for

(02:04:18):
doing a quick treatment or a foliar spray. Microlife products
are not salt based, are not going to burn your plants,
and you can use them. I use there's seven the biomatrix.
It's called seven to one three fertilizer. Just yesterday, I
was trying to give plants a boost my house plants
and I went outside and I had a few plants
that I just were not performing like I wanted to,

(02:04:40):
So I gave them a boost with Microlife Biomatrix because
it works. I also yesterday used Microlife Ocean Harvest blue label,
the four two three. I use that outside. It's a
fish based fertilizer, so a little bit of an odor
to it. You don't notice it outside, but I don't
know unless you want to make your house cats happy.
I don't use it on my houseplants inside, but boys,
that a good fertiliz and I used it yesterday, as

(02:05:01):
a matter of fact, so good products, good company. You
were listening to garden Line. If you'd like to give
me a call, my phone number here is seven to
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. We
had a call from somebody the other day that was

(02:05:23):
needing to know about the mosquito buckets that I talk
about all the time. That's the one that pest Bros.
Sets up for you, uh, And I was just putting
them in touch with them. You know this stuff works.
And they were all excited and they got all the
buckets set up at their house and they can't wait
to see I mean, you know, it's not like you
set the buckets up today and this afternoon you have

(02:05:44):
no mosquitos. It's a it's a natural process. The mosquitoes
go there, they land in the bucket, they lay eggs
that'll never turn into mosquitos, They pick up some substances.
It kills the mosquito that picked it up, but not
for a few days, because you want that mosquito to
go to other places. And those little tiny bits of
water where mosquitos breed that you don't even know where
they are, causes them to not be harboring sites for

(02:06:08):
mosquitoes to raise their young. And I'm telling you, I've
got the buckets, and you go outside, I'll get a
mosquito every now and then. You all say mosquito here
or there. But it's not like it was. You know,
you walk outside and oh my gosh, you're just constantly
swatting because there's ten of them all the time on you.
The stuff works, and pest Bros Has them, by the way,

(02:06:29):
if you want to do that, give them a call
two eight one two o six forty six seventy or
go to the website thepestbros dot com thepestbros dot com.
And I always talk about the buckets because I just
think that technology is so amazing. But they do at all.
You know, they do termite treatments at the last ten
years and they put them in the ground in a

(02:06:50):
trench around your house to minimize any kind of contact
that your pets or kids or anything could have with them.
I like that they know how to treat effectively. They
do so in the same manner so you get the
long term results without those worries. Deepest Bros Dot com
you are listening to garden Line, and if you got

(02:07:10):
any kinds of questions that we could help you with,
feel free to give me a called seven to one
three two one two k t RH be glad to
visit with you about all of those kinds of things.
This afternoon, I'm going to go out and do another
planting of okra. You know, I'm an okrah enthusiast. That
sounds better than addict or not, but I'm all the above,

(02:07:34):
and I do okra crossing. It's a fun thing. By
the way, if you're a gardener and you won't take
it beyond just the okay, I want a pretty yard
and you want to really get into gardening. There's so
many nooks and crannies of horticulture that are great hobbies.
You know. Some people like to do bones eyes, some
people like to raise and cross plants. The easiest thing

(02:07:55):
to cross is squashes because they have separate male and
female flowers. You can create your own squash by crossing things. Yeah,
it's fun. Probably won't be as good as the thing
you took them from, but who knows, maybe you'll develop
the new squash and you can name it after yourself.
I do okra. It's easy to cross okra too, It's
not that difficult. And planting out my seed crosses. You know.

(02:08:19):
The interesting thing about it is people talk about, you know,
I ate this fruit. I'm to say it's a peach.
I ate this peach, and I'm gonna plant the pit
and grow a peach tree. Okay, Well do that. It's
you can do that. It's fun. But here's here's the facts.
In order to get that peach variety, whatever the variety
of peach that you're planting. In order to get that variety,

(02:08:41):
they probably made ten thousand crosses planting a mountain the
field waited for them to grow up. It takes years
and years where they get big enough that seedling to
actually fruit, and then check the fruit, and then went
through all ten thousand of them, and which is going
to be the ones that we hold on to the
rogue this one out and robe that one out, and

(02:09:01):
they finally comes down to maybe one peach we'll get
named out of that group. So what are the chances
of you taking a fruit off a tree and planting
the seed and having the best peach in the world, Well,
low to say the least, but it'll be a peach
and you grew it yourself, so that's kind of fun.
I prefer to cross things that are a little faster,

(02:09:23):
like if you want. There are people that breed tomatoes
home breeders. I'm not talking about professional tomato breeders. I'm
talking about just homeowners. There's a group of people that
they communicate online and they share seeds and stuff and
they cross tomatoes and they just keep making crosses to
create a better tomato for them. It's a fun hobby
and that's how gardening is. So i'd encourage you to

(02:09:44):
consider doing that because it is fun. What interests you,
that's the thing.

Speaker 9 (02:09:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:09:51):
No one size fits all, that's for sure. I know
people that their whole orchard is in containers. They have
giant containers and they grow all kinds of fruit in containers,
dozens of containers of fruit trees. That's unusual, but why
not it makes you happy to do it. It's summertime
and that's when we use the slow release fertilizers on

(02:10:14):
our lawn. We want. Now, you can use a fast
release by doing a little small applications over time, but
if you want a one and done well, a slow
release is a way to go because it takes that
nitrogen and it releases slowly over time, as well as
adding the other nutrients that are in that slow release fertilizer,
so nitropas Superturf, the silver bag from Nitrofoss. It's a

(02:10:36):
nineteen four to ten fertilizer and it will gradually feed
your lawn for up to four months, and so when
you put super Turf down, you're done for a good
long time before you need to fertilize again. In fact,
if you do it now, the next fertilization you need
to do is going to be in the fall, and
if you get my schedule, we're going to switch to
a different night Foss product in the fall because fall

(02:10:57):
fertilization is a little bit different than the rest to
the year. But super Terful gets you covered. It's formulated
first in Augustine Bermuda, Soisia, our hot southern climate that
we deal with here, and by gradually racing nitrogen, it's
gonna cut down on the mowing frequency because instead of
getting this flush of growth and you're trying to water water,
water and momo moe to keep the grass going. It's

(02:11:19):
gonna be a nice gradual feed. Plants are like us.
Oh boy, what's he gonna say next? Plant are like
us in that we eat every day. You don't pile
up a month's worth of food and eat it all
and then eat thirty days later again. You eat every day.
Plants take up nutrients every day, and some things are volatile,

(02:11:41):
like nitrogen. They wash away, they escape as a gas
from the soil. Even they're volatile, and so a slow
release feeds every day. So that's what makes them a
smart choice. By the way, nitro frost products, you're gonna
find them in places like M and D a Beamer
which is in a sage mind and then M D.

(02:12:02):
Clear Lake on Bay Area Boulevard. Those are two places.
Plants and things in Brunham carry night foss products as well.
So anyway, talking about things to be doing this afternoon,
it would be a good time to kind of walk
through your lawn, take a look and see how things
are going. I get pictures from folks and the lawn
is like a fourth dead or half dead or three

(02:12:23):
fourth dead. If you catch things early, you can do
a lot. We're in chinchbug season. Go walk around where
the curbs and driveways are and look. If you see grass,
it looks like it needs to be watered, but you
know it's ben watered. Get out on your hands and
knees in that zone between healthy and dead and part
the grass and look for chinchbugs. You can go online
and see what a chinchbug looks like. They're very small,

(02:12:44):
about eighth them an inch long, but you can get
ahead of the game on that and treating them then
saves you a lot of lawn. Don't wait until you
got a big problem. Catch it when it's small. It's
like a fire. Someone throws a match on the roadside
and it starts to burn. You can take a little
one of those little bottles of water and just put
the thing out. Wait about an hour, and now the
forest is ablaze. It's going to take more than a

(02:13:06):
bottle of water to put it out. See what I'm
talking about. Catch it early. Get out there, check your line,
see how they're doing, and give me a call on
garden Line. If we can help. We'll be right back.
All right, Welcome back to guard Line, folks. Good to
have you back with us. Hey, you want to give
me a call seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. That's how you would do it. We're
going to go now out to Cove, Texas and talk

(02:13:28):
with Rufus. Hey, Rufus, Welcome to garden.

Speaker 12 (02:13:30):
Line horns Hip.

Speaker 9 (02:13:33):
Hi.

Speaker 12 (02:13:33):
I'm out of water and moon lance this morning, and
my barrigated high biscus. It's it's it's like hansy die
back on like three or four limbs. I cut them
off all the way back to the ground. What am
I looking at? Fungus inside or what?

Speaker 1 (02:13:53):
Uh? I'm trying to picture what you're describing. So like
the plant is over all healthy, but a branch dies
all the way back or right something different.

Speaker 12 (02:14:06):
Yeah, it died all the way back.

Speaker 1 (02:14:07):
Like oh, so you're talking about the whole plants dead.
There's no grain.

Speaker 12 (02:14:15):
Above ground, just just that those those three limbs. There's
looks like twelve of the men there. This plant's been
in the ground for four or five years. It's been
really great, and I just noticed this diet.

Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
Yeah, hibiscus, there are different things that can happen. First,
I'll start with one that's probably not what it is
on your plant, but hibiscus is brittle and the branches,
you know, get a little can easily break or snap
or something like that from wind or the kids basketball
flying into them or whatever, so that that's a possibility.

(02:14:50):
The more likely one is some sort of a rot.
There is a there's kind of a die back disease
that can happen on hibiscus and it's caused by some
sort of break.

Speaker 12 (02:15:01):
Pardon no, it's the stem and all that was intact.

Speaker 1 (02:15:08):
It just like it dies, Okay, okay, Well, the dialect
disease is caused by some sort of a break in
the bark of the stem. Sometimes we see it like
where a leaf falls off and there's the little wound
where the leaf was attached, or where a bloom you know,
was attached, and you'll see a little bit of a
decay start in there and it gets down into the

(02:15:30):
planet itself. It could be fungus, it could be a
bacteria or something that ends that enters that stem and
causes that. If if you see like that kind of
decay occurring, that the only thing to do is to
cut it out. Now, on the branches that you saw
earlier on when they first started, did the entire branch

(02:15:53):
go downhill at the same time, or did it start
at the tip and it increasingly died back as you
got further down on the branch.

Speaker 12 (02:16:01):
No, it's just like you turned it all okay time.

Speaker 1 (02:16:09):
Yeah, if you follow the the branch back by using
your little thumbnail, and you scratch and you see brown,
and you go down further and you scratch and you
see brown and you're done further scratch and you see green.
You want to cut off right into that green. H
And in this case, since a branch is died back

(02:16:31):
to where it attaches, you're going to cut it off
right there where where you are now there's a There
are some copper based products that can be used to
put on the wound and whatnot. I think in general
you're not going to have a wound that you can
find to apply them to in your case, so I

(02:16:52):
would prune those out with each time you make a cut.
You want to sterilize your pruners. My favorite way to
do that is to use licen all spray. You can
use bleach water, but bleach water causes metal to rust
really bad, and I hate to do that to my printers.
Uh So ma saw spray between cuts because you don't
want to You don't want to spread any bacteria or

(02:17:13):
fungus from one to the other. And that may be
that it's already moved down into the trunk of the
plant and this is going to continue on. There's not
a good systemic way to control that. And so uh,
I'm not aware of anything that would would get down
in the plant and cause uh and shut that down
from the inside.

Speaker 12 (02:17:34):
I mean it's been in the ground for skiff I
don't know, four eight year or something like crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:17:40):
Yeah, it's been there.

Speaker 7 (02:17:42):
Yeah, I can see it's on a one.

Speaker 12 (02:17:44):
You just put the ground and okay, he's going through
shock or something like that. No, I did the same thing.
I walked over thinking a bird broke it. It's solid all.

Speaker 2 (02:17:53):
The way to the root.

Speaker 12 (02:17:55):
Yeah, and it is, okay, And I did the son
thing and it is did all the way to root.

Speaker 1 (02:18:01):
Yeah. Well consent. First of all, I don't think it's
on the market anymore. I don't. You may still find
some supplies around, but I think they've quit on that.
But that's a surface Oh good, well, that's a surface sterolint. Okay.
So consent is like you would use bleach to wipe

(02:18:22):
the counter of your kitchen to kill anything on the counter.
It's not a systemic It doesn't soap down in there
and do things. It's a it's more of a surface sterolint,
which it has its place, but it's not gonna not
gonna help you on this one. It would just be
a matter of catching it a little earlier on and
figuring out. With the way you're describing the whole branch
going down at once, it sounds to me like, uh,

(02:18:45):
you've got a something that infected into that branch and
know the base and then shut it down the plumbing,
so everything out from that just died as if you'd
cut the branch off almost.

Speaker 12 (02:18:58):
I mean, it's a beautiful plant and it puts out,
you know, yeah, big beautiful barricated leaves. It's it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:19:06):
I hate to lose it, Yeah, I know. I don't.
I don't. I don't blame you on it. I'm just
sitting here, you know, trying to think there there there
might be some unconventional things to try, you know, putting
a systemic fungicide down in the soil that would get
picked up by the roots and be taken through the plant.

(02:19:27):
I don't know that that would work, but that would
be an option to consider and see if that works.
If it's a bactrinal disease, then the systemic fungicide is
not going to help.

Speaker 12 (02:19:37):
Well, I was thinking. I was wondered if it was
a vitamin deficiency on a mural and stuff, and it decided, Okay,
I'm going to lose this branch, but I'm gonna keep
everybody else going.

Speaker 4 (02:19:46):
But I do.

Speaker 1 (02:19:47):
Yeah, not in the case of what you described. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:19:50):
Not.

Speaker 1 (02:19:50):
In the case of what you described. Something is unique
about that branch as opposed to the rest, and it's
going to be somehow a disease gets in. And typically
it's for I'm a wound, either a physical crack or
stress of the plant or something that nicked it or
leaf falls off, and and that that wet wound it

(02:20:11):
gives it a chance of infection. I don't well, we
can't look back in time to crystal out.

Speaker 12 (02:20:19):
Would you think I need to take a describe out
like a Panze on it? I think is when I
started doing.

Speaker 1 (02:20:26):
About pull the whole plan up, pull the whole.

Speaker 12 (02:20:28):
Plant, that one section, that one section where it was infected.

Speaker 1 (02:20:34):
Well you could you could try. I'm not quite picturing
your plant accurately, I don't think. But uh, there are
times when a biscus. People will pull a plant up
and they'll look at it and they'll go through and
do surgery and clean it up and treat the surface
with you know, with a copper based kind of a treatment,
painting those wounds or spraying the wounds, and then and

(02:20:55):
then replant it and be real careful not to keep
it too wet after you do that. Hey, uh, because
I'm out of time on it. I've got to go
to a break. But good luck, good luck with it.
I understand your concern. I'll be right back, folks when
we do come back. Chris and Texas City and Vernon
and Nadville, you'll be our last two callers. Hey, Dandy
Feed and Tomball is a go to place for all

(02:21:16):
of your landscaping, lawn care, gardening types of needs. They
carry a wide variety of fertilizers for nitrofoss and bonnit
from Microscube, microfrot, Microlife. Bonnit's not a fertilizer, turf Star
from Nelson Medina products. They carry heirloom soils. They carry
Nelson plant food in the jars as well. And you know,
they carry us a series of different kinds of plants

(02:21:39):
that are outside from season to season as they go
along high end dog food lines like Origin, Star Pro,
Victor Diamond and everything else you need. And when it
comes to pest disease and we control, they've got a
really good supply. They hear a lot of things you're
just not going to find in most places at D
and D feed Now, they're on twenty nine to twenty
three miles west of Tomball west to Highby two forty

(02:22:00):
nine on twenty nine, twenty two, eight, one, three, five,
one seventy one forty four. Stop by there and check
them out. It's a great place. I'm gonna head now
out to talk to Chris in Texas City. Hey, Chris,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (02:22:14):
Thank you. I originally moved about three years ago to
Texas City, and I have a huge tree in my backyard.
This thing's got to be at least fifty or sixty
feet tall, if not more. The problem is that is
about seventy percent of my backyard will not grow grass
due to the shade from this tree. And I've just
tried to keep it as clean as possible and I

(02:22:36):
just cannot get grass to grow. I got grandkids that
play back there, and I need to know if there's
a certain type of grass something I can order by
the palette or two, have them drop off, put it down,
water it something that that's going to grow, like I
don't even have to cut the part. Yeah, does grow,
but like once every six months. It's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:22:54):
Yeah, I got you, got you, Chris, Hey, do you
have Saint Augustine? Now? Is that what's back there?

Speaker 7 (02:23:00):
I have no idea, man, I'm not a grass guy.

Speaker 1 (02:23:04):
Okay, okay, gotcha. Are the leaves almost as white as
a pencil? No?

Speaker 7 (02:23:12):
No, no, no, they're brown? Like I you know, I
bought one of those things you push against the you know,
on the ground, and it picks up all the leaves
and throws them in that basket. And I mean, you know,
I try to stay on top of it. But the
leaves are not white. They're you know, they're bob as
brown as No.

Speaker 1 (02:23:27):
I'm sorry, let me let me let me say that again.
Are the grass blades leaves the grass leaves? Are they
as wide as a pencil? The width of the grass
blade on the.

Speaker 7 (02:23:43):
Yeah, I would say so, I would say the majority
of them.

Speaker 1 (02:23:46):
Ariah, Okay, that sounds like that sounds like Saint Augustine.
That is the most shade tolerant grass that we have.
We there are some grasses that come close that could
compete with it, but you know, I'm not there. I
can't tell exactly how many foot candles of light are
reaching the ground, but Saint Augustine's about as good as

(02:24:08):
you can do. Uh. There is a fine textured zoysia
that will grow in some shade. But any grass, as
you start turning off the sunlight, you're turning off the
power supply, and so they're going to struggle to stay thick.
And his kids are stomping on them, and you know
that wear and tear. They're not going to bounce back
as well in the shade, so you might you know,

(02:24:34):
there there is a gosh, there's the everygrass has its
pros and cons. There's a there's a zoysia called xeon
ze o n that may be a good one for
you to try. Uh, that is fine textured. There is
a Saint Augustine. See is it palmetto that's a little
more shade tolerant. Ugh, my mind's going blank on me now, Hm,

(02:25:02):
I can't think of it.

Speaker 7 (02:25:03):
Yeah, I don't think there's ever been grass there you know.
I mean you could just see literally kind of like
a line where grass has grown and there's like now
grass at all.

Speaker 1 (02:25:13):
Well, there could be something else going on, but yeah,
that you could you could do that. But but the
only other thing I can tell you, and I'm kind
of running short on time in this segment here, but
the only other thing I could tell you is if
you could do have an arborist come out, uh, you know,

(02:25:34):
call calling arborist to look at the tree and see
what they could do to thin the foliage out a
little bit and get a little more light to brighten
the light. It may still be shady, maybe it's more
dapple than solid shade or something that would give you
the best chance of getting grass to grow is trying
to brighten the area. So but that would just be

(02:25:55):
a matter of them coming out, uh, and you know
being able to to do that work for you. Affordable
Tree Service Martin Spoonmore's company is a is a good
one to have take a look at it and say, hey,
what can I do to improve on my grass here? Uh,
and then go go look for go ahead.

Speaker 7 (02:26:14):
So let's say I can look them up tomorrow and
give them a call, see if you know we can
get something going.

Speaker 1 (02:26:21):
Well, let me let me just give you a phone
number and save you some time on that. I've got
one here if I grab my hand on it, affordable tree.
Here we go seven to one three six two six
sixty three seven one three six nine twenty six sixty
three and talk to them. Uh as far as the turf,
you know, maybe send me a picture. I'm gonna put

(02:26:43):
you on hold and my producer if you want to,
if you want to do this, send me some pictures
of the area from a couple of angles when the
sun is shining and let me and then show me
as a close up of the grass. And if I
see anything else to suggest to you, I'll reply to
that email and do it. I think that would be
the best. And thank you. All right, I'm all right.

(02:27:04):
I'm put you on hole there and all hudra, if
you'll pick that up, we're gonna.

Speaker 2 (02:27:08):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:27:09):
I wanted to mention ACE hardware. You know I talk
about ACE all the time. The things that you need,
that the supplies, the tools, the the equipment that you
need for your lawn and your garden. They have a
really good supply of the ego, the electrical battery powered mower,
and most ACE stores are going to carry that as well,

(02:27:32):
and just things that the whole electric battery powered equipment
line is really nice. I like those that they work
really really well for me. But he goes. ACE is
also going to be a place where you're going to
find those things to control weeds and diseases and paths.
And they got organic products, they got synthetic products, and
you can find ACE all over the place by going

(02:27:52):
to ACE Hardware Texas dot Com, Ace Hardware Texas dot Com,
Child's Building Supply on North sixteenth Street and Orange Wharton
feed and ACE. I was down there a while back
on North Richmond Road, Brennam Ace on North Austin Parkway,
Fullshierrace on FM three P fifty nine in Fullshire, Hamilton
Ace on Highway sixth in the Bear Creek area, and
Bank Cliff on Grand Avenue. I see I'm burning. I'm

(02:28:19):
pulling up the call here even though I don't have time.
I can take a look at those pictures and reply
to you by email unless there's other information you want
to add real quick now, that'd be fine.

Speaker 4 (02:28:31):
You can reply by email. That'd be good.

Speaker 7 (02:28:33):
What thinks going on.

Speaker 1 (02:28:34):
With it okay, I just I just flat ran out
of time today. Sorry about that, but I'll be happy,
happy to help you. Thank you, thank you for calling
in swer and I'll get to that. Wow, that was
a full day, all right, folks, have a great week.
We'll talk to you next Saturday again. Remember you can

(02:28:55):
listen to bast shows on the iHeart app or on
ktr H website.