Fall Blooming

Fall Blooming

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with scamp rictor.

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

Speaker 3 (00:13):
You just watch him as whirl bosses and gas.

Speaker 4 (00:19):
There are so many good things. The soup hoot brasy
in ways.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
The gasses like gas and again you Davos cobbles back baking.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
They're not a salad. The glasses and gas.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Sun beamon down between the gases and gas.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
Can you jam.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
First?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Starting Hey, good morning morning, gardeners on a nice Sunday morning.
Have some showers passing through today? What could you a
little bit of that? Whenever it's hot outside, our plants
are kneating water. They're using water quite a bit. So

(01:08):
always welcome some showers. Well, you are listening to Guardenline.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and this is a show
that is here to help you have a beautiful, bountiful
garden and landscape and to help you have more fun
in the process. So let's let's work with you to
figure out things that might not be going right and

(01:28):
figure out how to turn around and get them going
in the right direction. You know, for example, maybe you've
got weeds in the yard. Maybe you've got a particular
problem getting the flowers to be floriferous, the vegetables to
be productive. I don't know what do you want to
talk about? The lawns. That's always a big topic for
the day, always every day. I used to say when

(01:50):
I worked with Agrolife Extension as a county horticulturist that
three things that make the phone ring are the three
tea's trees, turf, and tomatoes. I think we threw tomatoes
in there because it was a tear. But anyway, trees
and terf for the big ones when it comes to
the vegetable garden. Though no one calls me about their
co Robbie tomatoes are the queen of the garden, so
I guess that's legit. But anyway, we'll be happy to

(02:11):
help with all that and more. We're going to go
straight out to the phones this morning and talk to
I guess i'll say our early bird of the day mail,
Hey mail from Tomball, Welcome, Hey, good morning. How can
we help? I sent you good morning?

Speaker 6 (02:26):
I sent you.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Hello, Yes, sir, go ahead, okay.

Speaker 7 (02:32):
I sent you an email skip about the azaleas.

Speaker 8 (02:36):
That I had.

Speaker 7 (02:37):
I called you yesterday and I did a call back.
I sent you an email with pictures of aias with
a little bit of fungus on.

Speaker 8 (02:44):
At least that's what I think it is.

Speaker 9 (02:46):
So I don't know if you got it.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Okay, I did, Yeah, I sure did. Excuse me, looking
at yours, looking at your azelias, there are some fungal
spots on the leaves, But I think my guess on
it is that your leave your azaleas are stressed and
the fungal spots are more because the plants are weak.

(03:08):
Then you know, you had perfectly healthy plants and the
funguses jumped on them and doing all the damage. You
could use a funderside on it. If I'm recalling yesterday,
did you tell me you had some dacanil that you
were putting on.

Speaker 7 (03:23):
Those Yes, thank you. Yes, I didn't put it on
there yet. I didn't quite know what to do with it.
It's interesting to note that, you know, in the Dacuo
instructures they list to all the different flowers and things
that it takes care of, but asaiahs weren't included on
the list, so I got I was a little bit
curious about that too.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah. Yeah, Azilias are not something that we normally just
have a lot of leaf spot problems with but looking
at the looking at the way that excuse me, the
way the spots are appearing, it almost has I can't
tell if it's a bacteria or a fungus. It looks
a little more bacteria to me when I look at
the way it's going. Just to just to be sure.

(04:06):
Did you use anything around the plants, any kind of
a weed control or any kind of insecticide that was
put on them, or did you spray anything above them,
maybe some wasp nests up in the eaves above the
the azelias under the house or anything like that.

Speaker 7 (04:26):
Yes, what I did was I thought we had I
thought some of them had holes in the leaves, and
I think I thought, well, maybe some insects were getting
hold of us, so I did pray for insects.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Okay, Well, some of this looks a little bit like
a pesticide a burn on them, But I'm not saying
that for sure is what it is. It just it
just has a little bit of that look to it.
I think if I were you, if you've got the
dak nila on hand, I would go ahead and apply
it just to just to be sure for now, But

(04:57):
then I would focus on getting them as vigorous as
I can. Check the water and the soil, reach down
or pull the pull the mulch back, dig down about
three inches and feel the soil and if it's not
moist and water but if it is, hold off. Be
a little careful from overwatering that. If the soil stays
a little too soggy, wet, and that can happen in

(05:20):
a low spot, especially in a little bit of a
shade and whatnot, you can have some problems on your azalea.
So so let's avoid that. Let's give them another boost
of an acid loving fertilizer. Microlife makes a nice one.
It's in kind of a hot pink bag for acid
loving plants. There are others. There are other other brands
that have their own acid loving formulas. But follow the label.

(05:43):
Give them a boost of that water. It in pretty
good and then just watch that soul moisture. Overall, the
plants look pretty good. You don't have high pH you
don't have an iron deficiency. Uh, you know, I think
there's there trying to grow. There's some vigor there, but
we need to get more leaves on them, because without
the leaves they can't make the energy. They need to

(06:05):
bloom or to to thrive and and get healthy again.

Speaker 7 (06:10):
So do I need to put a couple of items.
One I did put out from b D. I got
the VPS, I got this, uh.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Soil a CID of fire. I figured the brand name
on it.

Speaker 7 (06:22):
It's but it's one of these uh excuse me here
for fulling going on. But uh you're still put the
still put the deck in the oner. What do you
think on the leaves?

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I would I would go ahead and just use it.
It's not gonna hurt anything. And uh, this well could
be some fungal issues going on. I just you know,
just from the photo, what I can see in the photo,
I can't. I can't discern that positively. But uh, as
far as the acid of fire, well, you know, if
the if the sow pH is a little high, I

(06:59):
would say, yeah, put it on. You need it. But
if the soil pH is right, then then you don't
need it. And I don't see signs of iron chlorosis,
which is a sign that the pH may be a
little high. So I would say, get a soil test
and then yeah, and then use the as set of
fire if it shows that it needs it. What are

(07:22):
the ranges of the pH.

Speaker 7 (07:25):
I think I've got one of you little testers that
have put it into the ground. I think it was
like a seven, yeah, seven of us high. No, something
is high for an azalea. I mean it's not terribly high,
but it's high. You'd rather than be down in the
five point five to six point zero range. That that's

(07:45):
a little bit better for the azaleas.

Speaker 6 (07:49):
There.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, I mean I could sit here and analyze all
day on the pictures. There are some symptoms in leaf shape.
There could be some other micronutrients going on, but let's
just let's take it thing at a time. Here, if
you check your show pH a little bit more, put
a little more SETI fire down. That's fine. It's not
too low. I can tell you that. So a little

(08:11):
more cetifier willn't hurt. But I'm gonna have to I'm
gonna have to move on. But hopefully that will get
you off on the right start. Just remember continually moist
soil but not soggy, and boosts of nitrogen and small
amounts and anything that keeps it on the acidic side.
And I think I thank you be in good shape.

Speaker 8 (08:33):
Thank you very much, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Have a good morning, Yes, sir, thank you, you too
appreciate that call. That is the case. Hey, uh, if
you are dealing with insects in your lawn, and when
I say insects, I mean lots of different kinds of insects.
You know, ticks and fleas, you know those are our
plant pass but they definitely are insects in the lawn. Chinchbugs,

(08:55):
side web worms haven't had that outbreak that we've been
looking watching to see if it's going to hit or not.
But the night fossbug Out Max does all of the above,
controls all of them. And really, you know, in even
fiance crawling around in the thatch and stuff we s
they do. You know, they're out there foraging and bringing
stuff back. Night fossbug Out Max is a general purpose

(09:18):
granule you put out, you water it in and it
washes off the granules and it's up there in the
surface of the soil in the thatch area and it
does its work there. And night Fast bug Out Max
available a lot of places you can go to hiding
and feed on Stubnor Airline. You can go to in
Chaney Gardens down in Richmond Rosenberg and find nitrofost products
at in Chanty Gardens down there as well, and the

(09:39):
Mini Fishers Hardware is and Pasadena Laport, My Bellevue, Baytown,
those are all places that carry might night frost products. Also.
Let's take a little quick break here and we will
be back and just.

Speaker 10 (09:54):
Time.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Alrighty, let's get back going here on garden line. Hey,
if you got a question like to ask, well seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, that's
how you reach me. Glad to help in whatever way
we can. I was yesterday out doing my work on
the irrigation system, as I was telling you about during

(10:15):
the show, those of you listening yesterday, and I've got
several things set up, got a couple more beds put
into drip irrigation and micro irrigation. And for those of
you who weren't listening yesterday, micro irrigation just means you're
putting a little bit of water. Not the typical sprinklers,
you know, they cover a very wide area and they
put out a lot of water at a given time.

(10:39):
Micro Irrigation just means a little So it could be
a drip irrigation a line that's just dripping water where
an emitter on that line may put out a half
gallon or a gallon over a whole hour. It takes
it a while. It's very slow, very gradual, but that's
good because it can soak in, doesn't just run off,
and you target it. You put the water where you
want the water to be, which is in the root

(10:59):
system around the plants, not just against them, but all
through the area. Remember, plants have roots that go out
in all directions, way past the branch bread of the plant,
so you want to wet that soil as thoroughly as
you can. Then there's these little things that the ones
I'm using in my orchard are little little steaks that
are like micro jets or or shrub lerb type emitters.

(11:23):
What that basically is, it's a little steak and at
the top is a head that you can screw down
to adjust how wide it spreads. But it makes sort
of a starburst pattern, you know, like you see a
fireworks going up in the sky and they explode and
stuff goes out in all directions. That's what the water
does at the top of those But it's only six

(11:44):
inches or a foot above the ground. It's staying down
low and it's covering a wide area, so you avoid
wetting the plant foliage. That's one of the reasons for those.
Every time you wet the leaves, you increase disease potential
on the plants. We don't do that anyway. I'm putting
some of those out. And the main reason is I

(12:06):
changed my landscape because it used to be that a
lot of areas were in turf, and I had turf
where it was just I wouldn't get anything out of
the turf in that area. And a lot of times
when we landscape our homes, it's just when we don't
know what to do, we put grass down. Okay, And

(12:27):
I love turf. I absolutely love turf. I think it's beautiful.
It's good for walking around on, for the kids to
roll around and play on. It moderates soil temperatures instead
of the sun baking down on something on a dark
surface or whatever, increasing the heat around the home on
the outside. Turf is like it actually has a BTU value.

(12:49):
It can affect the temperature significantly around your home. So
I like turf. But just because I own a piece
of a square foot of property doesn't mean I need
to put a square foot of turf on it. And
so I've turned turf areas into flower beds, I've turned
them into mulched areas. I've turned them into orchards and
shrubs and vegetable gardens, herbs and whatnot, because there's things

(13:14):
I want more than just looking at it, you know,
till some of the other day that is it's nice.
Pretty is nice, but tasty is better. And that's my
view at least, So where I can put in something
that I can eat and that's also interesting attractive to
look at, I'm gonna do that. I think that's a
good idea. That's my opinion. It's my yard, right, you

(13:36):
get your own, you do what you want. But that's
kind of what I've been doing. So what happens when
you take a turf area and you start putting other
things in it, You know, you transition from turf to
a beautiful azolua bed because you couldn't get the grass
to grow there's too much shade. So you start putting
in shade loving plants, or you start putting in a
vegetable garden or whatever. Well, you have to change irrigation,

(13:58):
or at least you you should. And so that's kind
of what I've been doing, switching it out, transitioning around.
I was looking, we've got some rain showers and stuff
coming today. We're still waiting for that first big hurricane
to hit, and they come every year. We're gonna get
one coming through. It may not hit us directly, but

(14:18):
it's coming through. Quality Home Products is where you go
for your generators so that when the power goes out,
you're covered. It's peace of mind. Basically, don't be left
in the dark last If last year wasn't a wake
up call for us, as if we needed another one,
I don't know what what would be because we had
two storms come through not got power for in some areas.

(14:41):
I've got family in Houston area that lost power for
two weeks twice. That's a month with that power. It
actually was a little longer than that. And that's just insane.
I mean, that's not necessary. You can put a generator out,
a generak automatic stand by generator. We'll give you the
peace of mind because when the power goes out, before

(15:03):
you even can get out of your chair, the power's
back on again. The generator is sitting there, watching and
waiting and the minute there's you know, a drop in
the power. It fires up and brings things right back
up to where they need to be. Simple as that.
Now you by generators are a lot of places, but
you can't buy service and dependability at the level of

(15:25):
Quality home products. You just can't. Those folks for years
and years and years, they've been highly ready. This is
a Houston family owned company, been around since nineteen eighty nine,
and their reviews show it, their awards show it. They
take care of their customers. They walk you through it.

(15:45):
They don't say you something you don't need. They talk
to you, they find out what you need. They help
design a system for you. You've got options. There are
options out there in the generator world in terms of
you know what type of generator, you know, how much
power do you what all do you want to try
to protect and so on, and they can do that.
You can go to the website QUALITYTX dot com, or

(16:07):
you can just give them a call seven one three Quality.
The main thing is do it now, because when a
hurricane's and the golf it's too late to try to
get a good generator set up. It takes time. It's
the process. There's even permits by the way. The Quality
Home takes care of the permits for you, But go
ahead and start talking about it. Make your decisions so

(16:29):
that you're ready when you need it. Your generators in place.
I was out looking at a landscape bid. Do you
know landscapes are in transition all the time, or at
least they can be. I grew up in a landscape
that did not transition. When I was a kid. I
folks had a landscaper on the house that predated me.

(16:53):
And hey, it postdated me too. I mean I can
remember going back years after I got graduated and went
off to college. We'll go back and look at the
landscape and it's like all the shrubs are up in
the eaves. You know, that was back before we had
a lot of nice dwarf shrubs and it was overgrown.
It just didn't look good at all. And that's how

(17:14):
it is with landscapes. Kind of like your wardrobe, right,
I mean, you can wear the same clothes forever so
they finally wear out, or you can get something a
little different, add to it each year, do something a
little different. Same with painting inside the house, you want
to change the color, you can do that. Landscapes are
that way, and so as you look at your landscape,
consider what might be different. And I love making changes

(17:37):
to the landscape. I didn't mean I turned everything upside down.
It just means I make changes. And I was looking
at a bed the other day, thinking, you know, that's
the way the bed was when we bought the house.
And it's okay. But I just had some ideas. I
would love to put some some different, some nice color
in a shrub right over in that area. I would
like to And I just had my ideas I want

(18:00):
to do in the bed and it's time to do that.
And that's what we're working on right now. And if
you're looking to have the kind of landscape that just
makes you happy when you drive up to the house,
it's just like you're proud of that place. It looks good.
Peerscapes is the folks that can do that. They're the professionals.
They can do that for you. Now. If you go
to their website Peerscapes dot com, you'll see the work

(18:21):
they do and it's amazing. It's all kinds of things
from drainage work to hardescape work, to lighting work to
certainly plants and beds and landscapes and beauty and design.
Their professionals at it. Pierscapes dot com two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty. When you talk to them,
ask them about the quarterly maintenance service. Even if they

(18:42):
haven't designed your landscape. They can come in every quarter
and they spruce up the molts. They take care of
any weeds it might be there. They check your irrigation,
make sure everything's working right. Anything needed to be done
in the bed, including color chains out, color changeouts. You know,
so here we're still in summertime, but we're going to
be going into the fall season and then here comes

(19:03):
the first frost and it's time to change the plants out.
They do that quarterly. They come in quarterly and they
do whatever is needed. Piercescapes dot Com two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty. Make it easy, make it
a place when you come home you look at and
just like, I love that, I like living here. This
is beautiful. They can do that at Pairscapes. Let's take

(19:25):
a little break here. It's time for another a news break,
and we'll come back with your calls. If you want
to be first up. Seven to one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, welcome back. Good to
have you with us this morning on the garden Line.
How can we help today, How can we help you

(19:45):
have a beautiful and bountiful garden, or how can we
help you have more fun in the process. What's frustrating you?
What's making you think? M I think I have a
brown thumb, because you know you don't. I say that
all the time. There's there's such thing as a brown thumb.
There's an uninformed thumb. And we're here every morning on
Saturday and Sunday to inform your thumb. So let's do that.
Let's get some information in there, turn that thumb green

(20:08):
and essentially make gardening more fun. I think it should be.
That's my opinion, at least.

Speaker 10 (20:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
One of my mantras on guarden Line is brown stuff
before green stuff. And I don't know. Sometimes I wonder
why do I say it that way. Well, I'm trying
to just make it. How can you just, in the
simplest possible terms, say the number one thing people need
to be thinking about when they're trying to have success
in the garden or landscape, whether it's herbs or vegetables,
or flowers or lawns or trees or shrubs or vines

(20:35):
or whatever. It's get the soil right. Plants live in
their roots, they really do. Now. Do they need water, Yes,
that's part of the soil. Do they need sunlight? Of
course they do. There's a lot of important things. There's
nutrients and on, but the soil, the soil, the salt,
that is just the foundation that is so so important.

(20:57):
If you want to have success, don't start with the
foundation right. Then it's going to be difficult to make
things work. You're going to go through great links. And
I know a lot of people that buy plants. I
see it all the time. They buy a poor plant
and haul it home and PLoP it down on an
unprepared plot of soil, and that poor thing doesn't have

(21:18):
a chance. So then you're trying to do this to
loosen the soil a little around it and slip in
some organic matter and try this nutrient in that product
and whatnot and keeping it going. And it all could
have been avoided by starting right with the soil. Get
composted organic matter in the soil. That's what nature does
slowly over time, that's what we get to do fast.

(21:38):
I mean you call it barlium soils for example, and
you say, hey, I need X number of yards of
a veggie or mixed because I'm putting in a vegetable garden,
or I need x number of yards you know of
the rose in bloomers blend or whatever. And you bring
it home, you put it down, you get it right,
and boom, you're there. How long does it take a
tropical rainforest to build soil? You know, ages eight years

(22:02):
and years and decades and decades, as leaves fall on
the ground and decay, as trunks and limbs hit the
ground and break apart and rot and fall apart into soil,
turning into soil. A little parrot poop here and there,
and you've got some nice, beautiful tropical rainforest soil. But
that took time. You can do it overnight by calling

(22:23):
your limb soils. And if you're going to put in
any kind of garden, any kind of flower beds, whatever,
or even if you're just redoing the lawn, maybe the
lawn you got just a real bummer of a clay
soil that is compacted and it's just not doing good.
They have something called a lawn mix, very economical two
by the way, and you can buy it by the

(22:44):
cubic yard. You put it out there, you mix it
in with the soil that you have a little bit,
use it to level things out a little bit, get
it all right, and then put your turf in for
those of you who unfortunately have lost turf, that's a
good way to go. But whatever it is, there also
be mulches. Have many different kinds of mulches. At Heirloom
Soil Now you can buy their products by the bag

(23:06):
all over town. You can have them deliver it to
you either by dumping a dump truck full of several
yards on the driveway for you to go to work with,
or by bringing in a supersack and setting it on
your driveway. I say a supersack. They have a three
supersacked minimum for delivery, but it's each supersacks a cubic yard.

(23:28):
Or you can just go out there and get it.
If you happen to have a truck or a trailer
or a neighbor who will let you use theirs, that's
a good way to go. Head out to Porter, go
to airloomsoils dot com. Look at the products I'm talking about,
and the main thing is just do it. Get the
soil right, it's fall planting season. We're going to be

(23:48):
doing a lot of planning in the next three or
four months, and now would be a great time to
get that soil right. So when you put the plants in,
you enjoy success. You know, we don't do it just
for exercise, although it's good exercise, but we do it
because we want beauty and we want bounty. Don't shoot
yourself in the foot. Start with the soil, brown stuff

(24:10):
before green stuff, and heirloom soils. Heirloomsols dot com. They
can get you set up on that. Let's see here,
let's set out to the phones and we're gonna go
to Walker County and talk to Bob this morning. Hey, Bob,
good morning.

Speaker 9 (24:22):
Hey, good morning.

Speaker 8 (24:23):
Hey.

Speaker 5 (24:23):
I have a.

Speaker 8 (24:26):
A bunch of knockout roses in my yard and I
am ninety nine percent sure that I have the rose
rosette virus on them. They're they're going through so I'm
in the process of pulling them all out. I've read

(24:46):
as much as I can find about what to do
with it, and they say there's really.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
No known cure for it. I've watched it for a while.

Speaker 8 (24:57):
And it's got the classic symptoms. So my question is
they say, when you when you after you pull them out,
you really need to treat for the mites that spread it.
So my question is, tell me about what your recommendation
is to after I remove them, to treat for the mites,

(25:19):
and then should I I would like to replant them,
but should I let them let that particular part of
the garden be either follow for a while or or
plant with something else and then come back later with roses.
And what's your suggestions?

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, well, the thing about treating the mites after you
pull the plants out is not necessary, okay. There it's
the mites are super super tiny, and they can essentially
float on the air because they spend a little gossamer thread,
like a spider web kind of thread that that's almost

(26:00):
like a little sail that helps them float over to
another plant. But when you've pulled the plants out, there's
nothing up in the air there for the wind to
blow through and carry those mic There'll be mites on
the ground as you pull them out. Just for an
extra caution, you can take and like let's say a
big black landscaper's trash bag and put it over the

(26:22):
top of the bush. Take it to the bottom and
pull it tight, you know, like you bagged it like
a lollipop.

Speaker 8 (26:28):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
And then when you dig and pull and there's going
to be shaking in the process, you're not just shaking
everything loose to go floating floating and flying around everywhere.
You sort of have it already bagged up before you
even start the process of doing that. That's just a
little trick that you might you might want to try.
But uh, yeah, as far as you know how long,
you know, there's really not a number on that. I mean,

(26:51):
if you waited a week or two, that's fine.

Speaker 11 (26:54):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
You know, those mites are going to have to be somewhere,
and if they don't have a plant just to jump
on and so are feeding, they're not going to do
well on that. But generally speaking, you clean up the area,
give it just a little bit of time, and you
can go back in rework the soil. That's a great
time to get your soil improved a little more. And
in process you're going to be burying any little living

(27:16):
mites that are crawling around there too. And you put
your new plants in.

Speaker 8 (27:22):
I'm thinking at this point in time that I'll probably
just not replant till the spring anyway, okay, because of
the heat and everything like that. But is there I mean,
is that it's that other reasonable thing to do well.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
If it were in my bed, I would plan them
in probably late October or November, because that is the
ideal planning time for any kind of a woody ornamental
in the whole year and so, and that's a good time.
From now, You've got plenty of time to do anything
you want to do if you don't change the shape
of the bed, improve the soil and the bed, change
the irrigation, or you know, any kind of work you
need to do. And if there's none, that's good too.

(28:03):
But I would do it at that time. You're gonna
it's gonna be better for the plants getting established and
hitting the ground running if you'll do that.

Speaker 8 (28:12):
Is just a little bit about I've read some history
about it.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Is it?

Speaker 8 (28:18):
I don't know that I've ever heard you or any
of the other you know, people who talk about gardening
even mentioned in the past.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Is it?

Speaker 8 (28:29):
It seems to be from what I can read, relatively
I would say, relatively new and spreading across the country.

Speaker 10 (28:38):
Is it?

Speaker 8 (28:39):
Is it becoming more pervasive in Southeast Texas or kind
of what's its history rosette.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
No, it's a been it arrived number of years ago,
and it's it's still here. People are being very diligent
about it because we were learning about it. There's breeding
programs going on Texas and m has a breeding program
for roses. Uh and there are others out there, and
and so we're trying to develop a resistant type of rose.

(29:08):
That's a challenge to do, but it's being done. Uh
and uh So I would say, you know, we have
we have flare ups here and there, you know where
suddenly this neighborhood now got a problem. We've got to
go deal with it. But in general, it's kind of
hit and miss. But it's still around. Still still, it's
not going anywhere.

Speaker 12 (29:26):
Are the knockout roses or.

Speaker 8 (29:31):
Wild rose is less susceptible than the Actually, I.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Actually knockout is usually where we see it now. It
doesn't mean knockout is like the worst rose forgetting it.
It just there's so many knockouts everywhere that if it's
going to get on a rose, the chances are it's
going to be a knockout because their knockouts everywhere. But
they do vary and there's just have to build a
little bit. But yeah, it can. It can attack a

(29:56):
lot of I wouldn't pick my rose variety right now
based on rose rose, though, I'd plant the varieties you want, uh,
and then just be real careful to watch for it
and not bring it in. Hey, Bob, I got to
run for a break, But good luck with that, and
thank you for the call this morning. Appreciate that. All right, folks,
I'll be right back with our last segment of the hour.

(30:17):
All right, folks, let's do this again. Hey, you got
a question about gardening. Here's the number seven to one
three two one two fifty eight to seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four plants
for all seasons? Is the garden Center. You hear me
talk about them all the time. They're located on Tomball Parkway,
FM two forty nine, just north of where Louetta comes in,

(30:40):
and they are stocked up on a number of different
kind of plants. They got in a bunch of really
nice milkweeds recently, a number of different varieties, a little
bit different color option in there. I think it's just
really cools. A couple of nights like, I haven't grown
that one for I mean, try that one out. When
you go to Plants for All seasons, you're gonna find
extra advice. That is given. They've been around since nineteen

(31:03):
seventy three. These folks have gardened here. They've pretty much
heard every question a thousand times and answered it, and
they carry the products necessary to solve some of the
issues that you may run into. Also, it's a place
where you can get landscape assistance in more ways than
just advice. So, for example, maybe you're wanting to create

(31:24):
a beautiful multi plant mixed container. A mixed container those
are so pretty. You know, it's nice to have a
plant and a container. But when you get a big
container and you put a lot of different kinds of
plants in it, it is really nice. And they can
do that for you. You can just say make it
and they maybe you want to pick out with them

(31:45):
the plants. You do that, You pick them out, they
put it together, you pick it up, you're ready to go.
Or you can just show up they got them already
done like that, or you can just buy the plants
and the container, take it home and do it yourself.
Whatever level of do it yourself for you are. They're
going to help you have success with that. Now we're
entering the fall season, it's time to start getting those
fall gardens in. For sure. They got a good selection

(32:06):
of vegetables. They have a nice selection of herbs and
a good selection of flowers. All there at Plants for
All Seasons Plants for All Seasons dot com. Check out
the new website looks really good. Two eight, one, three,
seven six sixteen forty six two eight one three seven,
six one six for six. We're going to go to
Northwest Houston now and talk to Myron. Hey, Myron, Welcome

(32:29):
to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (32:29):
Good, good morning, sir. I have we purchased a house
up in Montgomery and the yard is in pretty tough
shape as far as weeds. The Saint Arstine is green,
but I have a lot of weeds in it. What's
the best herbicide to use this time of the year.
I've heard good things about Cellulus or Celsius rather Celsius.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, uh, you know, Maron. The best answer to your
question depends on what weed you have. If you've got
a bunch of and you will, let's say ad crabgrass.
That's an annual it's going to go away. When the
first frost hits, it produces seeds, and you know, if
they're already got the seeds on them and everything, I'd
probably start with a good mowing to get as much

(33:13):
of the seeds off as I could bag them up
and get them out of there. That'd be a step.
Once we hit October, we're putting down a product to
prevent cool season weeds. You don't see them now, but
they will be sprouting in late fall, and then you'll
really see them in the spring when they've grown through
winter and they take off in the spring. Blue bonnets

(33:34):
are an example of a cool season weed, meaning it
sprouts in the fall, that comes up and blooms in
the spring and then dies. That's how all of clover
and hindbit and chick weed and cleavers, and there's just
a lot of cool season weeds. So the next window
is October for those. If you go to my website
Gardening with Skip dot com, you'll find my lawn care

(33:58):
guide and my weed are a pest disease and weed
guide too, and that one tells you exactly when to
put down what. So if you've got if you've got
perennial weeds in your lawn and they're broad leaves, I
would use the Celsius and you could do that now
and then you may need to do it again about

(34:18):
six weeks from now, depending on the weeds that you have.
Know this that when you're killing an existing weed with
a post emergent weed killer like Celsius, you need the
weed to be actively growing for it to do its best.
And if a weed is drought stressed, if it's just struggling,
the products are not going to work as well because

(34:39):
they don't the weed doesn't take them up, and it
just doesn't work as well. So that may mean going
out and water in the lawn to get the weeds
going good before you spray, but don't spray spre stressed weeds.
Make sure they're healthy and growing, and then that those
products will lock them out very well. If you want
to take some pictures of weeds and send them to me,
I could look at them and maybe I may go, oh, well,

(35:01):
that's a different one. We need a sedge control for
that or something else. But there are number of different
kinds of weeds and they don't all get cured by
the same.

Speaker 13 (35:10):
Product, all right, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
All right, Maron, you take care, appreciate your coming. Let's
hit you, bet, Let's see here. Oh, I want to
tell you about Microlife orange label Biometrix seven to one three.
That is a product I use all the time. Almost
every week, I'm using Biometrix orange labels seven to one three.
It's a good strong boost of nitrogen in an organic product,

(35:38):
and it works. I use it in indoor plants, use
it on outdoor plants. It just works very very well.
I also use the Ocean Harvest by Microlife. It's a
blue label. It's a four to two three organic product
based on fish, and so I use that one outside
more because there's a there's a little bit of a

(35:59):
fish sent to it, and so I primarily use that
one outside. But both of them work really really well
and they'll give your plants a boost. I'm bringing back
a particular kind of houseplant that had really struggled due
to neglect. I won't tell you who neglected it, but
it was me, But anyway, I'm bringing it back with

(36:20):
the Ocean Harvest blue label. Another great product by Microlife.
Microlife Fertilizer dot org. Find out all about them and
more of the products than where to get them. It's
got to Sugarland. Now we're going to talk to Debbie. Hey, Debbie,
I'm bringing you on here just about a minute for
a run out of time, but let's see if we
can at least get a good start.

Speaker 13 (36:39):
Okay, thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 10 (36:40):
I have azalias that are growing like out of the pot,
but straight.

Speaker 13 (36:45):
Up like a foot long. Can I cut those and
try to propagate them?

Speaker 6 (36:51):
You can.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Azelias aren't super easy to propagate, but when they're in
what we call a semi woody state, like it's not
succulent like an asparaga spear, and it's not witty like
a branch, but it's kind of right in between the two,
that's the best time to get rooting. You need to
get a good rooting hormone. Cut little sections. Probably I
would make my cuttings about four to six inches long

(37:14):
somewhere in there, take the leaves off the bottom half,
dip the bottom half in a rooting hormone, and put
them in a very moist soil that you can keep
moist with a cover over them to prevent the water
from evaporating away until they can get some roots system down.

Speaker 13 (37:31):
Okay, great, Thank you so much.

Speaker 14 (37:32):
Have a great day.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
You bet there's good information on that online too. Alrighty,
thank you Devy. All right, well we uh we just
put an hour in the books. I was fast. I'm
gonna get me a cup of coffee. You do the same.
Maybe we'll have both eyes open by the time we
come back. We'll talk gardening meantime. Go check out my website,
Gardening with skip dot com. That's where I put all

(37:57):
the different helpful publications that are all free download to
help you to success.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skimp Richter's.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Show Crazy.

Speaker 10 (38:18):
Gas.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Can you use shrim You just watch him as we go.

Speaker 12 (38:25):
Gassis and Gas you.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
So many boots to sup battas in red Bassis and
Gassy d almost comes back again, but not a sound.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Glassies and gas the sun beam and.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Down the gas by Hey folks, good morning. Did you
get you that cup of coffee? I did.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
So.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
I was just checking out a couple of things on Facebook.
You know, I don't know if if you don't follow
us on Facebook on garden Line, you havet to our
Facebook account. Is easy. It's garden Line as simple as
that garden Line on Facebook. I also have a an
account on Instagram. By the way, if you are looking

(39:26):
for garden Line on Instagram, then please check it check
that out as well. We post things there mostly to Facebook,
somedo Instagram. I need to do it more, but I'm
figuring it out. Anyway, you will find a lot of
good help to get you going on any kind of
thing related to gardening. I try to kind of stay

(39:47):
with some of the more updated stuff let you know
what's going on some of our sponsors. We've got a
number of really really active sponsors on social media that
continue to put out really good information. So go check
us out on a Facebook account. Occasionally I'll put some
how to's up, you know, what to do, how to

(40:07):
do it, things you need to be aware of and whatnot.
And recently, well, first of all, if you go there,
what you will see is coming up this next Saturday,
September sixth. Yes, that's just like not even a week away.
I'll be at the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living
Show that's in Conroe. That is in Conroe. When you

(40:31):
go to the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show,
you're going to head up to Airport Road in North
East Conroe. It's at the expos Center up there now.
I'm going to be there from noon to two pm.
I'm going to be giving a talk on fall gardening
and not just like vegetables, but all kinds of aspects,
especially turf, things we need to be doing for our
lawns and planting and things like that. And I'll be

(40:54):
giving away products from Nelson Plant Food. They provided us
a bunch of things that we'll be providing given away.
So come on out and see me. If you've got
samples of plants, maybe there is a weed that you're
trying to identify, or you know, we're just talking somebody
a minute ago about weeds in Saint Augustine A Myron.
I had a bunch of weeds in the new place

(41:15):
that they've got they're trying to deal with. Fill up
a bag with them and bring them. We'll talk about them.
Other people will have the same weeds too, so we'll
just make a little show and tell out of it.
But anything we can diagnose or help with, I feel
free to do that. I'll be talking for about an
hour and then I'll be there at a table just
answering questions as well. Try to also have some of

(41:36):
my books on hand. If any of you are interested
in that, I'll do a signed copy of those two
at that time. I don't ever talk about my book
on there. I should probably should talk about it more so.
Texas month by Month Gardening. It's what to do for
your lawn for your garden every month of the year.
So but anyway, check it out. That's one of the

(41:57):
best garden shows that we have. I love that show.
Lots of good exhibitors, lots of good information. The Montgomery
County Master Gardeners will be there too, by the way,
and they always have an excellent booth where you can
get a lot of good local advice. It's right across
from the Extension office in Montgomery County. Now, for those
of you who don't know about extension Extension, Agrolife Extension

(42:21):
is part of the LANGRT system here in Texas, which
is Texas A and M University. Each state has a
lang Grant college. In Louisiana, it's LSU. In Oklahoma, it's
Oklahoma State. In New York it's Cornell in Florida, University
of Florida, and so on. Each state has its LANGRET

(42:43):
university that has research teaching and extension regarding agriculture. So
in Texas we have two hundred and fifty four counties
and we have two hundred and fifty I think extension offices.
So if you go way out in West Texas where
there are more jack rabbits and people, you may have
an office that serves two county for example, but in
general you've got one. In this part of the state.

(43:04):
Every county has an office. And around the Houston area
we are the most high concentration of horticulture agents anywhere
in the state. I think there's six horticulture agents here. Lesty,
there's one in Montgomery County, Brass County, Harris County, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Galveston,

(43:26):
and Orange. Did I miss anybody? My apologies, folks upon
left me by out. That's seven right there in just
the greater Houston area. So you should check out your
AGROLFE extension of It's free information, free advice, lots of
good programs. That's where the master gardening training programs are.

(43:46):
If you ever thought about being a master gardener and
you're in one of those counties I mentioned, you've got
a training program in your county. By the way, they're
training programs in other counties too. It's not just where
there's a horticulturist. A number of different counties have master
gardener training programs. It's an excellent opportunity to get high
level gardening training and to have the opportunity to serve

(44:09):
as a volunteer to help other people with their gardening success.
So there, I was in Southwest Fertilizer a while back,
and actually I was looking for a particular product that
I can You're just not going to find it hardly anywhere.
So where do I go? Go to Southwest Fertilizers. They
have everything that other people don't make maybe carried they

(44:31):
They've got it for sure there. Anyway, I was looking
at it and looking some of the options and things,
and while I was there, I just spend a little
bit of time with their tools. And you know, they
carry quality brands. You know, for example, two of the
best quality pruners and and you know hand gardening tool

(44:52):
brands as Felco and Corona, those are two of the best,
and they carry both of those there, But they carry
additional brands to even though they carry that kneeling seat
that I used to talk about all the time. I
should talk about it more because it's still one of
my favorite, probably top five tools I have is the
kneeling seat goes on there because you can sit on
it and work. Let's say you're, you know, working on

(45:13):
a rose bush or a tomato and you just need to,
you know, sit down on a little stool. Well, that's that.
You flip it upside down, you kneel on it. It's
got a pad underneath it, and the legs become handles
for getting up and down. Oh my gosh, it'll change
your life if you're north of forty years old. They
carry the parts to make a weed wiper that I
talk about. If you want to know how to make one,

(45:35):
go to my website. There's a free free publication on
how to make one there. Bob's got the tools to
do it. It's just it's just great. I was looking
at their soil knives. I already have three soil knives,
So why am I looking at soil knives. I don't know,
because I like tools anyway. But they've got some really
high quality soil knives there too, and that's also in

(45:57):
the top five tools. If you don't know what a
soil knife is. Go Southwest Fertilizer. Take a look at
one and you say what I'm talking about. I love
those things anyway, they work. Southwest Fertilizer, by the way,
is on the corner of bys Nut and Renwick. If
you want to give them a call. Seven one three
six sixty six one seven four four seven one three
six six six one seven four to four. If you're there,

(46:19):
go ahead and grab you some mosquito dunks. They carry
those Chris Bob carries everything. Mosquito dunks are little. They're
about the size of the little little Debbie doughnuts that
are white, powdered, dusted, you know what I'm talking about.
It's about the size of a mosquito dunk. But they
contain a disease of mosquitos and fungus gnats. It doesn't

(46:39):
hurt birds, it doesn't hurt lady beetles, it doesn't hurt fish,
it doesn't It's not a disease of any of those.
It's a disease of mosquitos. And you take those dunks.
Anytime you got standing water, stagnant water, you put a
dunk in it, and mosquitoes cannot reproduce in there. They
will try They will lay eggs, the larval will hatch,
the larva will die. They work very very well. If

(47:00):
you're going to go on vacation. Still got a vacation
this summer, get all your plants. Here's what I do
when I'm gone. I put my plants in a little
kiddy waiting pool. The containers and a kidding waiting pool,
and I put about two inches of water in it.
And I throw a mosquito dunk in there, or even
a half a dunk will be more than enough.

Speaker 8 (47:19):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
And you can be gone for two weeks and when
you come back, there are no mosquitos, your plants are alive.
It works, It works, trust me. But when your bob's
grab some mosquita dunks. By the way, they're sold in
a lot of places, ace hardware stores, feed stores, garden centers,
independent garden centers. But the main thing, you just get them.
We're still in Skeeter season, and you don't need to
be a Skeeter breeder. All right, let's take a break.

(47:41):
We'll come back with your calls. If you want to
be first up seven one three, two, one two, fifty
eight seventy four everywhere, hold back, Hey, welcome back to
garden line on a nice Sunday morning. By the way,
keep looking at I'm ready for some rain. You need
a little bit of rain today. Little rain never hurt anybody.

(48:06):
Remember Doctor Doolittle. How many of y'all saw the movie
Doctor Doolittle? Yeah, remember the song from Doctor Doolittle. If
you remain out in the rain, you'll think you're drinking
pink champagne and you will spend your life praying for thunderstorms.
That's it. You heard it at first. I don't know
why that came into my head. I don't I don't
know why. A lot of things come into my Sometimes.

(48:29):
It's good to be back with you. Hey, what do
you want to talk about today on guardline? Give me
called seven one three two one two kt r H
seven one three two one two kt r H. Medina
makes a product called Medina Activator Plus, and I utilize
it for a number of different things. First of all,
being a very safety use product. You're not going to
burn your plants with it. You can fold your feed

(48:51):
with it, you can drench plants with it. It contains
the regular old Medina Activator has been popular for so
long by gardeners all over the place. I mean, it's
an excellent product. But now with Plus, they've thrown in
forty trace elements, things like growth hormones from seaweed, extract,
a number of different minerals that are in it, a

(49:11):
variety of different things that promote the plant growth, roots,
ot They're really really helpful when you're transplanting a plant
to drench them in with that. You know, when you're
putting a plant in, you want to drench it in
with a product like Medina Plus, and then you want
to about a week later, do it again, and about
a week later do it again. That way, during the
first three weeks or almost a month of that plant's life,

(49:35):
it has the best opportunity to get roots out, to thrive,
to expand that root system, and to just take off,
I like to say it to hit the ground running.
And Medina Plus does just sat for plants, and you
don't just have to use it for new transplants. You
can put it on existing plants. I drenched a bruin
fells that I have that's called Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

(49:59):
It's a beautiful plant. It's got flowers that change color
day by day. They at the same time on a
Briomfelsia or a yesterday, today and tomorrow. You're going to
see white flowers, purple flowers, and light light or blue
flowers all on the same plant at the same time,
because that's why it's called yesterday, today and tomorrow. But anyway,
I drenched it in with medina plus. I need to

(50:21):
do it again. I've got one more application to do
on it because I'm helping that thing get started.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Planning in the summer is a challenging time for plants,
but you can do it. You can do it if
you just take care of them. And Medina plus you
ought to have it on hand for that reason as
well as for many others to do its best.

Speaker 8 (50:41):
In the.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
World of plants, there are so many options. And I
don't know what you are interested in. Some people they
just want pretty and green, you know. So they're the
lawn rangers of the world. The lawn ranger wants to
get out there, have a beautiful, perfect mode lawn without
a weed in sight that they can set out and
look at.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
It's like outdoor carpeting and they love that and that
is the that's the extent of their horticultural interest. Really
pretty much. Then you got the people that want flowers everywhere.
They want beauty, they want color, they want all of that.
And then you have folks that want to know can
I eat it? And edible landscaping is an important thing

(51:24):
to them. By the way, edible landscaping can take many forms.
You can have a vegetable garden, you can have a
fruit or trude and so on. Or you can mix
things up. You know, why not that walkway down the
sidewalk to your house. Instead of a loriopee road down there,
you could have chives going down a walkway. It looks
kind of similar, and one of them actually gives you

(51:46):
something to chop up for your scrambled eggs and your
soups and other stuff like that. So you can do
that with fruit trees, and you do that with vines
and so on.

Speaker 15 (51:56):
What do you like?

Speaker 6 (51:57):
Do what you like?

Speaker 2 (51:58):
But I want to just ask one thing. Try something new,
Try something you haven't done before. There is so much
to horticulture that if you start right now, and let's
say you're in your twenties, and every day of your
life you are trying and learning and trying something new.

(52:20):
When you're one hundred years old, you will not be
done with horticulture. It is that broad. There's people that
are into orchids, There's people that are into day lilies.
There's people that are that are all about I mean,
that's all about a beautiful, beautiful plumerius, the Hawaiian layflower,
the Plumerius Society, folks, you see what I mean. There

(52:41):
are people that are all about organic gardening. There are
people that are all about creating a tropical paradise where
you go outside and it's like you just took a
trip to the tropics because your yard is that way.
And we can do that here in Houston, by the way,
by and large, we have some things that look tropical
that are not coal tender like some tropicals are, and

(53:03):
so we can grow them here. Anyway, What do you
like try that? Do it, but try something new, Do
something you've never done before. Okay, we got the cool
season coming up on us here and there are a
lot of beautiful flowers. And one of my favorite things
is to do mixed planting containers and to do beds
that during the cool season still look good. So what

(53:26):
about pansies and violas and Dusty Miller and alyssam and
snap dragons and colindula and asturtiums, and what am I
leaving out? Oh Dianthus. I mean, we could go on
and on. There are so many cool season flowers. How
about this year make your landscape a beautiful color display

(53:46):
of cool season color. If you've never tried that before,
do it. Most landscapes are sea of green, green grass,
green trees, green shrubs. That's it. That's kind of how
they are. You can do different. You can actually make
your landscape changed through the seasons. Do you know we're
about to interfall and we're gonna see, in fact that
mine is already starting to bloom. My Mexican bush stage

(54:08):
Salvia lecantha, purple spires of blooms. All of you lsu
fans out there, you gotta have one of these. I
mean it's purple for crying out loud, and they're beautiful.
But they bloom in the fall, primary, late summer and fall.
Then there is the fall aster, gorgeous blooms in the fall.
Then there's Mexican. Oh gosh, I just went blank on it. Mexican. Well,

(54:34):
let me do it to a different one. Copper Canyon
daisy blooms in the fall. Got a citrus pine scented
foliage and beautiful little yellow flowers. The one I couldn't
think of. Want to go Mexican meant marigold. Mexican met marigold.
If you rub the leaves your hands smell like black licorice,
jelly beans? Is that coolches is a substitute for terragon
and cooking. But that's a fall only bloomer mountain sage

(54:59):
red tubular blooms that hummingbirds will line up to get
to fall bloomer. Those are all plants that just wom
in the fall. So get sat up, get those things going.
What are you going to try new this year? What
are you going to do different? How do you want
to enhance your landscape? And mainly, how do you want
to enhance your enjoyment of gardening? All right, well, I'm

(55:19):
going to head now out to the phones. We're going
to go to Sugarland and talk to Elizabeth. Hello, Elizabeth,
welcome to Guardland.

Speaker 13 (55:27):
Oh, good morning.

Speaker 11 (55:29):
I just love listening to your your suggestions. They're just great.
But anyway, my question today is is this such a
thing as a palmetto grass seed? Can I plant a seed?
Or do I have to get the little you know,
the little whatever you call them, little things that you

(55:51):
put in the ground.

Speaker 15 (55:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Right, Palmetto is the type of Saint Augustine, and there
is not for all practical purposes a Satine. See the
number of years ago they worked at making one and
just getting enough viable sea. It just wasn't practical to do.
And to be honest, I think that the best way
to start grass anyway is through plugs.

Speaker 11 (56:14):
Are the little the plugs, that's the word I'm trying
to think of it. Okay, Well, what happened is I
I have lived in my house twenty one years and
these oak trees are absolutely enormous. They're beautiful. I mean,
they are just beautiful trees. However, they do steal a
lot of the nutrients and so on. So the grass

(56:36):
underneath was not doing terribly well, and so I got
the Virginia button weed. So I've had to pull it out.
I mean, I don't know, I don't know any other
way to pull it.

Speaker 13 (56:46):
Is to just pull it out.

Speaker 11 (56:48):
So I have put some composts down and some you know,
to try and fill in these patches. But I just
wondered if there was any way I could fill in
those with the seed, but apparently not, so I will
just get the plugs. I don't know whether it's a
good time now, because we're going to go into fall
and it's not going to be a growing season.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
If you hurry up and do it, it's a good
time because we still have probably two months of good
grass growth before it slows down for winter. So we're
good still. But but go ahead and get it crime
sooner rather than later.

Speaker 11 (57:25):
The other question, if you've got time, you mentioned celsius,
which is a product to get rid of these weeds.
Now does it kill the grass, does it make it weak?
Or does it just kill the fip and all weed?

Speaker 2 (57:39):
No, any product misused can damage the plants that you're
using it around. Just about. That's Celsius is the least
damaging broad leaf weed killer when the weather is hot
that we have, and that's the problem. Some of these
other products are okay to use in cooler weather, but

(58:00):
as it gets up in above ninety degrees, they hurt
you lawn, and Celsius I still, you know, I would
still use it in the morning when it's cooler, but
it is not as stressing to the grass. That's why
you hear me say it a lot because most of
our year it's above ninety degrees.

Speaker 11 (58:19):
Right, and I think that this Virginia busson read is
a very Oh it's just terrible. It grows like crazy,
is like bamboo. So it's just you know, pops up everywhere.
All right, Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Thanks, all right, thank you. I appreciate your call very much.
Thanks a lot. By the way, if you have not
called pest Bros. And had them bring the mosquito buckets out,
is still time to do that. You ought to do
that if you want a quality, professional job done in
making sure you do not have termites, you do not

(58:54):
have cockroaches, their rats running outside are no more and
every other thing that bugs you from fireance do you
name it? The pestbros dot com? The pestbros dot com
two eight one two o six forty six seventy. I'll
be right back after this break, all right, folks. You

(59:17):
can thank me later for that one. Well, there we go,
all right, Cowboy Joe, ragtime cowboy Joe.

Speaker 15 (59:30):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
In fact, let's do a couple more. I'm gonna do
another ragtime song here in just a second. Uh, Welcome
back to the garden Line. Good to have you with us.
We like to play around with the music, have a
little bit of fun here and hopefully give a little
bit of good gardening advice in the process. We're gonna
run out to Lake Conroe now and visit with Dave
this morning. Hey, Dave, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (59:49):
Oh the cheap ones.

Speaker 8 (59:51):
Hey.

Speaker 12 (59:51):
I know behind the scenes on that they speeded the
record of you know, to get that down.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
They did, they did. Yeah, I ought to do guard
out to speed up Garden Line to seventy eight speed
and see what I sound like. How can we help
you to do what I'm talking about?

Speaker 12 (01:00:06):
Well, doctor, do little Matt, I'm like the fish whisper
and that was great movie to the original one and
town on the second. Yeah, but uh anyway, uh yeah,
and then I now my fish really don't talk to
me back. They just won't look at me and want
me to feed them. But my dogs, my mama dogs
to come put her foot on my leg and look

(01:00:28):
at me like I love you. And then my other dogs.
He's younger Australian Blue. He was just come over and
swam the ball down and told that daddy, you know,
it's way here. You go, okay, I tell you powerwasher. Okay, powerwasher.

Speaker 11 (01:00:43):
Man.

Speaker 12 (01:00:44):
I ain't run one in twenty years, but I run
one thirty years, you know, working in drywall and you
know clean mud up. Now it's brand new powderwashers. What
kind of the target should I put in there? Just
for cleaning the back concrete on the patio that my
dog's got all the mud?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Boy, you got me covered. You got me stumped on that.
I am not an expert on that. We use one
of those TSP. I use TSP for some things, typically
when I'm doing the house, side of the house or
something like that with a powerwasher. Uh, I don't know.
Maybe maybe another caller hasn't is more of an expert
in that than I am. You know, just the just

(01:01:22):
the water itself does a good job, but it depends
on what you're trying to get rid of. If it's
it's black mold or algae or uh you know, other
kind of stains or something like that.

Speaker 12 (01:01:33):
I want to set you up.

Speaker 8 (01:01:34):
On it a little bit more and do some research.
But I also on that.

Speaker 12 (01:01:38):
Uh pest Pros do they service out in Willis on
Lake Timelo?

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Uh pest Pros covers I think they go to what
hang on one thing, let me check something. I should
know that because I do know that I just uh
all the way up to the woodlands. It says I
would give them a call and see, I don't know
if you go that far. I guess your part of
it isn't. No, you're not well. But but it kind
of depends on the on the job, you know what

(01:02:07):
it is that you're wanting them to come up and do. Uh,
But but i'd give them a call. Here's a number
two eight one two o six.

Speaker 12 (01:02:13):
Okay, go ahead, two eight one h two.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
O six forty six seventy's.

Speaker 12 (01:02:21):
The company that we got. Now, man, we still got
like spiders and creepy crawlers and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:02:28):
Man.

Speaker 12 (01:02:28):
And I know we're in the country out here, but
you know, hey, yeah, uh, I ain't worried about termites.

Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
Really like that.

Speaker 12 (01:02:36):
Just uh the little things that have the pintures on
the end that look like a caterpillar. But they're not
a caterpillar. I can't I don't know the name of them,
but yuh, they give me the crepe and my wife,
oh the Lord's out well anyway, hey, God bless you. Okay, thanks,
thanks a lot. Yeah, okay, all right, yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
All right, all right, thank you sir, appreciate it. Uh,
you are listening to Garden Line phone number seven one
three two, two fifty eight seventy four. Listen Nelson fertilizers.
They have so many. They got the turf Star line,
which is all kinds of things for the line. They
got the nutris Star line, which typically is things that
are specific to plants. Like there's a nutri star vegetable garden.

(01:03:20):
That would be a good one to be doing right
now because it is time for fall. Vegetable gardening. It's
got lots of different nutrients mixed together in it and
the ratio that plants want and it provides you know,
vegetable gardens are short term crops. It's not like a
rosebush going to be there for years. This is something
you plant your tomato, you get your tomatoes, you pull

(01:03:40):
out your tomatoes, and you plant something else. And nutri
star vegetable gardener has got five different sources of nitrogen
for a nice even release of nutrients. Whether it's a
raised bed, a container, or a garden bed, it's going
to do a good job. And here comes the where
we are right now is in the end of the
warm season planting. So if you want a plant squash,

(01:04:01):
if you want to plant cucumbers or something like that,
switch charge still good. You can get those in now
and get them harvested before the first frost. Then as
we get into September, we're putting in the broccoli and
cabbage and cauliflower and korabie.

Speaker 8 (01:04:15):
And so on.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Eventually we'll get to lettuce and spinach. Have your Nutri
Star Vegetable Garden by Nelson fertilizer on hand for all
of those things. It works really really well. And if
it's flowers you're looking for, then I would recommend you
get the color Star. Color Star is their most popular blend,
been around for over forty years now. Color Star for

(01:04:36):
anything that has ballooms. That's just it's simple, it's easy.
Professionals know this. Listen. Professional landscapers use color Star. It's
a very popular product in the industry, and you can
have it for your own backyard and your gardens and
your flower beds. Available at local garden centers, feed stort
a lot of places you can get Nelson products like

(01:04:57):
the Nutri Star Vegetable Garden and the color Star set
out to Missouri City and talk to Jamie. Now, Hello Jamie,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:05:06):
Good mornings, Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 13 (01:05:08):
How are you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
I'm doing good.

Speaker 16 (01:05:10):
I'm interested good good. I'm interested in planting some petite
knockout roses in a courtyard at my church. And I
was wondering, if it's too hot to plant them now,
should I babysit them in the pots of what kind
of soil should I put in there with them, and
any kind of fertilizer or any recommendations.

Speaker 13 (01:05:30):
You can get me on that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Well, here's the decision. If you can get out there
and take care of them every day, you can plant
them now. If that is not as easy to do,
I would wait and put them in in late October,
where the amount of stress is much much lower on them.
That knockout rose bush, when you buy it from a

(01:05:53):
garden center, they're watering it every day there because it's
in a little pot, and all the roots are in
that tiny cylinder still because they have to water it
every day. Then when you put it in the ground,
nothing's changed except the plastic is gone. The roots are
all still in the same place that it was, and
it needs to be watered every day, just a little
bit in the heat of summer. As we get toward fall,

(01:06:15):
then the demands go down. And if you don't water
them for two or three days, well that's that's fine,
that they'll be okay. But I would just base it
on how how much TLC can you give them, and
then make the decision based on that. And I can
understand why I want to get them in the ground,
and so people, you know, you don't have a spot there.
I mean, you've got a pretty plant there, maybe a

(01:06:37):
reason to go ahead and plant them, But I can
also see why for the plant's sake waiting. If you
can't get out and take care of them, like I
just mentioned, then then i'd wait.

Speaker 16 (01:06:45):
Well, we do have them on a we do have
them on a watering system, and we don't water up
there every day because more of the plants are mature
in there. But we have people that are you know,
could go in water every day. That is a possibility
to be able to do that. What kind of soil
would I mix in with it when I dig the
holes and kind of fertilize or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Yeah, I would get you a good quality roase soil
both the folks at Nature's Way making bag of rose
soil and the folks at Heirloom Sauce making bag of
rose soil. Heirloom calls there's rose and other bloomers blend.
It's got a picture of a rose on the bag,
and I would use those for building up the bed.
That's an excellent blend designed for that. Yeah, And so

(01:07:30):
for these roses. The thing about the watering system, just
to respond to that, Jane, is watering systems are good,
but they're applying water to a large area, and whereas
your rose bushes are eating water right in, down deep
into the soil, into that cylinder right there. And that's
where I would if you got folks that can go
out every every other day maybe and give them a

(01:07:53):
good soaking every day every other day just right there.
Just don't overdo it, but keep that going. After you know,
a couple of weeks, they got a little bit of
roots going out. After another two or three weeks, they
got more roots going out, and so you're not going
to continue to water them every day for that long.

Speaker 16 (01:08:09):
So I could leave them in these containers and water
them on my back patio and then take them up there.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
You could, and what I would do if you're going
to do that is, and I'm going to have to
run after this comment. I would give them a morning
sun and afternoon shade so the demands are minimal on them,
but they get enough light to keep the plants healthy. Uh,
and then until you can get them out and plant them. Okay,
thanks a lot for that, Good luck. I look forward
to seeing you beautiful, beautify that church. You take care,

(01:08:40):
all right, folks, I'll be right back. Oh yeah, alrighty.
Welcome back to Guardline, folks, where the advice is sometimes
accurate and the music is often weird. Good to have
you with us this morning. Hey, if you got a question,
give me a call. Well seven one three two one

(01:09:01):
two k t RH seven. I don't know, I don't
know why I said that, so two two KTRH would
be glad to help you with it. Listen, if you
want to go to a place that is just a
blast to visit, just a pleasure to visit, you got
to go to the arbor Gate Arburgate's something tom Ball.
It's west to tom Ball in twenty nine to twenty
just outside of town on the left hand side there.

(01:09:24):
When you go to Arburgate. You're going to find number one, expertise,
people that know what they're talking about. And number two,
you're going to find service. You can get treated the
way you want to be treated when you go to
any business. You show up at Arburgate and say I
need such and such plan, and they don't point and
go all over there. There may be some still left
on that shelf.

Speaker 8 (01:09:44):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Now. They walk you over there and they give you
your options and they talk with it, and you may
walk in a lot of people do this at Arburgate.
They walk in, they go, you know, I don't know
what I want. I mean, really, I need something that
is gonna really look good through the fall. And it's
I got a pretty decent amount of sun, but it's

(01:10:05):
not full day sun. And you know, and they talk
to you and they said, well how about this, Well
how about that? What do you think? They ask you questions,
and you go home with success. That's it. You go
home with success because number one, you've got the plant
that wants to grow at your place and the conditions
you're growing. Number Two, you've got the advice and you
can go back in there anytime you talk to them.
You ask them questions. They take the time to help

(01:10:26):
you have success, because that's what they're all about. That's
what people love going there. You're gonna find plenty of
yard bling as well. As you walk through Arborgate, You're
going to see so many things and you take home
and put in your yard. It's just it's just a
great place. It's a fun place to shop. Remember browns
up before green stuff, right, say that all the time
on guard line. Well, they've got you covered. There's three things.

(01:10:49):
It's called the one two three completely easy system. It's
the organic fertilizer. It's called organic Food Complete, works on anything.
It's got roots. And then they got the organic SOWA Complete,
which by the way, is the soil with expanded jale
and Organic compost Complete, which is a compost with expanded shale.
Why expanded jale compost is wonderful. Nature enrich is soiled

(01:11:12):
by compost. But compost breaks down and in our landscapes,
in our climate here, we break composts down fast. And
so what happens you put a rose bush in you
got a heavy clay soil. It's not wanting to grow
in that kind of soil. You add a lot of
composts and it's happy and you should. But expanded shale

(01:11:32):
lasts even longer and it keeps that soil open. There's
research done by Texas A and up up in Dallas
years ago on a heavy clay soil very similar to
Houston black clay, and they put in a rose bushes
in an earthkind rose trial where they did a lot
of shale in the soil and that rose planting just
stayed wonderful for years afterwards. That's what these Arbigate products

(01:11:57):
are built with expanded shale four because it does that
one two, three, food, soil, compost. The last two you
can buy by bulk. Just call them up ask them.
If you're hearing my voice, they can probably delivered by
bulk to you and uh, then you're getting a good product.
You're creating the foundation for success. But the main thing
is just get out there, get out, have some fun,

(01:12:19):
take some friends with you, and enjoy the arbor gate.
It is truly a shopping experience that you will enjoy.
I promise you that I do every time I go.
You are listening to garden Line. If you got a
gardening question, it would like to give me a call
seven one, three, two one two k t r H
seven one three two one two KTRH. I was out

(01:12:41):
in my garage yesterday dealing with some of my tools
that I had, taking care of some of my tools,
and I happen to like the oh gosh, de Walt,
the Orange and Black battery powered tools. I've had a
number of different brands. You know, there's there's great ones
out there, but a place like ACE Hardware Store is

(01:13:03):
where I would suggest you just go and look for tools.
You never know in an ACE because each one is
independently owned, so you're going to have a wide variety
of options, but they always carry the basic standard things
that you would expect from your ACE Hardware store. So
for example, I also have a Vego lawnmower. Now I'm
not promoting the Walter Vego or whatever. Now I said

(01:13:24):
Vego Ego, excuse me, e g o uh, And a
lot of ACE hardware stores will carry that, uh. But
I tell you this, wherever you go, you're going to
find quality hand tools to fit your budget. From Ace,
from East Brand, Milwaukee, Stanley, Blackendecker Craftsmen to Walt so on,
They've got you covered. Same with bowers and things. And

(01:13:46):
when it comes to your lawn and garden, they're fertilizers,
the products the disease and weed control. When it comes
to making your outdoors better, outdoor areas better, do you
want to make them more pleasant? Do you want Do
you need seating? Do you need shade? Do you need
evening lights? Lighting? Do you need barbecue pits? Do you
need something to just keep that air moving? You know

(01:14:09):
it is on a warm evening. ACE has got you
covered on everything. When a hurricane shows up in the Gulf,
what do you do? You go to ACE because they're
going to have the supplies you need to get through
the thing or to deal with that afterwards. Ace Hardware
Texas dot com. That's the website you need to go
to ACE Hardware Texas dot com. There you'll find all

(01:14:30):
my ACE Hardware stores in the Greater Houston area from
Orange all the way across the Rockport and certainly all
through the Greater Houston area. Ace Hardware Texas dot com.
Find the store near youew and then main thing is
go visit it stores like All Star, Ace and Magnolia,
k and m Ace and Kingwood, Kilgore's, clear Lake Lumber, East,
Main Katie Hardware on Pinoak and that's an old town

(01:14:53):
Katie and Port Lavaka Ace done in Port Lavaca on
Calhoun Plaza. Just a few examples of the mini ACE
Hardware store at ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Acehardware Texas
dot com. Well, I'm about to put an hour in
the books here and but we'll be back. We still
got plenty of garden line left in US today. You
got some questions. Good way to go about this would

(01:15:15):
be to give me a call during the break, so
you're first up when we come back. Seven to one
three two one two k t r H. Seven one
three two one two k t r H. Give me
a call. I want to remind you that on my
website is a publication two publications on take all Root Rot.
If you're looking at the lawn, the lawn is yellowing

(01:15:35):
and then it's turning brown, and it's irregular and it's
just kind of here and there. It's not circles like
brown pack. Uh, you may have take All root Rot.
Go look at those publications. They'll they got pictures. They'll
tell you, uh what to look for, and then they'll
tell you what to do. If you have it. You're
dealing with Nutsedge. Now is that this is your public

(01:15:56):
service announcement. I'm warning you, I'm helping you nuts Edge.
When it's going into the cool season, you want to
have it knocked out. You don't want to let it
go between now and the end of the year and
not be dealt with, because it will be back next
year and you will have way more than you do
right now. Nut's Edge, an in depth book is on

(01:16:17):
my publication lists there. Check it out. It'll tell you
how to get rid of it. And I know the
things i'm telling you work because I've done them and
they work.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richard.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
It's just watch him as.

Speaker 4 (01:16:46):
Many birthdays to super bazy.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Not a sud.

Speaker 17 (01:17:09):
Starting.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Alright, folks, welcome back to Garden Line. Let's do this
eight o'clock hour. What are we going to talk about.
I've got a few topics in mind, but hey, this
show is about your question. Seven one three, two one two,
fifty eight to seventy four. Give me a call. Let's
talk about the things that are most of interest to you.

(01:17:31):
By the way, if you did some earlier in the
summer fertilizing, perhaps you use the slower release product. Uh
and we are coming up on in October. The fall
fertilization late September. October is when we put on the
fall fertilizers around here, uh now kind of in the middle,
and this would be a good time to put down
some sweet green. Sweet green from Nitrophoss is an organic

(01:17:54):
type product. You put it down, it smells sweet. That's
why it has the name because it is a mill
is type based product. You put it down in those
carbon chains make microbes happy. Microbes love carbon. That's why
when we put down like shredded leaves into the soil,
the microbes go busy and they just chomp them all up.
And because they need that, they need that carbon in them. Well,

(01:18:16):
they love the sweet green and they'll turn that eleven
percent nitrogen in sweet green loose for your plants. And
when they do, you're going to see a green up
in your land that'll carry you all the way until
the fall fertilization. Now, nitofos products are available in a
lot of different places. You can go to the M
and D in Sagemont on Beamer. You can go to

(01:18:38):
the M and D in clear Lake on Bay Area
Boulevard up in Brennam at plants and things. You're going
to find Nito foss products as you will at D
and D feed and Tomball. Oh, I was talking about
M and d's. There's also an M and D in
Cyprus on Luetta Road that carries Nighto Foss products as well.
We're gonna head out and out to the phones and
talk to Jim in Spring. Hello Jim, Welcome to the

(01:19:00):
garden Line.

Speaker 14 (01:19:02):
Hey, thanks taking my call.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Skip.

Speaker 14 (01:19:04):
I have a bird of paradise that I planted in
twenty twenty. Took a bit of a hit or in
the big freeze that we had, but it's come back
and it's just growing like crazy. But it's now twenty
twenty five and I'm still wondering if I'm ever going
to get a flower.

Speaker 8 (01:19:23):
Out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Oh boy, Yeah, those things can be a little personicty
about that. You don't overfertilize them. You want them to
get adequate water, but not being just such a luxurious
growth rate, you'd like them to slow down a little bit.
Phosphorus in a fertilizer is an important ingredient for bloom development,

(01:19:46):
and so you can get you a good quality fertilizer
blend that is going to be have a good boost
of phosphors in it. I would do that. That would
be one thing toward helping them. Lots of sunlight too.
They like a lot of sun, and to the degree
they are in less than a lot of sun, they
don't make the carbs they need to set the ballooms

(01:20:08):
that you want. And so, uh, that would be another
factor to keep in mind.

Speaker 8 (01:20:14):
Okay, I'll give that up. I'll give that a go.

Speaker 14 (01:20:18):
Like I said, it's been a number of years here,
and I thought I was initially. I thought I was
get something around year four. But I'll try to find
some phosphor us and see if that helps. It sits
in a lot of sun, and it's it's well drained,
so it's not sitting around soggy. So okay, maybe the fosters,
hey skip one more.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
It would be Yeah, it would be helpful. It would
be helpful if you could, as you fertilize, you know,
to go with something that that's got a little bit
more phosphorus like that.

Speaker 8 (01:20:50):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Yeah, they're they're a persnickety plant. We run into these
problems with them all the time. By the way, if
you're looking for a phosphorus fertilizer. Nitroposs makes something thing
called plumeria. It's called nutri Star. It's part of the
nutri Star line. I'm sorry I said nitrofis. I met Nelson.
Nelson plant Food makes a nitrous has a hyphosphorus fertilizer too,

(01:21:13):
but I was trying to say nutri Star Plumeria at
the time, and that's that is a very high phosphorus content.
And then Nitrofoss look for their product the same same
thing wherever you shop. What you can find there is
if it's got a hyphosphorus, that those two companies may
make good products for that.

Speaker 14 (01:21:30):
Okay, excellent. One other thing, real quick, you just mentioned
the Sweet Green by nitro Foss. A couple of weeks ago,
you mentioned I believe a Nelson late summer early fall
lawn fertilizer. I did catch the name of that. I
was wonder if you could share that again.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Yeah. So, so I was kind of given a preview
when I did that particular one, because when we're looking
at the fall season, once we get into late September
early October, that's when we want to put down something
that has less nitrogen compared to potassium. The third number.

(01:22:11):
So whereas a summer fertilizer might have like a three
one two or a four to one two ratio of nutrients.
The product you heard me talk about was carbel load,
which is a one to one two ratio. It's got
more of that last number than it does the first number,
and it's it's called it's a ten ten ten. You know,

(01:22:34):
the actual number itself isn't as important as the ratio,
but carbo load's a purple bag by Nelson. Uh And
once sole temperatures cool off, that's when I would put
it down. It also has a pre emergent in it,
so therefore, you know, putting it down now you're not
going to benefit from the pre emergent, but you will
by putting it down in early October, because then you're

(01:22:55):
not only getting your fertilizer down, but you're also stopping
the winter weeds that are going to germinating October November.

Speaker 8 (01:23:02):
Okay, that's perfect, that's to one star.

Speaker 14 (01:23:05):
Okay, Skip, I'll work on my my bird of paradise.
Keep you posting, and thank you for the information on
the fertilizers.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
All right, sir, Thanks sounds like a plan. Appreciate that
very much. Yeah, the uh that was from the folks
at Nelson and Nelson Plant Food. Also there's a lot
of good products from Nelson Plant Food. But I'll talk more.
I'll talk more about their fall fertilization, the carbo load
as we get closer to it, especially as we get

(01:23:36):
into September, I'll be talking about that one more. Just
another great product for the folks at Nelson. Let's head
to see. We're going to go to Summerwood now and
talk to John this morning. Hey John, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:23:50):
Hey good Marren, thanks for taking my call. Hey, you
bet so, I got a I got a front yard
with three big oak trees, and the soil has been depleted.
The grass is struggling. So what I did I did
some ariation and then I spread some compost, although really thin.
I think I need to put more. I think I
need to put more down maybe next weekend. But so

(01:24:12):
basically I want to build my soil back up right
so that the grass can grow healthy.

Speaker 6 (01:24:19):
Like you got.

Speaker 9 (01:24:20):
I could see the roots from the oak trees, you know,
coming up in the yard. Yeah, so it's taking all
the water from the grass, I guess, And I just
don't have enough good.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Soil there to.

Speaker 9 (01:24:32):
Let the grass grow well. So the question is, knowing
I've aerated, I spread some composts. I plan on doing
it again in the spring, same thing. Do I need
to aerate again or do I just keep spreading composts
until I get a good layer of soil.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Usually, you know when you're putting it on compost, you're
probably putting down about a third of an inch, half
an inch something like that, not much, so you you
probably put enough out. Air Rating always helpful, And if
you've got a really heavy clay that's compacted it, you
could airate twice a year for two or three years
if you wanted, just continuing to speed the process of

(01:25:12):
getting organic matter and the soil, getting oxygen in the soil,
stimulating root growth and so on. It's not just a
one and done, so you're not going to over air ate.

Speaker 8 (01:25:22):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
I would avoid air rating during spring green up and
the spring. I probably would avoid air rating as we
get a little too late here and this once we
get pretty well into the fall season, I probably would
avoid it just because the grassroots are not going to
be actively growing after that. They slow down by the
time we get to October, November, they're slowing down a lot.

(01:25:43):
But anyway, yeah, you could, you could do those those things.
Those are all helpful processes. Just compact that it is.

Speaker 9 (01:25:53):
Yeah, so I probably don't need to aerate as much,
but I do need to build that soil up. So
do I do use top soil or I just keep
putting down this compost and letting it, you know, do
his thing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
So so, uh, John, when you're saying build the soil up,
are you talking about raising the level up higher or
what do you mean by that or just improving the
organic content? Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:26:18):
Both in a way. In one certain part of my yard,
you know, like I said, I can see roots from
the from the trees, you know, right up on the
comer level. Yeah, so kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
Right, right, So I would give me a good loamy
soil blend. You're out by Lake Houston, right is that
you're in out that direction? So just up the street
from you and and Porter there is is Airloom Soils
and they sell a lawn blend. So you just call
them up, go to Airlomsoils dot com and and call

(01:26:52):
them up and have them talk to them about their
lawn blends. Very economical, you know, some of the some
of the compost blends and things can get priced from
wherever you're getting them. But the lawn blend is really nice,
and you could I would put on a couple of
inches around over those roots in that area, and then
maybe next year do a couple of inches. Again. I

(01:27:13):
wouldn't do too much at once, but you're bringing the
soil up to the level of the roots, because I
know what's talking about about the roots being sticking out
of the ground and stuff. I would go that route.
It's it's the most economical option for you.

Speaker 12 (01:27:27):
Okay, yeah, all right.

Speaker 9 (01:27:28):
I went there and got my compost, so that place
is great.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Oh good, good, Yeah, they sure do. Hey, i'm past.
I'm past a break here, but thank you. Good luck
with that called anytime, all right, folks, I'll be right
back Saturday. All right, folks, welcome back. Not a Saturday night,
but it is a nice Sunday morning. You looked outside.

(01:27:58):
Looks nice out there.

Speaker 6 (01:28:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
I always tell people you should listen to garden Line
on the iHeartRadio app or whatever app you got that
where you can do that kind of thing. You listen
live on the app and you can listen to past
shows on the app, Like if you heard me say something,
and what was that?

Speaker 8 (01:28:16):
He said?

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
I wish I'd written it down, Go back and listen.
You can listen to the show and do that. But
if you do it, if you do it live on
a radio, I mean on an app, you can do
it on your phone. You could be outside right now,
outside walking around, checking things out, doing a little bit
of watering if needed, taking care of things. If you
see a picture, or see a bug or something you

(01:28:37):
don't take a picture of, just send me a picture
of it. We can talk right here, as I say,
live from your garden line this morning. All right, let's
head out to west and we're going to talk to Charlie.

Speaker 8 (01:28:49):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
Hello Charlie, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:28:54):
Skip. Thank you. I got two questions. One is on
a source for fine green molts. I think you mentioned
a fine green malt is better than coarse.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
Okay, yeah, let me clarify that statement for sure. So
each type of mulch has its benefits. It's pros and cons.
You know, there's not like well this is a good malt,
that's a bad malt. Size the courser the malts, the
longer it lasts, and a lot of people like the
visual look of a chunky multch on the soil. You

(01:29:32):
just have to put it thicker in order to block
the soil, compared to a finer textured mulch, which because
it's finer textured, it's going to block. The light's not gonna,
you know, be able to get through some big old
chunky pieces and hit the soil, and so it's better
for that. But finer textured mulches they decompose faster, and
so you're having to do it more often. So even

(01:29:54):
composts can be used as a mulch. Maltch just means
it's organic matter on top of the se oil. Uh,
but compost isn't gonna it's gonna break down fast. And
so in fact, a weed seed lens and composts. And
now you now you got weeds growing very well in
your mulch because they love compost. So that that's the
clarification on that.

Speaker 8 (01:30:15):
Okay.

Speaker 15 (01:30:18):
The second thing is I seem to have some sort
of little bugs. It's like a moth flying around in
my lariope. Okay, sure, maybe half an inch across fast.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
Okay, Uh, well, there are a lot of moths that
kind of fit that description, uh out there in nature,
and I don't know of any that are pests of lariope,
So I think it's not something to worry about. Excuse me, okay,
pardon me that anyway, So, so I wouldn't sweat it.

(01:30:59):
Uh you know, if it could be uh you know,
like side web worms get in your in your lawn,
but those mass as you walk through your lawn, you're
going to see them flying up out of the out
of the of the lawn. But just something in the loriope.
Who knows it's babies, a caterpillar and a caterpillar eat something.
But I've never seen a loriope pest problem, So I

(01:31:21):
think you're okay, okay, all right, sir, thank you, you
bet appreciate your call. Thanks a lot. Hey, it's storm season.
Storm season means we're going to get one that comes
through and it just recks havoc on our trees. It
just happens almost every year last year twice seriously, and

(01:31:45):
you need to make sure your trees are ready for that.
And you know tree proper tree care starts with planting.
Actually it starts with choosing the tree. But when you plant,
you're going to do some minor training for the first
five years or so, and then you're going to be
doing some pruning as needed here and there, and you
build a good strong structure. Now, maybe you're early in

(01:32:06):
the process. Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoonmore's company can come
out and they can help with that. They can do
what's needed. Maybe it's later and your tree has never
been prune properly, or maybe it was, but it was
five years ago. You need to have somebody to come
out and take a look at them, make sure they
are as storm storm worthy as possible. Okay, the right

(01:32:27):
kind of hurricane will knock anything over, but I say
the right kind the worst kind of hurricane could knock
anything over. But there's a lot we can do to
make our trees more resilient, because you know, when a
tree breaks, Number one, you're losing the most valuable plant
in your landscape. Number Two, there's the damage that can
occur to property and God forbid to people, whether it's

(01:32:50):
you or your neighbor, or your neighbor's fence or your
neighbor's maserati. You don't want to buy them a neo
one of those. You just need to make sure your
trees are as safe as you can make them. Affordable
Tree Service it's who you call. Affordable Tree Service seven
to one three six two six sixty three seven one
three six nine nine two six sixty three. Talk to them.

(01:33:13):
If you're going to do any kind of work around
your trees that affects the soil, for example, trenching, putting
slabs on top of the ground, anything like that, you
need to call them and have them come out. Martin
also does consulting.

Speaker 15 (01:33:27):
UH.

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
He can do the pre construction care necessary to make
sure your tree is damaged as minimally as possible in
the process of any kind of construction around a tree.
I've seen so many cases where by the time someone
shows sends me a picture, or some cases consulting, I'll
go out and look at things, uh, and I'll look

(01:33:48):
and it's like, yep, that's severe damage, and there's very
little we can do right now to fix it because
of the damage that was already done. But boy, could
we ever have prevented it anyway? That's what I'm talking about.
Affordable Tree Service seven one three six ninety nine two
six six three. If it's been more than two years
since someone's come out to your place. It's time for

(01:34:09):
another visit. Cal Martin. You were listening to guarden Line.
We're here to help you have a bountiful garden. Help
you have a beautiful garden and landscape. And uh, if
you'd like to give me a call seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Let's talk about

(01:34:30):
the things that interest you. I talk about Southwest Fertilizer
all the time because I'm just I'm sold on the place.
I'm telling you this and that, you know, way before
I became a garden Line host, way before, years before. Uh,
there was a time, many years ago I was a
county horticulturist here in Harris County with Texas A and

(01:34:51):
m Agrolife Extension. I would go to Southwest Fertilizer to
get stuff because that is the place where you're going
to find everything you need. And they do such a
good job there.

Speaker 3 (01:35:01):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
The way I would refer to them is Southwest Fertilizer
is all about old fashioned service. They're all about accurate,
free advice, and they're all about quality products. And that's
how you get to the bottom of stuff and that's
how you solve problems, and that's how you prevent problems.
We're going into the fall fertilization season here, and you

(01:35:23):
hear me talk about all these different fertilizers and that
fertilizer and Nelson's and nitrofoss and Microlife and Medina, all
the products from Medina and azomite and stuff. They're all
it's south Ast fertilizer and then some it's the place
to go and it just takes care of care of
everything you have. And you know, when you go, you

(01:35:44):
can always buy things for the next season you have.
You I mean, you don't have to you have to
wait until it's a day to put fertilizer out of course,
to buy it and go ahead and get stocked up,
get ready to go for the things you have. We
are nowhere near Christmas time, although I heard a commercial
that was a Christmas based commercial earlier today on the show.

(01:36:04):
It's like, what Christmas comes too soon every year? Anyway? Well, uh,
when it comes time for shopping, maybe it's a gift,
maybe it is a birthday, father's day, Mother's day. Just
because I like you, Yes, there, if you've got a
gardener in your list, I'm telling you go buy and
check out the tools and things that they have there.

(01:36:27):
Every gardener likes tools, you know, just like ever do
it yourself for you never can get enough tools. Southwiest
Fertilizer's gotch covered corner Businett and Runwick Southwest Fertilizer dot Com.
Here's a phone number seven one three six sixty six
one seven four to four. I've got some open lines
now if you would like to give me a call.
We're gonna take a break right now, and when I
come back, you be the one I'm talking to. Seven

(01:36:49):
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. We'll
be right back with more of garden Line in just
a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
Old Range ran your dormails around with Jim.

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
Alrighty, folks, we're back. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good have
you with us? What kind of gardening questions you got today?
Let's dive in and let us help you with that.
I would like that very much. We're gonna go straight
out to the phones this segment and talk to Greg
and Katie. Hello, Greg, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:37:24):
Good morning, Skip, How are you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
Good? Thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:37:29):
I fogn a picture of a weed. I'm not sure
what it is and how to get rid of it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
Okay, let me see if I can take a look
at it. Okay, here just one second. Where's where is
it growing? And what have you tried already?

Speaker 8 (01:37:48):
Different things? Can't tell you a brand, but I've tried
a few different types of weed killers, but it hasn't
done any good.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
Okay, that is called Yeah, I was gonna say, that's
called dovewed. Doveweed. It's a real almost it almost has
a rubbery waxy look to it, with that kind of
a stiffness to the to the leaves and the shine.
It's kind of difficult to control. In fact, it's very

(01:38:19):
difficult to control. It likes moist areas, So the more
you keep an area moist, the more doveweed you're going
to have. That's that's step one. So don't over water
that's within your power. You can't control the rain, but
you can't control overwater. If you got poor drainage in
an area, it's going to tend to be worse there.
So sometimes fixing drainage can help. Probably the best product

(01:38:40):
for controlling it is celsius. You want to make sure
and have a spreader sticker that is put in your sprays.
Because of doveweed's slick surface, you don't want the droplets
to run off. You want them to spread out and
stick to the leaf so more of the product gets
in that weed. So Celsius along with a spruder sticker

(01:39:03):
is going to be your best bet. It's is it
in the morning when it's not as hot as it gets.
But Celsius is more forgiving in terms of not hurting
your grass when it's above ninety like a lot of
the products.

Speaker 8 (01:39:14):
Will I appreciate it, I'll try that, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Yeah. Another thing for future years, I would try a
There is a particular pre emergent for for broad leaf
weeds specifically, it's not going to control grassy weeds at all,
and that's it's called gallery Gallery. And since dove weed
is re sprouting, you know from the seeds, it's a

(01:39:43):
it's a late sprouter. It's not it's not like crabgrass
and things. The temperatures needs to get up to oh
about seventy degrees before dove weeds sprout. So I would
probably in very early march. Let me see where you're
located kitty, Yeah, and very early March. I would probably
put out a gallery application of water it in and
see if that cuts it down next year, so you're

(01:40:05):
not having to post emerge and spray it as much.

Speaker 15 (01:40:09):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 12 (01:40:11):
Can I ask you one more question.

Speaker 8 (01:40:13):
I have a bunch of citrus threes and they have
leaf miners and a lot of the leaves, a lot
of the leafs. Can I pull a lot of them off?
Or do I wait until it's colder to pull them off?
Or do I leave them on?

Speaker 2 (01:40:27):
You leave them on? And I did a little video
clip for our Facebook Gardenline facebook page on citrus leaf
minor just this last week. But here's the deal. Those
leaves that are affected by leaf miner, they still are
green and they still have some photosynthesizing ability. Okay, So
to take them off means you're at a time when

(01:40:49):
the plant needs more energy to grow more. You're removing
its food factory. So I would leave them. I would
spray them. Anytime you get a flush and new growth,
now spray it with one of two ingredients, not both
one or the other. One of them is spinosaid. It's
like the word spin, the letter O and the word sad.

(01:41:11):
The other one is ASA directin and it's it's a
type of name. Not all names have the ingredient as
a directin summer name oil. This is as a directin AZA.
If it just starts with AZA, you got the right product.

Speaker 5 (01:41:30):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
And you want to spray the new fleshes of growth
early on, because these citrus leaf miners will hit them
before they're even a half inch long. I mean, they
really get into them early. So I would do that.
Don't prune them out because that just creates more fresh
new growth that is gonna get hit by leaf minor.
So anytime you see growth, spray it. Spray it with

(01:41:52):
ASA directin or spinosid products.

Speaker 8 (01:41:56):
Okay. Is it okay to pull them off like in
February or January?

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
Oh you could if you want, but the plants just
can out grow them and they're going to get dropped
off in time anyway. So it's up to you if
you either way you want to do it.

Speaker 8 (01:42:12):
Okay, I appreciate it, Thank you, you bet, you bet?

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
All right? Take care, all right, folks, you are listening
to Guardline. Here's a number seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two k t R H. Let's talk about the things
that are most of interest to you. I I was
visiting with someone the other day about some flowers for

(01:42:40):
the season, and they were talking to me about you
know what grows and blooms well in the in the heat,
and one of the things that blooms well in the
heat is angelonia. We've been growing angelonia all year, but uh,
angelonia kind of hits a point sometimes in the season,
especially if you're not really caring for it super well,
where it just sort of blooms out. You got these

(01:43:02):
old bloomstalks left, but it's not doing much. Don't be
afraid to cut them back. Cut them back now, fertilize them,
water them, and let them give them a boost to
bring them back. There are a lot of plants that
we can do that with and a lot of times
what our plants need Sylvia Greggy I Greg sage, great plant,
awesome plant. But occasionally I do this. Of course, you

(01:43:22):
pun them at the end of winter. I will print
them again early summer, fertilize them and water them, just
shear them back, not a heavy printing, just a shearing back.
And then at the end of August, which guess what,
that's where we are. Shear them back, fertilize them, water them,
and you get fresh new growth and you will have
a nice little bloom show in the fall. Something just
to think about. Also, hummingbirds are here. Need to do

(01:43:46):
something to keep them at your house. I looked out
one day and saw a hummingbird and it's like, oh
my gosh, I don't have my feeders out yet. So
I put them out and now I got two hummingbirds
hanging out there. I get mine from all Birds Unlimited.
That's the best place to get anything need for birds.
Wild Birds Unlimited because they have quality products. I like
the hype perch hummingbird feeder. It's one they carry. You

(01:44:08):
can see the birds better with it, and they love it.
They come to mind all the time. Now there's six
Wildbirds Unlimited stores. There's one in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive,
one in Pairland on Broadway, two of them in Houston,
one on bel Air, one on a Memorial Drive. If
you go down to Clear Lake, you're gonna find one
on El Dorado Boulevard. It's a great store down there.
And up in Cypress on Barker Cypress. Another wild Bird's

(01:44:30):
Unlimited store. They have everything you need for bird housing,
for bird feeding, bird baths, you name it. Now. If
you are going to try to bring the hummingbirds in,
you need to get a bottle of the wild Birds
Unlimited Nectar Defender. What that means is it keeps sugar
water from going bad so fast. Sugar water goes bad

(01:44:51):
in just a few days, it's time to clean out
your feeders, put fresh on because it gets nasty. With
nectar defender, you can go sell into ten days easy
on keeping that nectar fresh. And it's so worth it
because you know how it is. You get busy, you
forget to go back out and do things. Nectar Defender
gravel bots not expensive, but boy does it ever help

(01:45:13):
from wild Birds Unlimited. Take a break here, we'll be
right back with your questions. All right, folks, we're back.
Welcome to Regardline. Hey, if you are looking to make
sure that what you're growing is happy, you need to

(01:45:34):
know about all the microlife products. There are so many
good products by microlife. When it comes to a lawn,
you know, all summer long, we've been feeding them the
six two four, the green bag, the standard number one
organic sell number one selling organic fertilizer in the Houston area.
It works, it's good stuff. I've also been telling you

(01:45:55):
about hum mates plus that's the purple bag. Hu mats
plus is concentrated composting a That's the simplest way to
say it, because think about this. You get a big
poll of leaves, that's molts, that's organic matter. You decompose
them and they become compost. You decompose the composts and
it becomes humous. That's why microlife humans plus is referred

(01:46:17):
to as concentrated compost in a bag. You put it out.
Every time that you put it out, you're adding the
kinds of things that nature adds over time, over a
very long time to the soil. Microbes do better. Nutrient
exchange is better when you have humus and the soil,

(01:46:37):
and it improves the soil structure as well. Even there's
a lot of benefits to humus and it's just done
over time. It's you don't put it on to make
your long green like you know, you put it on
nitrogen boom and it greens and growth. No, you're putting
it on for long term soil building, which is what
the organic system is all about. Building the soil so
that roots thrive, so that plants thrive. And that's how

(01:47:00):
it works for Microlife. You know, Microlife has a lot.
We're gonna be talking about their fall fertilizer here before long.
There's a great fertilizer coming up for fall. If you
haven't fertilized a little while, I'd put the sixty four
out right now and some humans plus I would do that,
and that'll carry us all the way up until it's
time to put out our fall fertilization for going into
the winter season. So Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out

(01:47:23):
where to get it. It's all over. It's easy to
find feed stores, hardware stores, home and garden, the home
and garden stores, you know, the typical mom and pop
independent garden centers. That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:47:36):
They have.

Speaker 2 (01:47:38):
I don't know, it's hard to walk into one that
doesn't sell Microlife products because they work and the customers
love them because they've been proven. So there you go.
I in my own lawn and garden, I discovered the
other day nematodes in a new bed. I know. I
was broken heart and actually it was in my wife's bed.

(01:47:59):
We had a nice mix of soil in a raised
garden bed, one of the metal garden beds that you see,
and everything was fine. And the other day there was
a tomato plant that had kind of gone downhill and
we were going to plant something else there, so I
pulled it up and oh, my gosh, I'll have to
show I need to post a picture of it. Is
one of the worst cases and nematodes I've ever seen.

(01:48:21):
I mean, they were everwhere on it. Now, where did
they come from? Well, there's one of two things in
this case as to where they came from, because this
was a nice bed mix. Actually, well, let me take
that back. It was a bed mix, not necessarily a
nice one. We had access to some soil that had

(01:48:42):
been It was a mix of soil and composts and
things like that, and we put them in the beds,
and I'm not really sure where all that soil came from,
to be honest. Sometimes sand is excavated to make a
bed mix, and the sand may have nematodes in it,
and if it does, when you bring in the mix,
you bring in the problem. And that's why it is

(01:49:04):
so important to get your mixes from a place that
knows what they're doing. That's very important to do that,
and I think there's a good chance that that's where
the soil in this bed came from. So now I'm
looking at excavating the whole bed out, getting rid of
the soil, because listen, nematodes or a pain in the neck,
I don't want to deal with them, and getting it
all out of there, getting rid of it, and then

(01:49:28):
bringing in fresh new nematode free soil to refill the
bed and to make sure I don't have that problem.
It's also possible they came in with the plant. Sometimes
plants are grown also in a soil with a sand
base in it. Not often, but it can be, and
you could have nematods. And I am not beyond it's
not beyond me to reach in pull a plant out

(01:49:51):
of a pot at a garden center and look at
those roots and if you see little knots on the
roots on the outside, these nematods. Don't do that. Don't
buy it, leave it, go, get you do something else. Now,
that is how common?

Speaker 8 (01:50:02):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (01:50:02):
Not very common? But a lot of people buy plants
from not so reputable places and it happens. I've seen
it happen. So I don't know where my nematodes came from,
but I know what I'm going to do to fix them,
and that's get rid of it. And that's a nice
thing about a raised bed like that, is I can
just excavate it all out, get rid of it, and
be done with it. Now, what are you going to
do in its place? Well, I would put a quality

(01:50:24):
soil mix from Nature's Way. Nature's Way has been making
soil for a very long time. John Ferguson, who founded
Nature's Way years ago, was committed to doing things the
way nature does them. And the way nature does them
is you put organic matter on the soil year after
year and you get it better and better. So John
takes all kinds of things, he experiments. He comes up

(01:50:48):
with all these different soil blends, you know, the rose soil,
the leaf mol compost, the vegetable soils. The Nature's Way
Resources has been an expert at that for a very
long time. The Sunny End now runs a place and
has the same standard of quality, quality products made right
so that you can have success and Nature's Way resources

(01:51:09):
without a doubt, I would suggest that you consider them
as a dependable source for everything you're looking for, no
matter what it is. You may be growing fruit trees,
you may be growing cacti in succulents, whatever it is,
Nature's Way's got a blend for you. They're on the
north up Interstate forty five north where fourteen eighty eight

(01:51:30):
comes into Interstate forty five. You turn right, go back
into Sherwood Sherbrooke Circle there and that's where Nature's Way is.
Go to their website. It's a nice new website, looks
good and you'll find everything you need to know. Nature's
Way Resources dot Com. Check out also for their big
shindig this October. I'll be there for that and I'm
really looking forward to getting up there. Maybe that's my

(01:51:52):
good chance to while i'm there orchase some good quality
materials for my own yard. Or two months since I've
been out there, I need to get back out. All right, Well,
we are nearing the end of the uh hour here.
We got one more hour in us and we'll be
coming back to talk about all kinds of things that
are of interest to you, and that'd be a good

(01:52:12):
time to call. Got one last hour in the books
are coming up rather, so give us a call if
you are looking for anything to keep things going in
the house from you know, electrical repairs, plumbing repairs. If
you're looking for you know, the air filters. You know
you're supposed to change those out every month. ACE Hardware

(01:52:33):
Stores got you covered. It is a state and it
is a standard hardware store, but it's way more. You know,
my grandpa and Dad's hardware stores, they were great, they
were awesome. Love going into those. But with Ace Hardware,
you get all that, plus you get more. You get
a hardware store that has things that you didn't even
know were in a hardware store. Because Ace has taken

(01:52:57):
hardware and taking it way beyond to indoor and outdoor living.
Indoor and outdoor living at your local Ace Hardware store.
Everything from tools and supplies to barbecues and patios and
lawns and flower beds and you name it is available
at your local Ace Hardware store. And if you go
to ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Acehardware Texas dot com,

(01:53:18):
you'll find all my hardware stores in the Greater Houston area.
ACE Hardware Texas dot com places like all Star Sprint
in Spring on Rayford Road, Deer Park, Ace on Center Street,
Cypress Ace on Jones Road, Sinko Ranch Ace on South Mason,
and Katie Patco Ace on West Willis and Alvin. Maybe
you're north east. Well, there's a K and M and

(01:53:39):
a Taska seta on Timber Forest, and there's also a
K and N by the way on Kingwood Drive. Simple
as that Ace hardware. All right, there's the music. Don't
put this one in the books. Grab me one more
cup of coffee this morning. Kind of a slow start
for me. I stayed up last night, had to watch

(01:53:59):
the game. Part of the deal. I used to visit
with Randy about aggies. We we had that in common,
among other things. He and I both went to school
together there by the way, live in the same dorm,
by the way, that saying now sure do, mister Rason.
He was great, good friend.

Speaker 8 (01:54:19):
Boy?

Speaker 2 (01:54:19):
Did he ever really changed the horticulture world in Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:54:25):
Welcome to Katie r h garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 2 (01:54:29):
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:54:36):
Trim you just watched him as wos.

Speaker 4 (01:54:44):
So many good things to see.

Speaker 2 (01:54:53):
Again A sorry ga. Good morning, gardeners. You're listening to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here
to help you. Have a beautiful garden, a bountiful garden,
a beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. That's

(01:55:17):
what we're after, that's what we would like to see happened.
I was talking with some folks at Houston Powder Coats
a while back, and you probably, in fact, you probably
heard the show. I had guests on this summer a
number of times, and I just like to pick their
brains on stuff. And I learned so much about powder coating.

(01:55:38):
You know, you think, well, what's the difference in powder
coating and painting. Well, in a sense, powder coating is
a form of painting, but it's very different. They put
an electrical charge on the metal and they it's like
a paint dust in the air that sticks to the metal,
so it gets in all the nooks and crannies. It's
not like with a brush where you know the paint
is running or even spray. When I spray paint, I

(01:56:00):
end up getting runs down the sides of what I'm
painting and everything. Now, this works really well. It makes
a nice thick coating that protects well. They have powder
coatings that can even deal with that harsh salt water
environment that you guys down to our Galveston direction are
dealing with all the time. That is some metal eating stuff, right,
and so powder coating is a way to protect that metal. Now,

(01:56:23):
maybe you got furniture in the backyard, nice metal furniture.
That stuff's not cheap. Why not make it like new
with powder coating. Maybe you have a barbercue pit starting
to rust and it's your prize pit. You know those
aren't cheap either. Believe me, powder coating can do that.
They can do over one hundred colors at Houston powder Coats.
They serve the whole region. You hear my voice, They

(01:56:45):
serve your area. And they'll come pick up furniture, they'll
take it back, do the work they need from top
to bottom. I mean not just painting it. But I'm
talking about getting rid of the rust. I'm putting a
new stainless to hardware. I'm talking about putting in new vinyls, slings,
new plastic caps on the feet for those tubular types
of patio furniture we have, whether it's cast iron, whether

(01:57:07):
it's rot on, whether it's aluminum, whether it's furniture, whether
it's barbecue pits, where artwork on the walls, metal artwork
on the walls, or even things like post porch railing
excuse me, thank you, porch railing metal, whether it is
a like maybe a gas lamp out in the yard.

(01:57:27):
You know, there's a lot of people still have those
old metal gas loot posts in the yard. Whatever you got,
if it's metal, if it'll hold still or if not,
they'll make it host still and they'll code it and
it'll be like new. So give them a call two
eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight two
eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight or
Houston Powder Coders dot com. It's head out now to

(01:57:51):
Brazoria and we're going to visit with Ralph this morning.

Speaker 12 (01:57:53):
Hello Ralph, good morning.

Speaker 17 (01:57:56):
Have a follow up on your question, the fellow's question
about the the Bird of Paradise. Yes, and I for
several years now, I've been using a product called b
R sixty one b R six one. It's a nine
to fifty eight eight fertilizer.

Speaker 2 (01:58:14):
Yes, almost all phosphors. Uh huh.

Speaker 16 (01:58:19):
It does an excellent job.

Speaker 2 (01:58:23):
Well good, yeah, yeah, a good high phosphorus product will
definitely h get those Bird of Paradise is a little
more interested in doing some blooming but thank you. How
big is your plant?

Speaker 17 (01:58:37):
Well, there's kin of there's two clumps of them. I
wouldn't call them one plant.

Speaker 2 (01:58:42):
Maybe one of.

Speaker 17 (01:58:43):
Them was five feet wide and the other one was
maybe four feet wide, and they growed about four four
and a half feet. And now they are on the
outside of my house, but they don't have hardly any
shade on them. And then I pout be on the
south side one to protect them from freezing.

Speaker 5 (01:59:00):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:59:02):
It's a lot easier that way.

Speaker 15 (01:59:03):
So anyway, I just want to.

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
Thank you, Ralph, appreciate that call. You take care. Uh
let's say here, we're going to go to George in
Jersey Village. Now, Hey, George, welcome to garden line.

Speaker 8 (01:59:18):
There skip.

Speaker 2 (01:59:20):
I am, yes, uh.

Speaker 8 (01:59:21):
Huh oh hi, good morning, good morning. I got a
question about blueberries. I I planted some last summer, I
think it was. I planted four plants and two each
of two of one brand and two of another brand,
whatever that means. And then so during the freeze and

(01:59:44):
they got pretty tall, they got about three fourth feet tall,
and then during the freeze, three of them got frozen
and died, so I I pulled them out. So do
I need to put some on and I understand blueberries
got this scene where you've got they got to self
pollenize or self fertilize each other or something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:00:00):
Okay, so go ahead every season. So what you need
is you need two varieties. Now, a single blueberry variety
will produce some berries, but the berries will be bigger
and there'll be more of them if you have two varieties,
so the two bushes can cross pollinate. They do better
that way. So we get two varieties. You probably had

(02:00:23):
Southern high bush in your first batch. Southern high bush
are good, they're big berries.

Speaker 8 (02:00:28):
They have.

Speaker 2 (02:00:28):
Every type has its own pros and cons. But just
make sure when you buy blueberries that you get varieties
of the same type. Like get two or more rabbit
eye varieties, or two or more Southern high bush varieties.
Don't like put a rabbit eye with a Southern high bush.
It's better to keep within the same. You can have

(02:00:51):
both types, but you just need to have at least
two of each each type you have.

Speaker 18 (02:00:57):
Okay, I think, all right, yeah, all right, thank you
appreciate your call.

Speaker 2 (02:01:05):
Thanks a lot. Let's see here, bye bye. We are
going to go now to Conroe and talk to Jimmy.
Hello Jimmy, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (02:01:16):
Thank you, Skip.

Speaker 5 (02:01:18):
I sent you some pictures of a Mexican plum tree.
The lee's are kind of yellow, drying up, and yeah,
it looks like they're getting ready to fall off. Didn't
like that for about a month.

Speaker 2 (02:01:32):
Jimmy. When did you send these?

Speaker 5 (02:01:35):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (02:01:36):
Probably about three or four minutes ago.

Speaker 2 (02:01:39):
Oh, okay, I don't have them. I tell you what
I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put you on hold and
have my producer make sure you have the right email address,
and I'll come back to you if we can find
those pictures, or you may have to resend them for me.
Let's go now to I tell you what. We gotta
take a little break. Let me take a quick break here.
When we come back, Ray and Porter and Kenny and
Rosenberg gonna be our first two up. All right, welcome back.

(02:02:03):
This is Skip, folks.

Speaker 17 (02:02:04):
We are here.

Speaker 2 (02:02:05):
Let's our gardening. What's your question? We're gonna go out
and start answering questions right now, head out to Porter.
First thing here, and we're going to talk to Ray
this morning. Hello, Ray, welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 19 (02:02:18):
Hi, Skip, I talked to you yesterday about my trimming
of jardinia and lower pedal, and then you've addressed the
laura pedaling then and ran out of the time to
uh okay for the guardina, it's about four foot tall

(02:02:40):
already and it's still blooming. So I don't think, well,
I want your advice.

Speaker 2 (02:02:49):
Yeah, I would, uh, you know, I would wait. Uh,
So there's no there's no rush to do it's it's
a little bit of a stressful time. I mean, you technical,
you can print a plant pretty much any time of
the year, but the there's times the year when it's
good not to do it as much. Typically with a guardina,

(02:03:09):
you know you're going to have typically you have a
good summer bloom period and then the flowers start to
fade there. If you can if you can do a
little bit of pruning, then it's good. But you don't
want to cut too much. Then maybe about a fourth
at the most at that time, because what happens is
they they go through cycles where they're setting bud and

(02:03:30):
then where they're blooming and so on. So, uh, my
my preference on pruning the guardenas is right to do
a little bit right after they finished pruning. They don't
need a lot of pruning. Maybe you're trying to keep
the bush a little smaller, maybe you're trying to remove
some of the you know, gangly hairs sticking out to
the side and make it more compact. But but right

(02:03:52):
after they bloom is probably the best time.

Speaker 13 (02:03:55):
All right, Well, thanks thanks for your advice.

Speaker 2 (02:04:00):
Yeah yeah, sure, all right, thank you very much. Appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (02:04:04):
Ry.

Speaker 2 (02:04:05):
You take care of you as well. We're going to
go to Kenny now in Rosenberg. Hey, Kenny, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 8 (02:04:12):
Thank you.

Speaker 18 (02:04:13):
Hey, Skip, Hey, I got a question about fall aster.

Speaker 12 (02:04:17):
Several weeks ago.

Speaker 18 (02:04:18):
You mentioned a fall blooming plant that just kept blooming
off fall and I've got a dead spot, not a
dead spot, spot that was dug up to dig it
a home under my house the line. So I need
to replace it with something that will give me collor quick.

Speaker 2 (02:04:34):
Okay, Well, fall aster is once a year. It's at
the end of summer, especially in the fall, is when
it does its show. The rest of the year, it's
just kind of a nuts just a green bush, just
a green, kind of low growing shrub. I mean, you
can prone it, just keep it a little lower or
let it get a little bigger. Typically, I think a
fall Asters is being I don't know, somewhere between knee

(02:04:57):
and pocket high when they're prune just a little bit,
but they need full sign in order to bloom their.

Speaker 18 (02:05:04):
Best quick the Okay, the issue I'm having is I'm
not worried about you know, later on I can add
color that will grow up and look good in the spring.
I just want something to go now. And when I
went to in Chanted Forest, I think it was for
gardens to one another. Anyhow, Astor was kind of a
broad name and we couldn't figure out what plant you

(02:05:26):
were talking about.

Speaker 2 (02:05:31):
Well, okay, there are different asters out there, but the
standard kind of a native type astor fall aster southwestern
type plant. Uh oh gosh, Symphio trickum, I believe. Let
me let me check that it's s y M p

(02:05:51):
h io. Let me let me see. If you do
a Google search for fall Aster and then Texas. If
you put those words in fall astor Texas native, you're
going to find the one you're looking for, and it
is Symphio trickum oblongufolium. That's a fancy name, but just
go to Google. Wherever you search fall astro text is

(02:06:14):
native and that's the one. And it's got purple little
flowers and again lots of sun, needs sun to bloom. Well,
but it is. I think it's a well behaved flower.
It attracts beneficial insects, especially surfed flies hoverflies, which are
beneficial to the garden. And it's just really pretty as

(02:06:35):
a fall show.

Speaker 9 (02:06:37):
All right, I'll go get it.

Speaker 2 (02:06:39):
Thank you, all right, thank you? You take care. Alrighty folks.
Let's see. Well, let's just do another phone call. Here
we're cleaning up the boards here, Ross and Galveston. Hey, Ross,
how can we help today?

Speaker 6 (02:06:56):
I've got about ten or twelve pomeriums and great big pots.
About a month ago they were just they were just
so beautiful and blooming and full of pull of booms.
And I've fed them every every couple of weeks. I
feed them with the fishy moulton. They say to be
doing good, but lately I don't hope.

Speaker 13 (02:07:14):
It's so hot at what.

Speaker 6 (02:07:14):
I leave them quite a few leaves, and some of
them are kind of turning yellow. And my balloons are
about half what they were before.

Speaker 8 (02:07:21):
I don't know, it's just so hot. What's going on
with them?

Speaker 2 (02:07:26):
Wow? Plumerius can put up with some heat. I plumerias are.
They're an interesting plant. I think of them as kind
of like in between a succulent and a and a
other regular type of plant, in that they store a
lot of moisture in their stems, their branches, their trunks
and so on. Uh, and so they are they are

(02:07:48):
you know, you can pull on those things up, shake
the dirt off, hang it upside down in the garage
over winter, and put it back in the ground, and
it takes off again in the spring.

Speaker 9 (02:07:57):
So there.

Speaker 2 (02:07:57):
They are a pretty resilient plant in terms of going
through dry periods, but they don't like being kept too wet,
and if they go dry, they are going to start
to drop leaves and go into kind of a dormancy.
So either extreme of soul moisture can have an effect
on that. Those would be two of the things that

(02:08:19):
I might be looking at first in what you're describing.

Speaker 8 (02:08:25):
They maybe obile watering.

Speaker 2 (02:08:28):
Well, it's possible there you start to get a decay,
a root rot and decay, and that can take the
whole plant out well, or at least come close to it,
depending on how bad the root rot is.

Speaker 8 (02:08:42):
Well.

Speaker 6 (02:08:42):
I don't think they're that bad, but just in the
billiams are about half what they were a month ago.

Speaker 2 (02:08:48):
Yeah. Well, and some of that could just be you
know the nature of the beast. You said you're using
fish emulsion. Plumerea is like a very high phosphorus fertilizer.

Speaker 5 (02:09:01):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:09:01):
And so I might grab some plumeria food plumeria fertilizer
and use that on them and see if that helps
out a little bit in terms of keeping them productive.
It's got a little nitrogen in it, but it's got
the phosphorus too, and the fisial mulsion. It's a good product,
there's no question, but the phosphorus level is not as

(02:09:22):
high and official mulsion so good. Just a thought there. Yeah,
Nelson makes up plumeria food a Nelson plant food comes
in jars, and it would be just fine for fertilizing
your your plumerias.

Speaker 8 (02:09:35):
Okay, thank he, I appreciate it, Yes, sir, thank.

Speaker 2 (02:09:39):
You appreciate your call. All right here, well, let's go
back to the phones now and talk to Jimmy and conro. Hey, Jimmy,
welcome to Gardener.

Speaker 5 (02:09:48):
How you doing here? Thank you so much. I'll tak
you some pictures of a Mexican plumb tree.

Speaker 8 (02:09:56):
Lease, you're kind of you Okay, Jimmy, we're dying.

Speaker 2 (02:10:00):
Okay, we're gonna have to go without the photo. I
still haven't gotten those. I don't know why that they're
not coming through. Yeah, but that's okay. Mexican plum leaves
turning yellow sounds like a sow moisture issue. That's my
first the first thing I look at. Dry soil stresses

(02:10:21):
a plant, whether it's a peach tree or a native
Mexican plum. You're gonna see yellowing and drop of older leaves,
kind of just a little bit of a wilting to
it as well. Soggy soil conditions are also very bad
for them. So if you've got an irrigation leak, or
if you run the water too much, or if it's
a low area and you get some rain and the

(02:10:42):
water stands, those are all bad for any of the
stone fruit. Stone fruit means there's a pit inside, and
that would include apricots and peaches and plums and native
plums like Mexican plum. They don't like wet feet at all.
So there's that. Then there's the possibility of either a
canker in the bark tissues, a disease of the bark

(02:11:04):
tissues underneath the outer bark, or a borer chewing through them,
and both of those prevent water and nutrients from moving
up and down through the plant and can give you
similar symptoms to not having enough water. So check for sawdust,
Check for sap along the trunk, globs of sap along

(02:11:25):
the trunk. Check for sawdust kind of at the base
or falling down the trunk, catching in the bark, and
that would be the next thing that I would look for.
It that is a little less likely than the soul moisture,
but that's that's my best shot at it, based on
the information you've given me.

Speaker 6 (02:11:41):
There.

Speaker 8 (02:11:43):
Well, thank you and I have a great day, all right.

Speaker 2 (02:11:46):
Well, thank you. I appreciate your call very much. You
as well. Well, there's little Floria calls there. We got
all cleaned up, so if you like, if you got
a question, you'd like to visit about seven one three
two one two key t R seven one three two
one two kt rh ninetro five Sweet Green is a
product that is an immediate release high nitrogen fertilizer. When

(02:12:10):
I say high nitrogen, I mean it's mostly nitrogen. The
first number is eleven. That's eleven percent nitrogen and sweet green.
You put it down, you water it in, microbes, go nuts,
they get a hold of those carbon chains, which they love.
They break it down and you see a green up
that is pretty quick on your lawn. Sweet green would
be a good holdover to apply now to carry your

(02:12:33):
lawn up until our late September early October fertilization. For
most of the listening area, it's going to be early
October that you're going to be putting down your fertilizers
early to mid October, and so sweet green is a
good one to carry over. You're going to find nitrophive
sweet green at many different places. For example, down in
Alvin Stanton's Shopping Center go to Plants for All Seasons

(02:12:57):
two forty nine, just north of Lueta on Tumboll Parkway.
Katie As Hardware on Penoak a good place to find
night FoST products, as is Court Hardware on South Maine
in Stafford. Sweet Green good good product. I love the
smell of it too. By the way, you will too.
I joke and say that when you put a bag
of sweet Green in your car, you're going to want

(02:13:18):
to make an extra trip around Loop six' ten on
the way, home just to enjoy the. Fragrance maybe that's
atle bit of an over, cell but it does smell that,
good that's for. Sure that's for. SURE i was out
visiting With ralph At Nelson nursery And Water gardens this past,
week AND i always love going out. There first of,

(02:13:38):
All Nelson nursery And Water. Gardens it's one of a.
Kind it really. Is fish, fountains, plants and. Pots just
the sound of water is so. Therapeutic and you get
that out there At Nelson Water. Gardens if you've got little,
kiddos take them with, you because they. Have if you,

(02:13:58):
ask they'll give you a little bit of there's a
little handful of fish food and you can go out
and feed the koi in the back. Pond AND i
mean the kids literally can reach down and drop a
chunk OF i don't know if it's purina fish shower or,
not but it's something like that into the koi's, mouth
big old. Mouth they come up out of the water and.
That kids will love, that and you will. Too it'll

(02:14:20):
be a lot of. Fun take your friends with. You
they have direct imported handcrafted garden pots from around the.
WORLD i was walking through The ralph the other day, saying,
man you guys have good, pots because everywhere you, look
it's just these gorgeous pots That i've never seen one
like that. Before and then they created they designed this
thing that is the disappearing. Fountain you, know water runs

(02:14:43):
out of the top of the pot and it looks
like it's going in the, soil but it's really. Recirculating
nothing invented. That and they can sell you, One they
can set one up for, you or they can sell
the parts and you go home set it up. Yourself
however you want to go about. It one of a kind,
pots you're only gonna find It nelson out. There and
then the nursery, itself so many good quality. Plants you,

(02:15:06):
know every TIME i go, There i'm amazed BECAUSE i
think of them about the water garden part all the,
time because they they're famous. For they're really across the.
Country people Know nelson water. Gardens they are famous for.
That but oh my, gosh the plants so. Amazing oh
by the, WAY i should mention this starting in, fact

(02:15:26):
it has already. Started it started done on the twenty
ninth and it goes through. Tomorrow is The Labor day
sale on fifty percent off all bird. Baths these are
quality bird, baths not just. Junk they're really quality bird.
Bass fifty percent off all self contained. FOUNTAINS i was
just talking about that the water circulates that are five

(02:15:48):
hundred dollars in Under all, right if you want to
make your garden a haven for birds and so now
you don't just enjoy the water, sound you enjoy the
sound of the birds. Themselves don't. Delay it's all only
through Tomorrow, monday the first fifty off our bird. Beast
fifty percent off of self contained fountains under five hundred.
Dollars there you, Go we'll be right. Back all, right,

(02:16:13):
folks here we. Go welcome back to Garden. Line let's
head out to Oak Ridge north and talk To. Ken, Hey,
ken welcome to Garden.

Speaker 8 (02:16:23):
Line, yes, sir what do you recommend for doveoid?

Speaker 2 (02:16:27):
TREATMENT i would use celsius at this time of year
because it is not as hard on Your Saint augustine
lawn in the. Heat do it in the morning, still
But celsius is probably your best. Bet, now if you've
just got a few little spots of dove, weed there
is a product that's basically made out of. Cinnamon and

(02:16:49):
if if you wet the doveweed and then sprinkle it on,
IT i mean it fries it quick and does a
good job of. That people that don't want to use
a synthetic chemical, Product but if you got very much of,
it it's cost prebitive to sprinkle the cinnamon every.

Speaker 13 (02:17:02):
Work, Yeah i've got.

Speaker 8 (02:17:04):
BOTH i don't have.

Speaker 10 (02:17:05):
This i've got The centnomon.

Speaker 13 (02:17:08):
Crab grass.

Speaker 2 (02:17:09):
Killer, yeah it'll do a pretty good job on on
melting dove, weed but the dove weeed has to be
wet so it sticks to. IT i would use The
celsius as a little bit better. APPROACH i.

Speaker 13 (02:17:20):
Think, Yeah i've got a pretty good size area of,
it SO i NEED.

Speaker 10 (02:17:26):
I need to sell.

Speaker 8 (02:17:27):
SIUs, OKAY i appreciate.

Speaker 2 (02:17:29):
It all, right all, Right, ken thanks a. LOT i
appreciate your. Call let's go To Jersey village now and
talk To. Debbie, Hey, debbie welcome to Garden.

Speaker 10 (02:17:37):
Line, Hi, hi thank. YOU i have some property and
waller AND i Have i'm lower the. TRACKER i have
so many tallow. Trees i'm going to get chainsaws And
i'm going to cut. Them and how DO i kill.

Speaker 8 (02:17:52):
THEM i hate.

Speaker 2 (02:17:53):
Them, yes Well i'm glad you AS i.

Speaker 10 (02:17:57):
Have l you, know, anyway go, Ahead i'm, sorry.

Speaker 2 (02:18:00):
Yep so what you need to do is get you
a product that contains do you have a pin or
pencil handy by the, Way, yeah, Okay i'm gonna give
you a product name in just one. Second and what
you're gonna do is the product will be. Sold it'll
be sold under names like poison, ivy, killer brush, killer

(02:18:22):
things like. That but it's. Triclop here is the ingredient
t r i cl clo p y r triclo. Peer
so don't mix it or. Anything you're not gonna spray.
It when you cut a towel off at the, ground
anything you're cutting off and trying to get rid of
it could be poison. Ivy it could be hackberry, trees

(02:18:43):
it could be you. Know you just you make the
cut and then you dab this product directly onto the
cut stump. Surface so if it's a little bitty, stump
you can just you, know like say an inch, across
you can just kind of paint it over the whole.
Thing if it's something that's, bigger like four, inches it's
primarily around the outer part of the, stump that's where
all the living trunk tissues. Are you would JUST i

(02:19:05):
use a little foam brushes like you would get to paint,
with know those little thumb brushes on a. Stick, yeah,
yeah and they don't hold. MUCH i, mean this liquid
is very it's very liqu it's very. Watery it just
runs right. Through but just just dab it in there
and then and then paint it on the surfaces as
you do. Them, now a good strong tallow will, bounce

(02:19:27):
it'll try to re, sprout and you have to do it.
Again but for most, things trico pier is a once and,
done knock it. OUT i had a yo pond in
a PLACE i didn't want it in the, backyard and
it had trunks that were about size of a tennis,
ball had three of, them AND i cut it. OFF
i painted it with. THAT i never saw another sprout
on the. Plant so that's that's the least, toxic least

(02:19:49):
amount of pesticide in the.

Speaker 10 (02:19:51):
Environment, okay, great thank you so. MUCH i appreciate. It
go a little work to do.

Speaker 2 (02:19:56):
Now, alrighty all, right you're going to disappoint a whole
lot of honey. Bees you, know you know, that, Right
you're going to disappoint a whole lot of honey bees
because they love.

Speaker 10 (02:20:04):
Those they can go to the. Neighbors they could go
to the neighbors property and do.

Speaker 12 (02:20:08):
That, then you, know but there you.

Speaker 2 (02:20:10):
Go there you got all?

Speaker 10 (02:20:12):
Right, okay thank.

Speaker 7 (02:20:13):
YOU i know.

Speaker 2 (02:20:16):
Years, ago, folks tello was brought over here as a wonderful,
plant and it does have. FEATURES i, mean very few
plants in our area have the fall the fall collar
That taler. Does it's a great. Feature honey bees love.
It it makes a wonderful honey but oh my, gosh
it got loose and what a. Mess what a. Mess all,
Right we're going to go To copperfield now and talk To. Vic, Hey,

(02:20:38):
vic welcome to Garden line, morning the.

Speaker 20 (02:20:41):
Skipt thanks for taking a. Call i've got a Stubborn Peggy.
Martin rose had bought up The cypress home show from
The Master gardeners back in the spring planet it, WELL
i think it's Called Society food and no bloom.

Speaker 2 (02:20:54):
Shit, okay, Okay, Well Peggy martin's a spring. Bloomer it
doesn't bloom all summer and in the fall like repeat
Blooming rose as. Well So beggy just don't prune it
now anymore because it's setting its bloom buds from now
Through september for next year's. Blooms so avoid cutting those

(02:21:16):
off now because it you'll you'll reduce next year's. Boom
but it's a spring. Bloomer i've got.

Speaker 6 (02:21:21):
ONE i love.

Speaker 2 (02:21:22):
It but, YEAH i WISH i could get it to Bloom,
moore but that's just the nature.

Speaker 20 (02:21:27):
Of the, beast, Right so thanks, mate the the Prize i've.

Speaker 7 (02:21:31):
Got that's a good.

Speaker 2 (02:21:32):
One The Houston Road, Society oh, yeah, yeah, YEAH i
think those people know what they're doing when it comes
to that's just. Fun is that A is that A nitrophs?
PRODUCT i THINK i Think nitrophs sells A Houstern Roads?
Society uh, FOO.

Speaker 18 (02:21:49):
I just remember the name on the.

Speaker 20 (02:21:50):
LABEL i don't remember if Micro foster?

Speaker 2 (02:21:52):
Who all, right, YEAH i, know well Nait fross makes
it makes a good. One all, Right, well thank you very,
much appreciate.

Speaker 6 (02:21:58):
That.

Speaker 2 (02:21:58):
Vic, okay, well all, right we swept the boards. Clean
there we. Go all, right you got a question and
now it's time to call, in so you don't have
to wait seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven, one, three, two, one, two, five eight seven.
FOUR i was talking earlier about fall, blooming AND i

(02:22:18):
just want to go into that a little bit. MORE
i want to reiterate. It our landscapes become a sea of.
Green i've said that. Before green, grass green, trees green ground,
covers green, shrubs green greens are pretty. Color but there
are many more, Colors so why not other? Colors and
why not you're, round there's stuff that blooms almost. Well

(02:22:39):
there are actually even winter bloomers that there are fewer
and farther. Between but we can have interest in our
landscapes every month out of the. YEAR i was just
walking through some natchez crpe. Myrtles that's a big white
blooming type of crape, myrtle and the bark is exfoliating
patches of cinnamon colored. Bark it is just so, beautiful

(02:23:00):
and so even in the winter, time especially if you
get your a little landscape light, on you, know down
in the, flowerbed pointing up toward the. Branches, oh it's.
Gorgeous it's a beautiful nighttime, decoration and certainly in winter.
Time but what about fall blooming? Plants we got some great.
Ones we were talking about fall, astor a Native texas
fall astra is a good. One copper canyon daisy is

(02:23:22):
a good. One mexican met marigold is a good. One
the mountain sage it's a type of salvia that's a
shrub mountain. Sage it's a good one for fall. BLOOMING
i love My mexican bush. Sage mine's just starting to.
Boom that actually booms a little bit, earlier earlier than just.
Fall it's it's starting bloom right now for. Me but

(02:23:45):
there are others we can keep. Going but think about your.
Landscape think about looking at it all through the, seasons
and where do you need something. ELSE i bet you
could use a small spring blooming tree somewhere in the,
LANDSCAPE a small spring blooming. Tree that'd be a nice.
Edition fall is the best season for. Planting we got

(02:24:05):
so many good garden, centers mom and pop independent garden
centers here in The Greater houston, area and they will
get you set up with the kind of plants that
do well. Here what are you going to change about
your landscape to make it, better to make it more
enjoyable more of the, year see What i'm talking. About
i'm gonna take a quick, break we're gonna come back
with our last, segment And rick From, montgomery you will

(02:24:28):
be our very first. Up, hey welcome back to The Guarden.
Line lead heavy with us this. Morning as, promise we're
going to head straight out on the phones here to
talk To rick In. Montgomery, Hello, rick welcome To Garden.

Speaker 21 (02:24:49):
Line, Hey, hey thank. You so about five years, ago
my wife AND i bought a pomegranate tree from the extension.
Center they're In Montgomery county.

Speaker 8 (02:25:02):
And, okay it's more of a bush than a.

Speaker 12 (02:25:04):
Tree it has about right.

Speaker 21 (02:25:09):
Limbs coming off their nice size now about the size
of a nickel. Around and we've got blossoms the last two,
years really, good like they were gonna produce fruit and
then they fall.

Speaker 2 (02:25:24):
Off, okay something Something, STRESSINGOUGH.

Speaker 6 (02:25:30):
I need to.

Speaker 12 (02:25:31):
Do what AM i doing?

Speaker 2 (02:25:32):
Wrong, yeah well that's a good. Question palm granites like so,
moisture but they don't like to stay too. Wet and
sometimes In East texas, here or at least What i'm
calling east east eastern third Of, texas let me put
it that, way we can get a lot of rain
at times and that can give some issues to palm.

(02:25:53):
Granite the one of the issues is when the soil
stay's too. Wet they don't like. That they need good,
drainage so that would be one. Possibility how did you
mention what variety you bought from? Them do you? Know off?

Speaker 8 (02:26:09):
ANN i have no.

Speaker 2 (02:26:11):
Idea, okay that's, fine that's. Fine there's a lot of
workmen done now with a lot of newer. Varieties used
to be wonderful was the only variety for, sale and
it was the standard palm grantite for, years and now
we're seeing some new new things arriving on the market
that do real. Well so, anyway good soaking to keep

(02:26:32):
the saw, moist but not too, often not too, WET
i should, say rather than not too. Often as far as,
fertilization have you done any fertilizing on the? Trees?

Speaker 21 (02:26:44):
Yeah my wife takes sure of the yard pretty much
and everything your.

Speaker 2 (02:26:49):
Growth, okay, WELL i would just the only THING i
would do is watch how much you put. On you
don't want to overdo the nitrogen on palm. GRANITE a
modern amount is, good but TYPICALLY i would say fertilizing,
them oh maybe if you're using a, GRANULAR i would
do it In february and Then may and then maybe

(02:27:13):
maybe Early, september but not too much too. Late we're
in an area where palm granate heartiness is not as
big of a, concern but there are some varieties that
aren't quite as, hardy and pushing them with late late
season growth can be an. ISSUE i would just give
them a little more, TIME i guess on, it and
just watch that soul. Moisture there is not a. Specific

(02:27:36):
you have to have two varieties to. Pollinate there's not a.
Specific they're real bad about not setting. Fruit if you've
got you've got some insects helping with the, process you
should be getting some fruit set on. It so maybe
just settling down a little, bit maybe next year will
give you a little bit better. Results but those other cultural,
things just keep those in.

Speaker 21 (02:27:57):
Mind, well, dude thank you very.

Speaker 2 (02:28:00):
Much do you have a lot of other kinds of
fruit trees or just the? POMEGRANATE i, UH i know
we have a lot uh.

Speaker 21 (02:28:11):
Bombs. Grapes, HEY i have another question for you to have.

Speaker 8 (02:28:16):
Time it's that we have a.

Speaker 21 (02:28:18):
Few contry that's about twenty five years old and it
saves because it's gave us con pecans for a few.
Years about four years ago it got these little brown
black circles on the leaves and, okay my wife read
up it was some kind of. Disease we haven't got

(02:28:39):
pecans in like three years, Now.

Speaker 2 (02:28:44):
Yeah, okay really, well the spots on the leaves are
a fungus and they but that shouldn't keep them from
producing pecans the next. Year so that's kind of. UNUSUAL
i DON'T i don't know why it would stop. Producing

(02:29:08):
pecans also are known for setting a heavy fruit crop
one year that uses up all the carbohydrates so that
it doesn't set fruit well or, improved meaning nuts the next.
Year so but you've had three years with, nothing so
it's not alternate bearing that you're dealing. With good sunlight

(02:29:31):
on the, leaves good healthy, leaves healthy tree in, general
you should be getting pecan. Set, now are there any
Other do you just have one? Tree, yes just one.

Speaker 21 (02:29:45):
Tree but there is a. Problem this is My this
place was my wife's father's property and we lived there
when he left it Tour but there are some huge
trees around the con tree, like so it does get
a lot of, shade so is a.

Speaker 12 (02:30:05):
Problem BUT i just hate to take out the other.

Speaker 21 (02:30:08):
Trees they're really.

Speaker 2 (02:30:10):
Nice, yeah, Yeah, well pecans have to have a different
type of pecan that helps them set their pecan. Nuts
so in a, pecan either either the pollen comes off
first and then later the little nutlets on that tree

(02:30:32):
become receptive to, pollen or the nutlets are receptive first
and then later that tree releases its. Pollen there is
a little overlap, often but not a lot generally. Speaking In,
texas there's so many pecan trees around and it's wind
blown pollen that if there are pecans anywhere in the,

(02:30:54):
neighborhood you're probably. Okay but that could be why you're
not getting. Fruits is if they're isolated enough to where
there's not a wind blown pollen coming in from somewhere
and you just have your, tree that would be a
reason for it not.

Speaker 21 (02:31:10):
Setting, oh because D. R, horton that may be our.
Problem Dr horton bought one hundred and eighty acres around
us and they've stripped and they're building a sub and
they're building a subdivision in.

Speaker 2 (02:31:29):
There, okay so that might be my. Problem all, Right
so you need you're gonna need to know what variety you,
have and if you call me back when you know your.
VARIETY i can tell you varieties to plant to be
a good partner for. It if you don't know your
variety next, SPRING i want you to get out several

(02:31:51):
times and check it and see are you seeing nutlets
first or are you seeing that dusty yellow pollen fall?
First and if you can tell me, THAT i can
tell you what, varieties and maybe you can talk your
neighbor into planting the other kind and then you both get,
pecans or actually neither of you. Will the squirrels, will
but you get the. Idea But i'm telling you this

(02:32:17):
pecan fed squirrel makes some of the best squirrel dumplings
you'll ever eat in your. Life all, right.

Speaker 6 (02:32:28):
There you.

Speaker 2 (02:32:28):
Go, yeah and on that, pomegrante give it a little
more time it sometimes it takes like four years or
more before you really start to get some good fruit
set and stuff on. Those so just a little more
patience with that, one all, right, Sir thanks for the.
Call appreciate you. Guys, WELL i got could talk in
the music's going talk to you Next. Saturday we'll be

(02:32:50):
here from six to Ten saturday And. Sunday in the,
meantime go to my Website gardening with Skip dot com
and get some advice