Fertilizing St. Augustine Grass During The Summer Season

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Es Mill the crazy.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Gas can you trim? You just watch him as we'll go.
Gas so many good things to sap botas in the
bassies like gas again your dad SAOs doubles back, agad
not a sound? Glasses and gas, sun beam and the

(00:39):
gasses like gas?

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Baby?

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

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Starting treating? Good morning is all right, gardeners. I'm gonna
give you just a second to grab a cup of coffee.
We're gonna get rolling here on guard Line. Welcome. I
hope you're having a good Saturday so far. I have

(01:05):
a cup of coffee. It helps me open a factor
takes two one to open each eye or in the morning.
Believe it or not, I'm not a super morning person,
no not, but I'm glad to be here now, that's
for sure. Hey, would you like to give us a call?
This is all about what do you want to know
about gardening? What kind of questions do you have? What

(01:25):
kind of problems are you dealing with? You can give
me a call. It's seven one three two one two
kt RH or for those of you who don't like
to find the letters seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call. We will
visit with you about the things that interest you. If
you have a question as related, maybe that a photo

(01:47):
would help you know, Like, well, I got this spot
in my yard. Well, okay, how big is it? What
does it look like?

Speaker 6 (01:52):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Where is it? Well, you can email me a photo
of your yard or a bug or a plant or
whatever you want to know. Maybe your name's got a
beautiful shrub with flowers and you won't know what is that?
And will it grow in my yard pretty good or not? Well,
you can send me a photo of that. You just
call the producer here on guard Line that is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four and

(02:16):
get the email to send me the photo. Then you
have to follow up with a call because just way
too many emails for me to you know, hand type
out answers to everything. So give me a call following
that and with that photo, I'm going to be much
better able to give you a diagnosis and answer to
your question. And that's what we want. We want to

(02:37):
get this right. I don't want you wasting your time
and money out there spraying something that is not working.
So give me a call. Feel free to do that.
This week. I have been working on a number of
different things for as far as educational programs and materials
out there. You probably have heard me say a thousand

(02:58):
times talking about my website Gardening with Skip dot Com.
Gardening with Skip dot Com. You can go there and
look at the top of the list. All my new
publications go to the top at Gardening with Skip dot Com.
I've got two that are the same topic. One of
them is called take All Root rot An in Depth Look.

(03:20):
If I had a nickel for every take all root
rock question I've gotten so far this summer, well, I
would be on vacation. I'd be on a beach somewhere. No, seriously,
it is a very common problem and lawns now with
the stresses of summer heat and not rain, not as

(03:40):
much rain as we were getting. It's really showing up everywhere.
So the two publications are this. One of them is
called take All Root rot An in Depth Look, and
you can look at it on the web or you
can print it out and you have a copy with you.
It goes into the details of it. There's quite a
few photos in there to kind of help you see

(04:00):
what we're talking about, and it would be the one
I would encourage you to look at because it helps
you understand a little bit better what you're dealing with
and therefore how to go about managing it. The second
one is called SKIPS Quick Tips for managing take All
root ROT. It is one page, by the way. The
first one is two pages. This one's one page, and
it's basically a bunch of bullets.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
It's like, here are five things that tell you what
is take all root ROUT and what are the symptoms,
just so you can kind of decide, Yeah, that's probably
what I'm looking at there. The second group is four
steps to prevent or control it. And it's not just
one thing. It's not just go spray this. There is
a just go spray this among the four, but there

(04:41):
are three other things that you can do to avoid
it and to help control it, and those are free
for the download. Again, you can download the PDF or
just look at it online. But go ahead and bookmark
gardening with Skip dot com because that's where I put
everything the things that you know, if I tried to
fully answer the take all question throughout the show, that's

(05:01):
kind of what pretty much what we would do, only
because there's too much. My lawn, pest disease and weed
management schedule are on there. That's where you find the
product that you use for take all rear rot and
the timing. It is very important that you follow my
schedule on the timing. There's also my lawn care schedule
that's basically mow water fertilized. The way I like to

(05:23):
put it is the lawn care schedule is how to
grow a pretty lawn, a beautiful lawn. The pest disease
and weed management schedule, well, as the name implies, that's
everything that goes wrong and how to stop them. Diseases,
pests and weeds and so they're there, easy, easy to do.
All right, Well there, I'll say that probably again before
we get through the show today. You know what, I

(05:45):
discovered that not everybody listens starting at six in the morning.
I was crushed to find that out. But apparently apparently
that's the case out in your yard and garden right now.
You need to be making sure your lawn does not
lack for water while not over watering. So if I
were to try to distill watering your loawn down into

(06:08):
a very simple couple of points. Number one, it's water
deeply when you water soak the soil at least six
inches deep. And you may be thinking, how do I
know if I've soaked it six inches deep? Well, first
of all, an inch of irrigation, a low rain gauge
out in the yard. An inch of irrigation will do
about that that soaking. On most soil sands, it goes

(06:31):
deeper clays, maybe not quite that deep, but roughly an
inch of water. But here's a quick tip on how
to do it. Get you a long handled screwdriver. I
have a big old Phillips screwdriver. It's probably I don't know,
sixteen inches long or something like that, and I just
walk out in the yard and push it down in
the ground. And in wet soil, it will go right through,
just like your butter knife goes through butter just no

(06:53):
hardly any resistance. When you had hard soil, it'll be
like you had a buried concrete sidewalk underneath the ground.
It'll be bunk and you you're not going to just
push it past. That is too hard and dry. So
after our water a while, you know, don't check right
at the end of the water side. It takes just
a minute for everything to soak in. But go back
out an hour or two later and just push that

(07:15):
into the ground and you will see how far it goes.
And that is how deep you watered. Grassroots systems go
way below six inches. But if we can just get
the six inch depth wet, that is helpful that that
will do the trick. So deeply when you water, not
a little squat every day, but deeply when you water.

(07:37):
The second part is infrequently. Infrequently people that water every
day or every other day are what they're doing is
they're continually keeping the grass plant wet. And when you
do that, you're going to get more diseases. Gray leaf
spot loves it. In fact, it needs you to keep
the grass plant wet. You or your rainfall. You can't

(07:59):
control rainfall, but it needs you to keep the grass
plant wet. So don't water that often. If you water deeply,
you don't have to water frequently. You know, a little
squirt every day trying to keep it alive. Is a
shallow rooted grass plant that is not very resilient. You
get a little dry period or you forget the water,
you go on a trip or something like that and

(08:20):
your grass is in big, big trouble. So a good
soaking on an infrequent basis, that's it. The more often
you water, the more diseases you have. The less you
apply when you water, the more shallow rooted your turf
is gonna be. You want a good resilient I tell
people in fact, in my front yard, I think I've watered.

(08:42):
I think I've watered once this summer. Maybe I've watered twice.
I've got a lot of shade. But when I water,
I build a good deep resilient grassplant, and I've got
a good soil out there before I put the lawn in,
I got the soil right. But in the sun, yeah,
you're gonna need to water more often. You're probably gonna
water about once a week. If you've got a good,
healthy lawn and you've you've developed a good deep root system,

(09:07):
that will be enough. And obviously for me, I'm getting
by with less. But in the shade you can get
you don't have the water as much because the demands
are much much lower. Now your irrigation system isn't set
up to water the sun and shade it differently. But
I'm just saying, build a good resilient grass plant, and
you won't need more.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Now.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
I've got some areas and some types I have for
different kinds of grass in my yard. I know, I know,
But anyway, I've got some areas where I've had to
water a little more than that, but not more than
once a week. And the most you can talk me
into agreeing to, if you will, is twice a week.
If you water twice a week with a half inch

(09:47):
of water, h you can do that. But this thing
about water and every other day, you just don't need
to do it. All right, I'm gonna have to run
to a break here and we'll be right back with
your calls at seven one, three, two to fifty eight
seventy four. All right, good morning, folks, it is time
to get up. I look next door and are your

(10:11):
neighbor's lights on in the house. If they're not, go
bang on the door and tell them they're missing guarden Line.
They will so appreciate that. They will thank you. Maybe
not today, they may call you something today, but they
will eventually thank you. Trust me, We've got to get
more people listening to garden Line, because you know that
guy that won't take care of his yard get him listening.
I'll talk to him. We'll get things up. We'll take

(10:33):
the neighborhood up a notch. How about that. There's a
bold statement. Well, you are listening to guard Line and
it is good to be with you this morning. Hey,
the folks at Nitrophas have a number of outstanding products,
and I talk about them all the time. Probably I
don't know if it's the most famous, but one of
their most famous products is a silver bag. It's Nitrofass Superturf.
It's a nineteen four to ten fertilizer. And that ratio

(10:57):
of nutrients, that ratio of nutrient, it's roughly a four
one two ratio. That is the way grass takes up nutrients.
So you know, you chop off a bunch of your
grass leaves and send them to a lab and say
what's in it, and they're going to tell you about
a three one two or four one two ratio of
nutrients in your lawn. So why not feed your lawn
the way your lawn eats. That helps maintain a balance

(11:20):
in the soil. Right when we fertilize incorrectly, we create imbalance.
Super turf doesn't do that. It's going to slowly release
that nineteen percent nitrogen to give you about four or
excuse me, sixteen weeks of feeding depending on the weather
and whatnot. So you do it now and you're covered
all the way up until time for us to look
at fall fertilization from night foss supertri the silver backs

(11:41):
easy to find. You're gonna find night foss products at
places like Langham Creek. ACE Hardware, that's the one on
five twenty nine by Copper Fields, you know out implantation
ACE Hardware on FM. Excuse me, three fifty nine. Then's
in Richmond Rosenberg area, you know, just north of fifty
nine there in Richmond Rosenberg are RCW Nursery carries night
fossproducts as well. It's easy to find them, not difficult

(12:05):
at all. In fact, a lot of ACE Hardware stores
will have your night fossproducts. In fact, I'd say essentially
every one I've never been in an ASA didn't. But
ACE Hardware is the the people I always tell you,
it's like Ace is the place that used to be
the motto that they talk about all the time. Ace
is the place and you just fill in the blank.
Ace is a place for your lawn fertilizer. ACE is

(12:26):
a place for tools and for things to manage pests
and weeds and diseases. Your local ACE hardware store is
easy to find. You just I don't care if you're
listening to me in Rockport, Texas, or Orange, Texas or
wherever here in the Houston area. ACE Hardware Texas dot com.
Don't forget the word Texas. Ace Hardware Texas dot com.

(12:47):
That's where you're going to find the place to get
your air filters. By the way, have you changed yours?
You'd be changed about every month on the house. If
you got a deck that is, you know, starting the
old paint or the old preservation is starting to wear off.
Aces you covered for that. You can be doing some
barbecue in this weekend and need some propane ACE sketchy
covered on all that. Whatever you're looking for, living indoors,

(13:08):
living outdoors, but especially that beautiful outdoor sitting area in
the lawn, ACE is the place. And we got aces again,
as they said, all over the place. There's aspas ACE
up in the woodlands. There's all seasons ACE up in Willis.
I had an appearance there one time. It's a great place.
Euvaldie ACE on the East Side on Euvaldi Road, Bay
City Ace, well guess where that is, Bay City on

(13:28):
Seventh Street, and Chalmers Ace on Broadway Street. Done in Galveston.
Just a few examples of the many ACE Hardware stores
that you'll find. Find your local one ACE Hardware Texas
dot com and go check them out. I always love
to go in an ACE. You know, each one is
independently owned by the way, and so while there are
some standard things that you're going to always have and

(13:50):
find a ACE Hardware you can depend on that. Each
owner gets to put their own little twist on the store.
And there aren't all alike. They have their own personality
if you will. But I'll tell you this, when you
go in, you're gonna find some really cool stuff. I
always do uh And that's just how they rolled there
at Ace Harbor. If you got a gardening question, you'd

(14:10):
like to visit about UH seven one three two one
two kt r H right now, it would be a
good time to call. Sometimes it gets a little busy
here and to people tell me I tried to call
and I couldn't get through. Well, I tell you that
you can get through. Now. We've got an open board
and be happy to visit with you if you got
a question. I can't keep that promise for the rest
of the show because things tend to uh heat up

(14:33):
outside and heat up on the phones too. At the
same time, I was talking to the folks at Pest Bros.
And we were just visiting about how things going. I
got some buckets from them. You know, the mosquito buckets
I've told you about before. Uh, They've got the ingredients
in them that draw the mosquitos in that cause them
to want to lay eggs in the water in the bucket.

(14:55):
Those eggs will never turn into adult mosquitoes, and so
you want them to go in there and lay their eggs.
That is important. But when that mosquito lands, it takes
on its feet. It's like, you know how what static
electricity is like? Well when okay, I'm gonna get nerdy
on you here for a minute. But I think this
is interesting. When insects fly through the air, they pick

(15:16):
up a static charge and then they land on things,
and things with the opposite charge will jump over and
grab onto them. And that's bees carry pollen because bees
pick up a charge going through the air, and mosquitoes
pick up this substance where they land inside the bucket,
and it's two things. One thing is a fungal disease

(15:37):
and mosquitos. Imagine a disease that is a fungus that
kills mosquitos within seven days. Now is that cool? You're thinking,
well why not one day? Well here's why, because you
want that mosquito to go somewhere else, to that saggy
gutter or to that low catch basin under your pot,
and you want have to land there because they've carried
a substance on their feet that is going to make

(15:58):
that an unsuitable breeding place for future mosquitos. Is that cool?

Speaker 7 (16:02):
Or what?

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Leave them alive just long enough to go out and
get those spots that you may not even notice that
are breeding mosquitos. So the buckets from pest Bros Are great.
And now Pestpros does everything they do. They you know,
the termites, so the cockroaches, you know whatever unit fire
ants in the art, whatever you need control. Just go
to their website, the pest Bros b r o s,

(16:26):
thepestbros dot com or give them a call. And by
the way, I always listen to guardline with a piece
of paper somewhere nearby and a pen or a pencil
in your hand because I'm always giving you numbers and websites.
Here's the phone number for pest Bros. Two eight one,
two oh six forty six seventy two eight one two
oh six for six seven zero you need to call.

(16:49):
You gotta get these buckets. They are really cool. Now,
by the way, I need to I've had questions about
you know, well I tried using such and such like
maybe it was a product for fireants and it didn't work.
And I don't know what didn't work means fully, but
just know this and anything we do to control pests
and diseases, it helps suppress them. But it's not like

(17:12):
an erraticant, you know. So like if you go and
take a fogger and nuke your yard from mosquitoes, or
if you put out a good quality fiant control product
in your yard, it doesn't mean that you're not going
to have any fire ants at all. I mean that
you're going to get most of them, but some more
will come in, more mosquitoes will fly in, or you

(17:33):
won't get every single one. But suppressing them to a
lovable level, that's the key, you know, And even the buckets.
It's not like every mosquito in the whole neighborhood suddenly
perks their head up and flies across three yards to
come to your bucket. But when they come, they're going
to smell it, and they're going to go there, and
you're going to see a significant, a massive reduction and

(17:54):
the problems that you have. And so I'm just keep
that in mind. Whether it's a disease in your lawn
or above chewing on a leaf of a shrub or
your garden plant, what we're trying to do is suppress
them down to a certain level and be a little patient,
but use the right kind of products to do that.
We try to point you toward that here on guard Line.

(18:15):
I was out at Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery a
while back, and I love that place. By the way,
if you're in anywhere in the greater West Houston and
beyond West area there this is your hometown garden center.
Nelson Water Gardens. Nelson Nursher and Water Gardens is in Katy, Texas.
Drive out ten to Katie turned north on Katie Fort

(18:36):
Ben Road and it's just a stone throw down the
street on the right it's really easy to get to.
One of my favorite things about it is it's therapy.
I don't therapy can be expensive, I'm told. But when
you go in there and you walk back in the shade,
I know we've got these hot summer days. Go there,
go there for this, walk back in the shade under

(18:59):
their trees and sit down and listen to the water,
water splashing everywhere. And I'm telling you, it is therapy.
It just relaxes you, and you're gonna first folk all.
And I think this every time I go there, is
like I need a fountain. I already got two in
the backyard, but I need another one because it just
is so calming to sit among the sound of water.

(19:21):
If you've got a little patio and you want to gather,
you know, with your friends, talk to them. They can
build waterfalls. They can set you up one of those
disappearing fountains where the water runs out of the top
of the thing and goes down, down and recircles back through.
It's like it disappears into the ground, but then it's
really just recircling. By the way, birds will love you
for that. One too, helps brings bring birds in Nelson

(19:44):
Water garden is the place for that. And the nursery
part is outstanding and you're gonna find everything you're looking for,
whether it's vegetables or herbs, or trees or shrubs or
fruit or you name it roses. They've got it all
at Nelson Water Garden, Nursery and water Garden in Katie.
Here's the website Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot com.

(20:08):
Go check them out, and by the way, take some friends.
It's fun and take your take your kids, your grandkids,
if you got a neighbor kid, bring them, because here's
the deal. You go in and you say, hey, could
we get some of that fish food. I want my
little one to go out there and feed the fish.
And they've got these giant koi that come up to
the surface and open their mouth above the surface of

(20:28):
the water. Can you believe that? And the kids can
just drop food right down in the fish's mouth. It'll
be They'll have a blast and you will enjoy it
as well. That's at Nelson nurser and Watergardens. I always
like to go out there. I try to get around
to all of our our sponsors as much as I
can because it helps me stay up to date on
the things that are going on, the cool stuff that's

(20:50):
going on on all those places. Well, we're gonna take
a little break here in just a second. I just
want to remind you that the new the two new
publications on Take All Root Right of Your Lawn that
you need to read or online now at Gardening with
Skip dot com. Go check them out. If you got
any questions, give me calls seven one three two one

(21:12):
two fifty eight seventy four. All right, folks, good morning,
welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're we're here to help you have a beautiful garden,
a bountiful landscape, and more fun in the process too.
By the way, that is the important don't forget that part.

(21:32):
Gardening should be fun. If if it's not fun, let's talk.
We're gonna we're gonna help you to figure some things
out to have the most fun you can because it's
it's therapy, man, it really is. We're gonna go to
the phones first thing this hour or this segment and
head to Tomball talk to Mel.

Speaker 8 (21:49):
Hey Mel, good morning, Welcome to gardener, Good morning, Thank
you very much for taking a call yes, sir, but
button weed is my problem this morning, like a lot
of times with that sorry stuff. I have a nephew
who tried using water softener salt mixed in with water,

(22:13):
and he kind of got a mixture of what makes it,
I guess, very much dissolved and kind of murky or whatever.
He tried it once on a little spot of his
Saint Augustine where there was some button weed, and it
killed the button lead, but evidently the grass survived. Have

(22:35):
you ever heard anything about like that. I mean, I'd
like to try it, because I got like no pile
of button leads.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't do that. I saw if
it's strong enough burns plant roots and burns plant top
parts too. They're actually herbicide. Used to be some herbicide
type stuff that basically was a salt that just fried
the top of the planet. Anyway, I wouldn't do that.
That's very hard in your lawn. I don't know if

(23:03):
a button weed is less salt tolerant than Saint Augustine,
for example, But what I would do is there's a
product out there that is the one you need to
try for this weed for this time of the year,
and that's called Celsius, like the temperature celsius. Celsius it comes. Yeah,

(23:25):
those of you, yes, sir, you do, you definitely want
to do that now. Celsius is a post emergent broad
leaf weed control product. That's a lot of words. Basically
what it means is it kills broad leaf weeds, not grasses.
Broad leaf weeds after they're up, you sprayed on the
foliage of the weed, so post emergent broad and it

(23:48):
comes in little packets that make one gallon, which isn't
a lot of spray, but you're gonna put it in
your spray and you're just gonna spotpray the button weed
with it. You're not gonna nuke the whole yard with
this stuff. But the two things about Celsius number one
in trials, it has been one of the most effective
things against Virginia button weed and a lot of things.
Virginia button weed laughs at some of them. Make it cry,

(24:10):
but don't kill it Celsius kiss. But Virginia button weed,
it's so yeah, Virginia button needs so tough that no
matter what you use, you're probably gonna have to do
it again. Probably, I would say maybe three to six
weeks later. Just kind of watch it and see what
it's looking like. But the other thing about celsius is

(24:33):
it you can spray it when it's fairly hot and
it won't hurt your grass. Most broadly, we condrol killers.
Once we get up above the upper eighties, which is
what may, they will hurt your grass. So I would
get celsius still. I would go out in the morning.
Don't wait until it's one hundred degrees. I'm not talking
about that tolerant. I mean, but you get out in

(24:53):
the morning and you know it's spray it at that
time and an'll dry off. It's your best bet and
just but just be ready to have to do it
again if you you know, just watch it. Never let
it up for air, though. Don't don't let it just
grow for weeks without doing something, because then you're having
to kind of work your way back to be in
charge of it.

Speaker 8 (25:14):
Okay, I'm sorry, how do you how do you spell it?

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Cel s c I U s celsius like the temperature
like fahrenheit and celsius.

Speaker 9 (25:28):
Okay, ceo cel.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's it. You got it, man, Good luck with that.

Speaker 8 (25:35):
Mel I appreciate you.

Speaker 10 (25:38):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
All right, thanks sir, appreciate it to call take care. Yes,
you hear that word celsius come out of my mouth
a lot, and it's I and I wish I wouldn't
just talking about one product so much, but uh it
it works. It's got a broad range of things that
works on But the main thing is it's not so
dad gum hard on your turf. You know a lot

(26:00):
of these great broadly we control products we have that
we use in the spring, in the fall another time.
They work. But once we get into and you read
the label on them, you always ought to read the label.
In fact, I think the people that sell products to
turn it around and say, okay, I want you to
read that to me before I check you out with
a product. I want to know that you've read it,

(26:21):
because people don't read it, and when you misapply something,
you create problems in headaches, and we don't want you
to have problems and headaches. I was talking about to
Take All Root Rot, and I put those two new
publications up on my website. One of the things that
predisposes your lawn to take all root rod is using
broad leaf weed killers in the summer when it's too

(26:41):
hot for the product that you're using, and it stresses
the grass. And the grass isn't dead. It may may
yellow a little bit, or it doesn't look at it,
but it's stressed, and the disease gets the upper hand.
When you weaken an organism, you increase the chance of
it getting sick. Let's take us for example. All right,

(27:02):
we're getting philosophical here, but it's okay. If I don't
eat right and I don't exercise, and I don't get
enough sleep, and I go somewhere and let's say it's
a party and a bunch of people together, and someone
inevitably and there's, you know, got a cold or something
going on, I'm more likely to get sick than if

(27:23):
I take care of myself. I sleep, I get exercise,
I eat right. You know, I built strength and health
to my body. Well, it's true at plants too, and
when you stress your plants, you run into problems. We
have a number of diseases that we call opportunists because
what they do is they sit there waiting for a
chance to take down a weak host. Okay, So for example,

(27:47):
hypoxyln canker kills oak tree. Some of you may have
seen that just those of you who are a little
north of the Houston area have post oaks, especially north
and to the west, and you'll just see post oaks
suddenly turn brown and die in the summer, and all
of a sudden the bark falls off, and it was
hypoxylon canker. Where did that come from? It was there.
I talked to a state pathologists one time and he said,

(28:10):
you can go out in the forest and take a
sample out of a living, healthy oak tree, and hypoxylin
is inside. It's there. But when that tree gets weak,
it moves in and it kills it. But it was
the weakening of the tree that caused it. Okay, I'm
riding this horse a lot, I know, but I want
you to understand that that the more you keep your

(28:32):
plants healthy or strong, the less chance you're going to
have of them getting sick. Now, does that mean that
you never get any disease if you have healthy plants, No,
it doesn't. It just means why predispose your plants to
get in sick and make it harder on yourself. Take
care of them, keep them healthy, and that's how it works,

(28:52):
all right, all right? I think I probably bored you
with so much of that stuff. But I can tell
you I get a lot of calls. I've been doing
this for almost forty years now, answering gardening questions, first
with the Agrolife Extension Service and then on several to
three now radio stations, and I'm aware of what causes

(29:15):
these things, and i want to help you avoid that.
All right. Hey, cienamltch cnmults dot com. That's the website.
That's all you need to know. CNNA s I E
n NA, cnmlts dot com. That is the place you go.
It's a one stop shop for everything to create the
foundation for success in your gardens. You hear me say
all the time. Brown stuff before green stuff, before you

(29:37):
put the plant in the ground. Make the ground right
for your plants. Compost products, bed mixes, you know, fertilizers
and by the way, Sienna has all that plus they
have fertilizers you know from Microlife and Nelson's and Medina
and nitrofoss and azamite. They've got it all. Cnmlts dot com.
They're just south of Houston, a little of the west

(29:58):
on FM five twenty one near Highway six and two
eighty eight. Sienna Mulch dot com. They're open today, close tomorrow,
open Monday through Saturday, so check them out set yourself
up for success. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back,
Welcome back to guard Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're talking gardening today. What kind of questions do

(30:21):
you have? Whatever you'd like to ask about. I know
a bunch of you emailed this week and send me
some puddos. So if you're one of those listening right now,
it'd be a good time to go ahead and call.
Got a little slower this morning, so give us a call.
We'll be happy to visit with you about the things
that interest you. We want you to have success. The
way I like to put it is, I want you

(30:42):
to have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape,
and more fun in the process. Simple as that. The
folks at B and B turf Pros.

Speaker 11 (30:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
When I have a sponsor on guard Line, I want
to know a couple of things. Number One, I want
to know it there's a product work, just what they
do work, they know how to do, they know what
they're doing, is it effective and so on? And the
second thing is how are they going to treat my
listeners when they call, and B and B turf Pros
checks both boxes without a doubt. They are family owned operation.

(31:12):
They will provide you honest and quality work and for them,
it's about your satisfaction, customer satisfaction. They focus on high
end quality work and high end quality products. That's what
we're talking about. For example, I was just telling you
about Ciana Malch and how great that place is. They
get their compost top dressing from Cienamlch because it's first rate,

(31:34):
first class. That's how they do everything. They make a
personal connection with you to make sure you are happy.
They'll come out. They'll do core aeration and compost stop
dressing for you. Their primary service region is from Sugarland
and Missouri City all the way south and east, all
the way across to Interstate forty five, So places like

(31:55):
Allen and Allen Pairland friends, would you get over thirty
five League City and Dickinson that's part of the area too.
There is a Their prices starter around five hundred, depending
on the size of your yard and the travel distance.
But I want to tell you this, if you've got
a yard that is struggling and you're trying to bring
it back if you've got an area that is compacted,

(32:16):
compacted soil can't get oxygen in the root system very well,
and it's declining, this is prime time to get that
work done. Now is the time to get it done.
Here's the website. BB turfpros dot com. By the way,
compost top dressing corporations a lot cheaper than replacing sections
of year lawn or having to look at ugly twelve

(32:36):
months out of the year. BB turfpros dot com. Seven
to one three two three four fifty five ninety eight
seven one three two three four fifty five ninety eight.
I give them a call. I know this, I know
they will take care of you.

Speaker 12 (32:52):
I know you.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
We'll be happy with their service. You can look at
the reviews they get and see that just as well.
D and D feed is up there in Tumble, West
to Tumble. If you got twenty nine to twenty to
the west, it is about three miles west of two
forty nine on twenty nine to twenty. You'll sit on

(33:15):
the left hand side and you need to pull in
there and check it out. This place has got everything
that you need. They carry top brands. You know we
talk about fertilizers from nitrofoss and Microlife and turf Star
if that's a Nelson product, and Medina products for example,
they've got all of that. You will find their airloom
soil products by the bag, super high quality soal products

(33:36):
of many kinds. They carry them at D and D
Feed and Supply DFS weeds and diseases and need to
get something that may be just not available everywhere, something
a little harder to find, but it's that special product
you got to get. I've talked about Celsius before. Celsius.
They carry that there at D and D Feed and Supplies,
as well as high end dog food lines like Origin, Diamond,

(33:58):
victor Star Pro. Of course it's a feed story. They
got all the all of the things for your livestock
as well. But when it comes to home and garden,
lawn and garden DNDIE Feed and Supply two eight one
three five one seventy one forty four two eight one
three five one seven to one four four. I'm gonna
head now to rich Medow, Texas and talk to Alex. Hey, Alex,

(34:22):
welcome to Garden Line Escape you.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
I'm doing well, thanks, Okay, So I've got some is
brown path to take all rot the same thing.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
No, they're different. Brown patch occurs in the cooler season.
Like we see the circles. They're big round circles that
they turn brown, but then they green back up again
because it doesn't kill the grass, it just rots the
leaves off the runners. Take off patch is irregular. You
see it mostly symptom wise in the summer. It attacks
in the fall and spring, and it's very irregular and large,

(34:59):
and it kills the grass.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
So I think I've got take all rout.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Then it's okay.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
It's localized in my poorer draining area at least that's
where it started. And then with all the rain, once
we started drying out, it almost looked like it wasn't
watered and it kept spreading. So last week I put
down the curative rate for disease X and hopefully that'll

(35:27):
kill the fungus. What else do I need to do
or should I do or should not do going forward?

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah? I would. I'm gonna give you a brief answer
to that. But if you go online to gardening with
skip dot com app two publications on there. They're more extensive.
One goes into detail about the other things you can do.
First of all, on my schedule, disease X. That's a zoxystrobin.
It's a great product for this disease. But the pathologists

(35:58):
tell me it's best used in the ring in the fall.
That doesn't mean you should you can't use it in
the summer. It just means you're going to get better
effect when we get to October. I would I would
apply it again in October and maybe four weeks later.
Let's say you do early October and four weeks later
in early November. Uh, just to shut this thing down.

(36:19):
Other things you can do, although any for the Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
So for the when I follow the schedule, I usually
use the nitro foss uh, not barricade, but the eagle.
I think it's an eagle for the h and I
put that down.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
That's that's I've got.

Speaker 9 (36:41):
I've got it written down February.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Okay. So that's a great product and it works very
well on the brown patch the circles. If you do
the azoxi struban, you don't also want to do the eagle.
You don't need to double underside it. A oxi struban
will also work on the things that eagle's on. It's
just trying to get the best product we can for
take all, because that's the worst disease for your lawn.

(37:08):
You don't have to do both, Okay, So I continue
with or going back to Egle, No, I would. I
would in the fall. I would in this situation that
you're in with the take all, I would. I would
do the azoxi strubbun the disease X again in the fall. Okay. Now,
if we weren't dealing with take all root Roight, I

(37:28):
would just say, yeah, Eagle, it's a great product. It's
a funderside, it has some effect on take all. It's
just that ingredient of zoxy strubble's a little bit better. Okay.
So here's the thing you want to do. Though, as
far there are other things you can put out pemos.
My publication tells you how to do that. You can
spray a micro nutrient supplement. My publication tells you how

(37:50):
to do that. So there are some other things like
that that you can do to help. But just check
it out. It'll go into more detail than I can
go into on the air.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
Is that the liquid iron supplement correlated corrugated corlid iron.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
There I give you three different products on the publication.
One of them is fertile loam, iron and other micronutrients.
That's one of them. But check them out. And what
you're basically doing is because the root tips have died.
That's why your grass turns yellow before it turns brown.
A lot of times you're trying to it's almost like
you're doing all you are doing a full of your

(38:30):
feed to try to keep that grass healthy. It doesn't
kill the disease. It keeps the patient healthy until it
can get some health and some roots down to recover.
So it's a multi step approach. Hey, Doug, I'm gonna
have to or Alex, I'm gonna have to run. But
good luck with that and keep me you know, if
you need to call back some time and discuss it
more and be happy to happy to do that. But
I think the publication will do what you need to do, sir.

(38:53):
Thank you all right, Doug in Houston, we are going
to get to you first when we come back from
the brain. Just for the rest of you listening, with
the amount of take hall I'm seeing out there, you
probably want to go to the website and look at
these publications. They're both publications on Take All Root Rot.
One is a one page kind of quick sheet with

(39:14):
bullets this, this, this, and this. The other one goes
into a little more details called an in depth look,
and so check them out. Don't delay on this. By
the further it goes toward death, the less is in
your control to save the plant.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Ricord.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Just watch him as.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
So many birds. Hey, welcome to guarden Line. Welcome back.
All right, folks, we're going to hit the ground run

(40:11):
in this segment. I want to start off by mentioning
to you. And I was down at the Texas Nursery
and Landscape Association Expo, which was down in San Antonio.
A lot of our sponsors with there too. By the way,
I ran into Microlife, the folks at Microlife, and we
were just talking about some of the products that they
have and how they work and the ingredients in them.

(40:32):
And you know, microlife is all about creating organic products
that are loaded with microbes in order to give your
plants the best chance they can to have success. And
we talk about a number of them here on Guardline.
You know, the green bag is the fertilizer from microlife.
That's most commonly used for lawns. That's not the only
one you can put on your lawns, but it's the

(40:53):
one most commonly used. It's a six two for it's
got that good three to one to two ratio of nutrients.
It's a green bag. But there's also, oh, a purple bag.
A purple bag is hum mats plus. Now it's got
a little potassium in it, but you're not putting it
on as a fertilizer specifically. You're putting it on because
humates are the final decomposition stage of organic matter. So

(41:15):
it's like putting compost that's concentrated into a bag. That's
what hum mats plus is. You put it out on
your lawn and humates build the soil. They take your
clay soil and they help improve it. It's very stimulating
for micro nutrients and the soil, the good guys that
are helping soil build well. And humts plus can be
used not just on lawn I'm using a lot of places,

(41:36):
but it is basically, let's say, doing this doing a
shortcut on nature of about eighty years, okay, In other words,
rather than waiting for decades for the soil to build itself.
You are taking that final products and you are helping
speed things up to get your soil just right. Your
soil is right. The roots are happy, The roots are happy,

(41:56):
the plant's happy, the plants are happy. You got a
pretty lawn. So what it's about. You can go to
Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find out more information
there from them. They've got all their products and a
lot of good info on them. Let's head out to
Houston now we're going to talk to Doug. Hey, Doug,
welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 8 (42:14):
Martin Skip.

Speaker 5 (42:15):
Have a question for you the I have a small
yard where right now I have free mature crate myrtles.
I would like to remove them and replace them with
little Jim Magnolia's. So aside from getting all the roots
off the crate myrtles because they can be a test,

(42:36):
is the kind of the preferred way to trip the
soil so that I give those little gems the best
chance for success.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Yeah, is your soil a clay soil or do you
do you having to know.

Speaker 5 (42:51):
What kind of primarily clay, it's clay, Okay, so.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
You're gonna I would want to bring in a good
quality bed mix like they would create for acid loving plants.
And there's there's a number of different products out there,
quality products you're going to probably.

Speaker 9 (43:10):
Want to.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
You want to amend as big of an area as
you can, you know, not certainly not just a planting
hole and not just like three feet wide, but create
a nice sized bed to help that plant feel at home.
Magnolias feel at home in a forest where the forest
floor and soil is full of rotting, decaying, slightly acidic
organic matter. That's magnolia heavent. So you can create that

(43:33):
by bringing in a good quality mix. You know, the
folks at Airloom Soils make an excellent mix for that,
and they can deliver bulk. They can buy them by
the bag as well. And I would say create a
bed about maybe about a foot high. It will settle
down in time, but mix some with the soil you
have and then pile more on top to create that

(43:55):
one foot high bed and then plant into that. And
what you're doing then is you're giving the crank myrtle
it's best shot. Don't just dig a slick sided round
hole because roots don't tend to exit those very well.
But make make a good mix with the quality stuff
you're putting down with the soul that you have, and

(44:16):
then add the other on top. That's how I would
do it. Then dig the hole to plant the plant,
and use acidic type plant foods as you do that.

Speaker 9 (44:26):
Good.

Speaker 5 (44:27):
I appreciate that at one point on that the root
rot that we've been talking about on the lawn, I
made the mistake of putting down the weed killer because
I was getting an infestation of weeds about just you know,
three weeks ago, and then cut the yards, cut the

(44:47):
grass a little like one notch too short, and boy
that that stressed the grass real quick. So I've reversed course.

Speaker 9 (44:54):
And I did.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yeah, well, good for you, Yeah, good for you. One
of the things when you read my publication on take All,
one of the stresses is mowing. And if you can
keep your Saint Augustine at two and a half to
three and a half inches, that's ideal. You get down
low and like you said, it is just another stress,
But it sounds like you're on the right track to
appreciate that you take care of skip. Yes, sir, Bye bye.

(45:22):
Buchanan's native plants in the heights. They're on eleven Street.
They're in the Heights. If you haven't been by there,
you need to go see. They got their brand new
checkout shed with an all covered, all weather roof. You know,
it can be hot outside, you don't have to stand
in the sun. It can be raining outside, you don't
have to stand in the raman. It's a really cool deal.
But they've got a lot of stuff that is just

(45:42):
you walk through and you go, I didn't know they
even carried that here. Well, of course they do their Buchanans.
They specialize in native plants, but native plants aren't the
majority of the plants they have because they have so
many good things. If you're looking to plant vegetables. For example,
Oh public service announcement next Saturday, August sixteenth, right when
I am guardenline, they start a program growing fall tomatoes

(46:06):
with Stash Kalasko. Excuse me, growing fall tomato program at
Buchanans next Saturday, August sixteenth, ten am to eleven am.
Free class doesn't cost anything. And while you're out there,
go find some really cool plants because they specialize in that.
You need to go to the website and sign up
for the newsletter. Buchanansplants dot com. Sign up for the newsletter.

(46:30):
You'll learn about things like they're they bringing in a
real cool movie coming up here. They have information on
tips for seed starting and how to plan and how
to do. It's just a great website and the newsletter's
just awesome. You gotta check that out. All right, let's
go to Houston. Now we're going to talk to Cindy. Hey, Cindy,

(46:51):
welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 13 (46:53):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 14 (46:58):
I wait like to ask you about paris. I'm probably
saying this wrong. Perisstoid wasps that I've heard can help
with leaf miners in my lemon tree, but I don't
wanted to kill all my other larvae, and that's what
I'm afraid of.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
No, it won't kill all your other larvae. There are
a number of different parasitoid wasps that are effective in
the garden for various things. But you you have them
already in the area. Yeah, I mean some of those
things you can purchase and whatnot, But but you don't.
You know, you don't need to You don't necessarily need

(47:43):
to purchase some and bring them in. Just take care
of the ones you have by not killing them. By
just spraying indiscriminately. There's several genera of parasitoid wasps that
will go after leaf miner. They're really cool. They walk
along the leaf and they know the leaf miners is
tom underneath the leaf, and they poked their ovo posit

(48:03):
or their egg layer right through the leaf and into
the larvae and lay an egg in it. Pretty cool,
pretty cool stuff.

Speaker 14 (48:10):
Yeah that I had my trees, just my lemon tree.
Every year just seems to get those. So I thought, well,
if I introduce a few more maybe or intentionally introduce them,
maybe it would make a difference.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Uh yeah, you could, you could, it could help. A
commercial availability is very very difficult to find on some
of these for the homeowner. And if you're a big
greenhouse operator, yeah, they're companies that sell to you, but
you know, homeowners are kind of nickel and diamond with that,
and so you don't get as much and much benefit.

(48:46):
If you want to find out more, I'm gonna give
you the real quick answer here. Search for leaf minor
parasitoids like parasite P A, R I, S I, T
O I D parasitoid and include uh uh in fact,

(49:06):
let me just let me give you a website real quick.
I'll give you a basic of it and you have
to hunt it from there. I PM dot U C
A n R dot E ed U, University of California
IPM dot U c A n R dot E d U.
That's their i PM program. They have more information on

(49:28):
beneficial and sex than any play, any any university in
the whole country. It's it's awesome, a great website, and
they have a publication. They have more than a publication
on parasitoids.

Speaker 14 (49:37):
All right, okay, great, good, very much, Thanks you.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Bet, thanks a lot for the call. Appreciate that. Hey,
I got to run to a break. When I come back,
Daniel task a seed it your first up. All right,
we're back, folks, Welcome back to garden Line. Good to
have you with us. Hey, if you want to go
to one spot in front every thing you need when
it comes to products, tools and things to go with

(50:03):
your garden, Southwest Fertilizers at their Southwest Houston corner Businet
and Runwick. I love going in there, and I go
in regularly, and not only to get things because I
know they have them. If Southwest doesn't have it, you
don't need it. That's the way I look at it,
because they have it. They have everything that is a
product that works, they just do. But it's tools. They're

(50:24):
tool selections outstanding any kind of thing, you know. I'm
talking about Celsius for what we were talking about, Virginia
buttonweed for example, or products to control the take all
root right, They've got it all at Southwest Fertilizer, corner
Businut and Runwick. Excellent service. The folks know what they're doing.

(50:45):
You can bring them a sample, you can bring them
a photo. They'll take a look at it and they'll
walk you right to the product that works on that,
whether it's organic or synthetic products. They have the biggest selection,
the best selection in the whole region. Southwest Fertilizer Southwest
Fertilizer dot com seven one three six six six one
seven four four. We're gonna go out now, out to

(51:06):
a Tascasita and talk to Daniel this morning. Hey Daniel, Hi, Skip,
good morning. Can you hear me?

Speaker 15 (51:14):
Okay, I'm in my truck.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yes, sir, so, I have an alpea that has southern blight.

Speaker 15 (51:23):
I noticed a couple of weeks ago, maybe three or
four weeks ago. I started treating it with kneem oil
and a copper based fungicide that really didn't have any effect,
and it got worse.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
The plants about dead.

Speaker 15 (51:36):
It's and and the blight spread to a couple of
hibiscus plants that are nearby. Uh And I've seen it,
you know, starting to form on a few other plants.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Okay, tell me what.

Speaker 9 (51:55):
It's.

Speaker 15 (51:55):
It's a white uh you know, fungus, kind of a hairy,
powdery fungus. The pictures I've seen on the various plant
disease websites clearly shows it's a it's a southern blight.
I looked all over your website for an email to
send you a question and some pictures, but I couldn't
find an email. I emailed the uh let's station, but

(52:20):
they hadn't responded to me yet.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Okay, well, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna I'm
gonna say some things about southern blight, but then I'm
gonna put you on hold and my producer will give
you my email. And I want to see pictures, some
up the whole plant show me what's going on, but
some up really close to the white stuff in good
sharp focus and I want to make sure we got
the right one. Southern blight. I didn't know of a

(52:46):
fung just side that you you apply the control Southern blight.
It is a it is an issue that we don't
You're seeing so much of it that it's a little
perplexing to me because it generally isn't quite that common.
There are some other things that can look like that.
Cotton root rot can have a somewhat similar appearance, but

(53:10):
it just depends on the plant as to what the
symptom exactly looks like. But I don't know a solution
other than pulling the plant out, providing if you ascidify
the soil a little bit, that helps, But mainly is
a plant something that's not going to be a susceptible
to it, or if you want to do the plants
that are susceptible, do them in a different location and

(53:31):
try to minimize any stress. But let me, for the
sake of time, Daniel, let me just put you on hold.
Get that and send me the photos and we will
pick up the conversation on email from there. How about that?

Speaker 15 (53:45):
That time's good, skip, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
All right, hang on, I'm putting you on hold, and
my producer will pick up. We're going to go now
to Blake in Cyprus, Texas. Hey, Blake, welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 16 (53:59):
Let's skip.

Speaker 17 (53:59):
Good morning. I sent some pictures in this morning and
got a couple of holly trees on either side of
the from port sidewalk. And we've lived here five years
previous owner of planet. Then they you know, survived two freezes,
a couple of bad drought periods. But one of them
is slowly dying back from the top and the other

(54:23):
one shows some sign of some spotty areas, and I
don't think it's water. I've put in some fungus side
mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Blake, I haven't gotten anything from you this morning. So
what we're gonna do is I'm gonna try to help you,
and then I'm also going to put you on hold
to make sure my producer will make sure you get
the correct email, like I think maybe it went to
the wrong one. But anyway, when hollies are dying back,
are you seeing that, It's like the the green leaves

(54:55):
start to turn a dark brown color, and the and
and they hang on the plant, but they just turn
brown on the plant, blackish brown, even more black than brown.

Speaker 17 (55:06):
Probably, I wouldn't say black, but they're definitely brown. And
in between they go a state of yellow and then
you know, like a oak tree brown and it.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Okay, and it's it's at the top of the of
the bush, the shrub.

Speaker 17 (55:26):
Primarily. Yes, what there are spots on the other tree
that are underneath. You know, it's a it's kind of
prune as a topi area. So there's just spots here
and there, and that may just be natural.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
What so usually with how long have they been in
the ground US seven eight years, probably at least five
that I know of. Yeah, so they're well established. New
holly plants have a lot of issues with getting a
little on the dry side, but an established one shouldn't

(56:04):
be as picky. Excessive water, poor drainage is a killer
of Holly's a killer. The roots lack oxygen and they
don't do well. They start to die and then you
see the top growth dying back. Certainly drought can do
it too. I would check the stems inside where the

(56:28):
browning is occurring. So let's say you had the end
of a shoot that's browning, but further black, there's green leaves,
or maybe it attaches to the trunk, and the rest
of the trunk is fine. Look where the base of
the browning branch is and look for things like sawdust
or holes that would be an indication of a borer
that is working its way through the system. Chances are

(56:49):
it's not a disease, but when I see photos of it,
I can take a good hard look at that and see.
But Holly's primarily we're looking at a soil moisture problem.
There are some soil diseases that can cause it. So
check the base of the trunk, pull back a little
soil from the base and look and see if you

(57:09):
see anything like sunken areas in the bark on the outside,
you know where it's like it's obviously dyed and it's
kind of shrunk back in. Or if you see white
cotton knee stuff there at the base, like a little flat,
smashed layer of cotton or anything like that. Take me
some pictures of those and let's take a look at them.

(57:29):
My quick answer on hollysough is going to be a
sole moisture either soggy wet leading to root rot or
a little on the dry side. But a seven six
seven year old Holly is well well established there and
it shouldn't be drought. That's the problem with it.

Speaker 17 (57:45):
Okay, I'll take a closer look today and send pictures
and make me call back early tomorrow morning. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, feel free to do that. I'll take a look
at them. Yeah, Blake, hang on, I'm going to put
you on hold and my producer will pick up and
give you an email. All right, folks, That is how
it works here. Yeah, it is always helpful. You know.
I could sit here and shoot from the help and go, oh,
go buy products such and such and spread on your plant.
You know. I could do that, but I'd rather give
you a more accurate answer, and that requires a diagnosis.

(58:14):
Can you imagine calling the doctor and saying, I don't
feel real good today, doctor, and he goes, hang on,
I'm sending something to the pharmacy for you, and you're going, wait,
how do you know what to send to the pharmacy.
That's kind of what we're talking about here. Nitropos bug
Out Max is Nitrovis's product. It's a granular. You put
it on your lawn, You water it to wash the

(58:35):
product off the granules and into the soul surface. The
thatch and the soul surface, and it controls insects period.
I mean the one hundred and thirty different kinds of
insects that it can kill. So when you're looking at fleas,
you know your dog is coming in and out and
bringing in fleas or your cat. It deals with that.
Ticks in the yard as well, certainly things like chinchbugsid webworms,

(58:58):
fire ants that are out and about. Night fossbug out
Max available in a lot of places. The Ace hard
Red Single Ranch on Mason Road has it. You can
go up to ospas as the Woodlands on Crocodile and
find it. Head out to en chenn At Forrest in
Richmond Rosenberg on FM twenty seven fifty nine. They carry
night foss products out there as well as does the
Arborgate up in Toambol on twenty nine twenty. Let's see

(59:23):
here Joe in late Conrod. We're going to hold you
until we come back from this break so I can
give you time to actually help you with your question.
So hang on, you'll be first up. I want to
remind you you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we are here to help you have
success in your gardens. While we're at a break, be
a good time to check out the website Gardening with

(59:45):
Skip dot com. Take a look at the two new
publications on take all Root Rot, It kills grass and
if you're seeing yellowing and dying areas in your lawn,
there's a good chance, not one hundred percent, that take
all root Rot is what did it. But my publication,
one of them, the more lengthy one, explains how to
tell the difference between it and other things. Be right back,

(01:00:09):
all right, folks. Whereby I was at the Texas Nursery
and Landscape Association Expo in San Antonio. That is the
biggest trade show for the green industry here in Texas,
and it was awesome. I was down there, got to
visit with Jorge from Jorge Seddon Gardens a little bit.
You know, hooorgey uh. He's just such a great job

(01:00:30):
of bringing in all kinds of plants that you're going
to be interested in. For example, if you're into fruit
fruit plants, he has citrus all the time on it.
He's got bullet and blueberries on him. He told you,
I was out there this spring and oh my gosh,
the places was crawling with peaches, and pears and plums
and just apples, all kinds of different fruit trees. He's had,

(01:00:52):
you know, avocados and things. But it's not just a
fruit nursery. He's got awesome selection of trees and shrubs
and then seasonally, you know, the when you're putting in vegetables,
certainly herbs and other things. That's Hoorges Hidden Gardens. By
the way, if you're gonna buy a tree, you know
you need to have the three sixty tree stabilizer when
you stake it out to hold it properly. That's a
whole nother story, but it's great product Ory carries out

(01:01:15):
down at Rayes Hidden Gardens as well as the own
specialty line of fertilizers that work. It's located on Elizabeth
Street and Alvin. That's where it is, south of Highway
six between Alvin and Santa Fe. Okay, so those of
you down in Arcadia and Alta, Loman, Santa Fe and
Hillcrest and al Goa, this is your hometown garden center.
Jorges Hidden Gardens seven to one three six, three two

(01:01:39):
fifty two ninety seven one three sixty three two five
two nine zero. Let's go out to Lake Conroe. Now
we're going to talk to joe Inn. Hello, Joanne, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (01:01:50):
Thanks you, good morning. I purchased this plant from a nursery. Yes,
I purchased the plant from a nursery. And slowly but
surely it is being covered by this discoloration scarlet, kind
of speckles all over. And they said it was heat related,
but I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Is that the plant I'm looking at pictures. I have
one by a different name than Joe Anne, but it's
it's in kind of like a gray rolling container sort
of thing or a gray pot breather. Okay, that is
a far bush and it's blooming and the speckles. That's
a combination. Far bush will get color in its leaves

(01:02:34):
that it can do that, and so that not necessarily
a prime In fact, in the as we move into
the cool season, you'll see that a lot on the plant.
I think right now it's in probably not enough soil.
I can't see how deep the pot is in the photosh.

Speaker 11 (01:02:51):
I bought a five pound I bought a five pound
bag of soil and jumped it into and it's in
a five pound bag of soil. It was a bag
of yeah, with plotting soil.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
And how deep is the.

Speaker 11 (01:03:14):
It's over.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Okay, then I just can't see right, we're looking straight
down on it. Are the good drainage holes is the
next question. Make sure they're not plugged, that they're working.
The soil looks a little on the damp side, but
you could have just watered it. But if the if
the drainage holes aren't working and it's staying soggy, fire
bush will not be happy at all, nor will it

(01:03:38):
like getting too dry. Fire Bush needs a good root
system and adequate soil moisture to do its best. I
think it needs a little fertilizer too, and I would
get you a quality product there. There's one from the
folks that Neilson plant food called color Star, and color
Star is just a good general purpose fertilizer. It comes

(01:03:59):
a little jar, little screw topic grand Yeah, it's a granule. Yeah.
So following in terms of how much, Okay, follow the label,
don't put too much out, don't put too little out,
just follow it watered and read good. But mainly make
sure the drainage is good down at the bottom, that

(01:04:20):
that is is not staying a little too soggy. Wet.
Some of the symptoms look a little like that. And
then finally join the last thing. Give it a little
more sunlight, anything you can do to get it lots
of sunlight. Fire bush will be very happy.

Speaker 16 (01:04:34):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
I can't tell from the photo, but it you know,
it looks like it's near a porch with a roof
over it. Maybe, and maybe it gets that's just a guest.

Speaker 11 (01:04:44):
Yeah, it gets the morning done for sure, but I
can move it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Yeah, give it a couple more hours the sun at
least a couple more hours, and I think it'll go
perk up and it'll do on that far.

Speaker 11 (01:05:00):
Those leaves have fallen off as well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Okay, well that's a sign of stress. It could be
soggy stress. It could be you know, drought stress. It
could be a lot of things. But far bush does,
it'll grow. We don't generally grow them in containers that size.
We usually grow them in a bigger container. But that's
still a small plant. So I'm not worried about the
container size yet. Maybe next year we would bump it

(01:05:26):
to a bigger container.

Speaker 11 (01:05:27):
All right, When can I When can I trans When
can I put it into another container?

Speaker 18 (01:05:32):
In the fall?

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
I would wait until things cool off, you know, get
in a little further into October, you know, and do it.
It's going to die back to the ground with winter cold.
If we have a really hard coal snap, those roots
being above ground and a container are going to be
more subject to kill back than they would if it
was in the ground. So maybe if we're going to

(01:05:56):
you know, you're going to get down and they'll say
the mid twenties or something, then I would roll that
thing into a protected spot for the for the night
and you can get there up at Lake Connor. All right,
you take care, appreciate your card, Thanks very very much.
In Chenny Gardens is down on the Katie Fulsher side

(01:06:17):
of Richmond. The website is Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Uh, you just need to
go there. If you hadn't been, you need to go
see this place. It is outstanding at really cool garden center.
Lots and lots and lots of selection, all kinds of

(01:06:37):
wonderful plants. The folks there are knowledgeable, they greet you,
they help you. Uh, it's just what you would want
in a place you're going to go shop for plants.
I mean it's awesome. Go check out their gift shops too,
really really nice gift shops. In fact, I see they
got to copy my book and their gifts. I just
pulled that up and notice that that's cool. All right there,

(01:06:59):
you go say hi to the cats. I don't know
if you know this, but they've got a handful of
cats that run the place around there. The humans are
just pretending to run it. Cheeto, Harry and Bolt. They're
really the run ones that are taking care of things.
If you want succulents, you will not believe the gorgeous
cacti and succulent bowls that they have. I mean, they
are outstanding. Go see them, say I want to see

(01:07:20):
those Talavera succulent bowls and the other things that they
have when they're there. They've got a full lineup of
programs coming up this fall. You definitely want to stop
in and see some of those things. I've been bragging
on the Seysalpinia or Pride of Barbados right now, they
are just setting the world on fire. Go check out
my Facebook page. I posted something about them a while back.

(01:07:43):
They've got those they're at encented Gardens on the Katie
fullsher Side of Richmond on FM three point fifty nine.
Enchended Gardens Richmond dot com. Of course I like plants, right,
I mean, I hope I do, Otherwise I'm miserable all weekend.
But I love plants, and I love going to garden centers,

(01:08:07):
and it just I can have been to a garden
center a month ago, I'll go again. I'll go check
it out again. Because when you go to a garden center,
a quality mom and pop independent garden center, not you know,
not a giant chain or god forbid a big box stores,

(01:08:28):
a real garden center, you're going to find people that
know what they're doing. They can help you. But you're
also going to find a constantly changing array of plants
that want to grow here, not something that the company
ordered for shipping everywhere from Atlanta to Timbucto, and it
probably doesn't belong in all those places. But people that

(01:08:49):
know what to order, know what to provide you, and
can answer your questions. That is important. Oh, by the way,
in China, gardens has gotten in a bunch of tomato
heat tolerant varieties of tomatoes. Now's the time to plant
your tomatos. Hurry up, don't delay one more day. It's
time to get them in because fall is coming and
then the first frost comes after that, so you need

(01:09:11):
to get those things in the ground. But they have
I don't know, they probably have a dozen different tomatoes
out there that you can choose from really good quality
brands too. All right, well, time for me to take
a quick break. We'll be back with your calls. By
the way. The number if you'd like to call in
be first up when we come back. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Oh yeah, a

(01:09:36):
little sleep at the wheel for you this Saturday morning.
Welcome back to your guardenline. Good to have you with us.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
When it comes to convenience, when it comes to a
nice selection of everything you're looking for, Spring Creek Feed
up in the Magnolia area on FM twenty nine seventy eight,
just minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway to forty nine.
Spring Creek Feed has got you covered whether you're to
deal with weeds or diseases or insect paths. Are looking

(01:10:04):
for a nice line of fertilizers, you know, fertilizers, quality
ones like Nelson Turf Star line, the micro Life line,
the Nitrofoss line. They've got it all there. They stay,
they keep in stock the things that you're going to
need to have success with your landscape. Now when you
walk in, first of all, place is beautiful from even
looking at it from the road out there on twenty

(01:10:25):
nine to seventy eight, it is just it makes you
want to go in. It's a cool place. And you
go inside and they've got all the quality pet foods,
quality lines. You look off to the right and there's
the garden area and everything you're going to need, and
there's a lot of other things in there. And you
know it's a feed store, so you're going to get
a lot of good options things that you're going to
want to have for your landscape. Sprink Creek Feed they

(01:10:47):
treat you right hey, if you're a military or senior citizens,
we got discounts for you there. They do special order
if they need to. If you need something they don't have,
they can special order and they also offer delivery service. Again,
Spring Creek Feed and Magno Magnolia on FM twenty nine
seventy eight. All right, we're gonna on guardline here We're

(01:11:08):
gonna run out here and talk to Dwayne in Deer Park. Hey, Dwayne, Hey, how.

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
Are you doing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Good sir? How can we help?

Speaker 13 (01:11:20):
I planted a orange tree back in twenty twenty, and
then of course it's it only fruited because it was small,
like two or three fruits, but they were It was
called a red naval orange tree, and that was one
of the sweetest oranges I ever tasted. Well, the following year,

(01:11:42):
great freeze came and it died all the way back
to the ground level, and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
I thought it was gone because it didn't come back.

Speaker 9 (01:11:51):
In the spring.

Speaker 13 (01:11:52):
And then late summer I started seeing some new shoots. Well,
it grew back, but it never fruited.

Speaker 15 (01:12:00):
And I was thinking because of the freeze that you know,
it just never was going.

Speaker 13 (01:12:05):
To fruit again. And then last year it got two
or three fruits on it. All of them fell off
but one but that one that stayed on there. It
never developed.

Speaker 15 (01:12:19):
So then this spring.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
I came out and there was just flowers.

Speaker 13 (01:12:25):
It was just covered with flowers, so I knew it
was going to you know, uh, you know, really produce,
and it did. I had so many that I guess
the tree was just dropping them because it had too many.
And it still has quite a bit on there, but
again they're not developing. They've been on there since late

(01:12:48):
spring and they've only gotten to about the size of
a golf ball.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Golf ball, I said it with you, golf ball. What
you got as a rootstock, It killed the grass and
the rootstock took off and grew. It's probably got some
thorns on it. Have you noticed any thorns? Yes? M hm,
that is a rootstock. And so you got two options, doane?

Speaker 11 (01:13:15):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
If you I would pull it up and plant a
new tree, that's the kind you want. That's that's the
fastest best way to get back into the orange business.

Speaker 4 (01:13:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
If you want, you can try grafting it or butting
it yourself and using the rootstock that's there to start
a new plant. You know, the chance of success.

Speaker 13 (01:13:38):
And I actually air rooted uh and was successful with it,
and it is actually Uh. I noticed that it's got
new growth on it, so it actually worked.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
I've got it in a pot. So that what do
you mean air rooted? What you took a that has
golfed fruit?

Speaker 17 (01:14:06):
Uh?

Speaker 13 (01:14:06):
Well no, I actually took one of the limbs and
scraped the bark off of it and put.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
I guess another word, Yeah, after the free and it rooted.
Hang on, hang on? Did you do that before or
after the freeze? I did it this year. Okay, you've
still got the same plant. It's still the rootstock that

(01:14:38):
you rooted. Now if you want to, if you want
to try grafting the one in the pot that you
rooted that you got the new plan on or butting it,
that'd be worth a try. But it's a rootstocks also. Okay,
so there's no orange. What you've got is probably something
called trifoliat orange. It's full of seeds, it's got ball
sized or smaller. It's it's not not worth messing with.

(01:15:03):
You either got to graft onto it or but butd
onto it a quality fruit that you want. You could
put an orange on it. You could put a lemon
on it. You could put a lime on it, you
could put a satsuma on it. I mean, you can
graft citrus onto what you have. But uh, for the
one in the yard. My suggestion dest reiterator is I'd
get me. I'd go buy me a good orange tree

(01:15:24):
and get back in business fast. And then if you
want to play around, like if you want another one.
You can take a butt off the one that you
purchase and plant and graft it onto the one that
you rooted to have a tree of the one the
same kind that you purchased. Okay, okay, So then the
freeze did really ruin it. It ruined it, It took it.

(01:15:48):
It killed the plant that you wanted to eat, and
it left you with one you can't eat, all right, gotcha? Okay?
All right, sir? Thanks thanks a lot for the And
there's good information online.

Speaker 6 (01:16:02):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
It's good information online if you want to try your
hand at grafting. But I would I would save the
headache and the risk of not working and just go
get me a good one. Well, thanks a lot for that.

Speaker 7 (01:16:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Speaking of trees, I was looking the other day outside
the window and we had a storm blowing through, and
I'm telling you, the trees were swinging and swaying. It's like, okay,
is a limb gonna come down? It's it's storm season.
It's it's also a hurricane season, by the way. Uh,
And you need to have somebody come out and look
at your trees. When was the last time someone looked

(01:16:33):
at your trees to see how strong they are, how
solid they are, how dependable they are. Affordable Tree Service
Martin Spoonmore's company, Affordable Tree Service is who you need
to call. Seven one three, six nine nine two six
sixty three seven one three, six nine nine two six
six three. Give Martin a call. He knows what he's doing.

(01:16:54):
They've been doing this for fifty four years. His family
in the tree business. Uh, don't take chances. There is
a risk to property to people. Don't mess around. Have
someone that knows what they're doing come out and also
do printing on your trees so they make them stronger,
so they create the best structural integrity that you can

(01:17:14):
get on your trees. From Affordable Tree Service seven to
one three, six nine nine two six six three. I
noticed the other day that Plants for All Seasons has
They have a number of things that they offer, and
you know, I talk a lot about the quality of
the service. It's outstanding, the knowledgeable folks, they're outstanding, affordable,

(01:17:37):
it's affordable. Plants for All Seasons is a place you
need to go. Talk to them about creating a mixed
planter for you. Are getting you the parts you need
and the advice meaning parts meaning pots and soil and
plants to create your own. Why not make this fall
beautiful with one of those planters from Plants for All
Seasons two eight one six or three sevens sixteen forty

(01:18:01):
six two eight one three seven six sixteen forty six.
There're the garden center right there on Tombo Parkway, have
you two forty nine where the uh Street Luetta comes
in just north of there. All right, music means I
got quit talking. We're going to take a little break
here at the top of the hour. We'll come back
with your calls. If you'd like to be one of
the first up, get my producer a call right now.

(01:18:22):
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
seven one three two one two fifty eight to seventy four.
Don't forget on my website Gardening with skip dot com.
There's a brand new set of publications. They're both on
Take All Root Rot. One is an in depth look.
The other one is quick tips. So if you don't
have time to read, do the quick tips. It cuts

(01:18:45):
to the chase if you want to understand lead the end.
Depth one one's two pages, one one's pages not that
much for good five folks will be that one.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Welcome to KZRH guard in line with scamp Ricord's.

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
Shoes crazy gas a trim just watch him as.

Speaker 10 (01:19:14):
Gas.

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
So many good things to seepbot basics like gass backing,
not a sound credit glass gas, the sun Beamon down
between moss.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Hey, welcome back, Welcome back to guard Line. Good to
have you with us. We got a lot to talk
about today. First of all, we're going to talk about
the things you want to talk about. What's your question?
Can recall seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two and two five eight

(01:20:02):
seven four will be glad to visit with you about that.
I like to say that the agenda for the day
is up to you. It depends on the call. And
I got plenty of things to talk about. I've been
doing it today, like take all root rod. It's just
causing a flood of questions this time of the year.
We happy to help you with that. But any kind
of question that you might have related to gardening, that's

(01:20:23):
it only gardening all I can do. You know, the
folks down at Siennamultch It's it's just I love going
down there. First of all, the place looks good, you
know it just it's neat, it's clean, it's organized, it's
it's easy to shop. You're real simple to know what

(01:20:43):
you're doing. Secondly, you walk in and the way they
treat you friendly up, the encouraging it. It's just a
great place to go and you're going to find everything
you need there to have success. I always say brown
stuff before green stuff, meaning fix the soil first, create
the foundation for success, and then put the plants in,

(01:21:04):
not vice versa. And cianamulta hope you do that. They
have native hardwood multches, double ground multz two inch screen mulches,
beautiful natural dark chocolate colored mulches, not dyed, just a
natural dark chocolate color. They smell grate all their products do.
They don't have manure in them and stuff that creates
this odor. And if you want specialty things like roaset

(01:21:26):
soil from the folks at Airlom Sauce or Vigian herb
mix from Airlom Soilce. They've got that sand gravel stone
on pallets, a little flat stone for building your own patio.
They'll deliver within about twenty miles or you can go
pick it up and while are you there grab the
quality fertilizers. All the fertilizers you're hearing me brag on
here on Guardline. They got them there at Siena multch

(01:21:47):
Ciena Moltz dot com near Highway six and two eighty
eight on FM five point twenty one Ciena Moltz dot com.
They're open today till two o'clock and close tomorrow and
then Munday those Friday seven a seven thirty am to
im see animal It's a place where you go to
create the foundation for success, simple as that. It's the animals.

(01:22:08):
You are listening to Guardline and we've been talking about
a number of different things today, various kinds of calls,
got some emails and photos and helping people with with
those kind of things. When you want to go out
and get products that are quality products. League City Feed
is a place. Someone was commenting the other day about

(01:22:28):
the dog food brands that they carry, how much they
like that. You know, the brand Diamond for example, quality brand,
League City Feed has got it. They have all kinds
of other brands that are just you know, it's the
stuff you want to feed your pets. They've got you covered.
But I like League City Feed because number one, it's
it's one of those old time feed stores where they

(01:22:49):
carry the feed out for you, the sacks out for
you there. It's it's personal service. I love that, but
I also like it because they carry everything you need
for controlling pests and weeds and disease. Organic and synthetic products.
You're going to find nitrophost fertilizers as a mite there
as well, micro life products there as well. Nelson Plat

(01:23:09):
food products are there as well as well as bags
of heirloom soil you need. You know, you need to
fix the soil up for your plan a plant, whether
it's in a container or in a bed on the ground.
They've got you covered at League City Feed. League City
Feed open Monday through Saturday, nine to six, closed on
Sunday nine to six, so you can swing by after work.
Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. Two eight

(01:23:32):
one three three two sixteen twelve. Let's go out to
full Sure Simon t Andary and now we're going to
talk to Darcy. Hey, Darcy, welcome to Gardline.

Speaker 11 (01:23:42):
Hey, thank you, Skip.

Speaker 19 (01:23:44):
I have a quick question and then I'm gonna kind
of hang up and listen. We've been out in the
fulser As Simoncen area. About four years we moved from
Houston the Goof and we have up until now have
always had Saint Augustine. We've had great luck. It's the
schedule and I had it eliminated and posted on the
fridge in the garage and we just moved that with

(01:24:06):
us to the Bermuda yard. But the Bermuda graph doesn't
seem to be thriving under the schedule the way Saint
Augusty did. And I'm wondering, is there a different schedule
for Bermuda graphs? Is there what we might be doing?
Because when my husband knows that, you kind of see
little brown spots, but then a day later, two days later,
they tend to disappear.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Okay, brown spots, Huh. Okay, Now when you say the schedule,
is it uh? Is it my schedule or do you
still have Randy's schedule?

Speaker 19 (01:24:38):
I still have Randy's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
Okay, I need you to go to Okay, Well, that's fine.

Speaker 6 (01:24:47):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
Gardening with skip dot Com is mine. They're up there.
I have two different schedules, one for controlling problems and
one for growing your lawn. Uh and download them. There
is very colorful you'll know the difference. It's a it's
a very colorful chart of all kinds of things. But
check that Bermuda and Saint Augustine. The fertilization is the same,
except Bermuda we fertilize it a little more than Saint Augustine,

(01:25:11):
all other things being equal, more often, more little boosts
of fertilizer through the course of the year. With Saint Augustine,
three fertilizations a year's plenty. A lot of people will
do two fertilizations a year. With Bermuda grass, you can
do three or four to keep it happy. And the
more wear and tear you have on the bermuda, the

(01:25:33):
more you need to fertilize because it's recouping. The biggest
thing with Bermuda is to mow as regularly as you can,
as often as you can. It looks its best when
you move frequently, as opposed Saint Augustine's a little forgiving.
You know, it kind of gets a little taller and
you cut it back, it still looks okay. Bermuda. When
it gets a little taller and you cut it back,

(01:25:54):
you're left with a bunch of brown twiggy stuff. But
then as you indicated the green comes back in, but
you got an ugly period until it does. And so
those would be the two biggest differences, but same fertilizer products.
If you do it about three times a year, your
bermuda should look fine for most home lawns.

Speaker 19 (01:26:15):
I'll ask you one more quick question. So during the
growing season and the summer and the spring for bermuda graph,
should you mow.

Speaker 11 (01:26:23):
Like twice a week?

Speaker 2 (01:26:27):
No, no, no need to mow twice a week. The
shorter you mow, the more often you mow. And my schedule,
the lawn care schedule, talks about mowing and the frequency
and the importance. What you want to do is you
want to cut off one third of the height of
the plant when you mow. So let me just use
extremes examples to make that point. A golf course green

(01:26:49):
is mowed like at three sixteenths of an anch or
an eighth of an antire or whatever, and so they
mow it every day because it doesn't take long grow
a third of that back out right, and so they
mow it regularly. If you were to get into your
Saint Augustine lawn and you've got it, you're mowing it.
Let's say it two and a half or three inches high.

(01:27:11):
We can grow a whole another inch before it needs
mowing again. You see what I'm saying. So you wanna
you wanna mow according to the one third rule, and
with bermuda grass in a lawn, it tends to be
moded a little higher level, certainly not a golf course green.
Low low. You're gonna wanna mow it probably once a
week or every five days if you can do that

(01:27:33):
for the best the best combination of convenience and nice
looking lawn. Thank you, all righty, thank you, appreciate the call.
Thanks Darcy, you take care. All right, you're listening to Guardline.
I'm gonna take a quick break and we'll be right
back with your calls at seven one three two one

(01:27:55):
two fifty eight seventy four. All right, welcome back to
garden Line. Good to have you with us. I'm your host,
Stiff Richter, and we're here to help you have success
with your lawn and garden and fun as you do that.
That's what we want to do. I've been talking about
this week. I was at the Texas Nursery and Landscape

(01:28:16):
Association Expo in San Antonio. That is a huge I
mean they fill up the Georgia Brown Convention Center and
it is just like a gardener's candy store as you
walk through there looking at all the vendors and things.
I ran across in from Nature's Way out there and
also Leo talked to Leo from Nature's Way out there
at the show in Santonio. We were talking about different

(01:28:39):
kinds of products and things that they have. And you know,
back in the day, John Ferguson started Nature's Way Resources
and the name tells it all. How do we do
things the way nature does it? And the way nature
does it is build quality soil over time. So that's
what they do. They take the time to make quality
products over time, whether it is the many different kinds

(01:29:02):
of composts. They have a leaf mold compost that we
use for compost top dressing. They have got a fungal compost, which,
by the way, you can use a screened fungal compost
for composting top dressing as well. They have roast soil there,
they have vegetable soils, they have fruit tree soils. They've
got it all at Nature's Way Resources. They're up on
Interstate forty five north on the way to almost to

(01:29:24):
Conro where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia. You
turn the other way, cross over the railroad tracks, and
right there on Sherbrock Circle. That is Nature's Way Resources.
Nature's Way Resources dot Com. Check out their website. Don't forget.
I'm going to be out there this fall. I am
going to be out there this fall, so I hope
you will come out and see me. It'll be in

(01:29:46):
October that we're out at Nature's Way Resource. I'll take
you Morbius. We get closer to that. All right, let's
go out to Pasadena and talk to Freedom. Hello, Frida,
welcome to Gardenline.

Speaker 10 (01:29:58):
Thank you skip about my root rot or my grass.
I got your email and I read it closely, made
the nice about it. I was wondering and given the
condition of my best what to do. Now, I know
there's a whole lot of stuff you can do. And
from the note I got that maybe I should spray
it with a bunch side and wait a few days

(01:30:20):
and then get sulfur and peating moss on it.

Speaker 11 (01:30:23):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:30:25):
Well, yes, Actually there's a debate about whether using the
fungicide in the summer is as much help or not.
It doesn't hurt anything to use it. But okay, the
plant pathologists that specialize in turf diseases, they tell me
spring and fall. So when you look at my gardening schedule,
which is online at gardening with Skip dot com, I've

(01:30:46):
got those fungicide applications in October. You can repeat it
in November and then in the spring or the times
when we primarily use a fungicide for take off. Now
what I sent you was the longer version of it,
and it had a lot of information in it. I've
put on my website a shorter version. It's called Skip
Steps per take All and it's just a one page

(01:31:08):
set of bullets with take All where we're starting with
cultural practices to avoid stress. That is number one. The
reason we have take all problems is because our lawns
got stressed by something. Take all moves in and now
we're trying to get rid of it. So we got
to alleviate the stresses. Water enough to keep it moist

(01:31:30):
because it's lacking roots and so it definitely needs more
dependable so moisture than normal. There are some cultural things
we can do. You can do a pete moss top dressing.
You can spray a micro nutrient supplement on the grass,
and that's because it doesn't have roots to take them up.
So you're doing a folier feed basically for your lawn.

(01:31:52):
But that doesn't cure take all. It just keeps that
grass alive until it can get some fresh roots down
that aren't infected. Uh. And and either of those will work.

Speaker 10 (01:32:04):
Go ahead, Uh, micro nutrient chumplement. I can get that
at ACE.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Yes, Uh, they will have them at ACE. In my
publication I sent you, I think it lists three different brands.
Is that correct? Or three or four different brands?

Speaker 4 (01:32:23):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
It should be in there. I have to pull it
out to take a look at it. At what I
what I'm there? I think? Yeah, surely I did. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:32:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
So I'm just gonna say this. Yeah, I'm going to
say it on the air here because other people are
going to wonder. Fertilom has a product called keylated iron
and other micro nutrients. The reason you see yellowing as
your grass goes from green to dead is because it's
lacking micro nutrients and the grass specifically iron especially, but
manganese is needed. Monterey has one monoey iron combo bone.

(01:33:00):
It has long called bone eyed liquid iron complex. And
it's not just iron, it's iron and manganese especially that
we're looking for. But the sooner you start doing things,
the better you are keep it alive. Once it's lost
all its roots, even if you killed the disease, you've
got grass sitting outside in sun with one hundred degrees

(01:33:20):
with no roots, So you know it's going to go
downhill even if the disease wasn't still in it. So
you just need to kind of it's sort of all
of this. It's like you know, someone gets sick and
you take them to the hospital. Someone's taking care of them.
They got an IV to feed them because they can't eat.
You see what I'm saying. We got a patient here

(01:33:41):
in the front yard and we're trying to keep it alive,
and we're trying to Then medications are going to be needed.
Those are on my schedule. But that's the big picture.
If you just do one thing is probably not going
to be enough. Pete moss is temporary, micronutrients are temporary.
The cultural practices are the most important thing, and then

(01:34:04):
the fungicide at the right time is how we go
after the disease specifically.

Speaker 10 (01:34:10):
Okay, so spray first and then put them peat moss on.

Speaker 2 (01:34:18):
Yeah I would. I would say you get more on
the grass. But you're gonna do the spray periodically. You know,
when you spray, you should see some green up when
you put the peat moss on. Within a week or two,
you should see some green up. And remember you have
to water the peat moss in apply just a little
water to settle it down around the runners, because it

(01:34:38):
helps fight the disease down there, or at least suppress it.
None of that cures it. It's just we're keeping the
patient as healthy as we can so that we're not
replacing that whole section along if possible.

Speaker 18 (01:34:51):
What about it?

Speaker 7 (01:34:52):
Did grass?

Speaker 10 (01:34:53):
Should I pull it up?

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
You know, there's not really a benefit in doing that.
It doesn't hurt to do anything. The pro of it
is you get a lot of that debris out of there.
The negative of it is now the sunlight is hitting
the soil and you're gonna have weeds worse than it
normally would be because you're taking away the sun block
cover that the leaves provide. So yeah, okay, you're not

(01:35:18):
gonna get rid of the disease. By pulling the grass out.

Speaker 10 (01:35:22):
All right, I just thought it might help you grow. Okay,
thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
Yeah, not really, not really, you bet Freda. Thanks a lot.
Good luck getting a hold of that. Take some pictures
of it, and as you do these things, take some
pictures and show them to me later, send them to
me later. I like to see what the progression looks like.
You take care. Yeah, you know about the takeoff, folks.
You got to understand that when you're ground, when you're looking,
like right now, if you're looking and you've got dead

(01:35:50):
spots and then yellow spots and then the green grass,
well you're jumping in laid in the process. It's not
like everything turns green. We've got grass plant that doesn't
have roots and has lost a lot of the runners
as well, and it is hot out there, and so
you water, and yeah, water is important, especially important when

(01:36:10):
it lacks roots. But when it doesn't have any roots,
how does it take up water. So the further you
let this go, the more difficult it is to bring
it back. And so it's just a it's a series
of things. I know that sounds complicated, but it is complicated.
Life gets complicated sometimes, But just understand the number one

(01:36:33):
thing would take all root rout. Don't let the grass
get stressed. That's it. You have been out to Chended
forest down in the Kadi excuse me, in the Richmond area.
If you're in Richmond heading towards sugar Land, it's off
to the right down a road called FM twenty seven
fifty nine now intended forest. It's just a it's a
wonderful place to go to, big beautiful trees to shop under.

(01:36:56):
So even in this hot weather, it's a great place
to go. Do you want pollinator plants, You're not going
to find a better place. Do you want things to
bring in butterflies and hummingbirds, You're not going to find
a better place. Whether it's native milkweeds, lots of different
kinds of options there. Whatever brings in butterflies, hummingbirds and bees,
you're gonna find a bit enchanted for us. But doesn't

(01:37:17):
stop there. One of the best herb selections anywhere in
the area is an enchanted forest garden center trees and shrubs.
Let me just give you an example what I'm talking about.
Succulents plants for a little fairy garden around the base
of a tree. Now, that's unusual, right, They've got them
there and enchanted for us. At one point they've had

(01:37:40):
like ninety different kinds of salvia, my favorite genus of plants.
They do so well here, they've got them an enchanted
for us. An expert advice. Go down there, talk to Danny.
We've got two Dannies down there now, or want Clay
or one of the other folks, and they'll point you
in the right direction. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, t X dot com.

(01:38:02):
That's the website and Chanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.
Go check out. It's a great website and you'll find
out everything you need to know when you go there.
I was visiting with Rich Edie that they Rich spoke.
They had Rich speak at Oba Palooza a couple saturdays ago,
and you know, I talked about it. I was there.

(01:38:22):
Rich was a speaker, because he's awesome. I like to
say Rich knows more about birds and birds do. But
you know what that's true of the folks that run
wild Birds Unlimited stores.

Speaker 15 (01:38:35):
They do.

Speaker 2 (01:38:35):
There's six of them in the Greater Houston area, one
in Kingwood, one in Clearlake, one in Paarland, one in Houston.
On the west side, one in Houston, on the southwest side,
one up in Cyprus. Wild Birds Unlimited stores are awesome,
and these folks know what they're talking about. Go check
them out. They each store, there's one near you. It's
simple and you're going to find the top quality bird seed.

(01:38:59):
And it's like, well, what makes top quality bird seed? Well,
number one, it's not full of red bebies, so the
birds kick all that out. They don't like that. Very
few birds are going to eat those. While Birds Unlimited,
when you buy a pound of bird seed, you get
a pound of stuffed birds want And if you buy
the no mass blends that means the sunflowers inside or shells,

(01:39:19):
so you didn't have shells, then one of that pound
is going into a bird's stomach. That's what you're looking for.
Look at their houses, look at their feeders. It's hummingbird
season coming up. In fact, they're already starting to arrive
here hummingbirds. Go check them out, get the hummingbird feeders,
and get the nectar to go with it. They'll tell
you all about it. We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (01:39:42):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
Hey, welcome back, Welcome back, Guardline. Good have you with
us today? I'm your host Skipwreck here and we're here
to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape,
and more fun in the process. That is what we
would like to accomplish, and that's what we do accomplish
here on guarden Line. If you'd like to give me
a call seven to one three two one two fifty

(01:40:05):
eight seventy four seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. The other day I had Ty Strickland
from Fix my Slab Foundation Repair on the air, and
if you miss that show, you need to go back
and listen to it. By the way, you can listen
to pass shows by going to the KTRH website garden
Line section, and my pass shows are posted there. So

(01:40:26):
if you're like you were talking about visiting with Ty Strickland,
or I also visited with Zach Bukinnon for example, David
Williamson from RCW, and several others, the folks at Houston
Powder Coders, you can go listen to those programs. But
visiting with Tye, we basically picked his brain on foundation
issues and driveway issues and sidewalk issues. You know, how

(01:40:49):
the concrete breaks up and stuff, what causes it, what
partner trees play how does that work? And so on,
and you know it was just a great Visit had
a lot of interest in it because people are concerned
about that. You know, your home is valuable and if
you get major foundation problems, it gets expensive. But when
you have tie come out. If you don't need anything,
he'll tell you that he's on a straight shooter. He

(01:41:11):
shows up on time, he fixes it right if it
needs fixing. Uh, and he charges a fair price. That's
the bottom line. And for a lot of calls he
tells them that there, yeah, there's some movement and cracking
concrete cracks that do you have a crack or not?
That that's almost not the point. It's like, how bad
is it? And what can we do about it? Is

(01:41:32):
the point. So you see a driveway with a crack
through it, Okay, big deal, it's got a crack in it.
But when it starts heaving up, that's a problem. Tin
knows how to fix that. Fix myslab dot com. Fixmslab
dot com. He's been doing it twenty three years. You're
gonna give him a call. Two eight one two five
five forty nine forty nine two eight one two fi

(01:41:53):
five forty nine forty nine you got cracks in the
sheet rock, cracks in the brick outside. You got doors
that are sticking, or sometimes they stick and sometimes they don't.
That's movement of the foundation. You need to have somebody
take a look at it. Somebody who's straightforward, shoots straight
and honest. And that's Ty Strickland from fixmslap dot com.

(01:42:14):
We're gonna go now out to Pasadena and visit with Jess. Hey, Jess,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 20 (01:42:20):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah. I got an weed, I guess,
And it's about the size of a pee. And let's
see a little snowball of spikes on it, and then
then the underside has got like three blades of grass
coming out of it.

Speaker 8 (01:42:34):
Anyway, I do what that is?

Speaker 2 (01:42:37):
Wow? Okay, it's a weed. It looks like a pee
with what color is the the little bloom thing? Is
it pink or white?

Speaker 20 (01:42:46):
It's not a bloom, it's it's it's about the size
of a pee. It's got little spikes all over it.
It's about the size of a pea, and it's like
a blind green. And then it's got three three little
blades of grass about inch and a half long underneath
it cooking out from there, throwing it clusters.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
Boy, I should know which time about. I can't picture it.
Different things you're saying or throwing me in different directions. Uh,
just do you If it has blades of grass, then
it's a grassy weed. If it looks like a pee,
are you saying the seed pod looks like a pe?

Speaker 20 (01:43:26):
Yeah, it's about the size of a pee.

Speaker 9 (01:43:28):
But it's spiky.

Speaker 20 (01:43:29):
You know, I didn't know who was laying of those
picker bristle things. You know that later on turned brown
and Neil gets out here. Yeah, dog like that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
Let's do that. Let's do let's do this. Just would
you send me a photo or two of it? Uh,
let me see the plant, let me see the spiky thing,
and make sure the photos are in sharp focus. And
if you want to call back, we'll put you the
front of the line. I producer will put you up
the front of the line after you've sent me those
photos and let me look because right now my brain

(01:44:02):
is going in three directions based on the description, and
I want to make sure and get this one right
for you. Okay, all right, sir, thank you. I'm gonna
I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on hold, hang on,
my producer is going to give you an email address.
So well, we'll hopefully we'll get back with jus a
little bit later today. That sometimes the description of what

(01:44:22):
you see and the picture in my mind's eye is
not the same thing, and that is not a good
combination if you want an accurate answer, for sure, So
I don't want to do that to you.

Speaker 9 (01:44:32):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Nelson Plant Foods visiting with Dean also down at the
the TNLA convention in San Antonio, and we're talking about
their products, you know right now. First of all, with Nelson,
you've got several lines of products. You've got the turf
Star line, which is for lawn's turf Star. It's a
lot of different products for lawns. There's one called Bruce's Brew.

(01:44:53):
Bruce's Brew. You know, I talk about immediate release and
slow release. You know, we got immediate release fertilizer, we
got slow release. Bruces Brew is kind of like a
hybrid in there. It does a good job immediately releasing
some things, but it also has a decent slower release
component to it. So if you wanted to put something
down now to carry you on into the fall season,

(01:45:16):
Bruces Brew it's got the right ratio of nutrients in,
it's gonna be successful for your lawn. It's an excellent product.
It works. They've also got the nutri Star line, and
those are specific plant foods for specific kinds of plants.
There's one for vegetables, there's one for plumerias, there's one
for bougain vellas for example, and many more. But the

(01:45:36):
boogainvilla food is great for anything that is vining, especially
flowering vine specifically, it works really good on that and
of course bugain vellas. You want your boogain villas to
have good nutrient content because they need to produce good
growth with leaves that capture sunlight and set that plumeria

(01:45:56):
up for the next set of blooms. That's how that works.
About every two weeks you put a little bit of
boogainvillia food on them, water it in and keep going.
Then two weeks later do it again, or once a
month if if they're already blooming, you can just do
it once a month, but you need to have some
on hand. It's in a jar screw top lid and
by the way, many Nelson jar products you can refill

(01:46:20):
it about a dozen different places around town. You take
your jar in, you fill it back up, you save
some money, you don't throw away plastic. It's a win
win from the folks that know some plant food. Simple
as that, simple as that. Uh yeah, boy, this this
was a fun week. And I was a kidney candy
store being at the at the expo, the nursery expo,

(01:46:41):
because I saw people selling every kind of pruning equipment
and every kind of tree and shrub and plant and flour,
and the people that supply the people that you buy
your plants from. You know, somebody buys a bunch of
little plugs so they can grow them out into a
plant in the pot that you want to come buy
plug producers there. I mean, just everything you can imagine,
and much much much more was there. Mot I was there.

(01:47:03):
I got to see my friends from RCW Nursery. You know,
I talked to David all the time about things. But
they grow their own trees. In fact, they grow their
own trees up in Plantersville at Williamson PlantForm or tree Form,
and then RCW is a retail outlet where they sell
not just those trees, but a lot of other things.

(01:47:25):
You go to RCW, you're going to find whatever kind
of plants you're looking for for the season. I've got
some wonderful star jasmine I got from them earlier in
the year that are now adorning a back fence, working
their way on covering it up and going to fill
the air with the perfume of a star jasmin. It's
also called confederate jasmine, but that's just an example. They're
the get it, got it nursery. If they don't have it,

(01:47:48):
they'll do their best to find it and bring it in.
But I can tell you this, they're probably going to
have it. RCW is the place to get your trees
from fifteen gallons up to two hundred gallons. They can
come plant them for you, which I would recommend. They
know how to do it right, and just just go
check them out. They're located on Highway two forty nine,
which is Tomball parkway down toward this out then where

(01:48:10):
it encounters belt Way eight. Where it crosses belt Way eight,
that's where RCW is. It's easy to get on, get off,
get there, get what you need and get on your way.
And now be a good time to do that. Get
those get those gardens ready to go, get your soul
ready to go. Fall planning season is coming. We can
still plant now if you take care of your plants
after you plan them. And RCW Nursery is going to

(01:48:32):
give you the quality plants and the quality advice that
you need for success. Let's take a quick break. We'll
be back with your calls in just a moment. All right,
welcome back. I hope you're having a good morning. We're
having a good time here on garden Line. Like give
me a call seven one three two one two ktright.

(01:48:54):
Let's talk about the things that interest you. You know,
one thing that is just the nature of the business.
But I get calls, and the calls are often about
death and destruction and loss and pain and suffering. It's
like my lawn's dying, my trees dying to made, the
bush is dying. It's things like that, and I get it.
You're welcome to call call away. It's also fun some

(01:49:15):
time to get Hey, I just got a new place
and I want to put some roses out front. What
would be some roses I could grow there? How do
I have success with rods? Are? Where can I find
such and such plan or? You know those are lot
a little bit more on the upbeat. After a while,
the disease, pestilence, death and destruction can be a little
bit depressing. I know it is to you because you're
sitting out there looking at those plants that you had

(01:49:38):
dreams for. Well, let's help you avoid the pain and
suffering and get right to the point of having success.
We're talking about different people that were on the air
this summer with me special guests, because I like to
pick brains and go more in debt. You know, I
tell you about places like Houston powder coders, for example,
and you know, oh, you go there and you get

(01:50:00):
your metal powder coated and it's wonderful, and you're going, well,
I don't do I have metal to powder corol? What
does that mean? Why don't I just paint it? Well,
we had a really good time, a nice visit talking
about what is powder coating, you know, what is going
to be the process, how does it work, why is

(01:50:21):
it better? And all of that, and we learned about
it and if you'd like to go back and listen
to it, trust me, you would find it very interesting
visiting with them and learning about how they do things.
Biggest powder coder in the reason over one hundred color options.
Biggest powder coder in the region, over one hundred color options.
Here's the deal. I know they did the greater Houston area,

(01:50:43):
but what I found out is no, they've they've actually
gone over as far as you know, Austin, San Antonio
direction to pick up things down along the coast and
so on. They will come pick it up, they'll bring
it to the shop, do their work, and deliver it.
I mean, you can't get any easy than that. So
if you got metal out there and it's it's faded,

(01:51:04):
you know it was pain or maybe it's chipped, or
maybe it's rusting. Maybe the bolts are resting, maybe the
vinyl straps you know, and and the end caps on
tubular furniture are worn away. They do all of that.
They know how to do all of that. All you
gotta do is pick out the color. So if you
think you might be interested, well here's what you do.

(01:51:25):
You take a picture of your furniture and you send
it to this email sales at houstoncoders dot com. There's
not a powder in the email sales at houstoncoders dot com.
They'll give you a quick quote and they'll tell you
what it'll take what they'll do and so on. You
can talk to them if you want to call them
two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight

(01:51:46):
two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight.
They can get you set up. You want to see
their work, go to Houston Powdercoders dot com and check
out that standing work that they do. It is really
really good. Or someone was visiting with me the other day,
in fact, it was down at the show and they
were saying, you know, when I'm going to plant a plant,

(01:52:08):
what is that thing you always talk about putting in
the ground or with the plant? That was the question,
And well, I said, well, it could be several things.
Medina products. They have an outstanding thing I like to
use to water in new transplants. It's a Medina has
to grow six twelve six twelve the middle number phosphorus.

(01:52:28):
Got a lot of that. You need that roots need that.
That is success for roots. It also helps blooming too.
By the way, but I'll water my plan in with
medina has to grow six twelve six. I'll do it
again a week later and again a week after that.
I mean, you can do more if you want, but
that helps tick that off. To a really good start.
And then there's Medina Plus. Now, the old Medina soil

(01:52:50):
activator still around, still a great product, loved us so
many people for what seventy years, probably by now not more.
Medina's all activator is Medina Plus. In addition to that,
it's forty different trace elements including natural growth hormones and
magnesium and iron and zinc and all of those important

(01:53:12):
things that your plant is going to need. It is
a magic mix for your soil and your plants. You
can fold your feet it, you can drench it on
the roots, just like I was talking about with the
other product. Medina products are available everywhere. They're easy to find.
If you go to a feed store, you go to
a garden center. You hear me talk about these. You
hear me talk about Southwest Fertilizer, ace hardware stores which

(01:53:34):
are all over the place. They're going to have Medina products.
So go check one out. Let's go out to Summerwood
now and we are going to visit with Ralph this morning.
Hello Ralph, welcome to garden Line top.

Speaker 16 (01:53:47):
To day till you skip. How are your day, sir?

Speaker 2 (01:53:51):
I am doing great? How can we help?

Speaker 16 (01:53:54):
I got a couple of questions. You just had the
front of the yard and part of the backyard residing
with Santa Augusta yesterday. And as far as your opinion, well,
how many days a week out of water that before
I cut back to regular watering also gave mey fertilizer
that I should be putting on it right now.

Speaker 2 (01:54:16):
Good question, sir, So the general in general, and it's
going to vary depending on sun or shade, whether it's
sunny days or cloudy days, you know, and all that.
But in general, I say the first week, water twice
a day, very lightly. You don't have to put much on,
but just just keep that top, you know, inch or
so of soil moist so that the plant roots going

(01:54:39):
from that side you laid down into your soil have
a good chance of succeeding because that grass got ninety
percent of its root system ripped up in the digging,
ripped off in the digging, and now it's down there
and you got to keep it alive until it gets
roots down. That's why twice a day, then about once
a day, and then you can go to about him.

(01:55:00):
Probably by then moved to about twice a week. But
by the time you get about two weeks in, you're
backing off pretty good, and then another week or two
and you're out to a regular schedule. As far as fertilizing,
you don't need to fertilize for a month. And I
know that's hard because you're thinking, man, I want this
grass to grow. The grass has the nutrients in that

(01:55:20):
soil right now that it needs. There are adequate nutrients
in your soil for these early stages. Once it gets
rolling a week a month after you planted it, then
start to put the fertilizers on. At this point in
the season, we're off. I'd use a faster release fertilizer,
a faster release like a Bruce sprew from Nelson Plant Food.

(01:55:41):
That is an excellent product if you use night Fast products.
They've got the red bag, the red bag, and the
red bag's the ones A fifteen five to ten. That's
the one that you're going to use for now, and
then in fall. According to my schedule, which is online
and downloaded, then we switched a fall fertilizer, but that's

(01:56:01):
not going to come till October.

Speaker 16 (01:56:04):
All right, answer well, r'st question for you. I've got
some tomorrow glance or how have you pronounced it? And
it seems like more underneath the leaves than on top.
It has like a white I guess for all tactful pars,
like a little white bag underneath it. And when I
do it with my thumb, it's like it's got a
greenish in contents to that bag that I'm killing off.

(01:56:25):
I guess, Walter, dearser, how to treat it?

Speaker 2 (01:56:30):
It's not ringing the bell what you're describing. Can I
put you on hold and have my producer give you
an email and just send me some pictures of it
up close in good short focus. Let me see what
it is, and then I can either answer it on
the air or you can call back at some point
uh and we'll be happy to answer. Okay, sir, thank
you a lot, and I appreciate you. Bet appreciate that call.

(01:56:52):
H Piercecapes is the garden line preferred landscaper Piercescapes dot com.
That's all you need to know. Pierce escape Apes dot com.
Go look at the work they do. You'll see the
landscape lighting. You'll see their work on poor drainage areas.
You'll see the hard scapes that they can put out
for you. They do it all. They do it all beautiful,

(01:57:13):
beautiful work. Piercescapes dot com two eight one three seven
oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty.
Got to go to the website. That's where you see it.
All right, We're going to take a break here for
the top of the hour news John in League City.
Obviously the music is playing. I'm going to hold you
until we come back. You will be the first up.

(01:57:35):
We'll talk about the questions that you might have. Just
another reminder about my website. There are still folks that
are telling me they're using my schedule, but it's not
my schedule, it's Randy's, and Randy's a great guy friend
of mine. But I've created a very different schedule been
up for a long time, still the same basics at
Randy had, but I just added a lot more information

(01:57:56):
into it. I wish you would download the new one.
Gardening with skip dot com. There is a lawn care
schedule because you hot to more water fertilize and a
lawn pest disease and we'd management schedule. We're gonna want
to want to download both of those.

Speaker 1 (01:58:13):
Welcome to Katy R. H. Garden Line with Skip Ricord's.

Speaker 2 (01:58:23):
Gas trip.

Speaker 3 (01:58:26):
Just watch him as many good things to seep bass
not a sign credit basis the sun beamone.

Speaker 2 (01:58:52):
Welcome back to guarden Line, folks. Good to have you back.
We are here to help you have a boundiful garden
and a beautiful landscape and more fun in the process.
You can give me a call at seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. I'm gonna run

(01:59:13):
straight out to the phones now. John's been waiting out there.
John in League City. Hey, John, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 18 (01:59:22):
Hey, thank you, good morning.

Speaker 2 (01:59:24):
I just had a cool question.

Speaker 18 (01:59:25):
I've got seent Augustine had some chinchbug damage in my
front yard and I treated all that. Now I know
it was chinchbugs and I've treated it. But my question is,
how can I help that grass recover here before the.

Speaker 2 (01:59:39):
End of the season.

Speaker 18 (01:59:40):
It's pretty well eaten up and I'd rather not do sod.
But is there anything I can do to you know,
between now and the end of the season.

Speaker 2 (01:59:52):
Right, good question. So chinchbugs kill grass because they essentially
unjacked up a poison a toxin in the grass and
they do their feeding on it and it goes downhill.
You know, early on in the process, if you got
rid of the chinchbugs, the grass probably could come back.
And then there's a point where, of course it can't.
How big are the areas you would consider dead, how

(02:00:15):
far across are they.

Speaker 18 (02:00:17):
It's probably a maybe twenty by twenty area, twenty by
thirty maybe.

Speaker 2 (02:00:25):
Oh okay, well, yeah, grass isn't gonna crawl back across there.
Chances are you gonna have to plug back in or
side back in one way or the other. What your
grass needs right now is adequate soul moisture because there's
a lot of demands on it with this hot weather.
So a good soaking on an infrequent basis is important
in order for the grass to recover. Some fertilizer is

(02:00:48):
always helpful, and in the summertime. You know, what I
would suggest you do is get a product from Nitrofoss
called Sweet Green. It is a eleven zero zero fertilizer,
so it's a nitrogen fertilizer and it dissolves away and
it becomes available pretty quick for that grass, And why

(02:01:08):
don't you do that one? To get some bigger you
need to to turn that a radio off if you
would for me, it'll give you the boost of growth
that you're needing. You should get a green up and
good growth, and then the next fertilization will be in
the fall October when we do our fall fertilizer. But
sweet green would be an excellent choice for that. And

(02:01:29):
so that's what I would do now, just to get
some bigger especially around those dead spots, because that's what
you're wanting to get to crawl back in as far
as you can. But the distance you're describing is just
way too big, you know, for the grass to fill
in by one hundred times too big. So you might
want to try cutting some plugs out or sections out

(02:01:52):
somewhere else and moving those in there. And that's work.
It's tedious. It's time. You got to water them regularly
to keep them astablished. So the easiest thing is to
buy sod and just put it in and do it
now and get it growing in so that when fall comes,
the season comes, you've got some good fill and you're
good to go sodding. Really late in the season, you know,

(02:02:14):
it has to have a chance to try to get
some roots down, and not much is going to happen
before winter that way. But those are your options. John. Okay,
so you.

Speaker 18 (02:02:25):
Think sod would do okay though with the really hot
weather we got now, but saw down.

Speaker 2 (02:02:31):
Yes it will, yes, yeah, And if you're going to sod,
I would get all the dead out, all the stuff
that chinchbugs left behind, clean it down to the soil,
rake it around, smooth it off. If you got any
holes to fill in, fill those in, get it all
leveled as you can. I would give it a good
soaking of water the day before I plant the sod,
because that's going to wet the soil down below, not

(02:02:52):
just the surface. Lay the sod on it, and start
twice a day light watering. You know, maybe you're putting
out a quarter inch, third of an inch, you know,
twice a day to help it established because it's touching
go those first few days. I mean when I laid
sod this last year, or actually I laid some this summer,

(02:03:14):
we started watering it before we even finish laying all
the sod, Because if it gets out there and gets
dry and starts to shrivel, it's hard to get it
back healthy again. You don't want it to ever lack
for water. For a second and without any roots, which
is what it's coming in with almost no roots. You
need to keep it moist. And then the second week
go to once once a day and then you're backing

(02:03:35):
off toward a good soaking less often, much less often.
But that's the key. You don't want to buy a
new sod and have it not hit the ground running
for you. All right, okay, thank you, all right, thank you,
appreciate appreciate your call very much. It's good questions too.
By the way, Arbigate outstanding garden center up in Timbo.

(02:03:57):
If you haven't been there, first of all, crawl out
from under the rock you'd been under and go find
this place. Everybody knows about Arburgate because it's awesome, awesome shopping,
great selection, wonderful folks that help you. You walk up,
you ask them a question, they say, follow me, and
they take you to the plant you're looking at. They
tell you out to how to grow at, what's successful,

(02:04:18):
what your options are. They're mom and a half West
Tomball on two forty nine. While you're there, remember I
always say brown stuff before green stuff. They've got you
covered on the brown stuff. It is an organic food,
complete organic food. Complete it feeds anything with the roots.
An organic soil complete that includes expanded shale. An organic

(02:04:39):
compost complete that includes expanded shale. They know how to
put it together. Those last two soil and composts are
available by bulk wherever you live. You heard my voice.
Call them up, say hey, I'd like to get a
delivery of those things. Talk to them about them. Of course,
a for the way you go from anything, the more
it costs for delivery. But they've got it and they
will bring it to you.

Speaker 4 (02:04:58):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:04:58):
They are pollinator special Us. And when it comes to
any kind of plant, if you want something that you
know when you go home from it, it's going to
have success at your house. That's Arburgate because you got
the advice and you got the plants. Arbigate Garden Center
is on the west side of Tomball. Just go out
twenty nine to twenty. It'll be on the left hand side,

(02:05:18):
just outside of town the arbor Gate. Let's go to Brenham.
Now we're going to talk to Dale. Hello, Dale, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:05:28):
Good mornings.

Speaker 2 (02:05:30):
I have morning, two peach trees.

Speaker 9 (02:05:33):
Two peach trees. A year before last. I had a
great crop last year. I got the little blooms on.
They all fell off. I've got a few fruits about
the size of marble. They never produced this year, absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:05:50):
And they're blooming this year too.

Speaker 9 (02:05:53):
No bloom this year, No, not at all.

Speaker 2 (02:05:56):
Oh okay, hmm, Well, let's see, peaches need a certain
amount of chilling. Some varieties need a lot, some need
a little, some need in between. If you don't get that,
you're not going to have good spring growth and they're
going to be slow to wake up and get going.
So maybe that's part of the problem. Peaches are self fruitful,

(02:06:22):
so you don't need to pollinate or two varieties to
pollinate each other. So if they're blooming and they're not
setting fruit, then my next thought is pollen is not
getting mixed around in there, which would be a lack
of bees or other pollinators. Primarily bees are doing it,
so that would be a problem. If they're forming little
fruit that fall off, you know, it actually set a

(02:06:44):
tiny fruit, but the fruit fell off, then that could
be a poor pollination, but also a stress at that
point in time, and maybe they aborted some fruit. But
those are my initial thoughts there. Dale.

Speaker 9 (02:06:57):
Okay, Well, like I said last I got a great
crop last year, blooms came on to this year nothing,
so it seems to be digressing every year.

Speaker 2 (02:07:12):
Yeah, you know, if if a peach tree is getting
enough sunlight, it'll produce blooms. If it's producing blooms, you
ought to have fruit. And so I don't know. I
don't know why you know two years ago that's what
they should do. Of course that's normal. If they come

(02:07:32):
out and you've got good blooms out there and you
don't have a frost on those blooms, which I'm assuming
you didn't, then they should be setting fruit. And if
the fruit aren't setting or hanging on, it's either pollination
or some other stress on it. And I I just
don't know what to tell you. If you want to
send me some pictures of it, I could take a
look at the orchard, but you know what they should
look like, so you would be telling you this is

(02:07:54):
what's wrong, but looking at them, and so that that's
my best guess. I don't know another reason. I've had
peach orchards in the past, and I know about peaches,
and uh, I've never had a situation where they bloomed
and didn't set fruit. That wasn't one of the distresses
I just talked about. Okay for you, Dale, I'm gonna

(02:08:16):
have to run. I'm against a hard break. I'm gonna
put you on hold just in case you decide to
get the email and send me some pictures. Folks, We've
got to go run to a quick break here. When
we come back, Deborah and Magnolia, you'll be first up.
All right, folks, welcome back to Guardline. Good heavy with us.
Good to have you with us. We are answering your

(02:08:37):
questions on air today. If you've got a question that
you'd like to ask me seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one
two five age seven four. I only say that number
eight hundred times a day. Why can I not just
spit it out. We're gonna go to Magnolia now and
talk to Deborah. Hey, Deborah, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 7 (02:08:58):
Hi, thank you for having me.

Speaker 6 (02:09:00):
I have.

Speaker 21 (02:09:03):
Probably about a twelve to fifteen foot tall guardena a
couple of them, and they've been in the ground.

Speaker 16 (02:09:10):
I planned them right.

Speaker 20 (02:09:12):
About five years ago.

Speaker 21 (02:09:13):
I went and bought a whole bunch of azalea soil
and mixed it in and they've been there twenty five years,
and boy, they're fifty tall and probably about nine feet
in diameter, and I've never touched them, and they've given.

Speaker 20 (02:09:29):
Me a lot of joy all these years.

Speaker 22 (02:09:31):
So now.

Speaker 21 (02:09:33):
They're looking kind of leggy on the ends to where
when it blooms, the blooms kind of drooped down on
the end. So I thought, well, maybe I need to
kind of print it to make the bush more green,
because you know how it gets to looking kind of
hollow in the middle because the limbs are so long
and so tall round and air in there, but then

(02:09:55):
the green.

Speaker 15 (02:09:56):
Part on the ends is kind of drooping down with
the flowers.

Speaker 7 (02:10:00):
So what's the best way to.

Speaker 21 (02:10:03):
Kind of bring them back to where they're green and
bushy like they have been all these years and they've.

Speaker 5 (02:10:08):
Just now got.

Speaker 2 (02:10:11):
Yeah, well that makes sense. Well, obviously they're happy at
your place because they're growing like that. Printing them back,
printing them back. Guardina sets blooms on new wood. It's
not a spring only bloomer, and so yours probably bloom
pretty well for you on into the season, right.

Speaker 21 (02:10:33):
They usually just go crazy and about April and usually
that's about it.

Speaker 15 (02:10:39):
But they are a little bit right now, which is
pretty rare in.

Speaker 2 (02:10:43):
This same Okay, well, here's the thing that if you
want to do a light printing on them, now, cut
those back a little bit. You can do that. You
will get new growth on it. We're getting late in
the season for the earliest flush of looms to be
cutting it off. Our plants that are blooming in the

(02:11:05):
spring are primarily blooming on buds that were set the
previous late summer and fall. So when you prune this late,
then the new growth may not have time to set buds.
I think in your area, with where you're located, I
think you'll get some. So if you want to do
a light pruning now, just don't overdo it. I think

(02:11:27):
that would be okay. Then next spring, after they've done
their spring bloom show, do some cutting back then and
give them time to regrow. And you can trim them
more than once lightly in the season to get them
to bush out a little bit more. But you do
that according to esthetically what you're wanting to look at. Okay,

(02:11:48):
So that is the approach that I would take to them,
maybe a light pruning now and then after the bloom
come in a little bit heavier again.

Speaker 7 (02:11:58):
So what's the light greening?

Speaker 9 (02:12:00):
Like cut foot back or.

Speaker 2 (02:12:04):
Yeah? Cutting, yeah, cutting some of those those gangly ones
back a little bit. Maybe it's printing part of them,
but not all of them. Maybe it's just printing back
about a foot uh huh.

Speaker 18 (02:12:16):
Okay.

Speaker 21 (02:12:16):
So I'll kind of just do a few that are
like a foot long, and then in the spring I'll
do another foot long.

Speaker 2 (02:12:23):
Do that you could, you could do some of those,
but especially yeah, and after they bloom, after the bulk
of the bloom is done, then do some cutting back
a little bit more then and they'll put out new
growth just to you know, work your way back. I
don't want to shock them by overdoing it, just at
one time, okay, And I think you'll be in good

(02:12:45):
shape there, Deborah.

Speaker 15 (02:12:47):
Man, they're done, and they that deep freeze and everything.

Speaker 9 (02:12:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:12:52):
Yeah, I know, I know. Well, obviously they're happy at
your place because they're growing like they are. I was
talking about Southwest for earlier folks, and it's a Houston
lawn and garden tradition for many. In fact, today or
today this year is their seventieth birthday, seventieth year that
Southwest Fertilizer has been around. They take care of their customers.

(02:13:14):
They got the products you need. You're not going to
walk in there asking for something. If it's a quality
product that works here, they're going to have it. It's
as simple as that. Southwest Fertilizer from Fertilizers, every brand
you talk about on guard line and more, they've got them.

Speaker 4 (02:13:29):
There.

Speaker 2 (02:13:29):
Largest organic selection in the Houston area Greater Houston Area,
ninety foot wall of garden tools. Everything you need is
there at Southwest Fertilizer, including things like mosquito dunks for example.
Now I've told you about those before, but mosquito dunks
are a little doughnut that you toss out on the
water and it'll cover about one hundred square feet of

(02:13:50):
surface area and it'll last about a month. You're going
to go on vacation, get your mosquito dunk, get your
little hammer and break it up into some pieces, and
get you a big kiddy way eating pool. Put your
plants in there, put about two inches of water in
there to keep them going till you come back. And
if you throw a mosquito dunk piece in there, you're
not gonna mosquitoes when you come back. You're not gonna

(02:14:11):
come home. You're not gonna be a Skeeter breeder anywhere.
Stagnant water sets. Mosquito dunks, that's what you need. Or
mosquito granules. They have a granule product as well. Uh,
they work, and yes, Southwest Fertilizer has them. Let's go
to Nadville now and we're gonna talk to Vernon. Hello, Vernon,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:14:30):
How you doing today.

Speaker 13 (02:14:33):
I'm gonna start my vegetables inside this year.

Speaker 9 (02:14:36):
I'm gonna try to beat those squash behind bores. I'm
trying to see what I need to look for in
a grow life.

Speaker 2 (02:14:49):
You need one that has the spectrum of colors that
plants most want. And the blue and the red are
the two most important. But not just blue and red.
They need more than that, but blue and red are important.
I did an article for Texas Gardener magazine, and I

(02:15:11):
don't know if it's available online. It might be. They
put some of their publications up there where you can
read an article even if you haven't subscribed. You can
read an article just as a sample. You might check
Texasgardener dot com and see if you see it on there.
I'll tell you what I'll do if you will hang on.
I'm going to put you on hold and Marco's gonna

(02:15:32):
take your call and give you an email. If you
will email me and request that article. I will just
send the article directly to you, and it goes into
depth because I could spend the rest of the show
trying to explain to you all the aspects of light.
But good color mix is very important, and then adequate intensity.

(02:15:54):
People put adequate lights too far away from plants and
those two combined end up into so you need to
get a quality light, get it close to the plants
and they'll do well. It'll do well. But my article
tells you all about that, and so rather than trying
to explain it, let me just send it to you.
I'll do it for no charge, of course, and just
I'm gonna pitch on hole right now and hang on.

(02:16:15):
We'll get that to you. I'm glad you asked that
question because it's very important to do that.

Speaker 9 (02:16:19):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:16:20):
You're listening to Guardline folks, and we're here to help
you have success. Now, have you been up in your
attic on a summer day? I have, It's like one
hundred and fifty hundred and sixty degrees out there. That's
an oven, and now you're living in the living room
underneath it or the bedrooms underneath it, and that heat

(02:16:41):
is radiating down.

Speaker 16 (02:16:42):
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (02:16:43):
You call Arctic Insulation Solutions. They can do insulation, they
can do radiant barrier. They can put solar attic fans
in that when it gets hot, that it comes on
at fifteen hundred cubic feet a minute. It's it's sending
that hot air right out of the attic. They can
do that and all that. Listen, they're experts. They know
what they're doing. Phone number eight three two five eight

(02:17:05):
six twenty eight ninety three eight three two five eight
six twenty eight ninety three. Give them a call. Let
them help you. Here's the website you want this, Arctic
Houston dot com. But do you know how to spell artic?
I always forget one of the c's ar C T
I C Houston dot com. Check them out. Alrighty here

(02:17:30):
Ron in League City. Ron, I have less than a minute.
Let's get started and then I'll finish you when we
come back from break. How can we hear?

Speaker 18 (02:17:39):
Okay, see, good morning to you.

Speaker 8 (02:17:41):
My quick question is that I have I have a.

Speaker 12 (02:17:46):
Hibiscus a rosemellow swamp rose rosemellow hibiscus, and I've grown
it from a seedling and it's in a pot and
I'm wanting to put it in the ground, and I
just would like to know the best time to do that.
I don't know if it's too hot right now or
I should wait. You just like to use your recommendation.

Speaker 2 (02:18:07):
That's a very good question. I'm ten seconds away, so
we we'll put you on hold and I'll come back
to you and we'll tackle it very first thing when
we come back. All right, folks, you're listening to Garden
Line phone number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. All right, we're back. Welcome back to garden.
I'm good to have you with us. Let's see here.

(02:18:28):
We are going to go and continue our conversation. We're
head there with Ron.

Speaker 7 (02:18:32):
Ron.

Speaker 2 (02:18:33):
We're you're talking about planting a swamp mallow hibiscus. Uh,
when's the best time and how you can do it
right now? But think of that plant as if it
were still in the pot after you plant it, and
if it weren't a pot on your patio, you'd water
it every day trying to keep it going right, Because
it's pumping that little cylinder of roots dry. Uh, And

(02:18:56):
so when you put it in the ground, its roots
are still just like we're in the pot. And so
you need to water that spot every day because it's
hot and the demands are higher than they are at
any other time of the year, this late summertime. And
so just that doesn't mean drowned it if it's in
you know, you don't want to keep it submerged in
the roots, but a little bit of water each day

(02:19:18):
and then gradually, you know, backing off and giving it
a better watering less often and it'll do just fine
for you. Just just watch the overwatering, but but keep
that root ball moist again. Pretend that the pot's still
underground with the roots, and that's where you need to
water initially.

Speaker 12 (02:19:35):
Okay, okay, thanks much, Kip.

Speaker 8 (02:19:38):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (02:19:41):
You bet and get you some, get you some. Adina
has to grow six twelve six. It's a liquid. You
put it in a watering can and I would water
it in with that and do that three times about
a week apart. That also helps that root system establish faster. Okay, okay,
I have some of that. Thank you. Okay, good, good,
thank you. I appreciate, appreciate your call. That is a fact.

(02:20:04):
All right. Now, what we're gonna do, We're gonna go
to Betty and Richmond. Hey, Betty, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 19 (02:20:10):
Good morning. My problem is that I have snails everywhere.

Speaker 14 (02:20:18):
I filled a coffee can with them.

Speaker 7 (02:20:21):
I'm talking half fool threetown can, trying to pick it
through off the plants and so on. I don't know
how they ate it my property, but there's lots and
lots of them.

Speaker 10 (02:20:31):
And I've tried the snail bait.

Speaker 6 (02:20:33):
It doesn't work.

Speaker 7 (02:20:34):
I've tried beer cans, it doesn't work.

Speaker 16 (02:20:36):
I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 (02:20:39):
Okay, Well, a good bait will work and beers better
for slugs. Actually better beer is better for us. But
slugs like it too. Just joking. But the snails, okay,
a quality made of work. There are a number of
them out there. There's one snail. The ingredients on them

(02:21:01):
are going to be iron phosphate. Iron phosphate on a bait.
On a bait product, you need it to be fresh.
So if it's been sitting in a hot garage or
a hot store or whatever for too long, it's not
gonna be that good. They need fresh bait, and you
need to put it out in the evenings, kind of

(02:21:21):
place it around. I like to put some in like
a little lid or something underneath the plant, something flat
where they'll they'll go up to it and they can
get on it and feed it. But once that bait
gets a little older, it becomes less desirable. And if
they don't eat enough of it, there's actually an issue
called a bait shyness that can happen. And what happens

(02:21:43):
is in this case of snail, it happens with other things.
Comes up and eat some bait and they get kind
of sick, but they didn't get enough to kill them,
and they go, I ain't gonna eat that anymore. And
so that's baked shyness. So you want fresh bait, and
you want them to come in and get a lot
of it. The more you keep moisture in the garden,
the better the snails and slugs will do. They like

(02:22:04):
wet areas, uh, and they like moisture and stuff. But
a good quality bait would be the one. And there's
there's a number of brands out there. Yeah, well get
go do an on salt on them. Onslaught on them.
Get out there and get some baits out. Follow the label,

(02:22:24):
but get good fresh bait.

Speaker 4 (02:22:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:22:26):
You're in Richmond, so you know you've got the China gardens.
You've got some Ace Hardware stores. There's one on Plantation
ACE that's out there. On go to one of those.
They're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna have some good products
for you in there. But get a good bait, but
fresh bait. Put plenty of it out and just just
stay with it. That's the only thing that's gonna kill
snails effectively is a good quality bait. And you don't

(02:22:49):
want to nuke them with some of the stuff that's
probably too strong for you to be around. Yeah, I
want to Vegas, all right, there you go. Oh, by
the way, you know, a good way to a good
way to get rid of snails is to learn the
word s cargo. No no, no, no, no, all right,

(02:23:10):
all right, all right, I had to. I had to
pull your leg a little bit there, Thanks Betty, I
appreciate that. Yeah. Ace Hardware stores have everything you need,
you know, if it's it's fertilizers or things. I liked.
I liked their line of de Wault power Tools better
Apple power Tools. I like those. They got a lot
of brands, and you know Ace Brand, Milwaukee Brand, Stanley

(02:23:31):
Black and Decker Craftsmen all that they got you covered
on that. But when it comes to things like like
the snailbait, Yeah, go to your local Ace hardware store.

Speaker 11 (02:23:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:23:39):
You know the Betty was calling from out there in
the Richmond area and her plantation ACE on Mason Road. Uh,
in Richmond Rosenberg area. That's that's the one you need.
It's right there. If you live in some other area, Dona, Victoria,
there's one on Navarrel Street. Up in Spring is one
on Spring Cyprus. Let's go northeast Crosby Ace and FM

(02:24:00):
twenty one hundred, and then down in West Houston Langham
Creek Case, which is on five twenty nine in Cyprus.
That's uh, just on the on the side of Copperfield
neighborhood for those of you out in that area. We
all go now to Katie, Texas and talk to Karen. Hey, Karen,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (02:24:19):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (02:24:19):
How are you Skip, I'm doing all right? How are
you this morning?

Speaker 7 (02:24:25):
I'm great. I am calling about knockout roses. I got
some kind of horrible disease on them and looking it up,
it's called rose rosette. The buds were turning brown, they
were they were not opening, and it was get real thorny, right, Okay,

(02:24:48):
So I looked up what to do, and everybody's saying
kill them.

Speaker 8 (02:24:53):
Kill them.

Speaker 2 (02:24:54):
Did so, yeah, absolutely, they were so I did.

Speaker 7 (02:24:58):
I mean I I just had them dug up this
last weekend. But here's the question. I've heard opposing views
on replanting any kind of roses one. I've heard anything
from two weeks to three years. So I'm wanting you
to break the tie and let me know what your

(02:25:20):
professional opinion is and what would you suggest.

Speaker 2 (02:25:23):
Well, yeah, I'll break the tie because I'm right on
those I know what I'm talking about. I've talked to
the people that do research on the program. I've talked
to the Rose Society. Not that disease is not in
the air, it's not in the soil, It's in the rose.
It is a infection of the rose that's brought on

(02:25:45):
by little tiny mites that literally float on the air
and get on your rose bush after they feed on
a rose bush that has it. So you could have
gotten it from the wind, or you could have gotten
it from the rose you brought in if it was
a fairly recent transplant. But the bottom line is what
you need to do is you need to get all
the rose parts out. I usually tell people, and you

(02:26:05):
probably already pull the rose up, but I say throw
a trash bag over the whole plant and pull the
draw string at the bottom, so that when you go
to shaking this plant to pull it up or get
it up out of the ground, you're not just shaking
the mites off all over the place, but set the
plant completely out of there. If you've got any roses nearby,
they may be harboring it, but you will see sometimes

(02:26:28):
because it's not just knockout. It shows up a lot
on knockout, but just because knockout is everywhere. But anyway,
if if you don't have other roses nearby, then once
you get it out of there, I mean, you can
give it a few days if you want, but you
can go ahead and transplant a rose back into that spot.
There's no years that you're waiting. That's bumped. Okay, awesome, Okay,

(02:26:53):
it's got to be a mite that gets on your rose. Nope,
no need to treat the soil because those mites can't
just live without something to live on. So that's why,
you know, if it were me, I might I might
just wait a week just I don't know, just to
be extra sure there's nothing alive on there or some
I wouldn't pull it up. Then an hour later, plan

(02:27:15):
another one right in the spot because there could be
a mite that gets back up on the plant. But
bottom line is no, you can go. You can replan
after you get rid of all the plant parts out
of that area.

Speaker 6 (02:27:26):
Okay, right, question would since I like the idea because
it's given me blockage from the golf course and a
little privacy, and I like the flowers on them.

Speaker 7 (02:27:40):
But someone had.

Speaker 2 (02:27:41):
Suggested a double knockout.

Speaker 7 (02:27:43):
Do you have a preference and is there a reason
why one would be better than the other.

Speaker 2 (02:27:49):
Well, the double has a prettier individual bloom. But you know,
knockout is it is like a winner when it comes
to disease resistance. And I'm about out of time here,
but these resistance in general, uh and caller and beauty
and bloom bloom bloom bloom bloom. You just share it
and it comes back and blooms more. Double knockout's a
nice one. I've never grown double knockout, but I know

(02:28:10):
a lot of people that have. The regular knockout is awesome.
The double is also a good tough plant, so I
don't think you're going to go wrong either way. Thank you, Karen.
I appreciate your call very much. You take care, all right,
We're gonna take a break, Folks, we'll be right back
with your calls at seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. How many of you remember the

(02:28:33):
late great Jim Crochey. He was a special thing back
in the day. I still love the listener, Jim. Welcome
back to your guardline. I'm your host, Skip Richter. Here's
a number, last segment of the day. You got a question,
now be the time to call. Seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking to

(02:28:55):
uh someone earlier who had called it was John in
League City about some chin bugs that it knocked out
a section of the lawn and suggested he gets some
sweet green and put it on the especially around where
the living grass still is, to try to speed it
up and get it to crawl in. Sweet Green is
a natural organic type fertilizer that is eleven percent nitrogen.

(02:29:17):
It is based on a molasses and microbe activity based
process to create it. That particular product releases its nutrients
pretty quickly, but it fires up the soil because the
carbon in it. Microbes love carbon. That's why organic gardeners
put molasses, for example, on the soil. It fires it up,

(02:29:37):
It gets everything rolling, and sweet grain works. My neighbor
used it earlier this year, came across along. We were
talking and it's like, man, that stuff. It works. It
makes a lawn look great, and yeah, it does. It does.
It's not a long release, not a slow release. It's
going to give you a pretty quick release. But it works.
And right now we're at a time of the season
where you know, one more good boost maybe enough to

(02:30:00):
carry up to that fall season. So I would use
it right now. You're going to find Sweet Green wherever
you find night frost products. So you're going to find
it in places like the M and D in Sagemont,
on Beamer, the Clearla, like M and D on Barry
of Boulevard. You're going to find it plants and things
up there in Brenham Highway three sixty five and D
and DE Feed and Tomball carries night foss products, as

(02:30:22):
did the M and D. Speaking of M and ds,
there's one in Cyprus and Luetta the place to find
night foss products like this sweet green. I have been
talking a lot today about take All root Rot, and
for those of you who tuned in a little later,
I have two new publications on my website about take
all root Rot. One is a skip's Quick Tips about

(02:30:46):
take All. It's a one page sheet, bunch of bullets.
Here's what you need to know, Here's what you need
to do. The other one is take All root Rot
and in Depth look and it goes into more details
seeing you understand it better or understand why we're doing things,
and how this works and what it will and won't do,
and things like that. Both of them on the website.
If you have not bookmarked the website yet, please do that.

(02:31:09):
When I get calls on garden Line, a call after call,
I'll create a publication on it. My public my schedules
are on there for your lawn, both of them, and
if you have older schedules, download the new ones. I
recently updated them. A little bit, and so get you
a new copy on there, get ready to go on it.
But that website is important, and that's where you'll find

(02:31:31):
more in depth answers than I can give in calls
here on the air on garden Line. Gardening with Skip
dot com. Go to Gardening with Skip dot com, and
that's where you're going to find it. We're going to
go now out to Humble, Texas and talk to Butler
this morning. Hello Butler, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (02:31:50):
Hi, thank you very much. Okay, this is garden slash House. Okay,
I just lost my kitchen.

Speaker 22 (02:31:58):
I have an army of all ants that are coming
out from the wall of kitchen sink area across the
floor into a dog of boat and there's tiny they
look like fire ants.

Speaker 6 (02:32:11):
But they're much smaller.

Speaker 7 (02:32:12):
What the heck are they?

Speaker 22 (02:32:13):
And what's the best way to discourage those farmits?

Speaker 2 (02:32:18):
Well they may well be firence Fians love dog food
because of the oil and protein and whatnot in it. Uh,
you know, I trying to describe a fire ant because
there's only eight hundred thousand kinds of ants out there,
it's not going to be very fruitful. I could tongue
in cheeks. Say put your hand down there, let them
crawl on you, and you'll know pretty quick if they're
fire ants. But if they're fire ants, you got to

(02:32:41):
get of course, whatever you do, get the dog food up,
just get it up out of it. You got to
find it.

Speaker 10 (02:32:47):
And I just took some some regular like mosquita spray
repel or something in spray in the general area.

Speaker 2 (02:32:55):
But okay, okay, story is deep. I know where they're
coming from. Yeah, find out where they're coming from, because
you know, just spray treating individual ants is the temporary effects.
It works for that ant, but you need something longer term.
Fire Ants will come in the house when it gets
hot and dry a lot of times, and I've had

(02:33:16):
them come into my house before they find it's easy
for them to get in, and then when they find
moisture and when they find food in the house, that's
when they proliferate. So if it were fire ants, you
would want to go outside and treat all around the
house in that area with a bait. They'll they'll grab
that bait and they'll come bring it back to the

(02:33:37):
mound or the colony, even if they've actually moved into
your house, which they probably haven't moved in. They're just
inhabit living in the ground, but inhabiting it. But that's important.
If it's a different kind of ant, you're going to
need to get the little bait stations that you buy.
Some ants like sugary substances, some ants like protein substances,

(02:33:57):
and you just need to get the right one for
that potentially, so you can have success. Butler, I hate
to cut his short, and I got one more call,
and we're just almost out of time, So good luck
with that. Follow up with a call, you bet, Thank
you very much. I appreciate that. Hey, Joe in Houston,
how can we help? We got a little bit of

(02:34:18):
time left on guardline?

Speaker 9 (02:34:19):
Hey, real quick.

Speaker 8 (02:34:20):
My roses are very tall, maybe four or five feet.

Speaker 12 (02:34:24):
And they're just kind of squaggly.

Speaker 8 (02:34:26):
If it's too hot to trim them back, and how fall.

Speaker 9 (02:34:29):
Would you trim them?

Speaker 2 (02:34:32):
No, it's not. I usually recommend that people at the
end of August share their roses back so and then
fertilize and water them to push on new growth, and
you're going to have a beautiful fall show if you
do that. Toward the end of August is probably the
better time to do that. You want to cut them back.

(02:34:53):
What kind of roads do you say?

Speaker 15 (02:34:55):
What would you take them back a third or a half?

Speaker 2 (02:35:02):
Well, I would rather only do it by a max
of a third, a fourth or a third at this
time of the year. But yeah, fourth or third. But
then follow up with the water and fertilizer. They they're
going to need energy to grow and take off, and
they'll do that for you, and you should have a
really good fall show. If they're repeat blooming Rose.

Speaker 8 (02:35:24):
Yeah they are, and they've done really well.

Speaker 2 (02:35:28):
Good full son. Yeah, well, hey that sounds good. Listen
if you get if you don't mind, you got time,
take a picture of them before you prune, after your prune,
and then let me see him in the beginning of October.
I'd love to see the results of that. I think
that'd be really cool. I may even I may even
post that on our on our social media. All right, Joe,

(02:35:50):
thank you sir, sorry to have to be so short
on time. Well, you've been listening to guard Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richter. We're here to help you have
a bountiful and beautiful gardener landscape. I'll be back tomorrow morning,
six am. Hey, why don't you get up with me.
We'll make us each a cup of coffee. You have
to do your own. Hey, we'll talk gardening all the

(02:36:10):
way up until ten o'clock tomorrow. Thanks for being a listener.
One last time gardening with Skip dot com. Please go
their bookmarket because I'm gonna constantly be referring to that
site because that's where I put everything that you're going
to want to read and download to get more information. Thanks,
been a good day. Hope you have a wonderful Saturday.
Talk to you in the morning.