Fall is Coming, Peppers Need To Be In The Ground Now!

Fall is Coming, Peppers Need To Be In The Ground Now!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katy r. H. Garden Life with Skip Richard.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shoes, the crazy here gas trip just watch him as well.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
So many pretty things to seep, bats in, gay.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And gassing not a sun glass, gas the sun beam
and down tea.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Hey, good morning, Good morning gardeners. We are ready for
a new gardening day and ready or hot here it is.
You know, the weather's kind of hot right now. So
I'm getting most of my gardening done early in the morning,
some late in the day, and I'll sneak out during
the middle of the day occasionally if it's a shady

(01:04):
spot that I need to do something in. But that's okay.
Fall is coming, and I will tell you something about fall.
Fall arrives when it's one hundred degrees here. Okay, that's
just how it is. And why am I saying it
that way. Well, here's why. If you wait until the
weather cools off to start fall planting, then you're making

(01:25):
a big mistake. If you're growing a vegetable garden or
in some cases flowers and things, we need to get
it done ahead of time and be ready to go.
You know, for example, tomatoes, Tomato plants take a good
while to reach harvest most of them seventy two days,
seventy eight days, you know, somewhere in there. Depends on
the variety. Well, by the time you put it in

(01:47):
the ground, by the time it cools off. If you
put it in the ground, well, if you're going to
have a frost or something, or just slows down to
a crawl because the weather is cooled off so much.
So we need to get them done now. Peppers. Now,
those of you who held your peppers over the summertime,
and I've got a Klopenia bush that is waist high,
you know, a plant in the spring, and just kept

(02:09):
water and fertilizing it. And even at times when things
like peppers and eggplant and tomatoes are not fruiting really
well because it's so hot, keep that plant growing. Because
the bigger the plant is when we get a little
break in the weather and it starts setting really well. Again,
the bigger the plant is, the more fruit you can
hang on it. And that's what it's all about. One

(02:30):
fortunate thing about being this far south is we can
pick halifresh alapanias in Christmas time some years, depending on
when the first frost arrives. Those of you down south
of ten. You probably can in Christmas. It's certainly Thanksgiving,
So get out there and start getting ready. What's the
most important part of gardening brown stuff before green stuff.

(02:51):
Making sure the soil is right. Now's a great time
to do that. You can get the soil right, you
can get your plants in, you can take care of them.
You just enjoy the benefits. Writing an article for Texas
Gardener magazine, and I can't reader the exact quote in it,
I quoted a fellow that's a garden writer and edit

(03:13):
gardening editor up and leave the Northeast anyway. He made
this statement to the effect of, half of the majority
of my effort in trying to have a green thumb
is learning to see things from a plant's point of view.
And that is so true. If you understand what a
plant wants, which is not that hard. We talk about

(03:35):
those things on garden line all the time. If you
understand what a plant wants and you give the plant
what it wants, suddenly it's like, oh, you can grow anything. Well, yeah,
because I'm giving a plant what it wants, right, I'm
providing the things it wants first and foremost the foundation
good soil. Once the plant's in. It's hard to do
much to change the soil condition in your vegetables and flowers,

(03:57):
for example, but you can do a lot beforehand. Now'd
be a good time getting some soil mixes if you've
got bad drainage, getting the beds a little higher, bringing
in a little more material to get that soil level
up so when it pours, which it will, then know
your plant roots aren't sitting under water, and then providing

(04:20):
the nutrients that it needs. So many good fertilizers available
for us here in the Houston market, and when we
talk about those kind of things, we're talking about creating
the foundation. That's as simple as it is. It's not
that difficult. And the difference between you getting the soil
right now so that when you're going to plant you can.
And by the way, if you're planning green beans and

(04:41):
charred and squash and things like that, we're doing that
pretty quick here. In fact, you can start that now
because the goal is to get them up and going well.
When it comes time to plant, you just need to
have it ready. That's the easiest way to put it.
I was out the other day in the yard looking
around and saw a fire ant mound that had come up,

(05:03):
and those little things pop in. You know, we went
ready or not they show up, and it just reminded
me that preventing those is very important. And a good
fire ant bait that gives a gradual knockdown of the
mountains you see and you don't see, is important. So
for those of you, always keep a fresh fireant bait

(05:25):
on hand. I keep mine inside, not out in the
hot garage or a hot garden shed, because those baits
are on a food stock base. It's kind of a
corn grit. It's got some you know, oils like a
soybean oil or some kind of well like that in it,
and it makes Fireans want to pick it up and
take it home. And if it sits out and goes rancid,
which you know oils do, they're not going to pick

(05:47):
it up. And that bait isn't any good. So you
got to keep fresh bait. I keep mine inside just
so it stays fresh, extra fresh, and get out there
and do those baits. It's important to get that done
if you like to have it done for you. Pest Bros.
Pest Bros. Is a company serving the whole Houston region.
You know, if you're out way out east in Texas City,

(06:07):
or excuse me south in Texas City, all the way
up to the woodlands, they cover you, and of course
from Katie across the Baytown as well. They do termite control,
They do all the other household pest issues that you
might have, and they certainly can handle the fire ants
even while varmage. Do you know that, you know, matts,
mice and rats. I put them together. I hope they

(06:28):
don't cross. That would be bad anyway. Mice and rats
they know how to handle that kind of stuff too.
And also, oh gosh, how could I forget mosquitoes. Pestbrosthepestbros
dot com. They know what they're doing, and they can
give you long term control without the worries of the
toxicities and things and pets and kids and whatnot. They

(06:48):
know how to do it right, and they know how
to do it effectively. Two eight one two o six
forty six seventy two eight one two o six forty
six seventy were and the storm season two. Folks, don't
forget that we need to be doing everything from taking
care of our trees to making sure you're ready when
the power goes out again. And I didn't say if

(07:09):
I said when last year it happened twice. It happens,
and you need to be ready. And Quality Home Products
of Texas of the folks that know how to do it.
They have the generat automatic stand by generator comes on
when the power goes off. You don't need to get
out of your chair and the power comes right back on.
Don't be left in the dark. Protect that power supply now.
They're the number one generator servicer in the Greater Houston area.

(07:31):
And the reason they are so highly rated and they
are they are is because they take care of their customers.
It's family owned operation since nineteen eighty nine. They do
have financing operation or options available as well. Go to
Quality t X dot com, QUALITYTX dot com or give
them a call seven one three Quality, seven to one

(07:53):
three quality. It takes time to get a generator set up,
the whole process. You know, they take care of the permits,
They do it all for you. It's all in house.
But get started now. Don't wait until there's a hurricane
in the golf and then call. It's gonna be a
little difficult to have. Maybe the next hurricane you'll get
ready don't delay. Get it done now. I'm gonna take
a little break here and we'll be back with your

(08:16):
calls at seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Alrighty, well, let's see here. I'm gonna let's
start off this hour. We're gonna go out to Baytown
and uh talk to Debbie. Let's see if I can
get Debbie in mayors here. We've got a little glitch
going on this morning. Hey Debbie, welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 5 (08:37):
Hi, Chip, how are you doing?

Speaker 6 (08:38):
Yip?

Speaker 4 (08:39):
I'm doing good?

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Are you?

Speaker 4 (08:42):
That's all right? I'll call it. You can call me
anything but late for You can call me anything but
late for dinner. That's that's okay. How can we help
the Debbie?

Speaker 7 (08:53):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (08:53):
Well, I have about six picone trees, and uh they're
freaking and the problem is there's a lot of dead limbs,
and I am concerned about the storms and stuff like that.
So I'm just I've been thinking of just waiting until
the pecans come. It's a squirrels leave malone, and but

(09:14):
I'm just wondering what you think about cutting that stuff
back because some of those may break, limbs may break
off and hit the vehicles and stuff.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Yeah, well, I mean safety is first comes way above
pecans because you know, the squirrels are gonna get most
of those, right, That's how it usually works.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
Oh yeah, but you know there's quite a bit.

Speaker 4 (09:38):
Well good, that's wonderful, that's very good.

Speaker 8 (09:41):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
If I I'd call Martin over an affordable tree and
have him come out and look at it and take
a look at what he sees. Uh, you know, he
may say, well, you know, the it doesn't need that
trimming out, but it looks okay for now. Uh, so
let's get your pecans off and then we'll do it.
Or he may say no, let's go ahead and start
getting those things out of there, but he'll know what
to do. He's good at that, so.

Speaker 5 (10:03):
Well I will.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
That's what I can't.

Speaker 5 (10:06):
The neighbor has a tree, and I mean it's probably
about thirty foot. I mean, it's huge, and we're concerned
about that tree too. But I don't know, Okay, you
know what he they'll said about that one, because I
mean I'm concerned about that one because it spreads all
the way over our house, mainly up their house.

Speaker 9 (10:27):
So I don't know how that works.

Speaker 10 (10:30):
The question I have a bottle.

Speaker 5 (10:31):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
I was going to say, you might want to talk
to them and maybe you know, have him come in
and do it too for there and both of you
could get things taken care of. So just to thought.

Speaker 5 (10:44):
Okay, okay, one other thing. I have a bottle brush
and I have a page Mandarin, and both of them
seem like they have some kind of fungus or somebody.

Speaker 8 (10:53):
I've used a.

Speaker 5 (10:53):
Nemo and on the bottle brush, I've used a lot
of stuff, and I've even repotted, but it seems like
those bottle Russia is it's really hard for them to
you know, get past whatever it is, the fungus or something.
In the beginning, it started.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Up mushrooms in the soil. Okay, describe to me what
what the fungus looks like though on the plant.

Speaker 5 (11:17):
Well, it looks well, seeing the limbs and the leaves
kind of well, the leaves kind of turned grayish moldy.
And like I said, there was mushrooms that came up
through the soil. And even when I repotted one, I
sprayed a lot of nem oil and stuff in in
the whole potting area the soil because it was just

(11:39):
white spots like fungus. I maybe should have just took all.

Speaker 10 (11:43):
That dirt off.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Yeah, I'm ninety percent sure that the funk Okay, I'm
ninety percent sure that the fungus you're seeing and the
mushrooms are not a plant disease. I think they're just
decomposing the organic matter the compost and woodish wood that's
been composted that's in a soul mix. So I wouldn't
worry about that. The grayish. It could be a couple

(12:08):
of things. You could have city mold from anything from
scale to white flies to aphids. You know, there are
different things that can cost city mold, and you may
see that. Why don't we do this. I'm going to
put you on hold and wait just a second because
my producer's working on another call right now. But hang
on just a second, and he'll get you an email,
and if you'll send me some close up pictures of

(12:29):
what you're seeing, the gray mold or whatever up close,
I'll take a look at it. I don't I think
it's going to be a city mold issue, but but
I'll take a look and then we'll know for sure
what to do. How about that?

Speaker 5 (12:41):
Okay, thank you so much?

Speaker 4 (12:43):
All righty, you bet so. You just hang on there.
He's got somebody talking to him for a while. Just
hang on, all right, there you go. Yeah, oh, Affordable Tree.
I should have mentioned this to Debbie. Affordable Tree Service
seven to one to three, six six six three. Wi,
you're still on hold there seven one three six nine

(13:06):
nine two six six three. Give give Martin a call
and he'll he'll take care of it. He knows what
he's doing, and doing this a long time for sure.

Speaker 8 (13:15):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Let's now head out. We're gonna go to Tascasita and
talk to Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Hey, good morning, and thank you so much for taking
my call. Weeds right now, I'm getting the infestation of
the spurge weed or the white star weed. It's just
going really fast.

Speaker 7 (13:37):
I've never seen anything like this before.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yeah, well, spurge, you know, loves this weather. And uh
is it does it the what you're seeing does it
go out very flat to the ground or is does
it stick up several echines? Very flat? Okay? The ground
yeah flat flat? Okay? Well yeah, it's hard to I
mean you can you can spray those with post emergent

(14:02):
weed killers. The main thing for that starts with the mulches.
Anywhere you can that the sunlight hits the soil, you're
gonna see spurge popping up. It's just bad about that.
And even with mulches, you get a little spot where
they can kind of get through and they'll come up.
But it'll save you a lot of spurge problems just
getting a mulch on the ground. There are some pre

(14:23):
emergence that will help prevent it. What's it growing in?
Is it a flower bed or lawn or what?

Speaker 7 (14:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 11 (14:30):
The lawn it's not just taking over as trucks. Wow,
it's really going fast in the front yard and the
backyard full sun basically is taking the full sun.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
You know, you must have some you must have some
thin spots, because I've never seen spurge become a big
lawn problem unless the lawn is pretty thin. Would you
like to send a photo of that and let me
take a look. Make sure we're talking about the same
play right now?

Speaker 12 (14:58):
Yeah, it's dark.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
Well right now, I don't mean now, I don't mean
I will now.

Speaker 7 (15:04):
The also too, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 11 (15:06):
The pre emergence can't be used right now because it's
too hot.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Correct, pre emergents aren't a problem. It's the post emergent
broad leaf that you don't want to use right now,
except for maybe Celsius, but the rest of them. I
wouldn't do it right now. It's a little hot.

Speaker 11 (15:23):
Yeah, oh so okay, So I well, pre emergent is
not going to kill something that's already there. We know that,
but from spreading right.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Right, well, and what it does is it tells you
that next year, if you know, if you've got spurgs
this year, you're gonna have a ton of spurd seeds
next year. And so you would just get ahead of
it with a pre emergent next year for broadleaf weed
seeds and avoid it then.

Speaker 13 (15:52):
But all right, you good, okay, thank you so much
for taking my question.

Speaker 8 (15:57):
Have a bus day.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
Bye bye you two. Jim, you take care. Appreciate that
thinks a lot. Night Foss has a product called bug
out Max, and basically what it is, it's an insecticide
that works against the wide range of insects, like one
hundred and thirty different insects. You put it out and
if you've got maybe you've got pets, and so you
know there there's ticks and fleas being tracked in and

(16:19):
out and stuff like that. They that's what happens when
you got pets. You can put that across the yard
and it shuts them down. It works on finance crawling
through there, chinchbugs crawling through the that you put bug
out max out. You water it in just a little
bit and it washes off that granule and it gets
in the surface of the soil and in the thatch
there where you can make sure it's doing its work.

(16:41):
It's a very effective product, and being a night Foss product,
you're going to find them in a lot of places.

Speaker 14 (16:45):
You know.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
Plantation Ase Hardware out on three point fifty nine definitely
a place carries night Foss products. Langham Creek Case another
one up in Copperfield five twenty nine. If you go
to RCW Nursery, they carry night Fast products there as well.
There at Tombo Parkway in Highway two forty nine, which
is highway too for Tombo Parkway in belt Wait eight.

(17:06):
Excuse me, that's a little bit better there. I was
checking out some of the things they've got going there
at plants for all seasons, and first of all, they
got a nice new website. You ought to check it out.
It's Plants for All Seasons dot com. Plants for All
Seasons dot com. Right now they got a lot of
fall veggies in and fall is a great time to

(17:27):
have a veggie garden. You know, in many ways, I
like fall better than spring when it comes to some
of the vegetables. For example, green beans that ripen in
the cooler days of fall. It's just a higher quality
than those that are ripening while the temperature's heating up.
And so a big fall crop of green beans a
great time to plant them. Plants for All Seasons has

(17:47):
got you covered seeds and plants. While are you there,
check out the color containers that they have. I don't
care what season it is of the year. It could
be middle of winter, could be middle of summer. There
are plants that will thrive in a container if you
give them some water, and they look great. And plants
for all seasons, folks. They can make the container for you.
You can just go buy it. They can sell you
the plants and the container. You go home, make it yourself.

(18:09):
They'll they'll they'll advise you. That's the thing. They take
time to advise you. Two eight, one, three, seven, six,
sixteen forty six. Check them out Plants for All Seasons
dot com. I love color containers, and you know, you know,
one of the things I like about them is that
they can give you fast results. I have an area

(18:32):
that's kind of like a container hospital. So if you've
got a container and it's just getting spindley and it
looks bad and you don't want to replant it, you
can take it around the side, pop a couple of
new plants in there, maybe one of them is still
looking good, water it and get it going. And then
you just get your dolly and bring it right back

(18:52):
to where you wanted it to be. And so it's
always it always looks good. And container hospital run the
back of the garage. Think about that. But color containers.
Every month of the year. You can have a color
container that's gorgeous and it just looks good. Maybe you've
got a party coming up next week or the week
after or something, and you want things to look good

(19:13):
on the patio and whatnot. You get you a beautiful
glaze container, get a quality soil mix to put in it,
and the plants that are appropriate to the season. The
season we're in the season coming up, and you're gonna
have instant beauty. Just remember you gotta water. You gotta
water and a container. All the root system is confined

(19:34):
to that amount of soil, so it gets dry fast.
Always have a bigger container you think you need. That's
also true. You like a tomato plant, it'll grow in
a five gallon bucket. Way better to have ten gallons
because it is hard to not have it go in distress.
And every time it goes in distress, it aborts balloons
and it doesn't do what you want it to do.
So bigger containers are better. Don't when you watch TV

(19:55):
and it's some TV gardening show from north of the
Mason Dixon line, what don't don't trust it because it's
a cooler climate. We got to have bigger containers here.
You know the thing where they garden in a boot
or something, maybe in the winter, but not even then. Really, well,
we're hitting the news time here. I'm gonna take a
little break. If you would like to give us a

(20:17):
call seven to one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. My producer will get you on the boards
and we'll talk to you when we come back. So
just hang in there. But it's been a while. Everybody
that remembers that song, raise your hand. I didn't think
i'd see any hands go up. Hey, welcome back to

(20:39):
the guard line. Good to have you with us. We're
here to talk about gardening. As I like to put it,
We're here to help you have a bountiful garden, a
beautiful landscape, and don't forget the most important part. More
fun in the process. That's right, more fun in the process.

Speaker 15 (20:54):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
The folks at Spring Creek Feet it's up there in
Magnolio on FM twenty nine seventy eight. That's it. Yeah,
near Grand Parkway near Highway to forty nine northeast to
tumble Well. They carry a full line of turf Star,
the Nelson fertilizer line, from Microlife fertilizer line, Nitropost fertilizer line.
If you got weeds to deal with, whether it's preventing

(21:16):
them or killing the ones, you got fungicized to deal
with those diseases and insecticides as well. They've got you covered. Friendly,
courteous staff. It's what you would expect from a quality
feed store. That's Spring Creek Feed, livestock feed, while wildlife
feed and pet food products, quality things like Victor Purina.
Got some nice, nice options there at a Spring Creek Feed.

(21:38):
If you're a senior citizen or military, they've got special
discounts for you. They can special order, they do delivery.
I mean, it's just a full service place. Spring Creek
Feed conveniently located up there in Magnolia on FM twenty
nine seventy eight. Go check them out. They got some
good deals going on too. Right now. I was just
looking at some of the end of summer things and

(22:00):
then up there really good. Uh tell you what, let's
go out to the phones here. We're going to go
to the woodlands and talk to Lonnie. Hey, Lonnie, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (22:12):
Good morning, Skiff. What I called about was that little
package of Celsius that you've been recommending. I've been using
it on my yard with a lot of success. However,
i'd gone on YouTube, and the YouTube video, uh indicated

(22:33):
that that package was a perfect amount for a two
gallons prayer, not a one gallon, which I think I've
heard you say it's perfect for a one gallons prayer,
And I just thought i'd call him suggests some.

Speaker 7 (22:47):
Of it better than me.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yeah, well, i'd have to verify that, right, right, I
know I may have been mixed. I need to go
on and look at the label for sure. I may
have been mixing it with the sedgehammer, which is a
one gallon packet. Looks the same, you know, same kind
of little packaging and packet. But I'll check that and see.

(23:11):
Yeah what. But the bottom line is, it doesn't matter
what I say or what YouTube says. It matters what's
on the label. And so, uh you know that that's
where Uh just look at that and it'll tell you.
I'll look at it here in a little bit, uh,
and I'll mention it on the air.

Speaker 17 (23:28):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
And after I have a chance to.

Speaker 16 (23:30):
Tell the where I've had a little bit of well,
i'll call collateral damage on my Saint Augustine where I've sprayed, uh,
the Virginia button weed. It doesn't it's fine, it looks
fine and healthy, but it seems to grow at a

(23:50):
slower rate. So by the time it's time for me
to cut the yard, I have these little circles where
the Saint Augustine isn't growing quite as fast. But once
I cut it can't tell anything, so it's it's really yeah,
been fine.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
But I thought that if we did Yeah, that is true.

Speaker 16 (24:12):
The double amount, it was too much.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, don't don't overdo it for sure. Follow the label
very carefully, and a lot of these products will have
a growth regulator effect, or they can have a growth
regulator effect. Also. Even though you know, I recommend celsius
in the summertime because it is less damaging to your
lawn than trimec and a lot of the other broad

(24:38):
leaf products, it works so well in other seasons. But
the bottom line is you you know, you don't want
to spray celsius when it's ninety eight degrees. I mean,
if you get up in the morning and do it
early in the day so it dries off before before
the temperature rises, that will help with any herbicide like

(24:58):
that that you're putting on. It will help. Okay, Okay, well,
thank you, som. I got to run, yes, sir Lennie,
and just stick around a minute or listen around a minute.
I'll I'll say something on the air here when I
get a chance. All right, you were listening to garden Line.
Phone number is seven one three two one two k
t RH Houston Powder Coders. I don't know if you

(25:19):
heard them on the air with me a few weeks ago.
We were talking about what is powder coating? How's it done?
I'm telling you it's fascinating stuff. You know, any kind
of metal you got out there, cast iron, wrought iron, aluminum,
patio furniture, they can do it. They make it new.
If you've got some older metal, or if you see
some on the side of the road, first of all,

(25:40):
call me because I'm looking for it too. But you
pick up a quality something made before two thousand, when
things started to get dinky and cheap due to a
number of reasons that they explained. On that day we
had Houston Powder Coders on. You can take that stuff
in and they'll make it new, and I mean way
less than the cost of rebuying, in fact, half or
less of the cost of rebuying quality furniture. Houston Powdercoders

(26:05):
dot Com. Houston Powdercoders dot Com two eight one six seven,
six thirty eight eighty eight. If you can hear my
voice live on the radio today, you probably are in
the area where they'll come pick up and then they'll
deliver when they're done We're going to go now to
Conroe and talk to Vicky. Hey, Vicky, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 18 (26:25):
Hi Skip. I have an esperanza that I planted last
year in the fall and it okay, it froze back
and thought it was dead, so the yardman pulled it
up and then esprout came up. Well now it's about
a foot over the fence, but it has never bloomed ever.

Speaker 9 (26:49):
I need to pull it up again.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Sure now you sure it's an esperanza. It wasn't just
a weed maybe that came up where the esperanza was,
but looks a little like it.

Speaker 18 (27:03):
Well, I guess that's possible.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you this about estroant.

Speaker 11 (27:11):
There you go.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Well, esperanza, the standard type of esperanza gets pretty tall
before it starts to bloom, and it's slower to pop
into bloom. There is a variety called gold Star gold
Star and it's one that's a Texas Superstar by the
Agrolife Extension A and m Agrolife Extension Horticulture Department's been

(27:33):
tested all over the state that suckerl bloom when it's
barely over knee high, certainly by waist high. It starts blooming,
and if you have to replace it, look for gold star,
go to a reputable nursery, because sometimes things get labeled
what they're not, and so make sure it truly is
gold star. But that would be the one if you

(27:54):
have to replace it. You may have had one that
was a different kind of yellow Esperanza. So that's all
I can think of in terms of, you know, why
is the thing getting so tall and not blooming? But
if it's Esperanza, it will bloom, it will It'll just
take it some time.

Speaker 8 (28:12):
Huh.

Speaker 18 (28:14):
Do you think I should give it another year?

Speaker 4 (28:19):
You know, that's up to you. If it were me
and I just feeling like this may not be a
goal star, I'd go I'd replace it with one just
because of the long term. I think you're gonna like
it better. But you know, it's up to you either way.
I don't I can't advise you on. I'm with you
which of those you should do.

Speaker 7 (28:37):
So all right, okay, all right, thank you, all right.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
Thank you, Vicky, appreciate the call very much. Time for
me to take a quick break. When we come back,
Kevin in Houston, you'll be our first up right, all right,
We're back welcome back to Garden Line. Getting hea you
with us. Hey, if you live down in the League
City area, and when I say League City area, I
mean that whole region down there, I want to tell

(29:04):
you about your hometown feed store, and that's League City Feed, Elcaminoreal, Clare,
Lake City, Webster Bay, Cliff, Dickinson, Santa Fe, San Leone,
all those towns down there. League City Feed. It's easy
to find, easy to get there. They're on Highway three,
just a few blocks south of the Highway ninety six
in League City, Texas. They stay open Monday through Saturday

(29:26):
from nine to six, so you can go by there
after work and pick up the things you need and
the things you need. Of course it's a feed store.
They got feed. They're a quality dog and pet feeds
as well. But they have everything you need for your garden.
You know, you want products from nitrofoss, Microlife, you know,
Nelson plant Food. You're looking for a quality soul blend

(29:47):
by the bag from Heirloom Soils. They got that. How
about some asmite, you know put out the micro nutrients
supplement asmite. They've got you covered at League City Feed
two eight one three, three two six Steen twelve two eight,
one three, three two sixteen twelve, League City feed Highway
three a few blocks south of Highway ninety six in

(30:07):
League City. Let's go now out to UH Houston and
talk to Kevin this morning. Hey Kevin, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (30:17):
Hey Skip, good morning, Thanks for taking my call. Hey,
we just moved into a new house with an existing
Saint Augustine lawn, so I have no idea what they
have done historically from fertilization perspectives. So previous house, we
were on your schedule and we're kind of falling. Now
would you recommend that I do a superturf application and

(30:40):
then wait and do fall fertilizer as I normally do,
or how would you kind of handle its kind of
stepping in at this point during the year.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
How does your lawn look right now? It is pretty good?

Speaker 7 (30:53):
A little bit on the mh I'm sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 19 (30:57):
Yeah, well that looks go ahead.

Speaker 7 (31:00):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
We got a timing issue on the on the mics here,
and so I'm sorry about that. I guess what I'm
trying to figure out is, you know, if it looks great,
then I wouldn't do anything. If you feel like it
could use a boost. I wouldn't do the super turf
right now. If you want to use the night Foss product,
they've got their red bag that we talk about in
the spring, you know, for a faster release. If you've

(31:23):
if you've seen my schedule, you know it's on there.
It's a we call it the excuse me, the Imperial,
and I would use that because it's a shorter term
fertilizer because by the time we get to October, we're
going to be putting on the fall fertilization. So I
would if you want to give a little boost between
now and then, that would be about right to use

(31:46):
the Imperial red bag fifteen to five to ten from
night Foss.

Speaker 7 (31:51):
Okay, great, I will do that. Also, any chips, for
this yard has considerably more shade than our previous yard
has big mature oak trees. Any tips on kind of
maintaining the lawn in a shady environment like that.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
Yeah, you know it's Saint Augustine, right, Yes, you're low. Okay,
so that's the best grass, you know for that area.
A mow it a little higher, leave a little bit
more of a leaf blade, you know, for that's the
solar panel don't cut. If you cut it down real low,
you don't have much of a leaf to catch the
limited light that's coming through. I would do that, try

(32:34):
to keep foot traffic off of it, keep it moist.
But you're not going to replace sun with fertilizer, so
don't try to push it with fertilizer. In fact, it's
probably gonna need a little bit less just because it's
not going to have the vigor due to lack of sunlight.
So just keep that in mind that you can't replace
sunlight with fertilizer. Provide good care for it, and that's

(32:56):
your best shot other than thinning out the leaves. Try
to get a little bit more light intensity in there.

Speaker 7 (33:03):
Okay, great, thanks so much for advice.

Speaker 4 (33:06):
Thank you, Bet, thank you appreciate appreciate that call a lot.
If you haven't been Nanda and Shanty Forest, you need
to go check them out. I was talking to Danny
the other day here on Guardline. We're talking about some
plants for pollinators, and boy, when it comes to plants
that support bees, butterflies, even hummingbirds, they've got them. They
carry the stuff that thrives in our climate without a

(33:27):
lot of excess water and fertilizer, trying to keep it happy.
Huge selection. And remember when you're wanting to bring things
like butterflies in, you got to feed the mamas and
that would be flowers. You got to feed the babies
the caterpillars, and that would be plants that attract the caterpillar.
So take a milkweed for example. The monarchs they love blooms,

(33:48):
but the babies need milkweed plants for nourishment. If you
want to bring in golf fritillaries, you're going to need
to have some passion flower, passion vine for the babies
to grow up. And you want to do all of that,
and they've got them. And if you're looking for something
that's Texas tough, my gosh, they have a lot of things.
They will do very well. If we got coming up

(34:09):
on the fall season, how about a fall blooming plant.
Enchanted forest there on FM twenty seven fifty nine in Richmond,
actually between Richmond and sugar Land. Enchanted forest, Richmond, TX
dot com. Enchanted forest, Richmond, TX dot com. It's got
to Missouri City now and talk to Stuart Hey.

Speaker 15 (34:29):
Stuart Hey, Skip, thank you very much for taking them
on phone call.

Speaker 20 (34:34):
I've got a flowerbed that has vincas in it, and.

Speaker 21 (34:38):
They turned kind of a golden color, and I noticed a.

Speaker 20 (34:41):
White powdy substance at the base of them, and it
ended up pulling those up and treating the soil. I
added compost manure and iron and planted some killed it
up and planted some a different variety of ink in there,
and it looks like they're kind of turning yellow too.
I'm making sure I'm watering them enough but not too much,
and I just don't know where I should go from there.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
You know, a yellowing color. Are you seeing it on
the newest growth out at the end of the shoot
or is it the older leaves that are turning yellow
while the new leaves look pretty good? Have been able
to see that different newer leaves. Okay, that's a It
sounds like an iron It could be an iron deficiency,
which can be brought on by high Phosphorus can be

(35:27):
brought on by high phs as well. Sometimes manures come
in with a higher pH so I would look at that.
I might try getting a keylated iron product keylate H
E L A T E. Follow the label, put it
down in the soil, watered in real good and see
if that fixes it. If it's an iron deficiency, it

(35:49):
should perk up from that. The other thing that can
result in iron deficiency is when you lose roots. For example,
soggy wet soil conditions without oxygen can kill roots and things.
So without seeing the plants, based on your description, I'm
thinking you probably need an iron supplement in there, and
maybe even to bring the pH down a little bit.

(36:11):
But that's all me guessing. I need a soil test
to know that for sure.

Speaker 7 (36:16):
Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 20 (36:17):
In the white potterycepsence that was on the previous plants,
should I have put something in the soil to do
something about that?

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Nothing in the soil. But let's do this, Stuart. I'm
going to put you on hold and get my producer
to pick up the phone and give you an email.
I want to see a close up picture in good
sharp focus of the yellowing of the plants and also
that white pottery stuff or white stuff that you're seeing.
Just check the photo for you, send it, make sure
it's close and in good sharp focus, and maybe I'll

(36:47):
see something else and I'll reply in the in the
email if I do what you should do?

Speaker 7 (36:52):
All right, yes, yes, or thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (36:55):
Thanks sir, all right, appreciate appreciate your call very much.
Oh boy, man, time is flying this morning. If you
haven't used a Medina product ever, First of all, where
have you been? These things have been around since the
nineteen fifties. Medina products well beloved by gardeners for many,
many years. You know, you go to take a Medina

(37:16):
product like, oh, I don't know, the Medina hash to
grow a Medina plus there's the Medina hash to grow
six twelve six plant food, the Medina soil activator that
was kind of one of the grandfather of a lot
of these products. They're all great and they work. They
provide the nutrients, including in many cases the micro nutrients

(37:38):
they may be providing things like growth stimulating hormones. It's
all for Medina. Now, just go wherever you shop, beach stores,
garden centers, you name it, Ace hardware stores, Southwest FORERDL.
They all carry Medina products and they work. Give them
a try. Medina products work. Just remember that. I gotta
take a little break here. We've got a group of

(38:00):
folks here on the phones. Jason and let's see who
would be after Jason be Lisa and Seabrook and then Stuart.
Oh lovet Stuart. Well, anyway, you guys will be the
first step when we come back. Hey, welcome back, gardeners.

(38:26):
Good to have you with us this morning on Garden Line.
We're here to help you have success in your garden.

Speaker 9 (38:32):
That is the goal.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
We want gardening to be fun, and we wanted you
to be successful. Whether it's a beautiful lawn, a bountiful garden,
a beautiful landscape, we want you to have success with
that because that is where the gratification comes into gardening,
that and just enjoying being out in nature and doing that.
Southwest Fertilizer is place I go there often. And here's

(38:55):
why I go there. I walk through and I look
at what's on the shelves because if anything is new
and effective coming out, Bob's gonna have it At Southwest Fertilizer.
You just can't keep up with all these products. I mean,
there's always new things and new changes, and then they
rename them or they I don't know, I'm not gonna
start I'll start ranting if I start talking about that.

(39:16):
But it's frustrating the way they do the changes in
the names and people get so confused, like round Up's
no longer round up, and there's a roundup. You can
spray in your grass and there's a round up. It
just I don't know why they do that, but they
do it. It's not just one brand, it's almost all
of them. But Bob keeps up with it. He's got
them there. If you need anything to have success, whether

(39:36):
it's a fertilizer, something to deal with pest weeds and diseases,
he's got them all at Southwest Fertilizer, Corner, Abissinet and Runwick.
You know when you walk in there, you're gonna find
what you need. Take them a sample, take them a picture.
Make sure it's a good picture so they can actually
see what the plant is or the bug is or whatever.
And they'll point you to the product you need and
tell you all about it. They are experts like that,

(39:57):
and that's what makes them a one stop shop. I
like to say, if they don't have it, you don't
need it, because they have it. If it works, they
have it. Southwest Fertilizer seven one three six sixty six
seventeen forty four. We're going to run out to Spring,
Texas now and talk to Jason. Hey Jason, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 9 (40:16):
Good morning, sir, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
My issue is I had a crave myrtle that was
growing a little too close to my house, and I
mean it got gigantic, you know, it turned into the
stump of this thing was like like almost three feet
it was.

Speaker 19 (40:32):
It was huge.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
So anyway, we had it cut down, and then we
had the stump, you know, grind it down. And now
I've got all these these little guys trying to grow up,
you know, out of where it was. I mean, we
we mow over it every time, you know, or yeah,
I mean the same things are we have more this thing?
You know, these things line our driveway. We have a
couple more, and they always grow up out of the

(40:56):
bottom around these things and the guy gets them with
the weed whacker and all that. But I was just curious,
there is there a way to put an end to that?
Or is that just a nuisance? I always said that
pine trees, cockroaches, and crape myrtle to be the only
thing left in Houston after nuclear war.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
Yeah, that's true. There was a commercial about the cockroach
part one time. It was a twinkie was left after
the war. Too anyway, So the one you're wanting to
get rid of. If you go to my website Gardening
with Skip dot com, there's a publication that says Herbicides
for Skip's weed wiper, but you can use it even

(41:35):
if you don't use a weed wiper. And what it
does is it lists the product you use for different
kinds of weed problems, and one is the woody weeds.
You know, things like poison ivy and peppervine and shoots
coming out of that crape myrtle you're trying to kill.
And basically it's a product called an ingredient called triclop here. Now, normally,

(41:55):
when you cut something off at the ground or wherever
you cut it off, you would immediately paint that product
right on the fresh cut surface. But since this has
been a while, what you're gonna need to do is
apply it to the to the shoots coming up. And
there's a lot of storage under there, so one application
is probably not gonna work, but if you apply it

(42:18):
to the shoots coming up, it'll work. Now it kills
anything that's woody, and it'll hurt your Saint Augustine too.
So the more you can be careful with how you
apply it. The less you don't want you don't want
to kill a rosebush next door or something like that.
So just don't only get it on the on the
crepe myrtle shoots and it will work, okay if you

(42:38):
if you're gonna use my my weed wiper, I would
put a little bit of vegetable oil in it, just
a little bit, and that'll make it stick to those
tender shoots as they're coming up. You know, they're not
woody and brown on the outside. They're kind of green
just getting started. And if you wipe it on those
shoots and you have a little vegetable oil to make
it stick, you don't even have to cut them off.

(43:00):
It will trans it'll move in and translocate down. So
that's that. Now, the crate myrtles that are that you're
keeping that are sending up suckers everywhere, there's a product
called sucker stopper, and you just have to go shop
for it, you know, sucker Stopper, that's what bonyd calls

(43:21):
their product. There's some probably some other brands of it.
But whenever I cut off like the base of a
crate myrtle, cut off a shoot just squirt it right
on there. Or if you have to saw off a branch.
That's when you get a lot of shoots coming out
from your pruning off a branch. If you put the
sucker stopper around it, it will stop them from re
sprouting around that cut. So that's what you need to

(43:41):
do to get those others under control. Cool, All right, sir,
good luck very much. Have fun in the process. You
bet there you go.

Speaker 19 (43:53):
Well.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
I love quality soul mixes because quality soul mixes means
you are going to have a good quality plant, whether
that plant is a tomato, a squash plant, a green bean,
of a rose bush, you name it. Flowers for the
Fall and Heirloom Seals has got you covered. They have
so many options that are excellent. You know, we talk

(44:15):
about their Veggie and Her Mix all the time. That
is outstanding. I mean, if you're doing a flower bed,
you could use Veggie Ner Mix Center. It's just a
quality product. They've got their rows and bloomers, blend any
kind of shrubs and blooms and things like that. It's
great for that. The work's potting soil, the cactus and
succulent mix. What do you need? They've got it at
Heirloom Soils. It's just as simple as that. If you

(44:38):
want to give them a call up there, maybe to
have a delivery made two eight one three five four
nineteen fifty two eight one three five four one nine
five zero, or just go anywhere. I mean they're everywhere.
They've got him Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwo Garden Center
and garden centers all over the Greater Houston area. You

(44:59):
airlom cells is easy to find and it is quality.
The stuff really does work. I'm going to go down
to Seabrook now and talk to Lisa. Hey, Lisa, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (45:10):
Good morning, Thank you for taking my call. I have
a couple of Chinese fringe trees and I'm wondering should
I try to plant them now?

Speaker 7 (45:17):
Will be better just to keep them in pots and
wait until the fall.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
You know, if you got them, if they're there now,
I would I would wait. But here's what I would do.
I would slide them, lay them on the side, slide
them out of the pot. And if you see roots
going in a circle around the pot, just excuse me.
Before you plant them, you're gonna want to cut those roots.

(45:43):
Pardon me, because they're not going to unwind underground, and
if you cut them within a couple of weeks, you're
going to see fresh white roots coming out and they
establish better. So I may have inferred like you would
cut them now. You don't cut them right now, but
when you're ready to put them in the ground, lay
them over and cut those roots first and then plant them. Okay, okay,

(46:08):
thank you, Yeah you can let me. Let me clarify
one thing though, Lisa, you can plant anything now. It
is the most stressful time of year for a plant
to get established. You're having to touch and go with
the water to not keep it too soggy or let
it get too dry. That's why I like to wait
till fall if we're this far into the season. But
I planted something just the other day myself. So if

(46:30):
you're willing to, you know, sit there with a little
cup of water, looking at your watch and poured it
on every few minutes, you can plant them right now.
I'd wait, Thank you, thank you, take care, bye bye.
All right, time for me to take a quick break.
Darryl in Northwest Houston. You're first on the on the
other side of this break. Hey, welcome back, to the

(46:54):
Garden Line folks. Good to have you with us. You're
looking at your landscape and it looks tired, and maybe
it's you know, maybe some areas that are dying out,
plants that just don't belong there right and they're just
not surviving. Or maybe you just want a renovation and
a fresh new look by someone who knows how to

(47:15):
do it well. That would be Peerscapes. You just give
them a call to eight one three seven oh fifty
sixty two eight one three seven fifty sixty. What I
really would suggest you do is go to their website
piercescapes dot com. That'll be that'll be the convincing factor
for you. Whether it is irrigation repair you need, whether
you need to improve the drainage in an area, put

(47:37):
a French drain in. Perhaps maybe it's landscape lighting or
maybe oh my gosh, they excel at doing hard scapes
and patios and all kinds of features to make your
lawn and your landscape. Just pop pierscapes dot com. Check
it out pierscapes dot com. They serve this whole area.

(47:57):
They are a preferred landscape or here on Garden Line
because of the work they do. See what I'm talking about.
Go to pierscapes dot com. You'll see what I'm talking about.
Amazing work. That's where I get my inspiration. I look
at it, it's like, oh, man, I can do this.
I know we can't. Let's go to Northwest Houston and
talk to Darryl. Hey, Darryl, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (48:17):
Good morning, Skip, Good morning Skip. Hey. I was calling
questions about how to identify take all root rot and
what conditions you know bring it on?

Speaker 4 (48:30):
Alrighty? Well, Uh, the identification for it is your lawn
starts dying in irregular areas. It may be kind of
a strip of lawn. It may be a spot here
or there, but it's not round circles like brown patch
in the cool season. It unlike a difference between take
all and drought is drought tends to cover a whole area,

(48:53):
or maybe you can see where your sprinkler reaches and
doesn't reach, and you know, then you can kind of
tell well that drought because it's not getting watered. Bugs
also kill grass gradually. You know, it doesn't just go
from green to brown one day it fades out, but
they typically start in a sunny area against a curb, sidewalk, driveway,
something like that. That's more typical of them. Also, you

(49:15):
can find chinch bugs down in that zone between healthy
and dead. You know, they leave the dead area because
there's nothing to suck on over there. They suck the
juices of green living runners and so they look in
that area. I have a publication on the website Gardening
with Skip dot com. I wish you'd write that down

(49:36):
and bookmarket because that's where we put everything. I have
two publications. One is a quick look at take all
and it just tells you here's what it looks like,
here's what it is, here's what to do. The other
one is a more in depth look and it helps
you to cause the options. There's several things we do
to avoid it and to help shut it down and
turn the lawn around. And I can't go through the

(49:59):
whole thing on on the air and just too much stuff.
That's why I put those on on the website. But
bottom line is, uh, look for those things and you'll
you'll definitely be able to tell the differs. Take all
kills kills grass too, as do as does chuch bugs.

Speaker 15 (50:16):
Well I thought at first that's what I thought we
had such chinch bugs, because I've had them before, Like
you said, along the edge of the street on the
curve where it's hot and everything, and the water you know,
it kind of runs down the Also the water doesn't
really soak in as well as it would and the
rest of the lawn. But this is in the front
of my lawn. It's actually underneath an oak tree, and

(50:36):
it's more spread out in the lawn itself and not
just along the edges. So that's why I did. I
did put out an infectic side for the chinch bugs,
but I don't know about here take all.

Speaker 4 (50:49):
So yeah, here, here's another thing is go to that
area where the grass is starting to yellow a little bit.
Typically take all root right. It goes from green to
yellowing because it's losing roots and root tips, right, and
then it goes to brown. And if you go to
yellow and pull up a runner, you know, pull up
something like a foot long if you can, and you

(51:12):
look and all those roots are just dry, wiry, brown looking,
that's probably take all root.

Speaker 16 (51:19):
Right.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Chinchbugs don't kill the roots before they kill the runner,
you know, they suck the juices out of the whole thing,
the runner. So if you pull them up and you
just don't see living roots, except maybe there's a root
on the very last node, on the newest node on
the on the runner right, that's probably all you're looking at. Okay,
all right, but definitely get those publications off there, yeah,

(51:41):
because that's going to help you a lot. Appreciate that.
Good luck, sir, you bet. We're seeing a lot of
take all root right folks this time of the year.
And I guess I'll talk about it a little bit
more here as we go through the show this morning.
But it is well, take all root right. That tells
you what you need to know. It kills roots, and

(52:03):
it takes it all. I mean, it kills the grass.
That is the thing, the most important thing to know
about it though, And I'll just say this here. If
you stress your lawn, if you allow it to be stressed,
you're gonna find take all problems in the lawn. It's
out there, it's in beautiful, healthy lawns. Take all is present,
but the lawn gets weak, the disease moves in the

(52:25):
grass doesn't have the defenses it needs, and then you're
trying to turn things around. And that's like, would you
rather stop a giant, you know, ten foot high snowball
at the top of a hill, or would you rather
go about halfway down the hill and try to stop
it when it's coming at you at fifty miles an hour.
Take all root right is much easier to prevent than
it is to cure and to turn things around. And

(52:47):
the further you let it go, the less is in
your power. If you have take all that's killed a
big area, and then you know it's moving through the lawn,
and at that stage you jump out there and try
to get in front of it. With all the things
I'm suggesting on my publication, it's going to be a
slow and slow, gradual process, and it will continue to

(53:07):
die for a little bit because it's already killed roots.
And if you got dead roots, even if you eradicated
the disease from the grass plant, even if you could
do that, you still got a grass plant without roots
and no energy, no way to get water to put
on growth and put down new roots. That's why you
got to get ahead of it and don't wait too long.

(53:29):
Microlife fertilizers are so many good products. I'm working my
way through them. Yesterday i was using the Microlife AF
to plant some plants in the yard and AF. Another
one that I like is soil energy. Soil energy has
the humic acid and it's got the molasses, which is

(53:51):
just rocket fuel for microbes. That's a great product to use.
I was putting the two together. I was putting the
AF and the soil energy together. The F is a
mix of a number of different microbes that fight disease.
Do you know that there saw microbes that fight that
they helped the plant fight disease? There are, they're there

(54:13):
and microlifs bottle these things up and you just mix
them up, follow the label. I was using it to
start a new plant because I wanted to take care
of the root system, get it off to a good
start and whatnot. Some of these are great for follier
feeding as well. Many many microlife products out there, easy
to find. They're all over the place. Uh, and you
just need to get one and try it out, and
they do work well. Let's see if you'd like to

(54:36):
give me a call here on guarden line seven one
three two one two k t rh R seven one
three two one two. If you hate to hunt out
letters fifty eight seventy four seven one three two, one, two, five,
eight seven four for those of you out in the
KDI area, your hometown nursery. In fact, all of you

(54:57):
on the west side out there, heading out, I ten
towards end Tonio direction, that whole region. Nelson Water Gardens
and nursery. Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery right there on Iten,
just north of Iten, I said, on it north of
Iten on Katie for Ben Road. Now they've got a
great stock of some really good tomato plants right now.

(55:18):
They got some lot of varieties I like. I love Juliette.
It's like a two byte grape. It's not a little
tiny grape tomato. It's a two byte grape tomato, super
super All America selection. By the way, they got sun Gold,
which I just think is beautiful. It's one of the
more productive cherry tomatoes you're gonna get, you know, Celebrity
plus is awesome, awesome tomato. They've got them there. Uh,

(55:40):
they are going to be getting more and more vegetable
plants in as we go toward fall. But it don't
wait on tomatoes, don't wait on peppers and things. Time
to get those out there. They got you covered now
of course they're a water gardens specialist. Nobody knows water
gardens as well as they do. They invented the disappearing fountain.
They can put one up for you. They can tay

(56:00):
you how to do it yourself if you want to
go do that. Got a nice seal right now on bamboo,
Lots of beautiful, graceful bamboo. I think it's one of
the underplanted plants. These are the clumping kinds, not the
kind that run and take over like bermuda grass and
a flower bed wood. These are the clumping kinds, and
they do so well, so well for you. And while

(56:20):
you're there, check out their indoor plants, the plants for
low light. You know you got an area you can't
grow a house plant, you go in there and talk
to them. They'll get you hooked up with a snake
plant or a zz plant. Those are two of the
easiest plants to grow. I like to say, if you
can't grow those, I can't help you because they pretty
much if you ignore them, they grow. But Nelson Water
Gardens and Nursery is the place to go on Katie

(56:42):
for Benrod just north of Katie Freeway, Nelson Watergardens Dot
com We're gonna head out now to Meadows Place and
talk to Jim. Hey Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 21 (56:53):
Good morning, Skip. Quick question for you. I have four
crape myrtles and one esperanza. I've been using the crate
myrtle fertilizer and color Star once a month has recommended.
My sister has a bunch of crape myrtles and she
uses a product called Scott's Super Bloom that's a twelve

(57:17):
fifty five six product, and her blooms on her crp
myrtles are big as basketballs. Is there any advantage of
me trying that online?

Speaker 4 (57:30):
No, no, it's no, it's not that fifty five. That
is a huge high number. And if you don't have
enough phosphorus, well that would help. But I would stick
with the crape myrtle product you're using, and the color
Star itself is just fine. It works just fine. The
big blooms on a crpe murder are because of the
vigor of the crpe myrtle and the you know, the

(57:52):
right weather and things. But a big, big bloom is
because that's a big vigorous shoot.

Speaker 11 (57:58):
And so.

Speaker 4 (58:00):
It's not that fertilizer that's making those blooms out size.
It's it's just having the nutrients they need, especially the nitrogen,
which helps them to grow. But then that middle number
phosphorus needs to be an adequate supply so that they
can bloom. But I think what you're using is excellent.
I would stick with that, maybe a little more watering,
making sure that they do maintain vigor. Of course we're

(58:22):
getting to the end of great myrtle season here, but
that that would be the way to go.

Speaker 19 (58:27):
All right, Jam, appreciate, appreciate your comments.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Thank you, Sirving, Yes, sir, thank you. We've got to
take a quick break. I'll be right back. Hang around
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
quarter back guard line. Good to have you with us.
We are talking all kinds of things gardening today. No
matter what you're looking for, give us a call. We

(58:53):
I don't know. Maybe it's an orchid plant. Talk about that.
Someone's asking me about you know, what is the what
is the houseplant that I can't kill? Well, that would
be a silk plant or a plastic plant, although silk
plants can get dust mites. That's a joke, by the way,
But seriously, I was Donking earlier before break about sense
of area. Mother in law's tongue also called snake plants

(59:14):
got three different names and zz plant that's kind of
a newer one to our houseplant world kind of start
showing up a lot when we went through the COVID
initial COVID deal. But anyway, those plants are really easy.
They're easy to grow. So go with something you can
do easily. Hey, if you're looking for quality tools, and
whether that tool is a battery powered hand tool, you know,

(59:37):
like the Walt Craftsmen, Black and Decker Milwaukee, Ace's only
brand ACE stores are the place to get it. Ace
Aces only, Ace's own brand of course of quality tools.
They make it easy and in fact, if you know
what you want or need for most things, you can
simply buy it online and pick it up at the store.
If you want to go that route, make sure and
sign up for the ACE Rewards. Now there's ACE all

(01:00:00):
over the listening area. If you're hearing my voice, you
got an acen area. But go to ACE Hardware Texas
dot com, Ace Hardware Texas dot com and find your
local ACE Hardware stores stores like All Seasons, ACE and
Willis U Valdie Ace on your Valdi Road east side
of Houston. Down southeast, there's Chalmers Ace on Broadway Street

(01:00:20):
and Galveston, Texas Base City ACE on Seventh Street. Down
to the south and the west. How about up toward
the Woodlands direction on Kirkandal Aspa's ace. ACE Hardware dot Com.
You can find everything you need, whether it's a barbecue bit,
oh my gosh, they are a barbecue lots of cool.
I was in an a store yesterday just looking at
all the different equipment, not just the pits, but everything

(01:00:42):
to go with them to have a success. Tools and
then of course your fertilizers and things to have a beautiful,
beautiful one and landscape. Ace Hardware Texas dot Com. We're
gonna go to the galleria now and talk to Forest.
Hey Forrest, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 14 (01:00:59):
Hey Skiff, good to talk to you again. As always,
I had a question about the asparagus that I've planted.
I read when I was doing this initially that you
got to wait two years before you can actually harvest it.
And so one road that I've planted will be coming
up two years this coming spring, and these plants are

(01:01:23):
really growing tall and bushy, and I'm just kind of wondering,
do I just allow them to continue to get tall
and bushy and then cut them back in the winter,
or how do you propose that I care for coming up?

Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
Yeah, asparagus, what it's all about is we're getting it
to grow a strong plant and store lots of carbohydrates
in its underground structures. And when you do that, then
in spring, you've got all this energy where it's sending
up fat new asparagus shoots for you to harve. And

(01:02:00):
as you harvest them, the plant gets weaker and weaker
because it's using stored energy, and you keep cutting it off.
And once it gets down to about pencil size, we
could harvesting them and let it come back and replenish
its reserve. So that's the process. One reason we say
two years is because it takes a while to do that. Now,
we're pretty far south for asparagus. You can grow it here,

(01:02:22):
but our winters are not that cold where it goes
fully dormant, and so sometimes it's better just to cut
all that ferny growth on top back as we get
into midwinter, and then you'll get your asparagus season after that.
In the meantime, in this heat and drought and conditions
like that, you got to keep it moist because you
want to keep it healthy because the weaker the plant gets,

(01:02:44):
the less carbohydrate storage will be done, and therefore the
less harvest you're going to get when you start harvesting.

Speaker 14 (01:02:51):
Okay, and then do I just continue to fertilize on
a regular basis.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
Yeah, periodic basis based on on what you already have
in your soil. You know, the nutrient content. If the
sparagus is vigorous and growing and healthy, probably good to go.
If you're using compost around it and working it in, well,
that's taking care of a lot of the nutrition for
you too. But a little bit of fertilizer, especially the
nitrogen end. You know, I would say like something that's

(01:03:18):
good for the lawn would be good for asparagus because
you're mainly pushing some vigor and growth to get those
ferny leaves up there in the sunlight. But Nelson has
a vegetable mix that's also very good. It's their vegetable
comes in little jars.

Speaker 17 (01:03:33):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
That part of that the nutri star.

Speaker 14 (01:03:37):
The second row that I've planted this this spring, should
I give it the two year waiter? Should I Should
I go ahead and try to harvest it next spring?

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
Well? See what see what looks like coming out? And
if it comes out and it's just not that gray,
it's kind of spinley. Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't harvest it.
If you got some decent spears coming up. When they're
first peeking up, that's when you need to harvest them,
not after their foot high, of course, but you might
harvest for a little bit and see, it just depends
on you know. The two years is just because that's

(01:04:11):
about what it takes. But how your asparagus is. It
could be in two years your asparagus is still scrawny
and struggling. Right, So the two years isn't the magic number.
It's the health of the plant. But usually that takes
a couple of years.

Speaker 14 (01:04:25):
Well I can tell the all right, swer the older Nay, Thanks,
I appreciate it, Thank you sir, bye bye.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
You bet thank you appreciate that. Appreciate your call. BB
turf Pros BB turf Pros actually b NB turf Pros,
but the website is bb no in bb turf Pros
dot com. Why do I talk about them? Well, let
me tell you this. This is a company, a family
owned operation, and they are all about you being happy.

(01:04:55):
They really are. You look at their reviews and it
shows that. But they they go above and beyond. They
want to make a personal connection with their clients. They
want to ensure that you're satisfied. Now, it is a
it is quite an ordeal to have someone come out
and bring the heavy equipment or the heavy equipment, the
equality equipment to do core aeration on a lawn and

(01:05:16):
then to haul all the compost out there to do
the top dressing. So the price is start around five
hundred dollars, depending on the yard size and the travel distance.
That's just the way it is. They service the area
from Sugarland and Missouri City over to League City, Dickinson
down to Alvin up to Parland, Friendswood, that whole South
Houston region. Now, what about that five hundred dollars sounds

(01:05:39):
like a lot, Well, it's not. When you're replacing a lawn,
I'll tell you that. And if your lawn is compacted,
the soil's compacted, if it's struggling, if you're dealing with
weeds because it's thin and sunlight's getting through I can
think of nothing that does as much to rejuvenate a
lawn that's struggling like that as core aeration and compost
top dressing. That's the deal. Uh BB turf Pros dot

(01:06:03):
Com seven to one, three two three, four fifty five
ninety eight. Let them put that, uh those corroorators. Pop
those plugs out of your soil, drop them on the surface,
help melt the thatch away even faster, and get oxygen
to the root system and get that lawn regenerator. And
now would be a good time to do it, because
we still got some months left for that Saint Augustine

(01:06:24):
to go into winter strong or Zoozia or Bermuda grass,
it doesn't matter what it is. Our Southern turf grasses
and BnB turf pros bbturfpros dot Com, they know how.

Speaker 22 (01:06:34):
To do it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:35):
Let's go out to humbold and we're going to talk
to Ava. Hey, Ava, welcome to garden line.

Speaker 22 (01:06:40):
Hey, Skip, how you doing?

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
I'm good?

Speaker 21 (01:06:44):
How can we Hell?

Speaker 22 (01:06:45):
Michael, Well, my husband is the gardener and he has
seventeen to marry at trees. Okay, some he cross breeded,
but we have.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
Merely the problem on them okay, all right, and.

Speaker 22 (01:07:06):
He has done the detergent thing.

Speaker 7 (01:07:09):
He's done. Was it name or mean oil?

Speaker 22 (01:07:13):
Okay, and yeah there's still they're still there.

Speaker 4 (01:07:18):
Yeah, got you. Here's what you're gonna probably need to do. Sure, well,
all the topical things that you're doing is fine, but
you don't get them all and then the ones that
you didn't quite get they come back, and so you
kind of on a treadmill. You need a product to
put in the soil and go up in the plant,
a systemic product. And so if you will go to

(01:07:39):
your down there in your area, go to your like
local ice hardware store, tell him you need a systemic product.
There's a couple of different ingredients that are common in
the market. But get that. Follow the label carefully, put
it on the soil. It's gonna take a little while
to get up in the plant. But then when anything sucks,
the juice is out of that plant like a meai bug.

(01:07:59):
It's picking up the poison in the plumbing that the
roots took up. And that's that's the way I would go.
I'm up against I'm up against a heart break here, Ava,
But good luck with that. I hope it will. It
works well in some picture, you bet. Take care, folks,
We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the garden line.

(01:08:22):
Good to have you with us today. Listen, if you
are looking at your lawn and it just looks like
it needs a boost, you know, it just not really
got the vigor that you'd like it to have. Sweet
Green from Night Foss is a great way to give
a good quick boost to your lawn. And now this
product you put it down. First of all, it smells good,

(01:08:43):
it smells wonderful, but it dissolves a way into the
soil full of carbon molecules. It's a sugar carbon type
based product. The the microbes just go crazy with that.
That's why organic gardeners use molasses in the garden. And
this originally is probably from a molasses type base. As
I said, sugar, but more of a molasses. But when

(01:09:05):
it dissolves into the soil, it just fires things up
and you see results. You absolutely see results with it,
and it will carry you. Do one right now, and
it will carry you on until it's time for us
to do our fall fertilization, which comes in early October
for most of this area. And so I would recommend
you give it a good shot. I think you'll like
what you see from it.

Speaker 13 (01:09:25):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
Sweet Greens available places like Stanton Shopping Center on Taylor
and Alvin. You can go to Plants for All Seasons
on Luetta and Tomball Parkway one for gosh, I get
two forty nine. Can't even say the numbers. Luetta in
two forty nine is where you find Sweet Green at
the Plants for All Seasons. Katie Ace Hardware another good

(01:09:48):
place in Court Hardware down in Stafford, South Maine. Ktace
is on Pinoak. Easy to find night fast products like
this Sweet Green and now is a perfect time to
do that. We're gonna head out now to Full sher
and talk to Lee. Hello, Lee, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 9 (01:10:09):
Hello here we have a Lee.

Speaker 4 (01:10:11):
Yes, sir, now I can't Hey, good.

Speaker 10 (01:10:14):
Morning are.

Speaker 12 (01:10:17):
Well.

Speaker 10 (01:10:17):
I just wanted to give you thank you. I just
want to give you a call and first of all
tell you I appreciate your program and love listening and
lots of great information. But anyway, I have an orchid
that I bought about a year ago, and you know,
I bought it with flowers, and slowly over time the
flowers have fallen off and I've replanted it and brought

(01:10:39):
it from outside, brought it from inside to outside, put
it in the sun, out of the sun. I've been
using a little bit of the miracle grow on it,
but I can't seem to get it the flower although
it is growing a couple of new leaves at the bottom.
And was kind of wanting to find out how I
can maybe get a few more flowers there. And then
the other question I had was, I have some some tomatoes.

(01:11:00):
I picked up one of the garden centers and they
raised garden and it had one to lay to on
it when I bought it, had put any more else
since I bought it. Some kind of struggling with those things,
and thought.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
As a call, yeah, sure. So the orchids I have
my or kids, like in a bathroom where there's this large,
you know, one of those kind of cloudy windows that
diffuses the light. It likes a very bright, diffuse light.
It likes to not be kept too wet. Usually you
purchase an orchid, it's going to come in a bunch

(01:11:31):
of bark or spagnum moss or something like that, because
they grow on the side of a tree in the jungle.
I mean that most orchids. They're in that kind of environment,
so try to maintain that. Keep it adequately moist but
not too wet. That's the number one enemy of orchids.
As we go through and you get good vigor during
typically during the summer season, you can get some growing done.

(01:11:53):
I find that then they will form those bloom buds
down in the interior of the where the leaves are attaching,
and then you'll get those shoots. It'll probably be in
the late winter and spring when you see your blooming
shoots on it, but that's when you'll probably get They
can bloom it other times. But the standard orchid that's

(01:12:14):
sold everywhere that easy to grow, that's what it wants.
And you can get a dilute plant food, very dilute
because you're going to mix it as a liquid and
you're just going to kind of use it as you water.
Because remember think about something growing on the bark of
a tree in a jungle. You get a little bit
of parrot poop washing down with the rain. That kind

(01:12:35):
of thing that orchids get fed in nature, and so
we're giving them a very dilute solution periodically during this
summer growing primary growing season here as far as the
let's see what was the other other tomatoes. It's a
little hot for tomatoes to set and do well. Little
cherries do okay, grapes do okay in summer, but not

(01:12:56):
great at all. But when it comes off a little bit,
those tomatoes that should start fruiting for you again.

Speaker 10 (01:13:04):
All right, great, well, I really appreciate the time.

Speaker 4 (01:13:08):
Yeah, thanks for your call. Appreciate that very much. Have
you been to Buchanans Plants, folks, Buchanan's Plants and the Heights.
I love going there. It is, you know, number one.
They specialize in natives, but natives aren't even the majority
of what they have there. They have an extremely wide
selection of plants. If you're looking for like a really

(01:13:29):
quality house plant, oh my gosh, go into their houseplant greenhouse.
Check it out. Succulents, the strings, everything you can imagine.
They have got it. They've got tomatoes in and other
herbs in right now, beautiful decorative ornamentals, things that will
get you set up for fall. It's just a great
it's just a great place. It's a fun place to

(01:13:50):
go visit. No matter what kind of plant. You can
walk in there, and they've got the expertise to point
you in the right direction. You know, Hey, I've got
the shady spot. I need some but nothing wants to
grow in there. And you just tell them that and
they will get you set up. Buchanans Plants dot Com,
East eleven Street and the Heights. They carry a full

(01:14:11):
range of the products you hear me talk about for
fertilizing here on garden Line, as well as soil products too.
Let's go out to Fairfield now we're going to talk
to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:14:22):
Morning skit.

Speaker 7 (01:14:23):
Thanks.

Speaker 23 (01:14:24):
Hey, im some super turk down. I thought it was
on your schedule in July, late July, but I heard
you this morning say something about putting imperial. I do
have a little fifteen five ten left? Should I apply
that to my grass?

Speaker 19 (01:14:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:14:43):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:14:45):
Yeah, Well, I mean let your grass tell you and
you'll know if it needs a little boost or not.
But as far as super turf, it's a great product,
you know, and we've been talking about it all summer long.
The closer we get to October, the more you know,
I wouldn't want to apply something that's going to fertilize
you all going to Christmas or something. Uh, it's a

(01:15:06):
super different not that long, but it's a long time.
And so I would go with their with their uh
faster fifteen five to ten, the red bag imperial now
uh and then.

Speaker 7 (01:15:19):
At that time I've already applied.

Speaker 4 (01:15:22):
Then you're good, You're yeah, I would Yeah, I would
still do the fall. I would do the fall a
little bit later. Look look at my schedule and do
a little bit later on the schedule.

Speaker 12 (01:15:32):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
And and then uh because the fall fertilizer is going
to give you the the higher potassium and that's important
for cold heartiness.

Speaker 7 (01:15:40):
Okay, okay, all right, there you go.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
Hey, thank you, appreciate, appreciate your call very much. That
is a fact. Hey, Uh, Ciena Maltch, I was just looking.
Those guys are all over social media. They're having too
much fun down there. Cienamltz dot com is a website.
They are the place you go for everything to create
the foundation of success in the ground. I'm talking about composts.

(01:16:07):
I'm talking about bed mixes like that. I was talking
about the veggie and herb mix from Heirloom. They carry
that at Ciana Mulch and much much more. They carry
the fertilizers from Microlife and Nelson's from Medina and nitropos
and azemite. I mean they if it's part of brown
stuff before green stuff, if it's part of creating the
foundation for success. Ciana Maultch is the place to go

(01:16:30):
south of Houston near Highway six and two eighty eight
on FM five point twenty one. They deliver within about
twenty miles for a fee. Siennamltch dot com. That's the website.

Speaker 9 (01:16:40):
Go there.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
You can find their hours, you can find out how
to get there, and just go. You're gonna have fun.
They're nicest folks. You will enjoy going and shopping there.
All right, music means I gotta quit talking. So here
we go. Uh, we're gonna take a little break for
the top of the hour, news and ED and Cyprus.
You're gonna be our first. We're up when we come back.

(01:17:08):
Welcome back to garden Line, folks. Glad to have you
with us. You got a question about gardening, we can
help with. Give me a call. We'd be happy. That
is it with you? Seven one three two one two
k t r H seven one three two one two
k t r H. Yeah, that's it. So what are

(01:17:31):
we going to talk about today, Well, that's up to you.
You guys set the agenda, and if you don't, I've
got plenty of things I can talk about that I
am interested in. So uh, And I say I'm interested
in it's because I know what makes the phone ring
this time of the year and I'm seeing the emails
this time of the year. We'll address a lot of
those kinds of things. Wild Birds Unlimited is it's the

(01:17:55):
only place you need to know when it comes to
things regarding birds. Quality birds seed, wald Birds Unlimited. Bird
seed that doesn't create a mess all over the place.
Wild Birds Unlimited bird seed the birds will eat and
not kick off on the ground. Wild Bird's Unlimited. There's
six Wildbirds Unlimited stores in the Greater Houston area. Kingwood

(01:18:17):
on Kingwood Drive, clear Lake on Eldorado, Pearland on East Broadway,
Houston on bel Air, Houston on Memorial and Cypress up
on Barker Cypress. It is now hummingbird season. They have
already started showing up. You need to get your hummingbird
feeders ready to go. If you don't have one, wild
Birds Unlimited they got you covered. They also have a
nectar Defender product. If you put sugar water out, let

(01:18:41):
me do that. Let me have you do this. Get
you a glass of sweet tea, take a few SIPs
out of it, and sit it on the patio and
leave it out there for a couple of days. Go
take a sip of it. I know you won't do that.
I wouldn't either, because it'd be nasty. Well, what happens
to sugar water and a hummingbird feeder? Yeah, same thing.
You got to refresh them regularly. But with nectar Defender

(01:19:03):
it'll go like seven ten days being on the weather
and stuff. It was a long time protecting it from
going bad. And where do you get it? Nectar Defender
wild Birds unlimited. All right, there you go. Today, it'd
be a good day to get out and do just that.
Let's go to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Ed. Hello, Ed,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 24 (01:19:25):
Good morning. I sent you forty photos. Three of them
are from some hibiscus that I bought at Arbor Gates,
two of which are doing great, and the third I
don't know what's going on with it. I plan them
about the same time. And then the last photo is

(01:19:46):
of some plumbagel. Can you tell from those photos.

Speaker 4 (01:19:51):
On it, Well, the plumbago either looks like it's been
kept to wet, are like there is a it's an
iron deficiency, a vigor deficiency. Uh And and in my
opinion that I often see that when the soil is

(01:20:11):
kept too wet. I see that same yellowing kind of thing.
Dig down about three or four inches and feel the soil.
If it is moist, don't water. If it is not moist,
water uh So get that water level where it needs
to be.

Speaker 17 (01:20:26):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:20:27):
I would give it. I would get you know, all
your plants a moderate amount of fertilizer. You know something
that has a good boost for color. Microlife has a
it's part of their one two three easy system. Their
fertilizer is an organic product. And I would use that
around your plants. Grab some of that from them. They

(01:20:48):
set about the bag, work it into the soil, follow
the instructions and watered in really good uh and give
it a boost. It doesn't just have nitrogen, it's got
other things as well, being organic, a lot of things
in it. So I would do that. The one that's wilting,
the hibiscuits that's wilting something is wrong in the root system.
I doubt that the soil moisture is that different between

(01:21:12):
those three, but it's possible that it's a little too
wet there. But it's something's wrong. I think if you
dig down, you may find you have a root rot
going on. But it may be a root rot due
to staying too wet, but I can't assess that from
the photo.

Speaker 24 (01:21:31):
Okay, yeah, I've got in those beds, and I mean
right now, I've got them five minutes a day.

Speaker 4 (01:21:45):
Okay, how long? How long have those hibiscus been in?

Speaker 10 (01:21:50):
About two months?

Speaker 4 (01:21:55):
Okay, well, in two months they should have. They look
good enough. The ones that look good they obviously have
established themselves. So I'm not worried about that limited of
a root system. That's all I can think to tell
you on this d based on just you know, standing
back looking at a picture of it. But watch that
soul moisture level. And then fertilizer is not going to

(01:22:18):
help the one that's struggling. It probably can help the
plumbago though, but it just seems to me like something
is nutrient wise wrong in that plumbago plant. So I
would I would give it a boost, to give a
little iron, give it a little bit of boost of
that complete fertilizer that they sell there at Arborcate.

Speaker 24 (01:22:39):
So if I were ptching places that's not doing well,
could I put it in the same hold? Do I
need to dig out enough? Does the root rock spread?

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
I would it's so far along. I would dig it
up myself right now, just to look at the roots.
If you need to set it right back in the ground,
you can, But I think what you're going to find
is the roots are gone more so than the top
has gone. And that's the sign of the problem beginning
in the roots. You know, if you got plump, healthy
roots and it's just a top dying back, then it's
not a root rod. But I would check that. I'm

(01:23:15):
sorry I got a run, but good luck with those.
Those are beautiful. Those summer effics are just gorgeous that
they you got from Marburgate. Those are I love those hibiscus.
But thank you, sir, I appreciate that call. We're going
to go now to Tasca Sita and talk to James. Hey, James,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (01:23:31):
Good morning, Skip, Thank you for taking my call. We
bought a house about eight years ago. It had an
established heads of boxwoods, and we ended up losing one
to some kind of a brown, crispy something. I don't
even know what it was. We planted another group of
them and now they're turning yellow and brown and crispy

(01:23:52):
as well. I don't know if I have a bug
or what might be happening.

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
It could be a lot of things. Boxwood gets nematods, boxwood,
it's boxwood light. Boxwood suffers sometime from cold snaps when
it's not ready. It's otherwise hardy, but it can boxwood
there's a fungal, soul, fungal thing that plugs the plumbing
of the plant that can cause it to go down. Basically,

(01:24:17):
I'm not a big boxwood fan. In some places they're
doing just fine, but when you have problems with them,
you have problems with them. And so if I know,
that's a lot of plants to replace, but if you
do have to replace, I would consider going a different direction. Now,
if I had a plant in front of me, dug
up that I'm looking at and examining, I could probably
tell you exactly what it is. If I were you,

(01:24:40):
I would go to a good quality garden center. You know,
with your plants to see if they can tell you
what they see there or down in the area. You're
in a task asda. Uh yeah, you got some great
ones out there, you know, you got the Kingwood Garden Center,
the Warren Southern Gardens. Maybe they can help you with
that as well. But it's you'll be one of several things,

(01:25:01):
and they all can look somewhat similar.

Speaker 19 (01:25:04):
Got it?

Speaker 7 (01:25:04):
And it would photographs be sufficient? Or do I need
to take them a plant.

Speaker 4 (01:25:09):
And I would take the plant, or I can tell
you this. Look if you go down to the base
of the stem on your plant that is dying, not
completely dead yet, and you take your knife and cut
lengthwise down through the stem. If you see staining like
it's an old cigarette filter, that kind of brown gray staining,
that's a sign of the fungal disease plugging the plumbing.

(01:25:29):
There's no curing it. It's going to be in the soil.
If you pull it up and you see knots all
along the roots, that's nematodes. And if you don't see
any of that, and you just have die back of
the top, you may see splits in the bark, which
would be a sign of a canker or a blight.
That's as far as I can go, you know, based
on what we're seeing. But I would get somebody that
knows what they're looking at to take a look at

(01:25:51):
that and you do that first examination based on what
I told you. I'm up against a heartbreak here, James.
But thank you for your call. Mike Spring and Diniesi
and Sugarlane, you're a first st up when we come back.
All right, welcome back to the garden Line. Good to
have you with us this morning. I was time at
Arburgate when we went to break about their Organic Food Complete.

(01:26:13):
That is a product pretty much anything with roots. You
can use it on, use it on it. It is
an organic product. It does also contain some extra calcium
in it. It's just good. It works. And they've got
the organic Soil Complete, which is a soil blend that's
got expanded shale in it. And when we have clay soils,
expanded shale, of course, compost is wonderful for clay soils,

(01:26:36):
helping loosen them up a little bit, but expanded shale
lasts longer than the compost does, and so having some
shale in there is a great addition. They were very
smart and doing that. And then the Organic Compost Complete
also has expanded shale in it. And those three products
one two three, completely easy system of food for anything
with roots, a soil for any application, and a compost

(01:26:57):
that improves any and all soil. You can there at
Arborgate And in fact, the organic soil Complete in the
Organic Compost Complete can be delivered in bulk wherever you live.
If you hear my voice, give Arbigate a call and
they can haul that out to your place to help
you take care of that brown stuff before green stuff.
By the way, if you haven't been to Arbigate lately,

(01:27:18):
you need to check them out. They've got all the
plants that laugh at summer heat. I don't laugh at
summer heat. I cry. But they've got plants that'll make
your landscape look awesome no matter how hot it is.
And then here comes the fall season and they're going
to be stocked and ready to go for that as well.
By the way, if you haven't been there, they are

(01:27:38):
west of Tombull on twenty nine to twenty, just about
a mile and a half outside Tumble. You got to
go buy and check them out. We're going to go
now to talk to Mike in spring. Hey Mike, welcome
to garden line.

Speaker 8 (01:27:51):
Hey skip, So I sent you those two pictures of.

Speaker 21 (01:27:54):
The weeds.

Speaker 4 (01:27:59):
Weed. Okay, okay, uh so continue on what was just point?
There we go? I've got them here we go. Oh yeah, yes, yes, yes,
I seem so go ahead.

Speaker 8 (01:28:15):
Yeah. So something this time of year that I can
do to them. I've spray or sprinkled this crab grass
killer powder on them and it does kill it. But
that stuff so expensive. I can't afford to do the
big matches, you know, the big spots.

Speaker 4 (01:28:30):
Yeah, yeah, you don't know, you don't want to use that.

Speaker 19 (01:28:32):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:28:33):
One of the weeds and one of the little white flowers,
that's Virginia button weed. Virginia button weed is difficult to control.
So even products at work are going to have to
be used more than once. And uh right now, the
most effective product you can use now without damaging the
lawn because of the heat is to use celsius. But
you got to do it early in the morning when

(01:28:56):
it's cooler.

Speaker 21 (01:28:57):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:28:58):
When I say it can be used in the I
mean when our season is hot, right, But I wouldn't
wait and do it when it's one hundred degrees outside.
I would just do it in the morning. You could
do that now. It works very well at shutting down
that Virginia button weed, but expect that you're gonna have
to do it more than once. They did some trials
over to LSU and they found that it did very well.

(01:29:23):
And there's there's some other things you can use, but
the celsius is easy to come by. I would go
with that. Now. The other weed that you have is
a weed called chamber bitter. That's the one that looks
like a little mimosa tree or something like that. And
chamber bitter it's to the degree you can pull it
out is good because even when it's a scrawny little plant,

(01:29:45):
it already has little seed pods underneath the leaves. If
you turn the leaves over, the little round balls underneath
there that contain the seed. The best way to a
wait it is to use a premerge and herbicide next year.
I would say maybe in April, a March or April
to prevent it. It doesn't want to sprout till it
heats up a lot, but probably probably March or early

(01:30:08):
early April. I would put the pre emergent out in
it post emergent. I don't know. You could try the
celsius on it and see how it works. I haven't
tried celsius on that particular weed, but most of the
post emergents, they're just too stressful to our grass right now.

Speaker 8 (01:30:23):
Yeah, I mean, all right, sir, I've been pulling those things, okay.
And I had one more question. I've got the vigo
raised beds, yeah, and I've got some a sweet gum
tree close by, and the route and coachment is killing me.
And I'm about to dig all that out and reset them.
But up, I don't know what to put underneath there.

Speaker 9 (01:30:45):
The weed barrier doesn't work.

Speaker 8 (01:30:47):
Should I put some heavy plastic or would you.

Speaker 4 (01:30:50):
Recommend well, I wouldn't do plastic. A good thick weed
barrier commercial like weed bear, like you see when you
go to a garden center and they got black pots
sitting on the ground with that black cloth over it.
That stuff is strong. You're not gonna tear it. That
would work, but you can't put it inside the bed.
You have to have it kind of almost come around

(01:31:12):
the outside of the bed, otherwise the roots will get
between the weed barrier and the side of your bed
and come inside. Anyway. The only other thing, and I've
got the same problem in my gardens is occasionally going
through there doing a little trench with a shovel that
cuts roots and just periodically slicing them off. But they
will come back. That's just nature. There's not a good

(01:31:36):
way around that. Okay, all right, man ready, thank you sir.
Appreciate it. You take care for sure. I don't know
if you were listening. A few weeks ago, I had
Ty strickling from fixing my slab on and we were
picking his brain about all kinds of things related to
foundations and sidewalks and driveways. He fixes all that stuff.

(01:31:59):
But think about Tie is he's an eighty Fewstonian, fifth
generation Texan, been doing this for like twenty five years now,
and he knows his stuff. He knows what he's doing.
And I appreciate the fact that he provides the kind
of service you with every person that comes to your
house to do any kind of work would do. And
that is, they tell you when they're going to be there,
and they show up on time. Number two, they give

(01:32:22):
you a fair price. Number three, they fix it right.
And I'm gonna throw a number four in if it
doesn't need fixing. They tell you and tyle do that.
He'll come out to your place and you'll go, yeah,
that is a crack, but it right now. It's not
time to worry about it and do something about it,
or no it is. You know, if you got sticking doors,
we've got cracks in the concrete, cracks in the sheet rock,

(01:32:44):
the brick on the outside of your house, you need
to give him a call. Two eight one two fyy
five forty nine forty nine two eight one two fy
five forty nine forty nine. Fix myslab dot com. Fix
myslab dot com. He's committed to a fair price and
doing it right and showing up on time and being
honest with you about what you're dealing with. And if

(01:33:04):
you got a big driveway, that's all you know, like
the Mountain Range, you can hardly drive your car around it.
It's lifted up and broken and everything else. Have him
come out. They can deal with that too. They have
some magical ways of fixing that kind of situation. We're
gonna go now to sugar Land and talk to Danesh.
Hello Danish, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:33:27):
All right, thanks for taking my Carskip A long time
listener first on call. So I sent you a picture
last week. Can you see if you can find that?
Please and see if ahead if I have the root
trot or you know what it is with the grass

(01:33:48):
and there's another picture of a bush.

Speaker 4 (01:33:52):
Yes, I do remember your pictures and your photos are
classic for take all root rot. The yellowing that then
proceeds to dying. That is that is very typical to
take all root rot. And anything that stresses the grass
opens the door for that disease to move in. So

(01:34:13):
the disease is killing the grass, but the stress is
leading to the problems. On my website Gardening with Skip
dot com, I have two publications, Take All Root Rot.
It's a quick Look, it's some quick tips for me.
It's a one pager, and then I've got one that's
called an in Depth Look. If I were you, I'd
read the in Depth because it goes into more detail

(01:34:35):
on the things you have to do. A fung aside
in the fall is on my schedule. If you look
at the pest, Disease and Weed schedule, which is also
on my website, you'll see when take all treatments are done.
But there's some other things we can do. And I
put that publication together because it's too complicated to go through,
you know, all the details in a phone call. But

(01:34:57):
there are things you can do to reduce the stress,
to help the grass hold on while it's struggling trying
to get its feed under it. But right now, when
it's one hundred degrees and grass is losing roots, it's
it's hard. It's hard to just fix it overnight.

Speaker 13 (01:35:15):
So the idea apply for your side, I'm not sure
that would have or.

Speaker 12 (01:35:22):
Do I need to wait?

Speaker 4 (01:35:25):
Well, the fungicide I most recommend for take all root
rot is the ingredient a zoxy strobin. And in the
publication it talks about that, and it talks about you know,
brands and stuff like that, but a zoxy a z
x Y is not a brand I'm normally out there
talking about on the air and stuff. But it is

(01:35:48):
going to be your best shot at the take all
root rot. But right now, from your pictures, you've got
areas that are dead and areas that are turning yellow,
which means they've already lost their root system. So they
don't have a root system to take up the azoxystrobin product.
So that's why it's a series of things that when

(01:36:09):
you read that, it's kind of like, Okay, I need
to do this, I need to do some of that,
and here's the things I do, and you slowly turn
it around like turning an ocean liner around. At this
stage of the game, it takes a while, but you
can make a U turn. It just is a big
U turn. And then when we get to October and November,
you're going to be treating with a zoxystrobin at that
point in time. Okay, d yeah, I've got them up

(01:36:31):
against a go ahead? Do I need to do grass there?

Speaker 15 (01:36:36):
Or yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:36:41):
You could put what you got out and just put
the new grass right in and start watering it in.
That is an option. Uh, the disease. It's not like
you got to get rid of the disease and the soil.
You're not. You can't do that. But again the publication explains,
but anyway, I'm up against a heartbreak. Denish good luck
with that. When you read it, I think you're gonna
find everything that I know to tell you and stuff

(01:37:03):
that I found that works very very well. All Right, folks,
time for a quick break. When we come back, we'll
be entering your calls Welcome back, guys. Let's talk gardener,
Give me a call. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. Someone was asking me the other

(01:37:27):
day about their booga and villas, you know, trying to
help them to flower and do better and things, and uh,
we're we're discussing different aspects of growing a boog and
v and I just said, you know, the main thing
you need to do right now is get you some
Nutri Star, the booga and villa food that is from
Nelson Plant Food, Nelson Nutri Star line. You know, they
got a line for each kind of plant. There's one

(01:37:47):
for vegetables, and there's one for hibiscus, and there's one
for boogain villas and roses and on and on. I mean,
the whole nine yards Nutri Star boog and Villa food
is one of yours. And you just follow the instructions,
do what they say on it, follow it carefully, don't
keep too wet. They let them drive it just a
little bit. They're okay with that. I'm not talking about
a four month drought. I'm just talking about, you know,

(01:38:09):
let it dry it well. Between them and they do well.
Another thing that Nelson has is Bruce's Brew, and we
are in a perfect season for this right now now.
Bruces Brew is a product that will give you an
immediate release, but it also releases slowly over time at
the same time, so that's kind of cool. It's kind
of like a hybrid, you know, not all fast release,
not all slow release. It's kind of in between the two.

(01:38:31):
And Bruces Brew is in eighteen four nine that you
can put on your lawn right now as you carry
your lawn on end to fall. We'll be doing fall
fertilization later, but for now, the bruce Is Brew, It's
easy to find. It's product part of the turf Star
line for the folks at Nelson Plant Food. Let's head
out to the north side now and we're gonna talk

(01:38:51):
to Wayne. Hello, Wayne, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:38:56):
Hey Skip, I'll be on.

Speaker 4 (01:38:58):
Good sir. How can we out? Yes, Yeah, So I.

Speaker 9 (01:39:02):
Got a quick question for you. Trying to figure this out,
I can't tell I can't remember when we bought these
things Lantana or Marygolds at the local hardborre store.

Speaker 7 (01:39:13):
The yellow looking.

Speaker 9 (01:39:14):
Flower with the head, but I don't know if that okay. Anyways,
we planted these things back in like April or something
may somewhere in there. They been they were doing and
then all of a sudden the last two last two weeks,
they look like I don't know what's going on with them.
All the other plants are okay. I've been watering a
little bit here and there, but not as much as

(01:39:34):
I should be. But the other plants are fine. But
these have look like they're dying. I deadheaded them, but
they're still kind of like not coming around. They have
like little prom spots on the leaf. I'm trying to
figure out what could be going on.

Speaker 4 (01:39:46):
Yeah, good question. Let me ask how big are the flowers?
Are we talking about something size of a quarter, size
of a golf ball, size of a tennis ball. How
big are these flowers?

Speaker 9 (01:39:56):
Oh when they blew your stands? Yeah, the flower itself
is probably like a size of a maybe like a
quarter or or dime or I'm sorry, maybe like a quarter.
I little yellow flowers like you would see at the
local hardware store.

Speaker 4 (01:40:15):
So yeah, well, I was gonna say Lantana, but that's
a little small for Lantana too. Uh Well, I did
a couple of things. I would get a white piece
of paper and put it underneath a leaf and bump
it real sharp, dump that leaf real sharply with your
you know, finger, and then look on the paper and

(01:40:35):
see if you see little specks that are crawling all around.
If you see that, that's spider mines and you need
to treat for spider mans. If you don't see that,
I'll tell you what. Let me. Let me give you
a better answer than I'm going to give my best
shot because I can't quite determine what you have there.
If you will take pictures of the flowers and then

(01:40:56):
the leaves, I'm sorry. If you'll take a p sure
your flowers up close to the blooms, and also of
the leaf spots or things you're seeing, and send it
to me, I'll know exactly what it is, and i'll
give you an answer. Then let's do it that way,
because I can shoot from the hip, but I don't
want to waste your time and money, h when I
don't even know for sure what flower we're dealing with here.

Speaker 9 (01:41:19):
Okay, okay, all right, well thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:41:23):
Yeah, just hang on. My producer will pick up the
phone and give you an email, So don't go away.
We'll put you on hold. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, I
go through these questions to try to, you know, weed
my way through, and sometimes it's just kind of hard
to get to the bottom line. And so I don't
want to assume. You know what they say about assuming,

(01:41:46):
I can't say it on the radio, but you know
what they say about assuming for sure? Well, I always
talk about the importance of building a foundation from the
ground up. It's what nature does. Nature builds that foundation
for your plants from the ground on up. They basically
are they meaning the plants in nature are constantly building

(01:42:08):
their soil. They're dropping organic matter on it, they're decomposing
organic matter. They're covering the surface with leaves so that
it doesn't erode away or crust, and the leaves decompose
and make the soil richer and richer and richer. That's
that's nature's way of doing things. Well, Nature's way. Resources
is up there toward Conroe North on interceded forty five,

(01:42:31):
where fourteen eighty eight comes in from the left, that
would go off to Magnolia. You turn right across over
the railroad tracks and you're there Sherbrooke Circle. That's where
Nature's Way Resources is and has been for a long
time because they have been building quality products for a
very long time. There many of the things that are
so famous now we just use their terms, like you know,

(01:42:54):
for everything a big everybody uses it, Like ros soil,
what's rosa? Well, rosaw was born in Nature's way? What
is leaf mole compost? Leaf mole compost was born it
Nature's way. They know how to make good stuff, That's
what they do. Do you need mulches, all kinds of
mulch options from Nature's Way Resources. And by the way,
I'm going to be out there this fall, so you know,

(01:43:16):
just in October, definitely want you to come out and
see me there. It'll be on October the eleventh. I'll
talk more later. They're having their special shindig of the
fall out there and come see me. But in the meantime,
go out there, get your stuff, call them, have them
deliver it, or go to one of the mini garden
centers around the area that carry Nature's Way Resources products.

(01:43:38):
When you fix the soil, the plants naturally are going
to do better. It's as simple as that. You're listening
to Guardline, We've been talking about a lot of different
things today. I mentioned a little bit about take a
Root Rod earlier. Do you have those two publications for
free on the website Gardening with skip dot com. You
need to read those because take all is a disease

(01:44:00):
that is an opportunist. You weaken the host and the
plant gets sick, and we're that way. Our bodies are
that way. Think about this. If you eat right and
get good sleep, and you exercise and you're doing all
that stuff, you are less likely to get sick. Not
that you can't, but you're less likely than if you
don't eat right and you don't get enough sleep and

(01:44:22):
you just are a couch potato and you're not getting
any exercise. Our plants are the same way. You weaken
the plant, you invite problems. And take all as an opportunist.
That looks for a drought stressed Saint Augustine or one
that used broad leaf herbicides in the heat that stress
Saint Augustine, or deep shade stressed Saint Augustine, or compaction stressed.

(01:44:46):
See what I'm saying. You stress the grass, the disease
shows up. Go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com.
Look at what to do the process of options and
the really if you can do more of one of them,
it's good. Let's go to the Woodlands now and we're
going to visit with Charles this morning. Hey, Charles, welcome
to Guardenline.

Speaker 25 (01:45:04):
Good morning, thank you for doing your show.

Speaker 9 (01:45:06):
Skip.

Speaker 25 (01:45:07):
I have a question. I'm eighty five and I've had
to move to an assisted living facility and I have
a porch here that's shaded, and my question is can
I grow miniature roses and some kind of a plant
stand and use grow lights?

Speaker 4 (01:45:32):
Yes, you can that the lights need to be well,
it needs to be a lot of light. A lot
of grow lights are dinky little things and they may
look bright to your eyes, but they're nowhere near like
full sun, which is what a rose wants. But there
are some grow lights that will do a good job.

Speaker 13 (01:45:54):
I use.

Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
I have a couple of them myself. They're not cheap,
but when you're really wanting to have success with something,
you need a good quality light like that. And so,
for example, you can keep a rose alive on a
minimum amount of light, but you want roses, not a
rose bush. You want roses on the rose bush, and
that would require more light. If you would if you

(01:46:14):
would like. If you will hang on, I'll put you
on hold and my producer will give you an email.
If you'll send me an email, I'll send you the
type of light that I have. Now there's a hundred
of them out there that are good. But if you
just want to make it easier so you're not trying
to assess what's a good light and what's not a
good light, I can send you a copy of mind.

(01:46:34):
It's a moderate price compared to what grow lights can cost,
and so i'd be happy to share that with you
if that would be helpful.

Speaker 25 (01:46:43):
Yes, it would, And also I had any information you
have on what a good growth spand would be plant
span would be.

Speaker 4 (01:46:54):
Now that one, you know, they are just so many options.
Some people buy these little looks like galvanized not galvanized
chrome metal racks, you know, like Baker kind of rack things,
and they set them up in a way that where
the light and the plants are the right distance because
you can set the shelves at different heights on those.

(01:47:16):
I'll send you a picture of one of those and
as well, but you have to ask me for the
grow light and for the plant stand both because I
won't remember it by the time I read that email.
Thanks a lot, Charles, good luck. I'll be happy to help.

Speaker 12 (01:47:32):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:47:32):
I'm up against yeah, all right, well I got to run,
Thanks sir. I appreciate that. I'll be right back. Folks. Hey,
welcome back to the Guarden Line. Folks, glad to have
you with us. We want to help you have success
and that is what we're here for. Gardening should be fun.

(01:47:54):
It is fun and we want to help you have
fun with it. You heard me talk about Affordable Tree
Service earlier. Somebody recommend and they give them a call.
That is our go to tree service here on Garden Line.
Call Martin spoon More at Affordable Tree Service. Listen, storm
season is here. Don't wait until the trees have fallen
apart and broken down. Everybody needs help cleaning up the mess.

(01:48:15):
Then get on the schedule.

Speaker 7 (01:48:17):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:48:17):
If you've not had somebody look at your trees in
the last two years, for sure, you need to have
Martin come out and take a look at the trees,
assess them. Is some pruning needed? How do we make
that tree as resilient as possible for when the storms come. Now,
the right storm can knock any tree down. I mean
really literally it can. But there's so much you can

(01:48:38):
do to make that tree structurally stronger, more resilient, and
it starts from the day you plant. Actually, you need
to give Martin a call seven to one three six
nine two six sixty three seven one three six nine
nine two six six three. They do trimming, they do feeding,
they do everything else you need to help your trees

(01:48:59):
serve and to protect against God forbid loss of property
or loss of life when the storms come through, which
they will. We're going to head out now to Frank
in Missouri. Hey, Frank, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 19 (01:49:16):
Well this is Frank, but I'm not in Missouri. I'm
in Spring, Texas.

Speaker 4 (01:49:20):
Okay, where where are you?

Speaker 19 (01:49:23):
Spring, Texas?

Speaker 4 (01:49:26):
Spring? Okay? Good? All right? Well I got your pictures, yeah,
I got yes, all right, well I got your uh,
I got your pictures. And you're trying to get rid
of that thorny vine.

Speaker 19 (01:49:41):
Right, Oh my goodness, yes, yes, yes, sir. We've been
here fifty years. I've ever seen that thing before, and
it has I can't I can't seem to get rid
of it.

Speaker 4 (01:49:51):
It's a common vine in East Texas forest. It's called
Devil's shoe string and yours. Actually, I don't know if
this makes you feel better, you're this is actually a
little scorny vine. Those suckers. I've seen the vines themselves
bigger than the widest part of my thumb. I've dug
up tubers underground that are almost the size of my
leg on those things, and that's what makes them hard

(01:50:13):
to kill. Now, with one the size you got there,
if you can, I would get under the eat there.
It's gonna take a little digging, but I would dig
up as much of the tuber as you can because
that's a lot of stored energy. As far as spraying
or killing it, you're gonna want to get a product
that contains triclop here. Now, if you go to my website,
if you don't want to write all this down, go

(01:50:35):
to my website and look at herbicides for skips wheat
skipswed wiper, herbicides for skipswedwiper, and you'll find products a
list of brand names that the ingredient is t R
I C L O P y R Okay. They may
be called poison, ivy killer or brush brush control products

(01:50:57):
that that kind of things.

Speaker 19 (01:50:58):
Last three letters of that name please.

Speaker 20 (01:51:03):
P r y R.

Speaker 4 (01:51:07):
C l O p y R. Now you're not going
to spray it on there, but it'll kill anything. You've
got some trumpet creeper there too. I don't know if
that's a weed one or if you want it, but
it'll kill the trumpet creeper leaves that are all around.
Then the picture one of the pictures you sent me.

(01:51:27):
But anyway, what I would do, yeah, I would put
a little bit of oil in it, like a vegetable oil,
and it helps it to stick and you can apply
it to the vines themselves and it'll soak in and
translocate down. Now, if you've got a big tuber, one
little application is probably not going to do it. But
if you don't want to hand dig them that this

(01:51:48):
would be the way to go. Just be ready to
do it again. On my website is also how to
build my weed wiper. And my weed wiper allows you
to take sponges. That's what the weed wiper has, sponges
on it, and it applies it to that vine that
shoot coming out of the ground. Because they don't have
many leaves, as you've seen, they'll have little leaves, but
they're very waxy that's another reason for the vegetable oil

(01:52:10):
in the mix. But uh, anyway, just uh just get
it on that vine and be ready to redo it.
You can get rid of it.

Speaker 19 (01:52:17):
Well, the reason you said I may have been in
Missouri because the last time I called, I was asking
for help to try to get rid of the passion
vine and you at that okay reference to the wiper.
But yeah in spring.

Speaker 4 (01:52:31):
Yeah, this is our home and we'll good thank you,
good luck with that one. All right, you wish it well?

Speaker 19 (01:52:40):
Answer where did it come from? I was never there before.

Speaker 4 (01:52:44):
Bird birds planted it. Uh, but it's just it's just
one of the things that's out there in nature. And uh,
it's a tough one. It's a tough one. Thanks Frank.
I appreciate the call. Good luck, get good luck getting
to the bottom of that one. Uh. D and D
feeding Tombol Folks is a great place to get everything
you need to have success in your lawns and your gardens.

(01:53:04):
We're talking about products from nitrofive, some Microlife and turf
Star and Medina and new some plant foods. You know,
we're talking about products that like the soil products that
they carry a number of heirloom soils there and D
and DE feed and then when it comes to pest
weeds and diseases, like you know, Frank needed some trickle pair.
Oh my gosh, D anddfee's got plenty of it. Just
go in there and say, yeah, I need that stuff

(01:53:26):
Skips talking about, and they'll put it in your hands.
They carry a wide variety of things to control pest
weeds and diseases. Three miles west of Tomball on Highway two,
west of two forty nine on Highway twenty nine to
twenty that's the D and DE Feed. As you head
out west, you'll see them on the left hand side.
Stop in there, check out the things that they have.
They work, they do work. Enchanted Gardens Don Richmond, Rosenberg.

(01:53:51):
I love that place. It's on the Katie Follshire side
of Richmond. So you head north toward Katie FM three
point fifty nine you'll get there. Go to the web site.
It is outstanding and it'll tell you everything you need
to know if you want to give them a call.
Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com Enchentedgardens Richmond dot com. This
place has been around since nineteen ninety five. Their people

(01:54:14):
are wonderful. They're friendly and they know what they're talking about.
They'll help you. And whatever kind of plants you want
to grow, they're gonna have plenty of them there at
Chened Gardens in Richmond, just north of Richmond. Now you're
gonna find there too. The brown stuff before green stuff
I keep talking about. They carry airlom sauce products, they
carry Nature's Way products. They carry microlife and nitrofoss and

(01:54:37):
Nelson plant food and medina. Everything you need for success,
for that foundation for success. And then you take home
one of their plants, put it in the ground after
creating that foundation, a quality plant that wants to grow here.
That's what they sell. You will have success, but you're
gonna have fun. Take friends with you when you go
out there. By the way, this is going to be
a place to enjoy. Under around. Check out the beautiful

(01:55:00):
work that they do on containers too. Maria's work out
there creating unbelievable. He's got to see it. See what
I'm talking about, engendered gardens and Richmond. Well, you listening
to garden Lines. Time for me take top of the
hour news break, come back for our last hour of
the day. If you'd like to be first up or
one of the first ones up and we come back

(01:55:21):
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
How to have success with gardening. That's what we're trying
to do here. If you have not been to the website,
I keep telling you to go, and I keep running
into people that haven't even been there. So we need

(01:55:42):
to fix that. Gardening with skip dot com. That's where
you'll find stuff on Take our root rot. That's where
you'll find my lawn care schedule. That's where you'll find
the lawn test, disease and lead management schedule. That's where
you'll find some information that will help you get rid
of nuts edge period. It will. It's not just make

(01:56:04):
it unhappy for a while. It's how to get rid
of it. It's on the website and there's a lot
more on it. Ll go check it out, Grab me
a cup of coffee. I'll see you in a minute. Hey, folks,
welcome back. Appreciate it. Good to have you with us.

(01:56:28):
How can we help you today on your gardeners? Give
me a call seven one three two one two kt
R H seven one three two one two K t
R H. Let's see here, let's go on straight out
to the phones this hour, we're going to go to
spring and talk to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:56:45):
Hi, good morning.

Speaker 5 (01:56:48):
I have a question.

Speaker 12 (01:56:50):
I have a Meyer lemon bush or tree, and it's
probably been in the ground about five four or five years.
The first year it gave me a few lemons, not many,
And the second year the frost came along and got
the blooms, and so I didn't get any. And then

(01:57:12):
the next year it was the same darn thing, and
then last year didn't even bother to bloom. And I
wonder is there anything I can do? Is it's too late,
anything I can do to make it bloom?

Speaker 4 (01:57:29):
M Well, my lemon bloom's kind of in its own cycles.

Speaker 5 (01:57:33):
And the.

Speaker 4 (01:57:37):
Good vigor, good sunlight are the important things. Especially the
good sunlight it needs depending on last year, it needs
adequate nutrition and so on. And so if it's getting
all that, I think you've done your part.

Speaker 7 (01:57:49):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:57:51):
You may have to gott and talked to it.

Speaker 12 (01:57:53):
But I threatened to dig it up and throw it away.
I maybe talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:57:59):
That's the way you talk to it. Now, if you
got a chainsaw, go out there and fire it up
and tell it next time I'm gonna come by. I'm
taking you off at the ground. And usually that starts
the blooming and fruiting.

Speaker 12 (01:58:10):
Scare them.

Speaker 7 (01:58:11):
Yeah, well, what how often.

Speaker 12 (01:58:16):
Should fertilize that I have the micro life and the
big gallon jugs or whatever. And I remember the first
myer lemon I had, which was just gave me dozens
and dozens and dozens of lemons. People at the nursery
told me to, you know, throw some on it every week.

(01:58:40):
And I haven't done it every week, but I've done
it several times through the summer, and I just I'm
just so upset because I just love those lemons.

Speaker 4 (01:58:54):
Yeah, I understand that. I you know, so you know
how to take care of plans and and you are
taking care of them. So I don't know what else
to tell you. For for a mere lemon, it's it's
a function of it growing it, getting the carbohydrates, setting
the buds, and then going through its bloom and fruit cycle. Uh,

(01:59:15):
and then doing it again but next time.

Speaker 7 (01:59:18):
But I don't have to do.

Speaker 4 (01:59:21):
I well, you just need to keep it from freezing. Yeah,
just keep it from freezing. That's the main thing. So
you know it starts wrapping it. I mean, it can
get cold, but as long as it doesn't suffer freeze damage,
it's okay.

Speaker 12 (01:59:37):
Well, the darn thing is tall is the fence or
taller than the fence.

Speaker 4 (01:59:43):
And so I know it.

Speaker 12 (01:59:45):
You know, it grows and it's got lots of Oh
my god, it's got thorns on it that are the
you know I can use myself. So does that have anything?

Speaker 4 (01:59:56):
Well, your your more lemons have your ma has always
had that same amount of thorns.

Speaker 12 (02:00:03):
Yeah, they're like maybe two inches long.

Speaker 4 (02:00:09):
Okay. The only thing I'm well, that sounds well. The
only thing I'm wondering about is maybe it got killed
back and you've got a rootstock now that's growing instead
of the mare lemon. Let me ask you this, what
are the lead What do the leaves look like? Are
they single leaves that are you know, a larger single

(02:00:30):
leaf or are they clusters of three small leaves together?

Speaker 12 (02:00:36):
No, they're single leaves.

Speaker 4 (02:00:39):
Okay, well that's not the rootstock. Running out of guesses
here on possibilities. So the only thing I'm wondering now
you described the size, don't overdo the fertilizer. I don't
overdo it because a lot of extra vigor for a
lot of kinds of plants, they tend to get vegetative

(02:00:59):
at the expense of settling down and fruiting. So maybe
it's turned off on that and see if that helps.
That'll also help a lot with cold cold heartiness, because
sucular plant going into fall is in trouble of more
cold damage. HAVE got a backup here on the phone,
but good luck with that. If anything I said works,
just send me half the lemons. All right, thank you,

(02:01:21):
I promise I appreciate that. Yeah, there you go, Marty.
All right, let's see We're gonna go to bill Verde
and talk to Joanne. Hey, Joeanne, how are things way
off Western Beaverde.

Speaker 26 (02:01:33):
There they're they're good. We're getting some rain today.

Speaker 27 (02:01:37):
Hey.

Speaker 26 (02:01:38):
I have a fenced in native garden native plant garden,
and it's in the third year. It's starting to thrive.
But I've got some Henry Duelberg. I guess it's salvia.
It's got tons of brown spots so all over it
in the bark at the base is black. And then
I've got some Mexican or regan in a raised bed

(02:02:01):
next to it, and it's starting to do the same thing.

Speaker 4 (02:02:04):
So I don't know, what, do you have a sprinkler irrogating, Yeah,
I have a leak.

Speaker 26 (02:02:10):
I have a leak, and yeah, so the is getting
some sprinkle Yeah, but I.

Speaker 4 (02:02:17):
Don't think the Henry water. Okay, we'll keep the water
off of it. Mexican oregano is it's it likes to
be dry. You know, it needs moisture, but it doesn't
want to get it doesn't want to get rained on
every day, and so I would try that. There's no
particular disease or fund the side you need. And plus

(02:02:38):
you're going to be if you're going to harvest it
as an herb, you're going to harvest the foliage and
you don't want to be spraying that foliage. So right,
that's that would be my suggestion. The Henry Dulberg is
pretty tough. You'll get some leaf spots and things on it.
I think you're seeing a city mold growing on it.
But I you know, I'm guessing based on your description,

(02:02:58):
and that's probably not a real good way to go
about it, because I may not be picturing in my
mind what you're picturing they're at it. If you unders
send me a picture of it. The send me a
picture of the Uh, let's do this, would you. I'm
going to put you on whold producer will pick up
the line and give you an email. Get some good

(02:03:18):
close pictures and sharp focus and let me look at them.
And that way, I'm not telling you go do something
that's going to waste your time and money. Thank you, Joanne.
I appreciate, appreciate your calling. You're going on hold and
he'll he'll pick it up. Be patient, it'll be just
a second. He's busy with another caller.

Speaker 8 (02:03:33):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:03:34):
Ciena Maltch is a wonderful place to get whatever you
need to create the foundation for success. So you go
to Ciena Maltch Cienamultch dot com. You find out everything
you need to know, where they are, how to get there,
and all that kind of stuff. Sienna Multz dot com.
Now you're going to find lots of quality mulches. You're

(02:03:54):
going to find credible soils, things like rose soil, things
like the veggie rbnics types of soils. But then they
also have rock, they have gravel. You know, if you
if you're looking for riverstone, if you want to create
a flat patio rock, they've got that all there. And
no matter where you are down in that region. You know,
Iowa Colonyqwell Valley, Manville, Rocharon First Colony, Sweetwater, sun Creek Estates,

(02:04:20):
Pomona Lake, Olympia. Those are all communities and that are
in the backyard for Siena Mulch. So stop by there
Sienna Mulch dot com. They're open Monday through Friday and
Saturday as well. By the way, they're open today till
too closed on Sundays, but you need to get by there.
Cienamulch dot com. I'm gonna have to take a quick break.

(02:04:40):
When we come back, Roseanne and uh Freedom, we will
be right there with you. May Hey, welcome back, Welcome
back to Garden Line. Good to have you with us.

Speaker 21 (02:04:59):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:05:00):
So if you if you got a question you want
to give us a call by, go ahead and do so.
We'll talk to you and see if we can help
you have success.

Speaker 19 (02:05:06):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:05:07):
One of the ways to have success is to find
the right products to do the things you need to do.
You know, we've got a lot of fertilizer options that
are good options out there. Organic synthetic and you're not
going to find a better selection of that, by the
way than Southwest Fertilizer on corner of Bissinet and Runwick
in Southwest Houston. And that's not just fertilizers. That is
things to control pests, weeds and diseases. That is tools,

(02:05:30):
quality tools, by the way, not junk you end up
throwing away. That is a place where you can get
blade sharpened, and where you know lumber blade sharpen, and
where you can get small engine repaired on. I mean,
they've got it all there. South West Fertilizer, corner of
Bissinet and Runwick in Southwest Houston seven to one three
six sixty six one seven four four. This is our

(02:05:50):
seventieth birthday, been around seventy years, and that means you
don't last that long unless you're doing things right and
treating people right. We're going to go now out to
rose inne. Hey, Roseenne, tell me where you're calling from.

Speaker 28 (02:06:04):
Hey, I'm in the Mission Bend, Mission West area.

Speaker 4 (02:06:09):
Okay, welcome to Gardenn.

Speaker 15 (02:06:13):
Thank you.

Speaker 28 (02:06:13):
I enjoy your show.

Speaker 8 (02:06:14):
I learned a lot.

Speaker 5 (02:06:18):
How can we have well, A few mornings.

Speaker 28 (02:06:23):
Ago, my storm door faces the east and I saw
a small, very skinny worm really at eye level when
I was letting my dogs out, and to me it
looked like a hammerhead worm, which freaked me out.

Speaker 5 (02:06:44):
It had a little hammer head.

Speaker 28 (02:06:46):
It was long and slender, and I've never seen one before.
Very really tell if it was. I couldn't really tell
that the hammerhead part was very though. I tacked it
up and put it in a jar of.

Speaker 5 (02:07:05):
Vinegar.

Speaker 28 (02:07:08):
Now, I don't know if I need to report that
to the local extension, take it to Eggy Land, or
just disregard it because it's in vinegar and it's dead.

Speaker 5 (02:07:17):
I mean, I just don't know what to do.

Speaker 4 (02:07:19):
Well, they're here, and uh, you know, you might call
Texas Parks and Wildlife if you want. I don't think
there's a need to report them because we know we
have them already. Uh They're not a great thing to have,
but they're here and there's no thing you go out
there and do to control them. It's just it is
what it is right now. But yeah, that's it.

Speaker 28 (02:07:39):
So if I put it in the vinegar, that will
that should have killed it?

Speaker 8 (02:07:42):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (02:07:44):
That that should have killed it? Yep, you can throw
it on the sidewalk and stomp it real good too
if you if you need to. But I'm sure it's dead. Well,
I'm sure it couldn't survive.

Speaker 28 (02:07:53):
No, but I heard, I heard, I heard that on
when you have those things, to not step on it
or not try to squish it because it will reproduce
and make two, three, four, six, whatever, because each little
piece will make one.

Speaker 4 (02:08:08):
Okay, I'm not a biologist. That sounds I'm not sure
I believe that, but I'm not an expert to say
ay or nay on it. But anyway, there's a lot
of good information on them online. I just I stay
in the garden world pretty well. And so beyond that
may be called t Texas Department Parks and Wildlife, and

(02:08:29):
they may have an opinion about some of what you
should do or report or not. But I appreciate the call.
Thank you very much. Good luck with us. You take
care all right, you bet, thanks a lot. Appreciate that.
RCW Garden Center there at a corner of Tomball Parkway
in bilt Way eight in north west Houston, been around
since nineteen seventy nine. You know, they grow trees up

(02:08:52):
there in Plantersville at the Williamson Tree Farm and then
they Of course, RCW is not just a tree retail outlet.
It is a complete garden center where you find products.
You find everything from vegetables and herbs, which by the way,
it's time to be getting your fall garden in, to shrubs, roses, vines, trees,

(02:09:12):
everything you need, quality quality work. You know you're go
and buy a larger tree from them, they'll come out
and plant it for you. You go there and you're
looking for something you don't see, tell them about it
there they get it, got it nursery. If they don't
have it, they'll they will do their best to get
it in for you. And when it comes to advice,
we're talking about experts that know what they're doing. Quality,

(02:09:34):
quality products, quality advice and just an easy place to
get into. By the way, there they are where Tambo
Partway comes into belt Wagh eight, easy access to get
in and I don't know, I would just tell you
to check it out. I got some of their Cajun
hibiscus from them a while back, and boy, I love
those things. Those are just beautiful plants. But I have
a number of different things that I've gotten at r

(02:09:55):
CW over the years. They're just a quality nursery. Let's
that out to Hitchcock and talk to Breen now. Hello, Braen,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 27 (02:10:05):
Good morning, get I'm sent in a couple of pictures
that looked like they went through I just sent him
like five minutes ago.

Speaker 8 (02:10:15):
I have a high biscuits.

Speaker 27 (02:10:17):
It's a double bloom. Actually, I have three high biscuits,
all next to each other. One's a cajun, one's a
double bloom, and the other one is kind of like
a tricolor. But they were They've been blooming all summer
long up until a few weeks ago, and now they
just the blooms are there. I mean it's full of blooms,

(02:10:39):
but they're not opening, and then they're just drying and
falling off. I don't see any bugs like black aphids.
I don't see any worms. When I open the buds,
the leaves seem clean. I have no idea what's going on.

Speaker 4 (02:10:56):
You know that happens sometimes. I've noticed in periods of
wet weather sometimes the blooms will start to open and
then they have some issues. There are a number of
things that can cause them to abort bloom. Certainly, any
kind of stress can There are some insects and they're
feeding or stinging, if you will, they're piercing into the bloom.

(02:11:16):
That can cause that kind of problem. I don't know
that there's anything to do. I'd hate to send you
out to just spray everything in the world trying to
kill everything crawling. I don't think that's necessary. I would
just be patient with them, make sure they're of course
getting good sun. The way you described your plants, it
sounds like you've given them good care, they got good sunlight,
and hopefully they'll settle in. Don't overdo the fertilizer, but

(02:11:39):
keep them, keep them adequately vigorous, and other than that,
I don't there's just not an insecticide or fungicide or
anything that needs to be applied to those for what
you're describing.

Speaker 27 (02:11:52):
Okay, do you think they get They don't get morning sun,
but about noon till the end of the day. They're
in full sun the rest of the day. You know,
But they've they've been established for three or four years
and they're in raised beds, so they've always done great.
This is the first time I've had this issue. Do
you think it's the heat at all?

Speaker 4 (02:12:13):
Well, I mean, hibiscus thrive in the heat. I don't
think it's the heat. I've had some problems like you're
describing from time to time, and and I just I
find that it goes away and they start doing the
right thing again. So I don't know what else to
suggest to you. I think that it will fix itself.
But watch them if if the plant foliage doesn't look

(02:12:36):
the nice dream color, if they lack some bigger and
certainly periods of drying out. Of course you're's are in
the ground, so they're probably not drying out, but a
minor and a container I have to watch for that.
But yeah, I think that I just don't think there's
something for you to do about it. For this condition,
it's more physiological.

Speaker 7 (02:12:55):
Okay, okay, I'll just be patient.

Speaker 24 (02:12:57):
Good luck, Thank you, thank.

Speaker 4 (02:12:59):
You, all right, thank you. Yeah. I wish I could
send out with a silver bullet to fix everything, but
I don't think ones needed in this situation. Arctic insulation solutions.
Why do I pause on Arctic because I always forget
Arctic has two c's Arctic, Yeah, Arctic insulation solutions. Why

(02:13:20):
do I Why do I make a point of that,
because when you go to the website, Arctic Houston dot com.
You need to know that second see eight three two five,
eight six, twenty eight ninety three. Listen, these folks are
experts at making sure when you spend dollars on keeping
cool this summer, you're getting the most from your dollar.
Things like radiant barrier in the in the in the attic,

(02:13:42):
things like fiberglass insulation at an adequate thickness in the attic.
Thing do that real quick and easy. Solar attic fans
even they can even remove old, dusty, moldy invested insulation
up in the attic. They can make sure that that
attic space is in the best shape it can be,
including ceiling around, light fixtures and AC registers and wall

(02:14:05):
plates and things to hold that cool air in the home.
A lot goes out in those kind of places. Believe
it or not, it's not just because your kids left
the door open. Get the most out of your dollars
this summer trying to stay cool. Make it easier on
your air conditioner unit. Arctic Houston dot Com eight three
to two, five, eight six, twenty eight ninety three. We're
going to go now out to Freda and Pasadena. Hey Frida,

(02:14:27):
welcome to regardenline. How are you this morning?

Speaker 7 (02:14:31):
Well, I'm fine.

Speaker 29 (02:14:32):
I'm still trying to decide whist about my root rot
on my grass. I did find I did find the
furlough she lady she laded iron at Amazon, and that
I was going, that's going to three eight hardler stores.
David had no spang them meat peat mouse, So I

(02:14:55):
went to load found throw a spangam meat, a peat moss.

Speaker 4 (02:15:01):
With mock on the trans And I was wondering, that's
a that's in a that's in a little container. That's
in a little container. If I were you, you know,
I don't know exactly who carries everything down in that area.
I do know if if you were, I don't know
which is closer for you to go over to Southwest
Fertilizer or go over to Moss Nursery or whatever. But uh,

(02:15:24):
it call them first. But one of those should have
a you need a three point eight cubic foot bail,
like it says on my sheet. Uh, and it is
some work. It's a it's a dusty kind of messy
thing to do. But if you've read the sheet, you
know what we're talking about. Uh, I'm I'm looking uh
Freida at a at a clock that says I got

(02:15:45):
to quit talking here, but I would try uh Southwest Fertilizer.
I'd try Moss Nursery and see if they can help
you with that. I'm sorry, I just have no leeway
on this particular break, but good luck with getting the
bottom of that. Call me back if you need to summertime.

(02:16:12):
That's right, you can do summer without Jimmy Buffett and
the beach Boys some of that. Hey, welcome back to
the guarden line. Glad you're with us today. What kinds
of questions do you have? Let's help you have success
with your plants, simple as that. Speaking of success, if
you want a beautiful lawn, maybe your lawn struggling. Maybe
chinch bugs or take all root rod, or maybe it's

(02:16:34):
just compaction, foot traffic, you name it, it's struggling. You
gotta call green Pro. The folks at Greenpro they're experts
and providing top quality compost, top dressing and core aeration.
Now that combination haven't come out, and they got a
very nice equipment that does the job right where they
core errate correctly. You pull a big plug out of

(02:16:57):
the ground and you're good to go. Got good oxygen
getting down in the roots. Throw a top quality compost
on the top of that, and they know how to
do it. They've got all the experts and they use
quality materials too. They service an area about forty five
miles from Magnolia. So if you're in Spring or Cyprus
or the Woodlands or Conrad or Willis, you know up
north that direction up in Montgomery or Magnolia to the

(02:17:17):
west of that or down to Katie and West Houston,
and you know that just the whole that whole quadrant
north and west. I guess you could say I forty
five and it to be very rough about it. That's
the region that they service, and boy did they do
good work. Greenpro Texas dot com greenpro Texas dot com

(02:17:39):
eight three two three five one zero zero three two.
Help them breathe life back into your lawn, alleviate compaction,
improve the internal intake of water into the soil and
the drainage, improve the soil biology, just really recharge it
a lot and recover from whatever you're dealing with. Also,
by the way, if you got a thatch problem, cor

(02:18:01):
rating is the best thing you can do to start
to break down that thatch problem. Greenprotexas dot com. We're
going to go now out to Fullsher, Texas and talk
to Mike. Hello, Mike, Welcome to garden line A.

Speaker 17 (02:18:16):
Thanks Skip. I have a tree that's about forty years old.
I think it's an oak, and I sent you pictures
of it in an email just before I called. Yeah,
it's got these weird growth at the base. It's like
these balls of looks like root, but you could peel
them off with your hands.

Speaker 4 (02:18:32):
I mean they just fall off. It's not it doesn't
feel attached to what I do. Yeah, let's get to
well the what you do. I'll do that first. There's
nothing you can do, nothing to do for it. There's
no treating it or fixing it or anything. It's probably well,
first of all, it's it's it's root roots that have
I don't know to use the word cancerous growth is

(02:18:54):
kind of a little misleading, but it looks like there
there's a wound on it and it grows on itself.
And woodworkers would love to have it and turn it
into a nice beautiful bowl because it's got all kinds
of burrels and stuff in there. But it's probably caused
by a bacteria. It's called if you want to be

(02:19:15):
nerdy and tell your friends, it's agro back to tumaphacians.
So that's the name of it. Bottom line is, there's
no spraying for it. There's no treating for it. It's
called crown gall. That's another term that we use. It
could be a different organism, but crown gall is the
one we normally see that krownggall back to the tree
survives with it, It goes on, doesn't do any favors, but.

Speaker 21 (02:19:39):
It is what it is.

Speaker 4 (02:19:40):
But that's what it is.

Speaker 10 (02:19:42):
Can I remove it and shave it down or nothing
like that?

Speaker 4 (02:19:44):
With a no, you would be really wounding the tree
and taking away a lot of tissues and open up
the door for decay and opening up the door. Yeah,
weakening the It looks like that tree is leaning. Can
you what.

Speaker 17 (02:20:00):
There's some holes in there? Again, probably there's holes inside
of it that create probably like snakehouses and spider houses.
Can I fill those holes with dirt or cement.

Speaker 4 (02:20:09):
Or well not cement. You could throw some dirt on
it if you wanted. I don't know. I might. I
might throw some mulch on it just to kind of
cover it up. If you don't want to look at that,
but uh, it just it is what it is.

Speaker 21 (02:20:23):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:20:23):
The other thing you could do is you could call
You could call Martin Spoon Moore an affordable tree and
have him come look at it and see what he thinks.
He may he may have a treatment he feels like
would work on it. But with him on site taking
a closer, better look at it, that would be the
only thing else that I would suggest you do. But

(02:20:46):
if I'm if I'm right about what it is, uh,
then there's not going to be anything to do for it.
His number seven, Yeah, it's it's let me give you
a number. You got a penhandy, yep? Okay seven one
three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Seven one
three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. While he's

(02:21:08):
out there having take a look at your trees, see
anything needs trimming on because with this storm season we
got coming up, got them on site, they'd be good
to do, all right, sir, Thank you, Thank you, Mike,
good luck with that. Take care. Let's see here. I
got a clock here that I'm supposed to be watching,
and I get to talking. I get excited about gardening

(02:21:29):
and stuff. I forget to watch the clock. Warren Southern
Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center out there in Kingwood, Texas,
both of them in Kingwood. Warrens is on North Park,
Kingwood's on Stone Hollow. They carry the products we talk
about on garden Line. You hear me talk about Microlife
and Nelson Plant Food, the turf Star products like that
Bruce's Brew for example. I was talking about it earlier.

(02:21:50):
They've got a great supply of that. In fact, they
have an excellent supply of the filling the jars that
you have a Microlife and Nelson plant food products and
the filling stations. So when you buy a jar, let's see,
you buy a jar of the Nelson's, you know, one
of their many products are a little a by the
jar and you run out of it. Well, you don't
throw the plastic away. You take the jar back into

(02:22:12):
Warrens or Kingwood and you refill those jars for a
more economical deal than buying a brand new one, and
you don't throw away the plastic. It really works well.
And listen the line I was talking to folks out
at Warrens and you know, do you carry this, do
you carry that? And all that kind of thing, and
they have an outstanding selection of that whole Nelson line.

(02:22:33):
So if you're looking for the bruces brew I was
talking about it Earl, you're going to find it there.
They really do a good job of staying up to
the date on all that. Now when it comes to
Airloom Solce products, they've got the leaf mold compost and
the Veggie and nerb Mix probably two of the most
famous products that they have, and Erloom has a lot
of great ones. Twenty percent off each bag, twenty percent

(02:22:54):
off leaf more compost and veggie nerd Mix. At Warren
Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center getting their peppers and
tomato plants in. They're in stock now, there's more coming
in soon. And their seed supplies are awesome, all kinds
of things you're gonna plant, some Swiss chard. You know,
you're gonna be planning all kinds of lettuce and carrots
and things like that coming up. Go now while the

(02:23:15):
selection is the best it can be. Warren Southern Gardens
on North Park, Kingwood Garden Center on Stone Hollow Drive,
they got this stuff you need. Go out and check
them out now, good time to do that. Well, I
gotta take a little quick break. I'm gonna go ahead
and do that now, so when I come back, I
can talk to Anie and Dickinson and john En Tumball.
You'll be the first two up. All right, folks, welcome

(02:23:40):
back to the guard line. Goodhead with us. Listen. If
you're dealing with fire ants, you know ALN's sticking up
in the yard and you need to get rid of them,
and you want to do it quick. You want to
wait on a bait to work and all that night
Fist firet Killer will do it. Contains delter Methron goes down,
You put her on the mound, follow the label and
how to ply it and everything that it says. Always

(02:24:02):
follow the label on products and you will get rid
of that mound pretty quick. And if you got a
you know, garden party coming up, or just want to
gather on the patio, you don't want the kids want
to run through the yard and not get eaten up
by fire ants. Night Fast fire Ant Killer will do
it now. Night Foss products are available at places like
D Defeat and Tomball, the m and D down in Beemer,

(02:24:24):
the one on clear Lake Too on Bay Area Boulevard,
you brun them plants and things another place that carries
nitrofoss products like this night fross fire ant killer. Let's
head now up to Tomball and talk to John. Hello, John,
welcome to garden Line. You there, John? All right, I'm

(02:24:50):
gonna put John on hold.

Speaker 15 (02:24:52):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:24:53):
Okay, let's let me put it back on hold. I'll
come to him next. Let's go to a niece and Dickinson. Hello,
a niece.

Speaker 6 (02:25:00):
Now it's Janice, Jeanie.

Speaker 4 (02:25:03):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (02:25:04):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (02:25:08):
Have a couple of pots of verbena on my patio
and they were getting these old sparkle shiny spots on them.
I'm sure it's an insect. Then I've sprayed with seven
and I won't see it for a few days, and

(02:25:28):
then they come right back, and the plant is that
they're not looking healthy. They're looking, you know, kind of sick.
I don't know if it's from all the seven or
if it's from this insect. Do you know what I'm
talking about?

Speaker 4 (02:25:48):
I can't. The sparkly kind of throws me. But any
insect seven will kill it, and at lasts it doesn't.
Seven is still working a week later after you apply it,
but it won't keep spider mites. In fact, it makes
spider mites worse. So UH, couple options. If you only
send me a picture, I'll take a look at it,
and we'll make sure we're, you know, swinging at the

(02:26:10):
right thing.

Speaker 12 (02:26:11):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:26:12):
And that is seven seven. If it's an insect, seven
should have killed it. Uh And and and kept killing
it for a while.

Speaker 5 (02:26:19):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:26:20):
As far as the plant. Listening to you describe things,
I think you ought to give them a boost of fertilizer,
maybe some color star from the folks that know some
plant thing in those pots? Is it okay? And and
try to get the figure up as much as you can. Okay.
And this well, very good, Jennis. I'm glad to hear that.
But right now, in this weather, I can hardly water

(02:26:43):
my containers enough because it's it's so hot and it
may go dry fast. So try to avoid any any
temporary drought stress on them.

Speaker 19 (02:26:52):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:26:52):
And then again, if you want to, I'm gonna put
you on hold. If you do want to send me
a picture, make sure it's in good sharp focus, because
I'm gonna need to look at some very small and
I need to be able to see it good and
crisp and clear. So if you'll send me some photos,
I'll be happy to look at that and see if
we can take it to the next step on diagnosing it. Yes, ma'am,
I'm put you on hole right now. Now we're going

(02:27:13):
to go back to John and Tomball. Hey, John, welcome
to garden Line. What is going on with my connection here?
All right? I'm gonna try one more. I tell you what,
let's se to this. If you can find out the
question for me, then I'll just enter it on the air.
If we're having trouble actually connecting here with John. Ace

(02:27:36):
hardware stores are all over the area.

Speaker 12 (02:27:39):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:27:39):
I've got Ace Hardware stores part of my garden Line
group that goes all the way to Orange, Texas on
the east, all the way down to Port Arthur, Rockport,
you know, down that direction and everything in between. You're
going to find ACE hardware stores in places like, for example,
Bay Cliffs south of Keema on a Chalmers Ace done

(02:28:01):
in Galveston that way, go to Rockport on State Highway
thirty five north, or Port Lavaca on Calhoun Plaza, Victoria
on Navarro Warden feed and Ace. I was out there
a good while back for an appearance on North Richmond
Bay City ACE on seventh. That's also. I mean, I'm
gonna sit here all day and readay stores. Or you
can go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware

(02:28:23):
Texas dot com. I was just in an ACE Harder
store the other day by at like ice cream freezer
season for that, isn't it? Yep, got me an ice
cream freezer at ACE Hardware. That's the place. You walk
in there and you're gonna go a thousand times, you're
gonna go. I didn't know they had that. I didn't
know they had that. I didn't know they had the entries. Yes,
ACE is the place. Make sure and sign up for
their aceh Rewards program. You'll get discounts and special offers

(02:28:46):
email directly to you. I belong myself no matter what
you need for the lawn, for the garden, for the patio,
inside the home, tools, barbecue pits. Oh my mouthwater is
just thinking about barbecue pit. Well, ACE has got you covered.
Acehardware Texas dot Com. We're gonna now go to Austin
County and talk to Doris. Hey, Doris, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:29:09):
Thank you, good.

Speaker 4 (02:29:10):
Morning, Good morning.

Speaker 12 (02:29:13):
I have a weed it's lacy, and it spreads, and
it grows flat to the ground and has seems to
only have one root.

Speaker 4 (02:29:27):
I just can't tell you. I just can't tell you
based on that. Are you able to take a picture
on your phone and send it to me?

Speaker 7 (02:29:34):
I will try.

Speaker 4 (02:29:37):
Okay, Uh, lacy on the ground? Does it have balloons
on it?

Speaker 16 (02:29:43):
No?

Speaker 12 (02:29:45):
It's flat, it doesn't grow up.

Speaker 4 (02:29:48):
Okay. You may be talking about you may be talking
about lawn burrowed, and when we get into this hot weather,
most of the broad leaf herbicides that you kill an
existing weed with too stressful to the lawn. There is
a product called Celsius that comes in a little packet mix,
just a small amount of spray. If you will follow

(02:30:10):
the label on that and spray it in the morning,
I'm ninety five percent sure it will kill the weed
you're talking about. I think you're dating with a long
bur weed. But anyway, that would be the product that
I would recommend if you want to spray them now
and it's too many to get a little whole corner
in there to pop them up. I think they come
out of one little spot with a kind of a
tap root, so they're not hard to get up if

(02:30:30):
the ground is soft, especially, But anyhow, that's what I
would suggest to you. Doros.

Speaker 21 (02:30:36):
Pardon, okay, I'll try that.

Speaker 4 (02:30:38):
Thank you very much, all right, Doris, think you bet.
Thanks a lot, appreciate your call. All right, Well let's
see here. We got any other business to attend here
on the wait check on this call thing with my producer.
You've been listening to Guardline. We're here every Saturday and
every Sunday from six am to ten am, and ten

(02:31:00):
a m. Is not too far away. I'm going to
go out here. I think we're probably I don't know.
We may have time for a call here, but we're
going to see you. We've got one coming in. I'll
wait and see anyway. Don't forget about the website. I
spent a lot of time putting publications together and putting
them up there to help you have something in your
hand that will help you understand and manage all kinds
of problems that you're dealing with. For those of you

(02:31:22):
who got one of my schedules a while back, I
don't know, a month ago. I think I put up
an updated version of them, not big changes. It's not
like I'm telling you don't do something you used to
do or whatever. I just I updated them for making
the more readability. A little bit of research has come
in that's helped me tweak them a little bit, make
them even more accurate. And so you might want to

(02:31:45):
down load you a new one. And that would be
at gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com,
we talked a lot about take all root right today,
I just want to talk a little bit real quick
about dealing with suckers on plants. Crate myrtles and Vitex
have a big problem with suckering at the base. I'm

(02:32:05):
trying to train a crape myrtle and we're in a battle.
They don't like to be trained. I'm sorry Vitex, but
either one suckers. There's a prodigal sucker stopper you break off.
You cut off the suckers and immediately squirt that cut
with the sucker stopper and it doesn't squirt, it doesn't
come back. It's a good product to use if you're
water in your lawn. One last tip here before we

(02:32:28):
run out of time today. Make sure you water with
a good soaking on an infrequent basis. Okay, water the
lawn to a depth of six inches or apply an
inch of water on it. So how do you know that, Well,
you can put rain gauges out and find out how
long it takes to apply an inch. But here's another way.
Get you a long screwdriver, we flathead screwdriver, long handled one,

(02:32:52):
and stick it in the ground and if the soil,
if you've watered the wet soil, it'll go right through,
just like you're sticking it through butter. Okay, when you
hit boom, it hit concrete underneath, that's dry soil, and
then pull it out. That's how deep you wet the soil.
You need to wet it at least six inches deep
to really do that lawn some good. But you don't

(02:33:14):
have to do that three times a week. I water
my lawn once a week or less. Try less in sun,
more in shade, much less. But the more often you
keep lawns wet, the more disease problems that you have,
the more you're wasting your money. You know, you're paying

(02:33:37):
for drinking water and you're squirting it out there on
the lawn, and you don't want to do that anymore.
You have to, so for the best lawn health and
for the best economics. Deeply and infrequently is how you water.
And that's on my lawn care schedule too. By the way,
it also tells you each month of the year, on
average in Houston, how much water needs to be applied

(02:33:59):
per week. They on the typical weather for those times
of the year. As simple as that, so check it out.
I see many people watering too often and too little.
All that does is increase diseases because everything on the
grass when you turn off the water evaporates away. Does
you no good. It's after you've run the system enough

(02:34:19):
to wet all the grass and the thatch, then the
water going on starts to roll past all that and
go in the ground. Then you're getting your money's worth.
So let your irrigations sessions be a little longer, and
if you can't get water in the ground to get
it that wet at one time, let it go off
for about forty minutes, come back on and do it again.
Go off for about forty minutes, come back on and

(02:34:40):
do it again. If you need to do that and
get that good soaking. When you apply your water, it's
the best deal. Your grass is happier, and your pocketbook
is happier as well. Well, you've been listening to garden
Line today and we are here to help you have success.
That's what it's all about. If you tune back in
in the mo I'll be here at six am, by

(02:35:01):
the way, so will you be here. I know some people.
Some people say I'll listen to your show, but I
don't listen until eight o'clock. Well, all right, good. I
was a teenager once I remember sleep until noon. But
don't miss garden Line. If you miss the show past shows,
you can go to kJ ri's website the garden Line

(02:35:22):
section or the iHeartMedia app. That's the best way to
listen wherever you are, including the past shows.