Everything Fruit Trees with Dr. Tim Hartmann

Episode Transcript

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

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

Speaker 3 (00:13):
You can just watch him as well. So many good
things to supop raising in great.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Gas not a.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Sun glass gas sun beamon of.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
All right, let's get this rolling this morning. Welcome to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor. We're here to
help you have a bountiful garden, beautiful landscape and more
fun in the process. That's what we want to do.
Gardening should be fun, and it is fun a lot
of things. One of the things I like best about
gardening is it's renewing abilities. It just you know, you

(01:07):
get outside, you clean up a messy bed. Even that's work.
I know it's eight outside, but you stand up, you
look at the work you've done, the accomplishment, and there
is that is a good thing. It feels so good.
You know, for years when I was in my main
career of my life Agrolfe Extension County horticulture agent with

(01:30):
Texas a and named Agrolife Extension. You know, you go
to work like any job, and sometimes at the end
of the day you look back and you go, what
did I do today? I know I pushed papers around
and talk to people. But what did I do today?
And with gardening, you can see what you do today.
I'm going to be doing some planting later today and

(01:50):
I'll go outside. I got the beds already, I keep
mulch on them, and I put those seeds in the
ground and just sit back, or put the transplants in
the ground. I say, back and look at it, and
it looks good and it gives you hope. And when
you put a seed in the ground and you know
you're going to get something from that, a flower of fruit,
a vegeable, whatever you're growing, there's an accomplishment that anyway.
I think that's a great thing. I do want to

(02:13):
talk a little bit about the lawns right now. Our
lawns are growing fast, and I mean they are. If
your lawn, if your soil is moist, your lawn is
growing fast. And so we need to make sure and
mow as regularly as we can. The more often you mow,
the better it looks. It's as simple as that. Now,
someone a turf specialist, told me that one time. He said,
the most important single thing you do to your lawn

(02:35):
is mow it regularly. And I thought, come on man.
I thought you'd say water, fertilize something else, but those
are all important. But mowing regularly creates the densest, most
beautiful turf, just like hedging a hedge regularly creates the densest,
most beautiful hedge. So as simple as that, I've noticed
out and about in the lawn there's still a little

(02:55):
gray leaf spot out there. We're going to be heating
up enough and kind of growing our way out of that.
But there's a product by night Frog can used called
Eagle And one of my family members has a yard
that has a lot of gray leaf spot in it
because they're putting a new turf in and watering it,
you know, twice a day for a while, once a
day for a while, and all that water created a
lot of gray leaf spot opportunity and there it goes.

(03:17):
So Eagle Turf shuts it down. It's a systemic. It
also works on other diseases too. You can use it
on the other things that plague your lawns, whether it's
Saint Augustine or another type of grass. You're gonna find
night Foss products places like Plantation, Ace Hardware in Richmond
Rosenberg and i FM three fifty nine Langham Creek Ase Hardware,
which is raped by Copperfield in the north west part

(03:37):
of Houston. FM five twenty nine RCW Nursery on Tomball
Parkway and head down to Angleton Inclute. You got to
show a couple of lake hardwares there that both carry
night foss products as well. We're going to run out
to the phones real quick here and talk to Beth. Hello, Beth,
welcome to garden Line. Congratulations on being the arderbird.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
I need to want that.

Speaker 5 (04:00):
I know you can plant beans snap beans again this year.
It's when's a good time? September? O Can I plant
them now? I don't want I don't I don't want
the climbing beans. I want snap beans.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I would I would probably plant those in August uh
and and they're going to be It depends on the
variety contenders about a forty eight day to harvest variety.
But you want them harvesting when the bulk of a
heat is past because they just don't set well in
the heat. So maybe October, maybe August. If you do September,

(04:40):
then it's getting a little late for you to have
a really good long harvest from them. But probably believe
late in the August.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
It's too hardly to plan them now.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Huh, you're not gonna I don't think you're going to
get good for it. Said, if you plan them now
that yes, that is correct.

Speaker 6 (04:57):
Yeah, okay, So so you think you say, my my vegetable.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, August, I would say probably for your area, maybe
you could start in mid August, be pretty good. I'd
probably finish up by the end of the first week
of September, somewhere in that range. You may want to
make more than one planting just to head your bet.

Speaker 7 (05:18):
Yeah, you could.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
So you recommend contenders, well, contender is.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
A good old old variety. There's a lot of other
great new varieties out there. I haven't done a green
bean trial in a while. Back when we did them,
Derby was a good variety. There's I would I would
probably look for a contender. It's good, it's dependable. But
one thing I do in my garden's bed is every year,
if I'm going to plant, like green beans, I'll plant

(05:45):
maybe two varieties. Sometimes I'll do three and just see
how they do. And then you'll find out for you
and for what you like, how they perform. But you
can't go wrong with contender.

Speaker 5 (05:55):
Okay, well, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
All right, thank you for the call. Appreciate that a lot.
You take care. Yeah, that is true with our vegetables
and things. D and D feed is just outside of Tumball,
in fact, it's about three miles west of Highway two
forty nine on twenty nine to twenty and you're going
to find at D and D the fertilizers I talk about,
you know, turf Star, Nelson Fertilizer, turf Star line, the

(06:21):
Microlife line, the Nitrofoss line. If you looking for soils
and by the bag from heirloom soils, they carry that
out there. They have Medina fertilizer products and supplement products
as well. Of course, they got high quality feed of
all types, including for pets, high end lines like Origin
and Victor Star Pro Diamond, those kinds of things. But

(06:43):
when it comes to anything to control pest weeds and
diseases at your house, they're going to have you covered
for that too. They do a very good job of
keeping a wide variety of things. I'm most surprised when
I go in there and seeing all the different things
that they carry. Go to a break here in about
one minute. Woody and Kingwood, you'll be our first when

(07:03):
we come back. I just don't have enough time to
give you the time you need right before we go,
So we're gonna take a little break and I'll come
back and start with you when we come back. If
you're looking for a beautiful landscape, don't look any further
than Piercescapes. I talk about them all the time, and
I keep telling you the same thing, and that is
go to the website pierce Scapes dot com or give

(07:26):
them a call. Two eight one three seven oh fifty
sixty two eight one three seven fifty sixty. They can
do anything you need done, from a complete new landscape
to some renovation. You want to add lighting, you want
to fix the drainage, You want to get your irrigation
working right. You want somebody to come out and quarterly.
Come out quarterly to your place and get those beds
looking good, get the weeds out, replenish the mults, make

(07:49):
sure irrigation's working well on them. Replace some flowers went
seasonally as we need to do that. Piercescapes dot com
two eight one three seven o five zero zero. We'll
be right back. Just a ride welcome back. Good to
have you here with us on garden line this morning.

(08:10):
If you are planning on doing some soil work, and
I hope you are, because I'm doing soil work twelve
months out of the year just about. I mean it'd
mean every day I'm doing it. But I'm always when
I pull out a maybe I had tomatoes growing and
I pull them out, playing something for the fall or
something else. I'm always working on the soil. And Cienamulch
is a place that you go where no matter what
you need, they're gonna have it there. Everything for as

(08:32):
we say, do the brown stuff before the green stuff.
That's the place to go. Sanamulch is on Highway or
on FM of five point twenty one, kind of over
near Highway six and two eighty eight south of Houston.
Just go to the website Sienna Mulch dot com cinamals
dot com. You'll find mulches. You'll find all kinds of
quality mults by the way, lots of bed mixes and

(08:53):
other things including sand and gravel. If you're putting out
a little stone patio, they've got it. They'll deliver within
about twenty miles the location and before you head out
the door. Just make sure you grab some good quality
fertilizers that I talk about here on garden Line, from
Microlife and from Nelson's and from Medina and from Nitrophoss.
They've got azemite as well, including products by the back
from here heirloom soil if you want to just get

(09:16):
a small amountain sanemals. All right, let's head out. We're
going to go to Kingwood now and visit with Woody
this morning. Hello Woody, Welcome to garden Line Point Skip.

Speaker 8 (09:28):
I'm thinking about planting a red maple tree in the
fall and was wondering if they'll grow in our zone
or our word.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
I would get one of those, it will. I would
probably talk to h let's see what can wear you.
I would probably you might find some out there at
Warren's Southern Garden. Just ask them that they're going to
be getting those in. That's that's pretty close to you.
I know RCW carries a lot of trees and they
grow on themselves, and they're over on kind of the

(09:57):
northwest west corner of the Beltway there where two for
twenty nine comes into the Beltway. Red maple will grow here.
My problem with maples these red maples and others. The
branch angles are so narrow, and so you really have
to watch it as you train it to make sure
you don't have these real narrow vs. Because those are

(10:19):
not strong in a storm. As that tree gets older
and it presses bark against bark and you don't have
a good attachment. So with good training you can do
a red maple, but that, in my opinion, is one
of its shortcomings.

Speaker 8 (10:34):
Okay, terrific, Well, thank you for your help. I just
wanted to make sure for I went out looking for
one boy.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
I'm glad you called, and anybody listening, I hope you'll
do that because you're talking out a tree that hopefully
is going to give you beauty and shade for fifty years.
We're going to live another fifty years, right, wouldy? Thank
you for the call. I appreciate that. What is this statement?

(11:05):
A society is great when old men plant trees under
which shade they will never set or something like that.
I don't know, you know, in other words, I'm planting
a tree for somebody else. I'll enjoy it in the meantime.
That works really well. If you're listening to Guardline good
heavy with us this morning. If you I mentioned earlier

(11:26):
that you know I get out and I do planting.
Just all kinds of stuff going on this week. If
you want to pick up some quality plants and you're
in West Houston, Neilson Nursery and Water Gardens is a
place you need to go. Nelson's always has good quality stuff.
You know how they specialize in water gardens. I mean
they're nationally famous for that. But they also carry a

(11:48):
wide variety of plants, some gorgeous pottery, absolutely gorgeous pottery,
and everything that you might need if you learn for
a gift plant. But I have some nice little indoor
house plants that are just beautiful and perfect to give
us a gift or grab two and keep on yourself.
There you go, what's going on now? Up there is
their ding Dang Sale. Did you know they have a

(12:10):
sale called the ding Dang Sale. It is on Saturday,
June twenty eighth, which happens to be today, and all
their clearance items, all kinds of things that you can
pick up. Just go buy and check it out. It
is one of the best opportunities, I think for you
to pick up some really cool stuff. If you've been

(12:31):
thinking about putting some containers on your patio. Boy. They
have an excellent selection of containers. By the way, if
you want to get there, head out I ten West.
When you get to Katie Fort Ben Road, out Katie
turn north and it's just upstreet a little bit there.
West Houston's full service destination garden center. I would say
Nelson Nursery and Watergardens if you want to go to

(12:54):
the website Nelson Watergardens dot com. You're listening to garden
Line if you'd like to give me a call. Number
is seven to one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I'm gonna get Ty Strickland from fix my

(13:16):
Slab on the air here. We're going to have him
a little bit later sometime in July, uh and I
want to pick his brain about foundational issues because a
lot of you know, we got the black clays here
in the Houston areas even named after us. It's called
Houston black clay. That's the soil scientist's name for it.

(13:37):
The the clay shrinks and swells, you know, it gets
wet and it swells, it gets dry, shrinks and it
directs havoc. That's where you see these sidewalks that are
heaved up, and and that and and some tree roots.
That's way he cracks in the in the driveways and
it affects our slabs too, and ties. He's the expert,
and I do want to get him on to talk

(13:57):
about the details of this, what people need to know,
what they can look for and things. He's been doing
this twenty three years. He's an expert. If you want
to check, check his website out in the meantime, fixmiyslab
dot com. It's fixmyslab dot com. His phone number two
eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine. It's
been here his whole life. Nati Fewstonian, fifth generation Texan.

(14:21):
I guess the thing I like most about uh well,
I don't know if it's the most, but a lot
about the company. It's something anytime you're going to hire
somebody to come to your house to do anything, you're
gonna want these three things. And these three things describe
fix my slab and ty Strickland. That's on time, fair
price fixed right, on time, fair price fixed right. That's

(14:42):
what we want. So anyway we're gonna get him in
here and I'm gonna pick his brain. If you got
some questions. When I have these guests in, you're welcome
to call in on the topic that they are talking about. Today.
I'm going to have starting at the eight o'clock hour,
someone from tex A and M Horticulture Department who is
a fruit specialist. We're gonna be talking about fruit trees

(15:03):
for your yard and all kinds of things. You got
some questions you want to call in for well eight o'clock.
We may run all the way to ten on that one,
but we'll be glad to take your questions on those things.
The summer days are a little slower and I try
to cover as many of the different topics as we can.
I know a lot of you have enjoyed some of
the guests that we've had, and so that's what we're

(15:25):
going to be doing here in the summertime. Tey, what,
let's's run out to Kingwood again and we are going
to visit with Howard. Hello, Howard, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (15:37):
Good morning, Thank you. I have a couple of lots
up there on the lake. Let me sten and they
were the bullhead was blown out back in August. Rough
whenever the hurricane came through and I finally got it fixed.

(15:57):
Apparently there were a lot of bull kids boat houses destroyed.
But anyway, I got the bulkhead in, I got a
lot of dirt put in, and now I was thinking
about to putting grass down. And uh, the guy I
was talking to, well, you may not want to put

(16:18):
permuta in, just put some.

Speaker 10 (16:22):
This or that.

Speaker 9 (16:23):
Now what should I put down over this dirt that
was put back down over the lots?

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Okay? Is this a Is this an area where you
want a really nice lawn where kids are rolling around
and playing and things, or is this an area where
you just want something green on the ground and you're
in a mow it. But but it needs to be
tough and and not need as much TLC right the
second second one.

Speaker 9 (16:50):
I'm not going to plant a tree for somebody else,
but I don't want to spend a fortune already spend
a fortune with bulkheads.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, well, you know that every grass has its pros
and cons. Saint Augustine, you need to water pretty often
and uh, but it's pros. It grows in deeper shade
than than most anything. Uh Uh, there is Bermuda takes
over the world. It'll crawl into every flower bed you got.
The more it regularly, it gets tiggers if the kids

(17:19):
are rolling around in it.

Speaker 11 (17:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
And then there's Zoisia, which is a good tough grass,
but it needs regular mowing to look its best. And
and uh with a good good mower.

Speaker 12 (17:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
There is a grass that is some people love it
and some people don't, and that is Behea grass. Behea
grass does very well in areas like yours, but it
sends up seed heads almost knee high, you know, the
little seed heads, like a few days after you mow,
you got them coming up. I mean they I guess

(17:50):
they detract from it a little bit. But if you
want a grass that you can drive a car on,
and I mean you can just just nobody has to
really water unless we go into a drought. Uh, it's
one you can do that. You just got to keep
it mode down so it doesn't because it will get taller.
But it makes a decent lawn. They use it in
Florida for lawns quite a bit. My hey, BAJE like

(18:14):
the mission b.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
A, but I really don't know the grass.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, well, you know, if I jump on you know
your search engine, Google or whatever and and just type
in baheya b a h I A grass and learn
a little bit about it. University of Florida has got
some really good information out there on it. We don't
have it as a turf grass on our anim Texas

(18:40):
turf page, at least I haven't seen it on there,
but I have been around a new Christmas tree farm.
They used it for the parking area. Kept it mode
so short you felt like you were walking on the lawn.
And it's tough. It's tough, all right, Hey, yeah, I
am too.

Speaker 9 (18:58):
Well congressibly class sixty any.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Well, well, good, hey, but just look at it carefully
because anybody who's thinking lawn bhea is not, you know,
in the top for a lawn, but for a mode
area that you don't have to worry about a lot.
You just need a good more to get out there
and get over it. Okay, Well, thank you, skip all right,

(19:24):
make sure you like it. I don't want you calling
me back and saying, well, yes, no lawn. I thank you,
Howard and Gig you take care all right? Uh yeah,
appreciate that.

Speaker 10 (19:37):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Boss Nursery is down in Kingwood, Texas. Kingwood, Texas. Good night.
Where am I coming from? Seabrook, Texas. Seabrook, everybody in
that region knows Moss Nursery. Moss has an awesome, awesome
selection of anything that you could possibly want, and they
really do. It's a bit right now. I'm excited about
the hibiscus that they've gotten in. These are the perennial hibiscus,

(20:00):
the kind they come back each year. They do really,
really well. And if you are a collector of plants
and you like things, you want something for a very
wet area, or you need something for a shady area,
or you want something that just bowls people over with
gaudy color. Mos Nursery's got that and more. M AA
S Nursery dot com. M aa S Nursery dot com

(20:23):
two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight
two eight one four seven four two four eight eight.
Better yet, go down and visit them. It's eight acres
to wander around. It is a family owned operation, has
been for a very long time. I love going down
to Mos Nursery. Take a lottle break for the news
here and I'll be back. Good morning, and welcome back

(20:46):
to the garden line. Good to have you with us. Hey,
if you got a gardening question seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four, or simply K t
r H. Makes it really easy. I was outside yesterday
with a friend and we're walking around just I don't know,

(21:11):
standing over in an area kind of where actually where
we put our trash cans to roll out of the
road and little secluded spots like that are always mosquito magnets,
you know, you go around to. But it was a
time of day toward the end of the day too,
and I just I just noticed I wasn't getting bitten
by mosquitos, and it's like, that's wonderful. That is a

(21:34):
good thing. Best Bros. Is the one that provides the
mosquito buckets that I use, and it basically they come
out and they service them. But you need to you
need to give them a call and find out more
about these things. They are great. I mean they attract
the mosquitos in the mosquitos lay eggs. The eggs never
become adult mosquitoes, and the mosquitos when they do that,

(21:56):
they carry with them stuff. And one of the things
they carry with them keeps mosquitos from growing in another location.
These are things that aren't going to hurt your birds
and fish, and you know, all kinds of things like that.
One of them is a disease that kills the mosquito itself,
which I think is the best thing for a mosquito
to die, along agonizing death from a fungus. That's my

(22:17):
idea of a happy thought for those of you who
don't like mosquitos, you know what I'm talking about. If
you want to get in touch with the pest Bros
for other things, you know, fire ants out in the yard,
termite protection. They can do a ten year termite protection
around your house. It's a little trench and it's just
the minimum amount of concern. You know, you got your
pets out there. You don't want to nuke everything with insecticides.

(22:39):
They know how to do it, they know how to
treat effectively, they know how to do it in a
safe manner, and they cover other things. You know, if
you've got rodents outside, they're causing a problem. If you've
got cockroaches inside, they'll cover you on those things. Thepestbros
dot Com. The pestbros dot Com two eight one two
oh six forty six and give them a call to

(23:00):
eight one two oh six forty six seventy. Let them
come out and take a look at your place. Make it,
you know. And I don't want to say mosquito free,
because in nature there's no such thing as past free. Okay.
I can have a yard where I don't think I
have any fire ins, and almost a sudden one day

(23:21):
I walk by and there's a firet mound over there.
And it takes a whall to do that. But you
can do that. But mosquito's down to a level where
you hardly notice them here and there. Because that's just great.
My neighbor told me the other day that they've had
less mosquitos in their yard as a result of my
buckets over there, and that's true. I got a couple
of buckets that are on our shared line, so they're

(23:43):
even benefiting from it. Boy, if you could get a
whole neighborhood to do that, we might get close to
mosquito free from that as well. Have you ever been
to Enchanted Forest, it's down there in if you're in
Richmond Rosenberg area and your head up fifty nine or
sixty nine, it's down twenty seven fifty nine.

Speaker 10 (24:05):
Just do this.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Go to the website. It's a great website. Enchanted Forest, Richmond,
TX dot com. Enchented Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. They
have all kinds of cool stuff right now. They got
a lot of good shade loving stuff. Stuff that's kind
of off the radar a lot of times for folks.
But things like the rock rose, a little Mexican petunia

(24:29):
called Katie. The stays real short. It's almost like a
little a rioty sized plant. American beauty beary. Now there's
a good one that in the fall when it loses
its leaves, the berries are just gorgeous on it. They
have turk's cap. I've got turks got in my yard.
It is a hummingbird magnet. They love that and sun shade.

(24:49):
It is Unfazed Texas native wonderful plant. Of course. They
have it down there while you're there. If you need
to do some things to create a more type of soil.
They carry microlife s acidifire fertilizer, they carry a rosa
from nature's way, and and they just know how to
provide you with the plants that are going to do

(25:11):
well here. I love it every time. I go by
the way. You know, it's getting hot out there. When
you go to Enchanted Forest, you're going to stroll through
the shade of some big old trees that I just
think that's wonderful and I enjoy getting to shop around
the place. Still good time to plant herbs, and they've
got them Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Go check

(25:35):
them out. Last time I was down there, I was
just amazed by the pollinator plants that they have. So many.
If you want to attract butterflies, they'll sell you the
things that the adults come to. They'll sell you the
things that the larva feet on. So you're raising baby

(25:55):
butterflies right there on your property, and they oftentimes even
have a larva or two around. They'll let you take
it home. You can take them home on those plants
and get your own It's kind of like a sour
dough starter, right, get your own starter going on on those.
I was mentioning that I'm gonna do some planning this afternoon.

(26:17):
Something else. I'm gonna be away from the house a
little bit and I've got to do some preparations for that.
And I've got some plants that they need to be
watered more often, and with me around, that's fine. But
when I'm gone, I don't, I can't do it. I'll
typically get a kiddie pool, a kitty waiting pool, you

(26:41):
know those things I'm talking about. And when I had that,
I will take that pool, put about maybe maybe two
inches of water, and depends on the plants that I'm
setting in there, and I set them in that pool,
and that's a quantity of water in a wide area,
and it wakes up from the bottom of the plants.
And so I can be gone for two weeks and

(27:02):
you know they'll be getting dry by the time I
get back because the water level drops. But that really
works well. The only thing you need to do is
throw some mosquito dunks in there, or I say some
throw a mosquito dunk in there, because it'll float and
release the disease of mosquitoes keeps the larvae from growing
for like a month. Those of you who heard us
last week, I talked to someone from a mosquito dunks

(27:24):
and kind of picked their brains on all of this.
But if you have a little waiting pool, those are cheap, cheap, cheap.
Buy them at any kind of store that sells cheap stuff.
The addition of a mosquito dunk will allow you to
be gone. I would say two weeks. If just watch
your plants. A little four inch plant will be drowning

(27:44):
in two inches of water, but a taller one won't.
But anyway, this will work. Just don't forget to do
the mosquito dunks. You can buy them anywhere. They got
them at feed stores, they got them at the garden
centers I talk about all the time. Ace hardware stores
have mosquito dunks. Wherever you want to go, You're going
to find plenty of opportunities for that. So there's a

(28:04):
little tip for those you're planning on going on a vacation.
Be gone a little bit. That's a great way to
do it. Phone number is seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two kt r H. Also, need to get out and
put new bird seed in the feeders. I looked out
the other day and it's all gone. They just cleaned

(28:26):
it out, and they like it. Because I'm using the
Wildbirds Unlimited Nesting super Blend, and this is one designed
by wild Birds Unlimited. It's sold only at Wildbirds Unlimited
it's got really cool stuff. They love, you know, sunflower chips,
dried mealworms, Oh my gosh, they love those, bark butter bits, sap,
flower tree nuts. It's it's got the calcium in things.

(28:47):
Birds are still nesting, by the way, so keep on
feeding it. There's six wild Birds Unlimited stores in the
Greater Houston area, so you can go to this website
WBU dot com forward Slash Houston. WBU like wild Birds
Unlimited WBU dot com Forward Slash Houston. If you are

(29:07):
over in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive, if you're in clear
Lake on Eldrado Boulevard. In Parland, there's one on East
Broadway in West Houston on Memorial Drive, in Southwest Houston
on bel Air and then up in Cypress on Barker Cypress.
It's easy to find a wild Bird's Unlimited store. They
carry the best blends of seeds that are stuff birds

(29:29):
want to eat, not stuff they're going to kick on
the ground. Take a little break here and we'll be
back if you'd like to be first up seven one
three two one two k t RH Welcome back to
guard Line. Good to have you with us. If you
are looking for a place that has every kind of
supply tool you name it, that you might need. It's

(29:49):
Southwest Fertilizer. And I don't care where you live, It's
worth a trip over there. It's been in Houston lawn
and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five, long time, because
they do it right. Every fertilizer that you hear me
talk about, is it Southwest fertilizer. And then some when
you talk about weed control products, when you talk about
insect controls, when you talk about fungicide, and you may

(30:13):
be hearing that going well, I'm organic, okay. The largest
organic selection in the greater Houston area that I've ever seen.
It is huge, huge, ninety foot wall of tools. You know, Felco,
Corona quality brands like that. You hear me talk about
the garden kneeling bench or kneeling seat. They've got that
you want to make my weed wiper. They got the

(30:34):
little tool you used to make the weed bay. They
have it all. And you can carry a problem in
there on a picture.

Speaker 10 (30:39):
You can.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
You can have a little sample in a bag. Let
them put a pair of eyes on it. Southwest Bob
and his team, they'll figure out what it is and
they'll point you at the product that works for it.
Corner of Bissonet and Runwick in Southwest Houston. Southwest Fertilizer
dot Com seven to one, three sixty six six seventeen
forty four. We're going to go now out to Galveston
and talk to Laura. Hello, Laura, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (31:03):
Good morning.

Speaker 14 (31:04):
It's nice to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Good to talk to you.

Speaker 14 (31:10):
And Uh, I had sent you some pictures last night
and I'm calling about the largest yew tree in Texas. Uh,
we have a certificate that they came down and gave
us for this. You is on the property of Grace
Episcopal Church in Galveston, and it has a ground cover

(31:32):
that's growing around it. To me, it looks like asiatic jasmine,
something like that, and it climbing, yeah, climbing up into
the tree and in the branches it's completely encircled drunk.
And I need to know whether that's dangerous to the
tree and we should remove it, or it's harmless.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
But it's really a great Most people will, yeah, most
people trim the jasmine around the bottom and any thing
above where you cut is going to turn brown and die.
But eventually jasmine is. If it was English ivy, I
would say it's going to crawl all over your tree
and shade out all the leaves and not going to
be good. I would trim it just for aesthetic reasons,

(32:17):
but it's not as far as is it going to
hurt the tree? Probably not? Uh, probably not. But uh,
trimming it is easy. You just cut it all at
the bottom and then everything above that's going to die.
If somebody wants to pull out some of it that
is at the base that's brown, because you don't want
to see the dead jasmine, you can do.

Speaker 14 (32:36):
That, okay, Okay, well, yep, that's what We'll clean the
trunk off. And I have some of it growing in
my yard. What what can you do to get rid
of it?

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Asian Asian jasmine? Uh huh uh yeah there. It depends
on where it's growing. Is it growing among desirable plants
or is it.

Speaker 11 (32:59):
In the gras a lawn?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Oh, Asian chasmine and the lawn, I would just I
would pull it. You're gonna have to pull it out.

Speaker 7 (33:09):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
There are sprays that will kill it, but they're not.
Your lawn's not going to do well with those sprays,
So okay, all right, cut it.

Speaker 10 (33:21):
Border.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Well, I guess just create a border and just make
that when it crosses the line, you just chop it,
you know, take a WEEEDI or whatever cut it back
when it cuts the line. But it will get out
of hand in time. But it looks happy. Everything looks happy,
including that huge, very good tree.

Speaker 14 (33:38):
It is, thank you, gorgeous tree. It fell over in
Hurricane Carla, and everybody said, oh, we got to chop
it down, and the people pulled it back up and
braced it for years and years and so it survived.
It's a very big, happy tree.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Do they know how old it is?

Speaker 14 (33:58):
I would say easily sixty sixty to seventy years old.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well, that's that is cool. I appreciate that. Hey, Laura,
thank you for the call. You take care and good
luck with the That's a wonderful, wonderful tree. If you
have out the Arborgate, you need to go. I don't
care what season it is. You could be the middle
of summer and there's a ton of stuff you can't
live without at the Arburgate. At least that's how I
feel when I walk through a beautiful, beautiful, heat tolerant

(34:28):
shade tolerant. Whatever you're looking for, they've got it there
at the Arborgate. Now they're a mile and a half
west of two forty nine on twenty nine to twenty,
just west of Humble. I'm always talking about preparing your soil.
They've got bags of their one two three completely easy system,
and that's a food that feeds anything with roots, a fertilizer,
a soil for any application, and a compost that improves

(34:51):
any and all soil. And the soil and the compost
both have some expended shale in them as well, which
is a very longer term benefit to the clay. You
can buy the last to the soil and the compost
by bulk and they'll deliver it to you wherever you live.
Just give them a call there at Arbrogate, talk to them.
The Arborgate is a place to anybody who's garden here

(35:11):
for two minutes has already known about and been out there.
Remember they got that nice parking lot in the back.
And whether you're looking for landscape, bling or a plant
that laughs at our Houston summers, they're going to be
able to get you covered there at Arburgate. They take
time to walk through with you It's just a great place,
great place to visit. I love it. I always love it,

(35:33):
and I do swing by there because there's always something
new coming in. I just don't think I've ever been
there where wass not a shipment in the back being
unloaded of plants. Someone called a while ago from Livingstone
talking about the storm, the hurricane that came through and
what the damage that it did. Affordable Tree Service is

(35:55):
who you need to call, not after the hurricane, but
now it's hurricanes. See is here and is your is
your yard ready? That's what you need to know. A
top heavy tree, a weak limb can turn into really
major damage. Don't wait until it's too late. You're want
to protect your home. You want to protect your trees
and themselves. You do in order to break apart your

(36:16):
fences and God forbid your neighbor's home. And Affordable Tree
Service is our garden line recommended arborist for this area,
and they have been for a very long time because
they have decades of experience. Martin Spoon Moore give them
a call seven to one three six nine nine twenty
six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two

(36:38):
six six three. If you want to go to the
website see all the services they offer a fftree Service
dot com and they do anything you're gonna need, printing,
deeper feeding, pests, disease control, stump grinding. If you're gonna
do any kind of construction around a tree that can
that is a potential for great damage to a tree,
called Martin having come out there and look at it,

(37:01):
advise you and they know what to do. But do
it before the problem, whether the problem is construction or
a hurricane. And it's time. We're there in the season.
Affordable Tree Service seven to one three six ninety nine
two six six three. They will take care of it
and make sure it's done right. Well, let's see here.

(37:22):
I'm about to hear some music in my ears because
we're hitting the top of the hour. We'll be back
with your calls if you'd like to be first up
when we come back. Seven one three two one two KTRH.
Seven one three two one two KTRH. Remember during the
eight o'clock and probably nine o'clock hour, we're going to

(37:42):
have doctor Tim Hartman, who is a fruit specialist with
texas A and m Agrolife Extension. Term's a friend. I'm
going to work with for many years. Come in and
talk to us about backyard fruit. So if you got
a fruit question, that'd be a great time to call.
We'll have him here for a couple hours. Uh, just
give us a call. You are wanting to plant fruit,

(38:03):
If you've got fruit that's having some issues, let's let's
talk about it. Between Tim and and myself, we probably
put our heads together and and tackle whatever kinds of
questions you might have. Looking forward to that. It's been
a while since I've seen Tim doctor Hartman. There you go,
all right, go get you a cup of coffee. That's

(38:24):
what I'm about to do. Alrighty, we're back. Hey, thanks
for thanks for tuning in this morning. We always appreciate
the opportunity to visit with you about gardening. You'd like

(38:47):
to give me a call about that, and you can
do so at seven one three two one two k
t r H seven to one three two one two
k t r H began as Native Plants has some
events that's going on. I want to just let you
know about these. And you know how I always tell
you to listen to Garden Line with a pen and
paper nearby so you can write some stuff down on

(39:10):
let's see on July the nineteenth, creating the Garden of
your Dreams. They're gonna have a free class on creating
the Garden of your Dreams July nineteenth. On August second,
there'll be one on starting a cut flower garden. You
want to go to this one because this fall you
could start your cut flower garden. On August sixteenth, they'll

(39:32):
be growing fall tomatoes. The one on raised bed gardening
on the twenty third, and one on starting Texas Native
Plants on August thirtieth. Then you know Buchanan specializes in natives.
They are, you know, just the leader when it comes
to that. You're not gonna find a bigger selection in
natives anywhere than Buchanna's plants as well as experts that
know about them. You can give them a call seven

(39:54):
one three eight six one fifty seven two. You can
give them a call there. All right, just go see
him a little eleventh Street in the Heights, by the way.
The website you need to write this one down and
bookmarket Buchanan's Plants dot com. We're going to go now
to Richmond, Texas and talk to Linda. Hello, Linda, Welcome

(40:15):
to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (40:17):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Can I help you.

Speaker 13 (40:23):
Yes, I.

Speaker 7 (40:26):
Have a brick home with the driveway, just a typical
Texas home. Built it ten years ago and the builder
put in a crape myrtle right by the corner of
my garage.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
It was the.

Speaker 7 (40:39):
Midnight lilac, one of the smaller but it is a tree,
not a bush, and it got out of hand and
last fall it was messy and dirty and just got
a bit too big for where it was placed by
the builder. I had my landscaper take it out and
put in a smaller shrub in that spot last November

(41:03):
and this year in June. Guess what popped up through
the mult.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
I kind of I know what happens when you've cut
a great myrtle off. Yeah, that's right. So you want
to have to get rid of it.

Speaker 7 (41:19):
How do I get rid of it without damaging the
other bush?

Speaker 2 (41:23):
M what you do?

Speaker 15 (41:25):
Have to dig the whole thing up?

Speaker 2 (41:29):
No, No, here's what you're gonna do. If you can
go to my web. First of all, if you go
to my website, everything I'm about to tell you, you
can see picture of it. You can. It gives you
detailed instructions on how to get rid of it.

Speaker 15 (41:43):
Forgive me.

Speaker 7 (41:44):
I'm elderly and don't don't use the computer, so I
depend on you.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Not a problem here we go, all right, You want
to get a product ingredient called tri clo peer t
r I c l O p y R. That's the ingredient.
That's not the brand name. There's many brands of it,

(42:11):
but t R I c l O p y R.
If you're in Richmond, you've got some ACE Hardware stores
there that are gonna carry it. You're gonna be able
to find it at your at your local your local
Ace Hardware's you know which direction that I don't know.

(42:32):
I haven't been in there. I usually don't do that
because I need people that are and what we're talking about.
So if you go out to uh Richmond Rosenberg UH
area Ace Hardware is find triclop pere, find a product
with that. Now, what's gonna somebody cut that off? Cut

(42:55):
it off again, but not until you got the triclopere
right there. And taking a little like a little sponge
paint stick. If you go to you know, like you said,
home depot, you go to home depot and get those
little sticks in the paint department that have a sponge
on the end. That's that's what you want. And you're
going to put the triclo piers straight, not cutting it

(43:15):
and not spraying it. You're going to dab it straight
onto the fresh cuts that you make. So let's just
say this gets cut off within an hour. You need
to be putting the tricle pair on there just so. Okay,
you're wait too long and it's not as effective. So anyway,
dab it on and it'll move down in the plant
and it'll work. Now you may have another resprout, but
you can dab it on again. It's not hard to do.

(43:38):
Put the minimum amount of pesticide out there in the environment.

Speaker 7 (43:42):
Do you thank you? Do you know if those roots
go you know, several feet in yards underground, are they
just kind of localized around it?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
They probably go out in all directions as high as
the crape myrtle tree is.

Speaker 7 (44:00):
Understand. Okay, so you can't pull it out necessarily, you
have to kill it.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Well, I mean with a lot of work in digging
and Thomas sprout shows up, you can dig that root out. Hey,
I got to run, Linda, good luck with that. I
appreciate appreciate you calling in Yeah, that technique is on
what on my website it's called it's called controlling woody
Weeds in the landscape, and it tells you exactly what

(44:28):
to do. Whether we could be talking about yo ponts,
we could be talking about poison ivy, we could be
talking about hackberry coming up along the fence line. Because
the birds spoop the seeds out there, it works.

Speaker 10 (44:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Jorge Hiding Gardens down south of the Houston area is
it's just a great garden center to find all kinds
of things. You know, seasonally you're gonna find different kinds
of vegetables and flowers and whatnot. He is an outstanding
selection of all kinds of fruit. You know, if you're
looking for avocados, you're looking for various kinds of citrus,

(45:01):
all blueberries. And then I was over there this spring
and my gosh, I couldn't believe on any peaches and
apples and pears and everything else he had. He is
on Elizabeth Street. It's an Alvin, Texas address, but he's
actually located in between Alvin and Santa Fe And so
you just head down six and you're gonna end up
turning south and to Elizabeth Street. Once I can't say

(45:27):
the number one even seven Elizabeth Street south of Highway
six between Alvin and Santa Fe. Go check him out,
all of you down there in those areas, like I'll
go on Arcadia and Alta Loma and Hillcrest and certainly
Santa Fe and Alvin. This is your hometown garden center
seven one three six three two fifty two ninety seven

(45:47):
one three six three two fifty two ninety. By the way,
he carries that three sixty tree stabilizer I talk about
all the time as well. So there, he's a great
guy too, has a lot of fun, and you will
enjoy shopping. I've had more than one person tell me
how much they enjoy shopping there. I was talking about
ACE Hardware just a second ago with Linda, and you

(46:10):
know ACE Hardware's are all over the place. Let's just well,
if you go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com, Ace
Hardware Texas dot Com, and you can find all the
ones that are in the Greater Houston area. And when
I say Greater Houston, I mean all the way down
to Corpus and all the way over to Orange and everything.
They got you covered. So League City, ACE on West

(46:33):
League City Parkway is an example. You go up to
Porter Jnr's ACE on FM thirteen fourteen out in Lake
Conroe one oh five West Highway one oh five West,
there's Lake Conroy's Hardware, Rockport, Texas. Hello, all of you
listening from Rockport, Rockport ACE on State Highway thirty five North,
Hardware City on Memorial Drive on the west side of Houston.

(46:55):
See what I mean. They're everywhere, But there's a lot
more than that. Whether you need quality tools, if you
need fertilizer for the summer fertilizing we're doing. If you
need pest control, if you need gardening gardening tools as
well as well as quality hand tools for building and
fixing stuff, They've got you covered at ACE Hardware. I'm
gonna take a little break and we'll be right back

(47:16):
with your calls. Alrighty, welcome back to guarden Line. Good
have you with us this week. By the way, if
you don't follow me on on Facebook, it is a gardener.
It's garden Line. My name is garden Line on Facebook.
You should because we post stuff up there that is

(47:37):
I think very helpful and informative. Just yesterday I posted
something pictures of a plant my daughter she has a
little ficus, it's the Fiddley fig ficus, and it was
like pale yellow and it wasn't looking good and it
wasn't growing, and I was afraid that thing, maybe it's

(47:58):
got root rides, can die. I gave her some Medina
has to grow six twelve six plant food. I got
little sample bottles. They give those out, a little tiny
sample bottles, and it just said put this in the
water and watered a couple of times, you know, a
little sample bottle made made two gallons of it. So
she made it and watered it with it and did
it again. And I posted the pictures and it's the

(48:19):
before and then twice over the course of about a month,
the after, and it is. It's obviously helped. It's a
turning darker green and it's already putting out new growth.
And Medina has to grow six to twelve six is
a great plant food period. I use it a lot,
and when we come to transplanting, because at hyphosphorus you

(48:41):
had a really good boost for your root system there.
But this product at bottom lines, it works. It's got
the six twelve six nutrients and it it also has
Medina sol activator humate humic acid which helps the sole
structure and the seaweed extracts too. It's it's a concoction
that really works. And so follow me on a Facebook

(49:03):
a garden line. Follow garden line on Facebook and check
it out. I think that you'll see it's pretty amazing.
I was like, man, I got to post this thing.
This is cool. Medina products are available everywhere. You know,
you go to feed store, you go to an ace
hardware store, you go to a garden center, you're not
gonna have trouble finding Medina products. And there's a whole
bunch of them. Someone had sent me a question about

(49:29):
a lawns and with some photos, and the lawn just
is not doing good. It's struggling. It's I don't know.
They tell me they're fertilizing it. You know, they're watering
it and stuff, but it just kind of, I don't know,
it's just thin. And when it's thin, you get weeds.
And nobody wants weeds, and nobody wants to have to
put out all the products to control weeds. If you

(49:50):
can avoid having to do that, well, BMB churros Well.
I told the person that I call me, is you
need to get it corrated and then have accomplished top
dressing put down on it. It really does work. And
BnB turf Pros they're the ones down south of Houston.
They cover the area from Sugarland and Missouri City on
the northeast east end all the way down Highway six

(50:13):
and over across forty five to Dickinson and League City
Pairland Friends with all those communities they cover. BB turf
Pros in the website, there's not an end. BB Turfpros
dot com. Bbturfpros dot com. Take a look at what
they do. They really are about. I've talked to them
a number of times about a different things, but bottom

(50:35):
line is they are about making sure the customer is happy.
And it's because it's a relationship to them. They want
to ensure your satisfaction and they do a great job.
Prices start around five hundred dollars depending on the yard size.
Not far they have to travel because it is a
bulky process, but compared to putting in a new lawn,

(50:55):
if you've got some good grass in there, let them
come to a compost top dressing a corporation and you
will see some good results. BB Turpros dot com. We're
gonna go out now to Deer Park and talk to Alan. Hello, Alan,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (51:12):
Good morning. How you doing today?

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Doing well?

Speaker 11 (51:17):
I got a question about zoysia grass. What's a good fertilizer.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah, the fertilizers that I talk about here on garden
Line are all good for ysia. Zosia needs a little
less fertilizer than Saint Augustine because you don't want to
you don't want to overstimulate it to grow. It's thick
enough as it is.

Speaker 10 (51:39):
But you do.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
You prefer.

Speaker 11 (51:44):
Huh and nitre Foss Imperial and I was told not
to use that on soy shoe.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
That's not correct. Nitrofuss Imperial, the red bag is fine
on any grass.

Speaker 16 (51:58):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Now, they may have told you that because it's an
immediate release. When you put it out, it dissolves with water,
irrigation or rain, and it's immediately available usually during the summertime.
If you look at my schedule which is online at
Gardeningwithskip dot com, I'm recommending silver releases. So you mentioned nitrophas,

(52:19):
the silver bag, Nitrofos superturf is the one that you're
going to want to go go with super turf will
give you about Yeah, it'll give you like four months
of feeding, so it'll carry you all the way up
into your fall fertilization, which is going to be in October.
But go with the super turf and it gives you

(52:41):
a gradual feed and you don't just get a flush
of growth and you're mowing a lot. And when you
overfertilize with nitrogen, it means the grass has less roots,
which is a weird thing, but that's how it is.
So switch over to the superturf now. And yes, yeah,
if it you know, if it's looking great and everything,
you don't have fertilized as much. But if you're trying

(53:02):
to get it and give it a boost, that's very important.

Speaker 11 (53:06):
Yeah. Well it's not looking it's looking good, but I've
seen it look better. So I'm just curious what would
be a good fertilizer to put.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
On it and help it out. And you've helped it
a lot. All right, sir, thanks for call. Appreciate that, Alan,
Good luck with that. Yep, Zlisia does need to be fertilized,
just not as much as Saint Augustine. If you've been
to plants for all seasons. Plants for All Seasons is
up there on FM two forty nine, which is Tomball Parkway,

(53:39):
just north of where Lueta comes in to Tomball Parkway.
And it's been there a long time since the seventies.
You know, these folks, they've lived here, they've gardened here,
They've answered ten bazillion questions from customers helping them have success.
I've been in so many many times, and you walk in,
you look around, and I can tell you that they

(54:00):
carry products for what you need done. They do from
the fertilizers to pest and weed and disease control to
really quality tools. They've got a lot of new tool
a new tool wall section that has really quality tools.
Can you buy once and there are a lifetime tool
to take care of them. Now, right now, you're going
to find some beautiful plants for summer, some dazzling color,

(54:22):
and you're going to find plants for shady areas. Whatever
you need, it's there at Plants for All Seasons. Just
remember when you go in, if you've got a photo
or a sample, you can take it in and they'll
diagnose it for you and point you in the right
direction if you if you would like to have that
kind of assistance. Plants for all seasons dot com two eight, one, three, seven, six,
sixteen forty six. You are listening to Garden Line. I'm

(54:46):
your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you
have a bountiful garden and beautiful garden, beautiful landscape as well,
and as I like to say, and the most important part,
more fun, more fun in the process. I was talking
to somebody the other day and we were talking about
weeds and lawns, and you know, what one person's idea

(55:08):
of a beautiful lawn is and what another's isn't always
the same. Some people want perfect green lawns, as if
it looks like AstroTurf out. I mean, it's just solid green,
not a weed insight. Other people know that certain kinds
of weeds are food for bees. I had a lady
on Doctor Wrangel the other day on the show, and
we were talking about bees, honey bees and the things

(55:31):
they like. And I'm telling you there's a lot of
the lawn weeds, not all lawn weaeds, but some that
attract honeybees. And for some people that is a plus. Okay,
Now I know some of you are going I don't
understand that. Well, a lot of things I don't understand too,
But however you want to do it. That's a fun
thing about gardening. It's between you and the hoa. Let

(55:51):
me just say that, make the front yard look good.
In the backyard, do what you want to do. But
if you want perfect gardening, perfect gardens and everything, you
can do that. We can advise you. You can do that.
It's easy to have success. And when you just get
good information, that's the most important part. Like I like
to say, you don't have a brown thumb, you have

(56:12):
an uninformed thumb. And if you'll call in the garden line,
we will inform your thumb. And then suddenly the landscape,
the garden, the orchard, everything just looks a lot lot
better and we can do that. Happy to do that,
but to each his own U. There is a German
phrase yeadis tirkin sign pleasirkin. Why am I saying that

(56:35):
every creature has this pleasure? And boy is that true
with gardening. Go have fun, don't feel like you got
to do it a certain way and all this and
you know, if I talk to them in one time
that was worried about their flowers and are these colors
going to go well together. Do you like them together?
Land them? I don't care where they are on the
color wheel. You do what you want. Have fun in

(56:58):
your garden. There you go. I just gave you permission
to do whatever you want to do in your guard.
It's it's let it make you happy. Let it be
fulfilling to you. For me, it's therapy, and it's a
lot cheaper in therapy too. By the way, Houston Powder
Coaders is the biggest powder coder here in this region.
They're up there in North Houston. If you send them

(57:21):
a picture of your metal, your outdoor metal, furniture or
decorative or any outdoor metal that you want to get
a powder coat on. By the way, powder coating is
way better than painting, they will send you a quote.
Sales at Houstoncoders dot Com is the email, or just
go to their website Houston Powdercoders dot com. Houston Powdercoders

(57:45):
dot com. If your stuff's a little not so great,
maybe it's a little rusty, or maybe bolts are falling
out that are holding it together, or the straps, you know,
the straps and sling fabric and everything on. Some kinds
of furniture. They can fix that up and when you
get back, it's going to be like new. Over one
hundred collars that you get to choose from. Here's the

(58:05):
website Houston Powdercoders dot com. Here's the number two eight
one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight two eight
one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight. They do
free pick up and delivery in the Greater Houston area
as well. Oh well, I'm looking at the clock and
the clock says time for the news at the bottom

(58:26):
of the hour here, So we're gonna go ahead and
do that. We'll be back with your questions. If you'd
like to be first up, give my producer Alejandro call
and we will get you on the board and talk
about the things that are of interest to you at
seven one three two one two kt r H seven
one three two one two kt r H. When I

(58:47):
come back, I want to talk a little bit about
using combinations of plants to have beauty around the landscape
or to have bounty if you're growing vegetables around the landscape.
So don't let me forget. I want to spend a
little bit of time on that as well as your
calls appreciate the fact that you're listening to your guardline.

(59:07):
By the way, this morning. I love talking to gardeners.
That and sitting in my gardener my two happy places
that I enjoy and so appreciate you listening, and we
do not take that for granted. All right. Nelson Plant
Food has a number of different products, and I want
to tell you about the turf Star line. Turf Star
is several fertilizers that are in the Turf Star line,

(59:30):
but the Slow and Easy is the one that I
want to talk about right now. I was just talking
to somebody about drag out your fertilizing. Don't dump it
all on you know, all the nitrogen at one time
on your summer lawn. Slow and Easy does that for you.
You put it down now and it's going to feed
you all the way up to your fall fertilization. It's
got great nutritions. There are some substances in it that

(59:53):
help us sidify the soil as well, which when you
get that pH if it's a little high, you start
to see that yellowing in your grass, you know, the
light yellowing in the green and yellow striped grass blades.
That's ourn deficiency bringing the pH down slowly over time,
can help grow yourself out of that situation. Very good
nutrient supplies of carbon for microbes. It's a good product.

(01:00:16):
Turf Stars Slow and Easy from Nelson Plant Food. You're
going to find these products everywhere. While you're there shopping
for your lawn, you need to pick up a couple
of their specialty products. They have a Palm and Ornamental
grasses product that's in the Nutri Star line Palm and
Ornamental Grasses, and they have a boog and vill you
one too. Whatever kind of plant you're looking for, that
Nutri star Line is going to carry the probably a

(01:00:40):
fertilizer with your plant's name on it, and if not,
one that goes very well with your plant. I use
the boot and Billy on several other different species as
well because it works very very well. And you can
refill the jars two in about a dozen places around town,
which is economical and keeps from throwing that plastic in
the environment. Let's go to the heights. We're going to

(01:01:00):
talk to Ron this morning. Hey, Ron, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:01:03):
Good on.

Speaker 17 (01:01:04):
Good morning, Skip. I send you a picture of my
weed that's in the front yard, and I asked you
last week if I should just sowd over it or
do I need to kill it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Yeah, that's a booger.

Speaker 16 (01:01:19):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
The weeds, weeds that are in that same family as
a wandering jew. Uh, they're kind of sort of in
between grasses and broad leaves in a sense. Grassy killers
aren't that great on them. Broad leaf killers aren't that
great on them.

Speaker 18 (01:01:35):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Some people hand removal as a possibility, but boys, that
ever work and you don't get it all. So you
have to be so diligent at it that most people
are not gonna are not going to be able.

Speaker 19 (01:01:47):
To And of course, and that's what I have.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Yes, yes, that's what you have. Yeah that Uh, it's
not basket grass, but it's it's closely related to that
same kind of results. It does well in shady areas,
even a little too shady for your lawn. You have
this stuff growing in it and doing well.

Speaker 10 (01:02:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Some people, Yeah, go ahead, Yeah, some people will what
they'll do run as they'll they'll just kill an area
and then put grass back in it. And that is drastic.
But if it's spread too far, that's probably not practical
to do. But it can be controlled. It just I

(01:02:33):
can't point you at a specific we control product that
you can put on it. If you hire a landscaper,
they're going to have access to some things that you
don't that might be able to to kind of shut
it down a little bit. The main thing is don't
let it get it, get a start, and pull it
back and stay on it pulling it back.

Speaker 20 (01:02:55):
Oh, it's already got because I don't have I don't
have good QUI answers for those weeds. I hate them
because they know it's I'm yeah, I'm behind the power
curve on this one, so I guess I'll Yeah, I
was thinking about just weed eating it, down it to nothing,
but you said it'll grow back even with new sad

(01:03:16):
over the top. You're saying, okay, well.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
I'll have to I've never tried. Yeah, I've never tried
putting new sawd over it. But yeah, you could kill
it with gliphas as you said, it will kill that.
But okay, yeah, not good options.

Speaker 12 (01:03:35):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Hey, Hey, keep listening. I'm gonna and a break. I'm
gonna check on and see if I can find any
suggestion on that. I'm gonna look at some other state
information because there's anything out there. I want to be
able to provide it all right, Thank you, Ron, I
appreciate the calls. Mhm, you bet yeah. Those weeds are

(01:03:55):
a bugger. Have you ever tried to kill purple heart?
I love purple heart, d purple in a sunny areas,
a lighter purple and in the shady air, it's great.
But you spray that with round up and it won't
kill it. I'm telling you it won't kill it. Some
crazy crazy thing anyway. RCW Nursery is having a sale

(01:04:19):
right now. By the way, I didn't want to forget
to tell you that, twenty five percent off of crate myrtles.
And they've got all kinds, you know. Creat myrtles are red.
Great myrtles are write and pink and lavender. They have
the purples, they have different sizes. You go out there
and you say, look, I've got it. I need a
crepe myrtle, and I need it to be just twelve

(01:04:40):
feet high, no taller than that, or I want a
big one to make a shade tree. Natchez is a
good one for that, by the way. But they've got them,
and again, twenty five percent off's a good sale. And
can you plant a great myrtle in June. Yes, you can.
You're just gonna want to water it regularly at the
base and it will establish. People plant all through the year.

(01:05:00):
They can do that. While you're out at RCW two,
by the way, check out their other color still got
boom and Ballos. They've got the out the shrub rows
of Sharon is another name for it. It looks outstanding. Listen,
we got plants that can look good, and we just
need to plant the ones that can. You know, the
gold Star Esperanza looks good even in the heat. We

(01:05:21):
have the Pride of Barbados. It looks good even in
the out At RCW they got the Cajun series of
hibiscus that are outstanding even in the heat. RCW Nurseries,
by the way, is where Tamball Park went and Beltwegh
eight come together. RCW Nurseries dot Com, RCW Nurseries dot Com.

(01:05:43):
Let's now head out to sugar Land and we're going
to visit with Craig. Hello, Craig, Hey, good morning, Skip.

Speaker 11 (01:05:52):
Hey, I got a problem with my front flower bed.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
It gets full song.

Speaker 10 (01:05:57):
You know, I have a couple of rosebushes of sago palms.
I just can't keep it weed free. And what I'm
noticed over the years, it's like a vine like weed
that grows and it's got deep, a deep root. It's
like the motherboard that creates these vines. But if you

(01:06:18):
find that main one which is very deep and it's
hard to pull out at the doug on near, you know,
shovel it out with a small hand shovel. But I
just can't keep it weed free.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
What can I do?

Speaker 10 (01:06:29):
I just I don't want to kill my rose bushes on.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
So yeah, for sure. So there's there's two ways that
that these weeds are invaded in your bed. One is
from seeds and that can be pretty much controlled with
a good thick mulch and then when they do sprout
and getting them when they're very young and easy easy
to get rid of. The other one is for perennial
kinds of things. They either climb into your bed or

(01:06:55):
you know, like bermuda grass, it can come up you
chop all the bermudograss off the top of the or
it just popped stuck out of the ground again. And
for those kind of weeds, you're going to have to
use some sort of of a product that is effective
I think what I would suggest, and I'm not seeing
the situation. I don't even really know what weed we're
talking about. But if you will go on my website

(01:07:17):
Gardening with Skip dot Com and look at skip'sweed wiper,
I tell you how to build one. It's real simple,
and then you can put products on there that will
kill those broad leaf weeds but won't kill the good
plants because you're not getting them on the good plants.
It's a little like two sponges that come together and
squeeze the weed leaves. Take a look at it. I

(01:07:37):
also have a publication on herbicides where if you're looking
at a grassy weed, if you're looking at a broad
leaf weed, if you know if those kind of things,
it tells you what product to use on that weed wiper.
That's the best way I know. You've been out pulling
and pulling and pulling trying to get them all. If
you can get a product on there, have it translocated down,

(01:07:59):
it'll work for you. I use it in my beds
as well. But Gardening with Skip dot Com is the website.
Look for the weed wiper and look for the list
for for the herbicides to put on it okay, all right,
and you're in Sugarland, so you just drive up to
Southwest Fertilizer Besson that and runwick and Bob's got the

(01:08:19):
little tool that you used to build a weed wiper.
Once you get one, you're gonna use it a lot.
I keep mind hanging in the grab it all the time.
I got to run for a break. Thank you, appreciate
your call, sir. All right, folks, we'll be right back.
Welcome back, Welcome back to Garden Line. Folks. Good to
have you with us. If you'd like to give me
a call. By the way, it's seven one three two

(01:08:41):
one two k t r H. Those of you down
in League City or that whole area Clearlakes, Elkam into
Reale Baycliff, Lamart, Dickenson, San Leon, that that whole region
down there. Your hometown feed store is League City feed
It is in League City, of course, on Highway three,
just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So

(01:09:02):
that's where it's located. Now you just need to go,
and when can you go, Well, Monday through Saturday nine
am to six pm, so after work you swing by
there close on Sunday. By the way, if you want
to get m call two eight one three three two
sixteen twelve. Now why would you go, Well, it's old
fashioned service. It's that old time feed store service. Carry
the bags out for you. This is the third generation

(01:09:23):
in the Thunderberg family is running this store. That's what
I'm That's what I'm talking about. If you need anything
to control weeds, pest and diseases, they have an excellent selection.
And if you're looking for fertilizers for your garden and
your lawn, they have the nitrofoss line, they have Microlifeline,
they have Nelson Plant Food Line. You're going to find
soils by the bag from Heirloom Soils there, so you

(01:09:46):
can just swing by there and pick that up again.
They're on Highway three, a few blocks south Highway ninety six.
League City Feed two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.
Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. I was
at my yard the other day and notice that I
had a fire at Mount popping back up in there.
I thought I had those guys under control. Well you

(01:10:08):
never get them completely forever gone night Fiss has a
product called fire ant Killer, And you know, normally I
would say use, use baits here and there through the
year to suppress the fire ants. But what if you've
got a mount and you need to get rid of
it now, Well that it's not going to work that
fast on it. Fire ant killer from Nitrofuss does. It

(01:10:31):
is a very effective you know, just you've got a
party tomorrow and you want to knock those out. This
is what you're going to need to use. Fire Ant
killer from Nitropos and night Fuss products are available all
over the place. I know Hiden and feed On Student
or Airline has it. All the Fissures hardwares in Pasadena, Laporte,
Mont Bellevue and even Baytown they carry it. Stanton Shopping

(01:10:55):
Center down there in Alvin. For those of you who
are up in the Cypress area, you've got M and
D Cypress and Langham Creek Ase Hardware too, all carry
night Foss products. You're listening to the guard line and
we're here to try to helpe you have success. That's
kind of my goal in doing this. If you want
to give us a call, I'm about to the next hour.

(01:11:17):
We're going to have doctor Tim Hartman, who is a horticulturist,
a fruit specialist from Texas A and m agrolife extension
on the show. And if you've got fruit tree questions,
give us a call on that. I'm going to try
to focus on fruit trees for these for these next
couple hours. But this is your chance to pick his brain.
You want suggestions for planting a fruit tree, you want

(01:11:39):
you dealing with a problem on a fruit tree. He
can help you with all those things. If you walked
in my attic. I went up in my attic the
other day and oh my gosh, I thought I was
gonna melt, you know, like a wax candle up there
is so hot. Arctic insulation solutions can help cut down

(01:11:59):
your bills. You know, the thing runs all day practically
trying to keep up. There's a lot of ways they help.
They've got foil radiant barriers that can go in the roof,
the ceiling of the attic rafters and thirty degrees or
more get that temperature down. They have fiberglass insulation that
they can blow in, or they can do any kind
of insulation you need up there, and it really makes

(01:12:21):
a difference. And then going in and sealing those holes
around like your light fixtures and switches and plugs and things.
Hot air can leak through that and does leak through that,
and that can make a big difference. One study they
did is that just like having an open window in
a room and closing it, that's the difference it makes

(01:12:41):
Solar Attic fans another thing. Just go to their website.
If you're like me, you can't spell Arctic. There's a
C in the middle that I keep forgetting about a
rc TIC Houston dot com Arctic Houston dot com eight three,
two five, eight six, twenty eight ninety three. Give them
a call right out here to Liberty, Texas now and

(01:13:05):
visit with Jason. Hello, Jason, Welcome to garden line.

Speaker 21 (01:13:12):
Anyway, I got a question.

Speaker 7 (01:13:13):
Get me and my daughter.

Speaker 21 (01:13:14):
We planted a little some seeds. We had some really
good oranges and were planted some seeds. That was the oranges.
It was a brown Hurricane Ike before Hurricane Ike came in. Anyway, Well,
they all blew away, and I seen one out there.
I found one that a little sprout was coming out of,
so I transplanted it. Make a long story short, it

(01:13:34):
grew to a really big orange tree, had big thorns
on it and everything, but it made really really good oranges. Okay,
I got two seasons of it. We made good oranges,
and then it froze when we had a twenty twenty
freeze or whenever that hard freeze was okay, Well, it
died all the way down to the root system, and
then it came back up. It was like eight or
ten feet tall. Never seen a blossom on it that year,

(01:13:58):
Never seen a blosom on the next year. And then
we had that other breeze and it killed it back again,
and now it's like eight or ten beats all again.
I haven't seen a blossom. My question is I'm gonna
have to wait another fourteen years. So that's how long
it took for the fort to ever produced any fruit
from the time we planted it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
That.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
I don't know if it's going to take that long,
but it can take a while. This just so I'm
absolutely sure you're talking about a seedling, not a grafted one, right.

Speaker 15 (01:14:26):
The originally original of the orange.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
So so just to put it in a real fast nutshell,
when when a fruit tree starts to grow from a seed,
it's in a stage called juvenile. It cannot reproduce. It
does not able. It's like a you know, a very
young human being.

Speaker 11 (01:14:45):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
And then it reaches the stage at some point where
it starts to produce mature wood and it can bloom
and fruit. That that's plant reproduction there, And so yours
died back to the around so you're starting with juvenile
wood again. It's going to take some time to get
to that stage. That's why we buy grafted plants. If

(01:15:07):
you had a grafted plant, the grafted part is mature wood.
So if you died back to like an inch above
the graft, if you protect the graft, then it is
going to re sprout with wood that can that is
already ready to be able to bloom and set.

Speaker 7 (01:15:22):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
So on yours, I think it's going to take a while.
So your options are to try butting or grafting it,
or buy a plant or something, or just wait.

Speaker 21 (01:15:33):
Okay, it was like the trunk of this thing was
like almost tentages are or was about tentages in diameter,
you know, it was. It was big years. Yeah, it
was a huge arm tree and it played like a
truckload of oranges and they were really good.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 21 (01:15:52):
Well anyway, okay, well I guess that makes sense.

Speaker 11 (01:15:56):
Oh it's well, I think I think time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
So yeah, I just I think it's it's gonna be.
It's just going to take time. But thank I hate Jason,
I've got to run for the break at the top
of the are, but thank you for the call. Good
luck with it. I feel your pain on having to
wait on that one though, I certainly do. Uh, we're
going to take a break. I want to remind you
that next hour we're going to have doctor Tim Hartman

(01:16:24):
from the horticulture department at Texas A and M University.
Tim is a expert on all kinds of things fruit,
and so you can give us a call. Between the
two of us putting their heads together here, I bet
we can come on answer for you if you're thinking
about planning fruit. If you got a fruit problem that uh,
you know, like we just had that call on oranges, Uh,

(01:16:45):
that that started from a seedling. That's a that's a
great question. So feel free to give me a call
seven one three two one two k t r H.
I just want to ask that let's keep it fruit
for these next couple hours, uh, and then I'll be
back again tomorrow morning with your calls on whatever you
want to call and talk about. At the seven or

(01:17:05):
six o'clock and seven o'clock hour and the nine o'clock hour.
I have a guest at eight o'clock tomorrow, so anyway,
thanks for being a listener. We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
Starting out an ache.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
All right, gardeners, welcome back, Welcome back to Guardline. Good
to have you with us. My guest for these next
two hours doctor Tim Hartman from the Texas A and
M Horticulture Department, part of the Texas and M Agrolife
Extension Service. He's a fruit specialist. So here's your chance.
You want to ask us some questions about fruit growing,
maybe what to plant or you know, we just went

(01:17:57):
in to break from that last one talking about an
orange tree that came up from a seed and didn't
produce for a long time, and so we're we're happy
to take all those kinds of questions. Seven one three
two one two kt r H. You know, I talk
all the time about brown stuff before green stuff, brown
stuff before green stuff. In other words, prepare the soil

(01:18:19):
before you plant the plants. And if you do that,
you are gonna have the best chance at success. And
Nature's Way Resources has built a tradition about creating the
best compost products, the best mult type products. They've got
it all. There a great selection.

Speaker 12 (01:18:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
John Ferguson when he created that place, he called it
Nature's Way because it was all about recognizing the fact
that nature knows how to build soil over a long time,
and we get to cut that short by buying a
few cubic yards and creating a flower bed or improving
the soil that we have Nature's Way Resources dot Com.
That's the website, Nature's Way Resources dot Com. Don't forget

(01:18:58):
that ever. Friday is Fungal Friday. Ten percent off bags
of fungal based compost, and there is a twenty percent
off deal on Fridays on bulk compost. That is a
good deal, whether you go there and get it, whether
you have them deliver it, or whether you buy it
buy the bag in area stores. Nature's Way Resources products
will help you take care of that brown stuff. So

(01:19:19):
the green stuff is happy. I like to say the
plants hit the ground running because they're in good soil. Well,
doctor Hartman, Tim, I'm gonna call you Tim today. Please
welcome to garden Line. It's good to have you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:31):
Yeah, thanks for having me here this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
You bet well, we've got just so many fruit, so
little time I know as to where to begin. What
if someone were wanting to plant I don't know, let's
just say one, two, or three fruit trees or bushes
or whatever in their landscape, what would you recommend as
being kind of like, this is a good one to

(01:19:55):
start with. You're not gonna go nuts, You're not gonna
spray it every other day and have a lot of
trouble with it. But it would be a good fruit
that you would recommend. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
Two that come to mind right off the bat would
be fig There's a lot of interesting figs, so many
different varieties. We have over one hundred varieties that we're
looking at right now between myself and doctor Dave Creech
at SFA. They grew very well in Houston.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
A hundred varieties of figs.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
Yeah, and there's so many more out there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
We kind of gave up on trying to collect them all,
like the pokemon or whatever. But but yeah, a lot
of different ones are super easy to propagate. A lot
of people like to trade them, but they're just easy.
They really have very few pests and disease issues, and
Houston is an excellent place to grow them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Yeah. It is you know, we had a fake industry
in Houston at one time. Yeah, that's what I understand. Yeah,
I think it was over one hundred acres or one.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
Hundred I want to say thousands of acres actually is
what from the Texas Historical Commission.

Speaker 3 (01:20:54):
Yeah, a lot. I wasn't there obviously, but yeah, I grew.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
Up with a fig tree in the backyard and that's
a fun memory. Figs are pretty easy. You know, they
get the rust, but yeah, you know it's kind of
ye yeah, not a lot of pestive diseases. But what
would you say in terms of getting a fig and
choosing a variety? First of all, what are the characteristics
of that fruit that you think are most important in

(01:21:19):
choosing that variety?

Speaker 7 (01:21:20):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
And the also the ones that you enjoyed the most
that you think people would would be happiest with. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Yeah, So one of the first considerations I think we're
on the same page on this skip is that we're
selecting a varieties.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
We want to go with a closed eye variety.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
So a fig is a some conium people refer to
it basically, well, it's I think technically now considered a
hollowed out peduncle. But it's basically an inside out flower,
and that eye or ostiole would normally be to facilitate
pollination via the fig wasp. We don't have it in Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
We don't.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
We're not worried about that because are common fig that
we grow doesn't require fruit. It sets seedless fruit poll
I'm sorry, thank you for.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
All the all the female parts of the flower, all
the flower parts are inside the fig inside.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Yeah, And unlike a lot of other figs, like the
Smyrna capra san pedro, they don't need pollination. And so
what we have is this this eye that we don't
need because we don't need the pollination. It serves as
an entry way. So we get dried fruit, beetle, leather,
insects in there. They they don't take their shoes off
when they come in. They track in uh A, Cido,

(01:22:37):
bacter and and all kinds of germs, and you get souring.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
It's souring and it almost is a fermenting kind of
thing because wasps like to go there. Another reason you
don't want an open eye for all possible What what
are two or three varieties that you think people would
be happy with?

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
Yes, there are obviously a lot of them out there,
so less at least as far as closed eye. That's
what I think of as a closed eye celestis. It's
it's very tight. There are a lot of figs out there.
I like green, the green Issha variety. It's got a
great flavor. It's really pretty on the inside, but it
does have a bit more of an open eye. Now

(01:23:18):
there's some varieties that have a very open eye, and
there's you've kind of got a spectrum in there. But
especially in Houston, where it's humid, it's rainy, you definitely
want to closed eye.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
Okay, all right, good, Well. Figs are a good one.
I've always been a fan of per simmons because I
like the way they taste. Some people don't care for them.
I like the the astringent types and let them get
fully ripe. It's like a bag of jelly. And the
only way to eat an astringent per semon when it's
fully ripe is to get into the bathtub and have

(01:23:52):
someone handy so you can just enjoy it and then
just shower off because you're gonna make a mess. But
I love those. They're the non astringent types that don't
pucker your mouth so much. But that's another one, not
really pest and disease issues or that you're having to
spray for now.

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
I absolutely love her simmons. We've got to skip.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
I'm sure you've heard me talk about this, but I'm
a collector. We have about eighty varieties of Asian per
simon at our research farm. In fact, I was just
grafting yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
Yeah, they're just they're super easy.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
They're very ornamental as well, and I agree with you
the a stringent variety, even though they're a mess. I
think they have a more rich flavor. But most people
prefer the non astringen, the saruga, the fuou, the moto,
you know those types that remain firm when they're ripe,
And yeah, you can eat the skin and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):
You basically eat it like an apple.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Now, if you're listening and you're going, what did he
just say on those varieties? If you go to the
Aggie Horticulture website, and we need to mention there's more
than once. While we're visiting Aggie Horticulture website, there's a
fruit section right on the front page lower to the left.
You'll click on fruit and you have a publication full
color multi page for free on every kind of fruit

(01:25:12):
you can imagine, from avocado to I don't know what
fruit begins with the Z but size of it. There
you go, the genus of there's one and there's a
precimon publication and it talks about varieties. In these publications
talk about how to perunem and how to plan them
and take care of them. And they're all free. So Aggie,
Horticulture website Fruit section. Uh, everything we're going to talk

(01:25:35):
about today, you're going to find good information like that
on there. I got to take a little break here
for some paying the bills, as I say, and we
will be right back with doctor Tim Hartman and your
questions at seven one three two one two kt R.
H's welcome back to Guardline folks. Good to have you
with us. Hey, we have doctor Tim Hartman, who's associate

(01:25:58):
professor in the horticulture department here at Texas A and
M and a statewide fruit specialist. So any kinds of
things fruit, that's what we're going to be talking about
for the rest of this hour and next you'd like
to give me a call and ask him a question.
Seven to one three two one two kt R h
seven one three two one two k t R H.

(01:26:19):
You were talking about per Simmons before we went to break.
The one thing that I forgot to mention, which is
why I like to recommend persons, is they are ornamental.
The foliage turns beautiful fall colors. I mean you have
to drive to the northeast to see colors pretty as
at oranges. Yeah, that is true. The other thing is

(01:26:42):
the fact that they occurred a time of year when
we don't have a lot of fruit ripening and so
the holiday baking and whatnot. I love per Simon bread. Well,
what would be another fruit? You know, you were talking
about figs, We talked about per Simmons. What's another one
that you would recommend for people kind of getting started
or wanted to try. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
So when you're talking about in the backyard and kind
of small spaces, I think you can't go wrong with
a BlackBerry. I think more people should be growing blackberries.
I say that all the time. Blackberries are small, they
don't take a lot of room. We usually space them
about three feet apart. You really need some type of trails,

(01:27:23):
but it could be very rudimentary, just some steaks or
even a tomato cage. The other cool thing about blackberries
is that they're very precocious. They come into fruit very quickly.
You can have fruit certainly by the second year. By
the third year you should be looking at a full
crop already. They can be grown in containers. I've grown

(01:27:43):
them in you know, half whiskey barrel size twenty five
gallon pots. We have a lot of varieties out there too.
I want to give a mention to Steven Yannick. Steve
and Yannick, one of my colleagues here at A and M,
is a program specialist and actually working on his PhD
in blackberries. He's down in the Hallettsville area, not too

(01:28:05):
far away, and he's doing a lot of variety trialing.
But if you're not familiar, we do have a lot
of varieties of BlackBerry. We've got thorn less varieties. We
also have from the University of Arkansas what we call
primo caine fruiting blackberries.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
Yeah, that's cool. That's a fairly new development in the
history of blackberries. But tell us about that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Yeah, so blackberries, we say that they produce on biennial canes. Okay,
so what that means is is, let's say during twenty
twenty five, We've got a leafy prime ocine. It's primarily
or basically just going to be vegetative. Okay, it'll grow
this year, and then that same cane over the wintertime
transitions to become a flora caane, think flowers flora caanes,

(01:28:51):
and then it produces fruit the next year. In twenty
twenty six, that cane dies, but we have new ones
that replace it. Only these primo canes, these first year
canes are only vegetative. Well, we get to throw that
out the window with some of these primate cane fruiting
varieties Primark Freedom, Primark Traveler, Primark Horizon, Primark forty five

(01:29:13):
again from University of Arkansas. And the idea is that
you can actually get a crop early on. Usually I
would say in your area, Primark Freedom is going to
be ripe late April, pretty pretty early. But then you
can potentially get another crop. Uh here in College Station,
it's going to be around July fourth or so, and

(01:29:34):
then sometimes another crop or two in the fall. Now,
you can't count on those additional crops because sometimes it's
too hot, the fruit don't set, they're not very good.
But I mean I've there have been years where I
pick blackberries all the way from late April into November
where there was not a two week break in between there.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
And they're thornless too. They're thornless. That's a good deal. Hey,
we Gota. We got a call here I want to
go to and bring in. We have Beta in Paarland. Hey,
welcome to garden Line Beta.

Speaker 13 (01:30:06):
Hiki, are you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Doing good? What's your question?

Speaker 16 (01:30:11):
My question is I grew alvocado trees this for fun.
I probably have about fifty to one hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:30:18):
Trees, and you have fifty avocado trees.

Speaker 16 (01:30:23):
Oh man, wow, wow, all of them in my backyard.
When at what point do they all need to be
grafted or the same thing with lemon tree.

Speaker 14 (01:30:37):
You planted them?

Speaker 16 (01:30:40):
Yeah, I planted them by planted.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
Them from seed from a store bought avocado. Okay, all right,
so the question, well, let's start with that question. Beata's
question is h And by the way, my guest doesn't
have a head set of headphone, so I'm gonna have
to repeat these uh today, I'd provide him one. I

(01:31:02):
should have the planting seeds of avocados from the store,
A fifty plus one hundred seed, got it? And how
does she graft them and when does she graft them
in any advice on that?

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
Okay, yeah, great question, and I'm just going to kind
of preface that a little bit with.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):
Grafting. Okay, So avocados do have to be crafted.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
Okay, So most fruit don't come true from seeds, so
basically you don't know what you're going to get.

Speaker 3 (01:31:34):
It's the whole box of chocolate's thing.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
You may get something good, you may get something not good,
but it's not going to be like the parent. Avocados
are especially like that, so you have to graft. The
other reason is an avocado from seed can take ten
to twenty plus years to make fruit, so they have
a very long juvenile period. So grafting is something you
would definitely want to do. As far as how to

(01:31:57):
do that, they're fairly easy to graft, different ways to
do it. I've butted them before. I've used a lot
of different techniques. Commercially, what's done most commonly is going
to be a cleft graft, where some people refer to
it as a top wedge. I've seen a lot of
nursery producers that will actually graft them in a very
young stage a few months old seedlings. As soon as

(01:32:20):
they start to get a little bit stiff, just coming
right out of the pit, you can graft that. Shoot
my experience though, when you're selecting that graft wood, and
again you'd want to get it from a tree that
is producing a known variety that's going to of course
you'll be able to propagate that variety, but you'll also

(01:32:41):
have something that is matured and will start flowering and
fruiting very quickly. But anyway, selecting that wood, I like
to get wood that's a little bit stiffer. From my experience,
if you're using cyan wood, a graft wood on avocado
that is kind of so green and really kind of
flaccid and suck doesn't work too well. So I like

(01:33:01):
to kind of go back and get stuff that's a
little bit older. But but yeah, cleft graft is probably
one of the oldest uh graphs out there, and the
Bible talks about grafting Roman's eleven. I always picture that
being a cleft graft. Of course you can find lots
of videos on that.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
See ancient woodcut photos of cleft graph. Yeah, yeah, what
do you what do you wrap that with? When you
make the graft.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
Yeah, so a lot of things you could use. Personally,
I when I graft, I like to use a product
called buddy tape. You can get it on Amazon b
U d d Y Buddy tape. But people use parafilm.
I've used white poly butting tape, basically something that is
going to seal that graft. You want to make sure
that all those cuts where the sign and roots dot

(01:33:49):
come together, You want to make sure that that is
sealed off so it doesn't try out. And then I like,
if I'm not using like a plastic butting tape, I
actually like to use is like a rubber band strip
to to really get a little more tension on there,
just to help bind it better.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
All right, will Beta. There's a lot of info right there,
and there are a.

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):
Lot of videos online about it too.

Speaker 16 (01:34:11):
Crafting avocados yeah, so it has to be with an
avocado tree that's producing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
Yes, if you have a neighbor that has an avocado
that is producing, almost all the well, the trees you
buy are probably all going to be grafted on avocado.
They should be so that they're already they already have
mature wood on them. If you will so that thing
about waiting twenty years, you don't have to worry about.
Just get a little okay, go online for reading first.

Speaker 14 (01:34:43):
Yeah, I've done that.

Speaker 16 (01:34:44):
I'm just scared to take the I'm scared to take
the plunge.

Speaker 14 (01:34:48):
But what about is it the same for a lemon tree?

Speaker 16 (01:34:50):
Because I have about fourteen or fifteen lemon trees.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
Are these all seedlings too? Yes, your love, I'm sorry.

Speaker 22 (01:35:01):
They came from a they came from a seed.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Yes, okay, about fifteen lemons from seed? Same recommendation or
would you shift to a different propagation like a tea
bud or something. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
So if lemons, I will say, they have a shorter
juvenile period, it's only a few, maybe three or four years.
It's a lot shorter than that twenty years. If you don't,
if you don't graft them so they will make seed,
you're gonna get something that's a little bit different, but
you could get something pretty interesting. Citrus can be grafted
by by what we call butting, or some people call

(01:35:36):
it bud grafting. Tea bud is most common, but they'll
cleft graft really easily too. Actually, and you can pretty
much graft citrus any time of year. Spring is always
a nice time as long as it's not too hot.
You don't want to be doing it when you're you know,
up well up into the nineties or one hundred degrees.

Speaker 16 (01:35:58):
Okay, okay, that's nice, great, Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
Thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot you got I think
we he just puts you to work. Thanks, Meta, I
appreciate your call. Uh, you're listening to garden line seven
one three two one two ktr H. I'm visiting with
doctor Tim Hartman from Taxi and M Extension Service Horticulture Department,
State fruit specialist and assistant professor there in the department.

(01:36:23):
Let's see, I have probably thirty seconds before break, so
I'm gonna ask you another question, but you can call
in and ask any kinds of fruit related questions you
want of doctor Hartman. I'm sure he will have the answer.
I learned something from him every time I talk to him,
and fruit is so much fun. I'm going to pick

(01:36:44):
your brain about some of the types of centa s
when we come back, if we can do that, Doc Harmon,
I just planted a satsuma and a blood orange. I
know blood orange is a little far north, but anyway,
we'll talk about that. Welcome back to garden Line seven
three two one two k t R H. I'm visiting

(01:37:06):
with doctor Tim Hartman from Texas A and m Agrilife
Horticulture Department about all things fruit. If you want to
give us a call that related to fruit, here's the
here's the opportunity. We'll call it the stump the chumps
and see if you can. If you can can stomp
us with the fruit. I shouldn't challenge you like that.
I know people out there that will make up a

(01:37:26):
question about Okay, we're going to go now to out
to Houston and talk to Joshua. Hello Joshua, Welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 19 (01:37:37):
Hi, good morning. I got a couple of avocados that
I planted from seed also and I'm going to grab them,
but might have some neighbors that talk to me, you know,
about a little bit about avocados. So they told me
you can't really plant them over here, uh, And I
just I don't know if I should. If it's protection

(01:37:58):
from the winter time, they say they freeze, and I
don't know if I should just put them in a
bigger pot and be able to try to put them
in a place where I can wheel them in, or
if I can plant them and put them, you know,
close to a building to protect them and know what
I just got you.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
Okay, So yeah, they're they're trying to grow an avocado
in a pot is going to be a big challenge.
But I'm not saying it's impossible. Everything's possible, but that's
gonna be a challenge. Did when you were set you're
going to graft them? Or are you'd or what's the plan?
Because they're from seeds? Okay, So I just want to

(01:38:37):
offer I'm going to turn this over to you, Tim,
but when we've had two now that are planning avocados
seeds from the grocery store that is not a super
hardy avocado, and the kind that we recommend here, the
smoother skins types are pretty hardy, but on any kind
of a fruit, even ceteras, where you know, we could
have one of those winners. When we get into the

(01:38:59):
cool season and the cold is coming, mound up a
bunch of soil or compost around the base of that plant,
even like a foot or more high, and you don't
want to leave it there. We don't like multi volcanoes
but it will protect the graft, and even if it
freezes down to that, you still have your tree that
will take off growing like crazy. So the question is

(01:39:20):
again a seeded avocados in a pot going to be grafted.
Where would you plant them? And would you recommend trying
to grow them in a pot?

Speaker 1 (01:39:31):
You can grow them in a pot. They want to
be really large trees, but they can be grown in pots.
I've got a Chuckhette variety that I've had for about
ten years actually in a twenty five now.

Speaker 3 (01:39:41):
It's a pretty good sized pot and it's done fairly well.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
But yeah, if you want to put in the ground,
and you should certainly be able to do that again
being ready to protect it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
This really goes for all fruit trees.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
Okay, if you think about a fruit tree is taking
that solar energy converting it into chemical energy show or
in this case oils. Okay, So the more sun the better, Okay,
so full sun. The other thing is drainage. Okay, fruit
trees need drainage, I don't care what it is. Especially peach,
especially avocado, they need drainage. So if you're especially kind

(01:40:16):
of in the southern long it ten and kind of
in that more southern coastal area where you've got a
lot of that gumbo soil. You have got a plant
on a mound or raised bed that is really going
to pay off, all right, if it's avocado or something
like that, a citrus that you want to protect from

(01:40:37):
from the cold. Putting it on the south side of
a structure like a house can also help.

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):
Okay, good, all right, Joshua, Hey, I appreciate your call.
Good luck with that. Sounds like a fun project, except
for the part about moving it indoors. All right, you
take care. Good to talk with you. So let's see,
we've talked about blackberries as a is a pretty easy
crop to grow. Peaches, in my opinion, are the queen

(01:41:04):
of the fruit garden here at least, and a lot
of people love to grow peaches as well as other
fruit other than drainage which is critical for a peach
especially and good sunlight. Like you said, what are some
tips that you would give people for choosing planting or
growing peach tree?

Speaker 1 (01:41:26):
Kind of in a nutshell, yeah, so with any kind
of what we'd call temperate fruit. Okay, these are gonna
be things like pears, apples, and peaches and things like that.
They need winter chilling. Okay, they have to have a
certain amount of cold. We're not tom that below freeze
and kind of you think refrigerator temperatures below forty five fahrenheit.
They need a certain number of hours, depends this various

(01:41:49):
by variety, by species, and if they don't get that chilling,
they are not going to be able to flour and
produce a good crop. Okay for you in your area,
especially the Houston are your child is going to be
getting enough chilling. Well, guess what on peaches, we fortunately
have a lot of options for you. Doctor Dave Byrne
peach longtime peach breeder Texas A and M who has

(01:42:12):
just retired, has developed about forty varieties of peach and nectarine.
Most of these are low chill. We have varieties that
are even as low chill as one hundred and fifty hours.

Speaker 3 (01:42:23):
They could grow.

Speaker 2 (01:42:24):
You could almost go in Galveston with that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
Oh easily, oh easily. Yeah, a lot of two fifties,
three fifties. We've even got some doughnut shaped peaches, lots
of nectarines, and these are bread for Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:42:36):
Okay, sounds good. Well, there you go. We had a
question come in from Evelyn in Katie, and I'm going
to go to that now. Hey Evelyn, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:42:49):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (01:42:52):
Morning.

Speaker 6 (01:42:53):
I am calling. I am going to plant fruit trees
this fall, and I wanted to know what do I
need to do to prepare the whole.

Speaker 11 (01:43:01):
I don't want to just dig a hole and stick
the trees down in or because.

Speaker 6 (01:43:04):
I really want them to have the right soil and
whatever to plant that tree and have a.

Speaker 19 (01:43:12):
Survival.

Speaker 2 (01:43:13):
Rates well that you got the right instincts on that, Evelyn.
And the question is about how do you prepare the
soil for planting a fruit tree. You talked about physically
raising the soil up so it can drain off from there,
but this is definitely another case of brown stuff before
green stuff. To just buy the tree and bring it

(01:43:34):
home and plant it without any prep is probably not
a good idea. How would you recommend a homeowner prepare
soil for putting in a fruit tree.

Speaker 1 (01:43:43):
Yeah, that's a great question, and I love getting back
to basics the foundations. So unless you have deep deep sands,
really on any fruit tree, I would recommend planning on
a mound. And I want to be clear that what
we're talking about here, we're talking about making a mouth,
and a foot two feet is great, but even a
foot is going to make a big difference. I always

(01:44:05):
kind of describe it as a picture's mound. If you're
doing one tree, like a peach tree, a six by
six square area about a foot high. And yes, that
means you would probably need to bring in some soil
or at least kind of scrape it together. This can
be done, you know, like you do a vegetable garden,
raised bed with lumber, or you could just simply have

(01:44:27):
it mounded and gently sloping down pitts.

Speaker 3 (01:44:29):
Some mulch pictures mound.

Speaker 1 (01:44:31):
Yeah, yeah, an organic material okay, we love brown as
much carbon as you.

Speaker 3 (01:44:37):
Can get into that soil. Compost amendments like skipped.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
I know it has talked about a lot that is
really going to help that tree, and I want to
be clear that when you plant that tree on a mound, okay,
you're literally going to plant it the bottom of that
root ball above the existing grade. So it's almost imagined
like putting that tree on the ground and put piling
soil around it, rather than digging a deep hole and

(01:45:04):
planting it and always plant it at the same depth
it was originally.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
Did that cover your your question, Evolent?

Speaker 6 (01:45:10):
Well, it kind of My question is if I buy
do I need to I live in the country, so
do I need to just dig a hole, put it
in there and put the stuff around it? Or do
I need to put like garden soil, fruit tree soil.
They have so many different soils, So do I need
to put something in that hole when I dig it
or just put the tree in there and then prepare

(01:45:33):
it around with the mound.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
If you can get a quality truly a sandy loan
type soil, a top true top soil. Sometimes things are
sold that are not that and create a mound out
of that. But a lot of organic matter is good too.
And I know the folks at Nature's Way they make
a fruit tree blend specifically for use in that, and

(01:45:57):
I would I would talk to them about that. But
that here's here's what I want you to picture. It's
not exactly accurate, but if you picture this, you'll do
it right. Go out and set your fruit tree on
the ground and then bring in soil all around it
up to the top of the fruit tree soil. Okay,
So that what does that end? Up being that ends
up being that that picture's mound, you know, and then

(01:46:20):
and then you've got it the right. Now, you're not
going to put the bed that way. You're going to
create a bed and then dig a hole. But you
want to dig the hole into the soil that the
fruit tree is going to be growing in. And don't
put compost in the hole, don't put a bunch of
especially fast release fertilizer in the hole. Just just give
it its best chance. But get those roots up out
of the sagi wet for the best results.

Speaker 22 (01:46:43):
Right, Okay, great, okay.

Speaker 6 (01:46:44):
That will help me to get these fruit trees in
the ground and hopefully they'll be successful.

Speaker 10 (01:46:49):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:46:50):
Uh and you know you know my rule on guarden Line.
My advice is free, but I do expect half of
the fruit that you grow because of this good advice
you've heard on Gardenline from doctor Puttin. I just bring it.
I'll spe I might even share some with him, all right,
Thanks Evelyn. Hey, we gotta take a break. Karen in
the Woodlands and Russell and Pearland. You'll be our first
two up. Welcome back to Guardenline. It is good to

(01:47:13):
have you with us today. Hey, if you are looking
for quality organic products you can use on your plants,
I won't tell you about two liquid products from Microlife.
The Biomatrix is an orange label. It's a seven to
one to three organic product that high nitrogen. Is good
for your house plants, especially because you know, basically a
foliage plant. And I use it online as a water

(01:47:36):
and it works. Another one is Ocean Harvest. That's a
blue label. It's a four to two three and it's
a fish based fertilizer. Now I would use that one outside.
You can use either one outside because it has a
little bit of a fish oder, so if you have
family cats, they're gonna have an opinion about that. But
the Ocean Harvest blue labe as that's melly. It's just
I prefer to use that one outside. But it works

(01:47:58):
so well, and I can tell you a number of
different plant pots that I've put it in that and
the results that I've gotten from it. And Microlife products
are as easy to find as anything in the world.
You can go to Microlifefertilizer dot com to find places
you can get them and to learn about some of
their other products. But always keep a couple of those
jugs on hand because you need to give a real

(01:48:20):
quick watering in of something and it works. Doctor Hartman,
Doctor Tim Hartman is my guest today. We're talking about
all kinds of things related to fruit, and we're going
to go to the woodlands and talk to Karen. Hello, Karen,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 23 (01:48:33):
Good morning.

Speaker 11 (01:48:35):
How are you this morning?

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Morning? Doing well?

Speaker 16 (01:48:40):
Good?

Speaker 24 (01:48:40):
I'm calling because we have a nectarine tree in our
backyard that has started producing fruit the last couple of years,
and we are at our wits end trying to figure
out how to keep the squirrels and critters and bugs
from eating all of them. We haven't gotten any.

Speaker 2 (01:49:00):
Wow for us either year well, and we've.

Speaker 24 (01:49:03):
Tried a few different things.

Speaker 15 (01:49:04):
Wondering if you have any suggestions.

Speaker 2 (01:49:08):
Okay, Doc Harmon. The question is you got a nectarine
tray and they don't get to enjoy any of the
fruit because their squirrels are running around there. What are
those solutions? Remember, we can't recommend any ballistic solutions because
it's yeah, so you can't eat. If you can't eat nectarine,
you can eat squirrel if it tastes like ne Greene.

(01:49:30):
They don't taste like all right, joking aside, Doc Harmon,
what would you recommend?

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):
So, one humane solution that I've actually come up with
that works pretty well is basically making a cage out
of cylindrical cage out of chicken wire, poultry netting around
the trunk, and you have to have it supported with
something like PVC pipe or something like that. That's going
to be an insulator, non conductive, non conductive. And then

(01:49:56):
I actually run an electric fence charger. Already have an
electric fence for the deer around my orchard, but I
just run a hot wire over to that.

Speaker 3 (01:50:05):
It's going to shock the squirrel, but it's not going
to kill it. It's not really going to hurt it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:09):
And if you can keep it from jumping from another tree,
if you basically prevent it from going up that tree,
it does work pretty well usually.

Speaker 2 (01:50:16):
And I can tell you squirrels can jump about eight feet,
especially if they get a higher because I've had him
get into a feeder that was eight feet away from
a fence.

Speaker 3 (01:50:24):
That's amazing, I know, not even a flying squirrel.

Speaker 2 (01:50:27):
Yeah, there you go, Karen. You've got any thoughts on.

Speaker 24 (01:50:30):
That, well, yeah, that's something we haven't tried.

Speaker 15 (01:50:34):
So I'm happy to try it.

Speaker 24 (01:50:36):
We clean that haven't worked, so yeah, anyway, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50:42):
What happened to the climbshells? Well, Karen, tell me what
happened with the clamshells?

Speaker 24 (01:50:47):
What the squirrels were able to open them? Either squirrels
or raccoons.

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
Oh they open them.

Speaker 15 (01:50:55):
Well, I've talked to and they still got through them.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:51:01):
Okay, squalls are smart. If you want to be entertained,
go on YouTube and look at the contraptions people have
tried to thwart squirrels with and watch the squirrels. It's sad,
but it's very thanks Karry, I do okay, Yeah, appreciate,
appreciate you call very much. Let's see here. We're going
to go now to Russell in Paarland. Hey Russell, welcome

(01:51:23):
to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (01:51:25):
Good morning.

Speaker 25 (01:51:27):
Got a grapefruit tree that's just three years old ish.
Our previous one was killed in the freeze, and boy,
I'm glad to hear the information that y'all gave about
how to protect them from getting freeze. So it's about
three years old and I'm really having trouble controlling the
leaf miners. I'm using kneem oil, but that's all I'm using.

(01:51:50):
Do you have any other suggestions?

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
So you've been using the neeme oil, what would you
recommend for citrus leaf miners and how do you go
about it?

Speaker 1 (01:52:00):
Yeah, so what's most commonly recommended for homeowners? It's going
to be UH spinosid. That's the active ingredients spinosid.

Speaker 21 (01:52:07):
It is UH.

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
There's conserve a lot of brands out there, but it
is labeled for organic use. Mixed that with UH, and
of course always make sure you follow the label, but
a lot of people will mix that with oil, with
a summer oil and will spray that on the shoots
when they're a few inches long. And basically you want
to kill those leaf minor larvae before they really get going.

(01:52:33):
Of course, every time you've got a new flush of growth,
you'll have to you'll have to repeat this.

Speaker 3 (01:52:39):
Oh okay, and what did you call that? That first?

Speaker 7 (01:52:42):
UH?

Speaker 2 (01:52:42):
Chemical spin spins It's it's spin like s p I
N the letter O and then sad like you're sad
because mixed? Okay with what mix it with?

Speaker 21 (01:52:58):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:52:59):
Mix it? Mix? The spinocid with summer oil. Summer oil,
a light, very lightweight oil. Oil kind of evaporate. So yeah,
a summer. Oh, would you be concerned about time of
day spraying a summer oil on citrus.

Speaker 1 (01:53:15):
Citrus are really are renowned for being very tolerant of oil,
whereas other plants you would burn them. But yeah, if
you could do it like in the evening, is probably
a safer bad. Yeah, if you really, if you're concerned
about that.

Speaker 2 (01:53:28):
I might be What about even trying to do a
little bit upward from underneath the leaf, because I know
there's there's scale, insects and sometimes are up underneath.

Speaker 3 (01:53:36):
There will summer oil work on those or is it
just too light weight? No, it'll it'll work.

Speaker 2 (01:53:41):
Yeah. Oil's not a poison. It's mothers them. So that's
why spraying upward where if a pest are hiding underneath
the leaf, like sometimes sometimes spider manks, sometimes scale, certain
kinds of scale will.

Speaker 25 (01:53:52):
Be up under Okay, wonderful, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:53:58):
All right, thank you for the call. I appreciate that.

Speaker 10 (01:54:01):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
We're having a good time here on garden Line. Lots
of questions and lots of things to talk about, and
I'm about to hear the music that says we're at
the top of the hour for the news. Tim I
don't know where to go next. I mean, my brain
is going in a thousand directions, but I let's do this.
Let's when we come back, talk about some not so
common fruits. That's good that people, And just to give

(01:54:22):
you a little teaser, don't go away. If you've got
friends that are interested in fruit, tell them to tune
in the garden Line. If you want to give me
a call seven to one to three two one two
kt RH. We might talk about golden kiwi's who knows
what that is? How about pineapple, guava? There's another one.
We're going to get into some not so common fruit
yet and yes, the quick answer is you can grow

(01:54:44):
some of this stuff here. All right, all right, well,
I just want to remind you that, uh when for
the rest of today we're gonna be talking with doctor
Hartman on fruit trees. I'll be back with just regular
calls in the morning. We hear from six am to
ten am. You can listen to garden Line on the radio.
You can also listen to garden Line on the app,

(01:55:08):
the iHeartMedia app, and I know people that do that.
That way, you take your phone with you out in
the garden. You could be right now you could be
in your garden. I won't say pulling weeds. I know
you don't allow weeds in your garden. You could be
in your garden harvesting flowers and beautiful things. Listening to
garden line. You see a bug, take a picture, email
it to me and live from your garden. Is garden line.

(01:55:28):
That's how that would work, all right. I'm not hearing
music here in my ear, and I think we're about
at that time. I see, okay, there we go. Just
looking at my clock a little bit wrong. I want
to remind you that OBA Palooza is coming up on
August second, Saturday, August second. If you guys follow Joe Gardner,

(01:55:52):
Joe Lample, he is outstanding. He's going to be speaking,
given two talks there. I'll be giving a talk there
myself on beneficial in a key ingredient and sustainable landscapes,
all kinds of good organic information here now, it's at
the United Way on wad Drive, the United Way of
Greater Houston. If you want more information, go to OBA online.

(01:56:14):
That's HbA online dot org. Slash register that's how you
can register and find out more information about it. So
there you go. Hope to be able to see you
on Saturday, August second for the Obapalooza. I Love it
Oba Police eight a m. Before pm. All right, all right, folks,

(01:56:41):
we're back here we go. We are with today. I've
got as a special guest doctor Tim Hartman, Assistant professor
in the horticulture department at Texas A and M, but
also state wide statewide fruit extension specialists. So if there
is a fruit out there is he has probably either
grown it. Every time I talk about some of these,

(01:57:03):
go yeah, I got three of those at my house. Tim.
One of the things I appreciate about the work you
have done is being willing to jump out beyond just
the peaches, plums, apples, pears, basics of fruit, and look
at some of these other fruit that are quite unusual.
And I'd like you to talk about that because you've
actually done the research on some of these. Let's start

(01:57:26):
with pineapple guava. That's a plant people plant for a hedge,
and it's a beautiful hedge. The flowers are edible, with
the pink flowers almost a cotton candy kind of fluffiness
to them. Not that sweet, but you can grow it here.
But if you just go down this store to buy
a pineapple guava and you get two or three of them,

(01:57:48):
they may not fruit well. And why is that and
how would you tell somebody to have success with pineapple guava.

Speaker 1 (01:57:54):
Yes, so, just like we talked about avocado, you started
from sea. They're not true to type. Same thing with
pineapple guava. Generally, any plant you're going to get from
a nursery, if it's a landscape to be a landscape plant,
that pineapple guava is going to be from seed.

Speaker 3 (01:58:10):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:58:11):
The fruit in two or three years usually or be
able to bloom in two or three years, but the
quality may not be that good. Pineapple guavas also need
cross pollinations, so you need two different ones. They have
different genetics that bloom at the same time. So you
usually recommend if you're trying to get fruit and you're
just going with, you know, the run of the mill nursery,
one do at least three and you can probably get fruit.

(01:58:34):
But there are a lot of varieties out there too.
Improve varieties.

Speaker 2 (01:58:38):
Okay, and tell me a little bit about you did
some heartiness research up in college station on pineapple guava
and what kinds of things have we learned about them?
In terms of their ability to take cold and then
maybe a few varieties that you think might be superior.

Speaker 1 (01:58:55):
Yeah, Doctor Dave Creech at SFA and I have been
working for several years on a pineapple guava research project
and we've got a little over forty varieties named varieties
up in College station.

Speaker 2 (01:59:05):
Of course you do.

Speaker 1 (01:59:07):
And usually we say cold hardiness is around ten degrees fahrenheit.
Now that varies so much depending on you know, how
hardened off they are, but I can tell you that
you get below ten certainly six fahrenheit, which doesn't happen
off and thank goodness, yes, I know South Louisiana got
even colder than that this this past winter. That will

(01:59:31):
do some damage to them. But yeah, varieties, a lot
of them out there. One that we really like, and
it's fairly easy to find, as easy as a pineapple
guava variety is going to be defined, which is not
super easy.

Speaker 3 (01:59:44):
But Apollo has done really well for us. It's an
old variety.

Speaker 1 (01:59:48):
We've gotten pretty large fruit the size of you know,
pretty about the size of a chicken egg or a
large chicken egg. Pretty good sized, great quality, very productive
ripens early, and we've been pretty happy with that variety.

Speaker 2 (02:00:02):
Okay, Well, most of our listening area is way south
College Station, and I think you would have less problems
with how cold it gets. You mentioned the term hardening off,
and for those of you who don't know what that means,
basically that's does a tree is it out there? And
it's bermuda shorts and flowery shirt one day and the

(02:00:22):
next day it needs a parka. Okay, it wasn't. It
didn't have time to get ready for that cold front.
And so gradually cooling off is what you mean by
hardening off, and that's important. So we could have a
not hardened off guava even down south where it doesn't
get as cold, but then a good hard cold could
come through.

Speaker 3 (02:00:41):
And absolutely, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00:42):
That reminds me of a few years ago when we
had that December freeze that killed a lot of our
crepe myrtles to the ground to the station. Yeah, it's
all about that, that conditioning beforehand.

Speaker 2 (02:00:53):
Yeah, very important to do. So pineapple guava is a
possibility now, that's uh. You said the ones in the
stores are typically seedlings. Seedlings, did you.

Speaker 1 (02:01:05):
Get the nursery. Yeah, usually they're going to be seedlings.
There are some nurseries mostly online, but there are some
nurseries out there. The Douce sell name varieties. They're usually
going to be grafted. They don't root from cuttings. We've
been trying to prove that we're actually looking at tissue
culture now, but most nurseries including uh, you know that's
what we do as we propagate by grafting.

Speaker 2 (02:01:26):
Okay, we are talking with doctor Tim Hartman, fruit specialists
for Texas with Texas A and m Aggrlife Extension Service.
If you'd like to give us a call and ask
a fruit question seven one three two to one two
kt r age. Before we went to a break, I
kind of teased the listeners with this thing called golden kiwi.

(02:01:48):
What is a golden kiwi? And what have you learned
in your research from them?

Speaker 10 (02:01:52):
Here?

Speaker 3 (02:01:53):
So golden kiwi fruit, if you haven't tried them, you
need to.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
Sixty six last I checked sixty six species of kiwi
of actin India.

Speaker 3 (02:02:02):
This is actin India, cheninzus.

Speaker 2 (02:02:03):
So do you have five at your house?

Speaker 3 (02:02:06):
What's that?

Speaker 2 (02:02:06):
Do you have fifty five of the species at your house?

Speaker 16 (02:02:09):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:02:09):
I think at our research from I think we have
about maybe forty or something.

Speaker 1 (02:02:13):
That Okay, I shouldn't. Don't encourage him. You're saying you're
working with a new crop. You know, you want to
cast that net wide in terms of genetics. But yeah,
it's just a cousin of that kind of funky fuzzy
green kiwi fruit and it is native to China. But
this is a yellow version and it's basically smooth. It

(02:02:35):
has very little to no fuzz. Generally, yellow flesh tends
to have less acid, tends to have a sweeter profile,
more vitamin seed. I don't know if you've seen these.
I've heard there at Kroger. I tasted them when I
was in there's a red one now.

Speaker 2 (02:02:49):
Oh, you gave me a few from the lab, but
they were all yellow.

Speaker 1 (02:02:53):
Okay, yeah, there is a red one now. When I
was in New Zealand setting kiwi fruit in twenty eighteen,
I got to taste it. It was or less experimental.
Now they're apparently in the on the shelves here, and
that's a red version, red flesh version of the golden kiwi.

Speaker 2 (02:03:06):
All right, So we have trouble with kiwis and a
lot that is fluctuating temperatures big time. So what's the
difference between a golden kiwi and a regular kiwi in
terms of trying to get it to live here.

Speaker 1 (02:03:16):
Well, the good news is for all of us who
prefer golden kiwi based on my research, and I've worked
a lot with Dave Preach at SFA on this too,
we're partners in crime on this research. But the gold
is actually much better adapted to us than the green.
Why so, the issue with kiwi is cold heartiness. If
you haven't seen it, think with steria, okay, with steria

(02:03:38):
on steroids. It's a big deciduous vine. The twines around
in Alabama where they do a lot of research, they
call them cut zoo. Don't worry, they're not invasive like that.

Speaker 2 (02:03:49):
But this is so trellis would almost be like a
roof of of something overhead. Yes, that they're growing on
a flat top.

Speaker 3 (02:03:57):
They want to be flat more or less.

Speaker 1 (02:03:58):
Yeah, yes, not like a you're gonna have to have
a really beefed up grape trellis if you want to,
if you want to do that. But but yeah, so
woody vine. And we've seen measured cold heartiness below zero fahrenheit.
The problem is they've got to be like Skip and
I were talking about they've got to be asleep. They
have to really be well hardened off. So I've also

(02:04:20):
seen plants killed to the ground, young plants by twenty
five fahrenheit just because it was in the fall. They
were not ready. They were going full throttle, full steam ahead.
That plant wasn't conditioned and it got hit by an
early hard freeze and killed to the ground.

Speaker 2 (02:04:36):
Yeah. Boy, when that happened to creat myrtles up in
the am area, I was shocked because it was myrtles
or bread up north of Washington, d C.

Speaker 3 (02:04:45):
Twenty twenty one.

Speaker 19 (02:04:45):
Did you do that?

Speaker 3 (02:04:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:04:47):
So is this a golden kiwis typically grafted or un rated?

Speaker 1 (02:04:52):
Uh, they're usually grafted commercially, like in New Zealand and
in Chile. They're going to be grafted onto a green
kiwi roots to However, I'm actually advocating if you're going
to try them here to grow them own rooted. They
do root pretty easily from cuttings, okay, because it's the
green key that is actually really susceptible to that to

(02:05:13):
that freeze. Okay, the gold tends to go to sleep earlier.
It didn't stay up and party late into the night
into the fall.

Speaker 2 (02:05:21):
Yeah, good. Well, we're gonna hold that thought. I will
probably come back to those. We've got a couple of
callers on the line. Ruthie, you'll be first when we
come back. Hang on, folks, lots about fruit today. Welcome
back to the Garden Line. Good to have you with us.
If you'd like to give me a call. I'm with
doctor Tim Hartman today talking fruit. Uh seven one three

(02:05:41):
two one two K t r H. We're gonna go
out to Humble now and talk to Ruthie. Hey, Ruthie,
welcome to the Garden Line.

Speaker 13 (02:05:48):
More, good morning, Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (02:05:50):
And I do love that song though it's so cute.

Speaker 13 (02:05:53):
I am calling about my low quots I've had forever
and they grow just really really well. There's specially to
me because it's something that's kind of like a I
don't know, an heirloom. I guess I've had them since
I was a little kid in Victoria. But anyway, about
three or four, about three or four years ago, I

(02:06:14):
lost my kumquat tree to this strange looking thing. I
learned a new word called fraft. There was these little
white things sticking out of my kumquat, and I didn't
know what to.

Speaker 2 (02:06:25):
Do with it?

Speaker 14 (02:06:25):
And were they anyway?

Speaker 2 (02:06:27):
Were they like toothpicks, Yeah, like toothpicks sticking Okay, yes,
like little white toothticks.

Speaker 13 (02:06:34):
And I just knowed it about two months ago on
my low quat. Is there any way to say that.
I heard the word promethrin uh and tried that. But
it's looking kind of.

Speaker 2 (02:06:47):
Sad because of where they live and what they feed on.
It's very difficult. But I'm going to have doctor Hartmann comment,
We've got a question about Ambrosia beetles on a low quat.
They lost another different kind of plant to them, but
it's definitely the tipics sticking out.

Speaker 1 (02:07:05):
Yeah, sorry, sorry to hear that to start off. Yes,
Skip mentioned that's a tricky one because they really minor.

Speaker 3 (02:07:15):
I'm not in them all. I just don't want to.
I want to offer that up.

Speaker 1 (02:07:18):
But they are actually uh, not really feeding on the
wood itself, as my understanding, They're actually feeding on a
fungus that that grows in those galleries, those tunnels that
they make, and it's that fungus.

Speaker 10 (02:07:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:07:33):
Yeah, So for that reason, I don't think that the
stemic insecticide like a metacloprid uh dinoteph ran are going
to be that effective. There may be some topical insecticides
you could spray to try to keep them, you know,
prevent them from getting into a healthy tree. Now, most

(02:07:54):
of these bores and bro should be to Wallso now
they will sometimes attack health the trees, but they tend
to really go after they they kind of pick the uh,
the straddlers and the herd. They go after the the old,
that the weak or the really young trees. And so
just trying to keep your tree as healthy as possible.

Speaker 2 (02:08:14):
That that's it.

Speaker 4 (02:08:15):
I think that.

Speaker 13 (02:08:19):
Yeah, well that one got a little distressed from from
the freeze.

Speaker 2 (02:08:24):
Yeah. Well I've seen those going to growers fields, you know,
nursery growers that are growing containers, and.

Speaker 3 (02:08:30):
It just the will to have a stated golden Kiwi
free even too golden.

Speaker 2 (02:08:35):
Okay, well ruthy uh didn't give you a lot of
silver bullets.

Speaker 13 (02:08:40):
What should I do with the tree? Are they alive
in there? And and they'll like you know, go through
some kind of a larva pupa something stage and lay
eggs and go to another tree.

Speaker 2 (02:08:51):
Yeah, they do, they do have the life cycle. Well, yeah,
you could, I mean you could burn the branches that
have it. It's not going to be they're not there,
you know. Obviously they showed up from where was it,
you know, on this tree. So but I wouldn't I
wouldn't just leave it. Yeah, you could do that, all right,

(02:09:12):
Thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (02:09:15):
By bye.

Speaker 2 (02:09:16):
Okay, bye bye. We're going to now go out to
uh Tomball and talk to Keith. Hello, Keith, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 23 (02:09:25):
Hey, good morning, guys, thanks for taking my call. I
have a couple of meer lemons and they're in large
pots and they every spring they bloom beautifully, they start
to sprout fruit, but when the fruit gets to be
about a quarter of an inch, they just disappear over
a matter of a few days that I know something's

(02:09:47):
eating them. I don't know if it's geckos, because it's
got lots of geckos running around. I don't know if
it's rodents, rats or mice. Is there anything that you
guys can recommend that I can keep that from happening?
I bet I had one hundred flowers, Yeah, two lemons.

Speaker 2 (02:10:02):
Now, okay, Well, Keith's got my lemon and a blue
black crazy one hundred flowers and you've got two lemons.
They hit about a quarter anch and fall off. And
I know, uh, citrus will abort fruit that's not pollinated,
but any thoughts.

Speaker 1 (02:10:16):
On them, they will go through several different waves of
fruit drop.

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
I'm sorry, go ahead to say that, Keith.

Speaker 23 (02:10:24):
They're not being they're not being dropped. You're being eaten
by a pet.

Speaker 2 (02:10:29):
Okay, he said there, he's not finding dropped fruit that
it's being it's he thinks something's come in and eating
because they're gone. Yeah, we need to go over there
at night with a game cam up or some Yeah.
I don't know anything that would just come in and
nip the fruit. Are you seeing damage to the ends

(02:10:50):
of shoots or leaves or anything.

Speaker 23 (02:10:52):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, they're just they're just like they're a
little sald off.

Speaker 2 (02:10:58):
The leaves and stems are so.

Speaker 23 (02:11:01):
Well, the stem where the fruit bud is just just
completely like it's been snapped off.

Speaker 3 (02:11:08):
The shoots still there on the grounds.

Speaker 2 (02:11:11):
Okay, so they're not shoots missing.

Speaker 3 (02:11:13):
Also, it's just the fruit that's missing fruit.

Speaker 2 (02:11:16):
Yes, Okay, gotcha on that one, Keith. We're not going
to have an answer, are you on this? I don't
know what would do it other than mischief. There's not
a pest and we've been doing this for a long
time that goes around and just nips the tiny lemons
off a tree. Now, okay, let me throw one thing

(02:11:38):
out there. I don't know if squirrels or rats would
do something like that. I don't know why they went
road would be my only guess. That's our best guess.
So if you wanted to try dealing with it like
a rodent problem, getting rid of rodents, that might help
you might. Yeah, so that'd be a shot. And that's

(02:12:01):
that's a shot from the hip.

Speaker 3 (02:12:02):
Okay, okay, all right, thank you, all right, you bet
appreciate that call.

Speaker 2 (02:12:09):
Now, Mark in Brenham, Hey, Mark, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (02:12:14):
Thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 15 (02:12:15):
Two quick questions.

Speaker 2 (02:12:16):
I have a.

Speaker 18 (02:12:18):
Nectarine tree and a low quat tree and they both
fruit like crazy.

Speaker 3 (02:12:24):
Uh.

Speaker 15 (02:12:25):
A low quat we typically can get some fruit off of.
My daughter makes jelly out of it.

Speaker 18 (02:12:29):
But the nectarine tree something is like like stinging it,
boring holes in the fruit. And I'm looking to know
two things. What can I do to really stimulate production
even more? And also what is a good organic insecticide
to spray that fruit with?

Speaker 15 (02:12:47):
Once it's set.

Speaker 2 (02:12:50):
All right, Mark's got a question about it. He's got
nectarines and loquats said, fruit like crazy loqus getting some
fruit off of it. But the nectarines, you said, do
you feel like something stinging the fruit? Is the fruit
kind of turning dimpled because of that?

Speaker 15 (02:13:04):
It actually the fruit will get you know, a small
baseball size.

Speaker 18 (02:13:09):
And then it's when I go out to try and
pick it, you know, trying to let it ripen on
the tree where it gets a little softer.

Speaker 15 (02:13:16):
There are actually holes in it that that are rotted.

Speaker 18 (02:13:19):
Around these holes, it appears that that something is either
again stinging it or boring into it and eating the fruit.

Speaker 3 (02:13:27):
I'm just not sure.

Speaker 2 (02:13:28):
Then the fruit, have you split any of them open
and looked for Have you split any of them open
and looked for a little worm around the seed? You know?

Speaker 18 (02:13:37):
Skip, I haven't, okay, As I said, Unfortunately, I go
out there one day it's pristine and beautiful and it
seems like I'm trying to let ripe it on the tree,
and then the next next day or two, it's all
on the ground.

Speaker 2 (02:13:51):
Something is bored into these doctor Harmon and uh, it
just sounds like plumb corculio to me, But do you
know anything else from the outside of a peach just
boor straight on into it.

Speaker 1 (02:14:03):
It kind of sounds like peach twig or maybe they
will go on the fruit itself. Yeah, they will go
straight in, yeah, before pit hardening, peach twig bor and
it'll also attack the shoots too.

Speaker 2 (02:14:13):
Okay, so there you go, that's a possibility. Uh, you
know you're not going to want to spray your fruit
at that stage. Are you trying to deal with it
at a time or is it when they're young or well,
there's almost a baseball side. I mean you used toy
attacked a little bit earlier. But I mean we do
for you know, peach and nectarine, they are a tricky crop.

(02:14:34):
They are a high input crop, and so we do
typically if we're really trying to maximize production, we'll do
a cover spray every ten to fourteen days, a fung
aside and insect aside. Now you don't have to do that,
but again that's if you want maximum yield and fruit
quality and everything. Yeah. Paches have a list of enemies,
including a plumb curculio, which when you open that fruit

(02:14:55):
you'll find a little worm inside the extra protein. Yeah,
extra protein for you. The stink bugs will get on
them and mess with the fruit. We've got leaf diseases
and other things. But if you're up there in the
Brenna mar you can talk to your AGR Life Extension
office picture too. Yeah, and you could also send me

(02:15:15):
a picture if you want to do that. Yeah, I
can pass that along. Make sure, in fact, if you
could do it in the next fifteen twenty minutes, we'll
take a look at it here live on the show today.

Speaker 15 (02:15:28):
But if not, just unfortunately yeah, unfortunately no, but and
I have seen quite a few.

Speaker 18 (02:15:34):
The foliage is beautiful, but as I said, the fruit
just are getting zapped, and I have seen quite a
few stink.

Speaker 15 (02:15:39):
Bugs in and around.

Speaker 18 (02:15:41):
So yeah, but I will try to get a picture
of the fruit if there's any left on the ground,
and I will get an email and send it to you.

Speaker 2 (02:15:48):
Skip all right, Yeah, show me the outside of the
fruit and then cut Yeah, show me the outside of
the fruit and then cut it open and let's look
in the inside. See if you've seen any worms inside,
and make sure of those two. Thanks, thanks a lot, Mark,
I appreciate your call. Yeah, we're going to go to
break here Liam in Brazoria. We will come to you

(02:16:09):
first when we get with this news break in about
ten seconds, so just hang on for the rest of you.
Seven one three two one two K t R H.
We'd like to visit with doctor Hartman about fruit. Hey,
welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have you with us.
You would like to give us a call. I'm visiting
with doctor Tim Hartman, who is an assistant professor tex
A and M Horticulture Department and state wide fruit specialist,

(02:16:32):
and we're talking about every kind of fruit you can imagine,
entering all kinds of calls about fruit questions. Uh, and
I'm going to go straight to the calls. We're going
to head out to Brazoria and talk to Liam this morning. Hello, Liam,
Welcome to Garden Line. Patty skip.

Speaker 11 (02:16:51):
A contry.

Speaker 12 (02:16:54):
A few years ago, the.

Speaker 11 (02:16:57):
Cawer company come in and put a guy whire.

Speaker 22 (02:17:00):
We're almost right in the middle.

Speaker 12 (02:17:03):
Run over a pecan tree that was okay uh uh
A friend of mine gave me and uh it was
a graph tree, and I was wanting to know if
I could take a branch of it and actually get uh.

Speaker 11 (02:17:25):
Off of it and start rooting it from off of
a limb.

Speaker 2 (02:17:30):
Yeah, okay, well, uh earlier I don't know if you're
listening to the show, but okay, we were talking about
juvenile versus mature and how we want would to be
mature in order to be able to bear in this
case pecans or not. But it is essentially impossible to
root a cutting from a pecan. It just you're not

(02:17:51):
going to have success. But what you can do if
you go to the Aggie Horticulture website and look at
the fruit and nut resources. It's a little click right
there on the front page. You will see in the
section of all the stuff on fruit trees there's something
called the inlay and four flap graph methods. And so
if you got a seedling and plant it, just get

(02:18:12):
a pecan somewhere, plant them in a pot, do several
pots so you make sure you get one out of it,
and when they get up to a certain size, you
could then take a bud i mean a stick off
of your pecan tree in the winter and graft it
onto the seedling tree that you plant, so you could
propagate it that way, but you need to watch the

(02:18:34):
videos and take some time. It's not super easy to do.
But it's very doable. I've done it myself. Okay, Well
thanks all right, sir, you bet, thanks, thanks for the call.
Appreciate that. So we were talking about the golden kiwis
a minute ago, and a question I had was about
the chilling hours. You know it with so many fruit,

(02:18:56):
that's very important, and so what about those chilling hours
on that? Where can you plant golden kiwis around?

Speaker 1 (02:19:03):
So that's that's the hard part, because you've got the
cold hardiness in, You've got the chilling issue. So for
a plant that is modestly cold hardy kiwi Also, most
of the varieties have a pretty high chilling requirement. So
by high, I mean we're talking seven hundred to one
thousand hours. The Auburn varieties has that really both totally.

(02:19:25):
Both gold Golden Dragon, AU Golden Dragon AU Golden Sunshine
Dragon has done the best for us. It's an Auburn
University variety, but it needs at least seven hundred hours
to bear. And so you know you're looking at being
pretty far north, you know, probably toward I twenty and
of course then you got that cold hardinessue cold heartiness issue.

(02:19:48):
I still think dragon Golden Dragon and it's a female.
They're separate male and female plants. You would need the
male c K Dash three, also known as meteor. That's
the mail the pollenizer that goes with it. I still
think those are the best for Texas. Now we are
testing some lower chill varieties. We think they only need

(02:20:09):
about three to four hundred hours. Unfortunately, they're not available
to the public yet, but maybe that'll hopefully that'll change
in the next several years.

Speaker 2 (02:20:18):
Okay, well, that's a lot of good information on this.
By the way, we're talking about unusual fruits and stuff
that I just want to make it really clear that
on these kind of obscure things. Please, if you are
thinking about commercial fruit production, we're not talking to you
when we're talking about these. We're talking about homeowners that
are wanting to go to great links to try to

(02:20:39):
grow something in the house. Doctor Hartman and I were
just talking a while ago about, you know, in the
backyard you can do all kinds of things that are
not practical commercially, and so I just want people to
not go away thinking, oh, I live in Huntsville, I'm
going to plan an avocado tree. Well, no, don't do that.
Go to the store. They have avocados there. Now back

(02:21:01):
to the phones to Marty in Fairfield. Hey Marty, welcome
to Guardline.

Speaker 13 (02:21:06):
Good morning she both of you.

Speaker 22 (02:21:08):
Hey, I have I got the tail end of your
discussion on blackberries. But I was donated a punka BlackBerry.

Speaker 14 (02:21:17):
It's in a pot.

Speaker 22 (02:21:19):
He told me to put it in my garden that
I don't have a room for it. How big does
it get? Can I put it in a big pot?

Speaker 4 (02:21:28):
And what do I see?

Speaker 21 (02:21:29):
It?

Speaker 7 (02:21:31):
All?

Speaker 12 (02:21:32):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:21:32):
Here we go?

Speaker 19 (02:21:33):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:21:34):
Punkah BlackBerry was given in a pot stowing a pot?
Can she grow it in a bigger pot?

Speaker 3 (02:21:39):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:21:40):
And you how do you feed it? How do you
take care of it to have success? On a punka? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:21:44):
So blackberries they can be grown in a pot. They're
not a woody plant. They're not, you know, a shrub
or tree. I think in general twenty twenty five gallon
pots should be adequate. Doesn't mean you have to provide
that size right now, but but ultimately that's what's going
to be best. I would fertilize it with a slower

(02:22:07):
least fertilizer. You could use Osma code or something like that.
Most of these plants, including blackberries, most of these fruiting
plants primarily need nitrogen. We also want to fertilize pretty
early in the spring and then not really fertilized after
after June. We're talking about acclamation hardiness. We want those

(02:22:27):
plants to kind of slow down after June, not be
really juicy going.

Speaker 3 (02:22:31):
Into the fall. Not as big of a deal for BlackBerry.

Speaker 2 (02:22:34):
But now, what about in a container for tralising a punko?
What would you do because it's got some long vigorous shoots.

Speaker 1 (02:22:43):
Yeah, punka is kind of unique in that it's it's
not a really vigorous plant. It has it's pretty dwarfy
the internet, the internetes. The buds are really close together,
so it's pretty erect on its own. So tipping, we
we recommend just pinching the tip out of the really
tall shoots induced branching.

Speaker 3 (02:23:02):
That'll help.

Speaker 1 (02:23:04):
But you could make a trail us out of cattle
panel or something like that. Even a tomato cage, what
are the real the largest tomato cage you could get
would probably at least help.

Speaker 2 (02:23:14):
You'd have to secure it to the pot and then
be ready when the wind blows for that pot not
to blow over.

Speaker 1 (02:23:19):
Yeah, yeah, so on your pot, make sure that you've
got some weight in there or maybe a little bit
of sand or something in that substrate.

Speaker 2 (02:23:27):
All right, Marty, did that answer it?

Speaker 7 (02:23:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (02:23:30):
Yes, thank you so much.

Speaker 11 (02:23:32):
Good one.

Speaker 2 (02:23:34):
All right, Hey, I've never had a punk BlackBerry, but
I'm so looking forward to half of the ones you grow.
Thank you, Thank you ahead of time for doing it.
Bye bye, bye bye. Oh, don't quite have enough time
to take Tom here before we go to a break,
Tom and Montgomery. I tell you what, let's start. Let's
start this call and see if we may have to
carry you over. Hey, Tom, welcome to garden line. Hey you,

(02:23:57):
good morning guys.

Speaker 19 (02:23:58):
Just a quick question.

Speaker 17 (02:23:59):
God yellows washed cercodillo squash lees are beautiful, growing just nicely.
But my fruit seems to come out about let's just
call it three inches, and then they start to shrivel up.

Speaker 11 (02:24:08):
I just can't get them to go past that.

Speaker 2 (02:24:12):
Okay, do you see whiskery growth out on the belly
button under the fruit or not? You may not be
at the end of it, or does it, Yeah, at
the end of it, or does it just shrivel where
the bloom attached to the fruit.

Speaker 19 (02:24:28):
Yeah, it starts to shrivel up, but the fruit itself.

Speaker 11 (02:24:30):
I guess it starts to shrivel up as well.

Speaker 2 (02:24:33):
So okay, I don't know how long.

Speaker 3 (02:24:35):
So what that is.

Speaker 2 (02:24:37):
Yeah, on your squash, you have separate male and female blossoms.
And what's happening is it's not getting pollinated or it's
it's not it may you know. It could be a
lack of bees carrying the pollen. It could be because
of temperatures and things. Whatever reason, it doesn't make it
in pollination, and it does shrivel up. Now, sometimes when
we have rainy weather, like we've had a lot of here,

(02:24:58):
and when the bloom falls off, it's like a little
wet wound on the end of the fruit and you'll
get a disease that called chow and offer a rot
that actually starts to rot into the fruit. But just
the shriveling itself.

Speaker 19 (02:25:09):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:25:09):
For for whatever reason, viable seed did not develop and
that and that that or has died and that squash
is not gonna yeah, not gonna make it for that reason.
So not a lot you can do other than don't
kill your bees.

Speaker 11 (02:25:25):
Yeah you can, you out there. Yeah, I see cucumber
as well.

Speaker 19 (02:25:32):
They seem to love the cucumber.

Speaker 11 (02:25:33):
I think one bee just hopping back and forth.

Speaker 2 (02:25:35):
But well, and you can go out with a little
you can artist paint brush. Uh, just get some pollen
from the male flower, take it to the female flower
and do that. You need to do it every morning
early in the morning for the blooms shrink up.

Speaker 7 (02:25:50):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:25:50):
Sometimes I'll just pick a male bloom, pull the petals
off and use that anther just to go around dabbing
it on the female blooms without the brush. But either
way you go about it or work. All right, sir,
time forth, thank you, kay, thank you, all bye. All right, folks,
take a quick break. We'll be right back with our
last short segment with doctor Hartman. All right, welcome back

(02:26:11):
to Guardline, folks. We got our last segment of the morning,
and we had been enjoying picking the brain of doctor
Tim Hartman. He is a Associate professor in the Department
of Horticulture at Texas A and M, and state wide
fruit specialist. He deals with commercial fruit growers all over
the state and does a lot of research both in
college station and elsewhere, looking into hey, can you grow

(02:26:34):
pineapple gava here? What's the best variety? And on and on.
We've talked about some of that already, and so it's
been a great opportunity to have you as a resource.
I appreciate that very much. Any other tip that you
might give a home fruit grower in general about having
success or it could be about a specific fruit, or
just in general, because people go they spent a considerable

(02:26:56):
amount of money on a fruit tree, and then we
don't want them to and disappointment. You mentioned importance of
sunlight and importance of drainage.

Speaker 3 (02:27:04):
Earlier on talked a little bit about fertilizer.

Speaker 1 (02:27:07):
We don't when we plant a new tree, especially a
bear root tree, we do not fertilize it. We want
that thing to develop a root system before we push
a lot of shoot growth on it. Later in the spring,
you can give it a little bit of fertilizer, but
otherwise we don't want to really put anything but soil
back in that hole when we plant.

Speaker 2 (02:27:26):
So now we've got a lot of fruit being grown
in containers and we have the circling root issue that
can happen. I always tell people to cut the roots
on the outside. I know that's a shock to the plant,
but I did I think at an Arborgate Garden Center
nursery up in Tumble where we pulled a tree out
of a pot, cut the roots, put it in, and

(02:27:47):
came back two weeks later and there's all these fresh
white roots coming right out of that cuts. Don't be
afraid to do it, but that's important if you wanted
to establish well.

Speaker 3 (02:27:55):
Yeah, especially per simmons and pecans are the worst about that.

Speaker 1 (02:27:59):
Yeah, because they're going to get real big. Yeah, they
will really do that temperate circling, Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:28:05):
So make sure and take care of that so you
can have success. Looks like we may have time for
a quick call here, got one coming in. Just thinking
about fruit and mistakes that people often make. I do
see the lack of sunlight on a lot of plants,
even in a vegetable garden. If you're growing leafy greens,
it can take some. Shade doesn't want it, but it
can take some. But if it's got roots and fruit

(02:28:27):
that are full of carbohydrates, you got to put it
in the sun. So roots and fruit in the most
sun and leafy greens, if you've got to shove something
in the shade, they'll take it. But with fruit, we
have some that do, okay. I've seen some citrus in
a little bit of shade, or maybe a fig tree
and a little bit of shade.

Speaker 3 (02:28:43):
Blueberries, especially blueberry berries, are pretty forgiving.

Speaker 2 (02:28:47):
Okay, So if you're determined to have one and you
just can't sell your trees down, blueberry might be one,
but not a lot of shade.

Speaker 1 (02:28:54):
Yeah, you still want at least six hours of full sun,
and try to if you're going to give it shade,
try to give it afternoon shades. So you would plant
that tree, that plant to the east if your tree
or your house or whatever is blocking it.

Speaker 2 (02:29:08):
All right, well, let's we got a call here. We're
going to run try to get him in here. Allan
in Texas City. Hey, welcome to garden mane Alan. Good morning.

Speaker 4 (02:29:16):
My quick question is I just planted a couple a
lemon and a lime tree, probably just a few months ago,
out in the middle of the yard. It gets about
ten hours of aur longer of sunlight. But they're not
doing too well, and I thought I planted them properly.
My question is, can I do playing them the way
I've been listening to y'all today, tight them correctly?

Speaker 2 (02:29:38):
Okay, boy, that's a very good question. Doc Harmon Allen's
planted elemon and a lime and they're just not doing well.
They get plenty of sun, like ten hours of sun.
But at this point, would he dig them up? He
was listening to us talk about the soil. Would he
dig him up now and then redo that bed, make

(02:29:58):
it right and then replant them or I don't know,
I'm just thinking out loud. Would you have him wait
till fall?

Speaker 12 (02:30:03):
Or what?

Speaker 1 (02:30:04):
Yeah, if if you're convinced it's kind of a lose
lose situation with respect to the soil, yeah you could
dig them up, but yeah, I would wait till fall
to do it.

Speaker 3 (02:30:12):
This is just such a I mean, we're going to
the heat of summer. This is such a tough time.

Speaker 2 (02:30:16):
Because no matter how careful you are, alan when you
dig it up, you're going to tear up a lot
of the active uptaking root system of those plants.

Speaker 4 (02:30:24):
Okay, Like where I live at it used to be
like a cow pasture, so nothing but a sandy soily area.
So I added some soil to it, and you know,
dug it and made the rootball ground level.

Speaker 2 (02:30:36):
But now I want to like that. I don't think
they're doing too well. So I just thought about what
I'm doing well. I don't know. It's situation doesn't sound
too bad to me. Lots of sand. Now, when you
said you made the root ball ground level, you're talking
about the top of the of the cylinder of roots
that you bought in the pot, or are you talking
about you your whole plant was above ground level?

Speaker 4 (02:31:00):
What the black better dug a hole out? I would
have set the pot in the ground. That top of
that root ball would have been ground level.

Speaker 2 (02:31:07):
Oh good, okay, well, that's good. You didn't plant it
too deep. But in a lot of sand. I don't know.
You shouldn't shouldn't have you do have a lot of sand?

Speaker 4 (02:31:18):
Yes, nothing, but practically that.

Speaker 2 (02:31:23):
Sind and clay. Well, the bottom line is this, does
it drain well or not? And I don't know what
how high that clay level is and the underneath there.
But you can dig a hole with a little postolele
egger or just dig straight down. H Maybe I would
go like a foot and a half and fill it
with water and see how long it takes for the
water to drain out of that hole. If it drains

(02:31:44):
out in eight hours, you're good. You're good. If it
takes it twenty four hours. You're okay. If it takes
it two days, you got it. You definitely need to
raise good for.

Speaker 4 (02:31:54):
That, Okay, Okay, I do see a lot of spiders
in it. That calls me poet of the seven does.

Speaker 2 (02:32:03):
No, sir, there, No spiders are good. They're there to
eat their their cornivores, and they're they're eating other insects.

Speaker 3 (02:32:09):
Love spiders.

Speaker 2 (02:32:10):
We love to see spiders.

Speaker 3 (02:32:12):
Spider.

Speaker 2 (02:32:12):
I love spiders. That's right, that's right.

Speaker 4 (02:32:15):
I've never seen so many spiders in my and in
my backyard. I haven't any place I've lived in my life.
But but okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:32:26):
There you go. Well, let them live until you know,
we said Faull. But if if you can let them
go into even a cooler season, it's a little you know,
a little less stress on them. But late fall, maybe November,
it might be a good time to do the digging. Yeah,
all right, thank you, Ellen, appreciate that. A couple of
minutes here, how do we wind up our time on
so many more questions and so little time? Okay, here,

(02:32:49):
here's the thing. Subpruit requires pollinators, and some don't. Peaches don't,
and figs don't, and per simmons really don't need it.

Speaker 19 (02:32:59):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:33:00):
But then we got these things like blueberries and plums
and pears, apple that are kind of in between. You know,
so what what would you recommend on those things and
what like? Why would you I'm just going to cut
to the chack. Why would you plant two different blueberries
because one blueberry could have some fruit on it? Right?

Speaker 1 (02:33:19):
Yeah, So I get this question all the time. I'll
give away a tree or whatever do I need to okay,
And the question is do we need cross pollination? Okay, apples, pears,
a lot of plums, I'm sure, blueberries in general. Okay,
A lot of these crops need cross pollination. They are
not capable of pollinating themselves.

Speaker 3 (02:33:41):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:33:42):
So if you're looking at I don't know, saying a
Dorset gold apple, okay, you need another apple tree to
pollinate that tree. Okay, doesn't do any good to have
another Dorset gold. That is, basically, if you have two
Dorset Golds, you're basically doing self pollination. Still you plant
something like an anna apple though next to it, you're

(02:34:05):
basically you have two varieties that are genetically different. They
bloom at the same time, they are swapping pollen with
each other. They swap pollen and they will set fruit.
And even varieties like Anna is a self fruitful apple,
Methley is a self fruitful plum. Even these self fruitful varieties,
in these crops that normally need cross pollination, they will

(02:34:28):
set better. Actually you'll get more fruit generally, like when
blueberries get larger fruit if you get that cross pollination. Okay,
And of course you need the insects to move that
pollen around.

Speaker 2 (02:34:40):
All right, And that's very important and a good point.
And when someone has a lonely hearts club tree that
needs a pollinator and it's blooming, you could go to
a neighbor of a different variety, put it in a
coke can full of lot or tie up to the
and let the bees visit both. How often do you
think you ought to replace those branches? Maybe every couple
of days.

Speaker 3 (02:34:58):
Depends on the crop, but yeah, probably twice a week
or something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:35:01):
Well, that'll give you time to go buy that other
tree so that your poor tree has a partner and
have good fruit.

Speaker 3 (02:35:07):
Or if you're feeling really adventurous, you could try grafting
a branch.

Speaker 2 (02:35:10):
O there you go, oh wow, you got fruit fruit cock.
We've been talking with doctor Tim Hartman today from the
Horticulture Department in Texas, A and M fruit specialists. Tim,
I can't thank you enough. This has been great, as
as you could tell from the calls that we're coming in.
People love fruit, good topic, good information. This has been fun.
Thank you for having me, all right, thank you very
much for coming. Well, folks, there you go. I'll be

(02:35:33):
back on guard Line six am tomorrow morning. I'll be
there with a cup of coffee. Will you show up.
I hope you will be there from six to ten. Remember,
you can listen on the radio, you can listen on
the iHeartMedia app either way, and we'll be wide open
for questions during the six and seven o'clock hour at
least