Gardening advice

Skip takes your calls!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Her services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katy r. H.
Garden Line with Skip rictor.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
The bases here the basis gas can you shrimp? Just
watch him as well? Go gas? Can you so many proteins?
The suap black basic ways, the basses and gas and
again you did sars becos back ticking, not a sound,

(00:34):
the glasses and gas and sun, themon of a dreams,
the gases like gas.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Maybe can you jam.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Starting out of dreams in the gases?

Speaker 4 (00:50):
I guess became you did.

Speaker 5 (00:53):
Everything is so clean.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
And see and every day Sunday in.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, here we go. Do you enjoy the music? Welcome,
Welcome to garden Line on what is a great, great
day for gardening. We are glad you are listening in
with us today and we've got a lot to talk about,
as we always do on garden Line. You know, one
nice thing about gardening is no matter what day of
the year it is, there is something to talk about,

(01:42):
something to be doing out there in the garden, something
to be harvesting, something to be planting. There's just that's
the cool thing about gardening. It is constant renewal, just
the renewal of the seasons. You know, the traditional it's
spring and the flowers come out, and it's summer and
it's warm, and then it's autumn and its harvest season
of pumpkins and fall colors, at least in some parts

(02:04):
of the country, and in then winter. That's the change.
But every day's a change. Every day is something new,
and there's a lot going on. I was visiting with
a neighbor who's got an issue with his lawn not
looking really good, and it's kind of a I don't know,
a sharp truce, a light shark true color, so not yellow,

(02:25):
but it's getting close to yellow, and I'm talking about
what to do. It's tone. Well, you know super turf
nightrofive super turf, the silver bag that'll do it. It's
got a pack of nutrients in it and it's going
to release so slowly. It's going to release them slowly
over time. It's easy to find super turf. When you
look for the silver bag. You can stand at the
front door of the garden center and look through the

(02:47):
place and see it. Are your Ace hardware store, are
your feed store, Southwest Fertilized. All these places carry it.
You're going to find it up at shades of Texas
in the Woodlands on fourteen eighty eight, for example, down
in more Ace, Hardware City has got it, so it's
easy to find. Just know that when you put on
super turfy, you're going to get that gradual release over

(03:07):
time anyway, So that was just the point, you know,
lawns sometimes just start to lack in the nutrients when
we get a lot of water, for example, wash rain
washes all the soluble nutrients through the soil or off
the property in some cases when it's a gully washer,
and so we have to replace them. That's kind of
how that works. Now, if you were just looking at

(03:29):
your lawn as this wild place, then fertilizing so often
wouldn't be as important. But when you're mowing it and
trying to get density and trying to have you know,
a beauty to the lawn, returning those clippings is important.
But fertilizing regularly is important too. When I was out
and about this week, I noticed in a number of

(03:50):
yards where watering has not been done much. If well,
it looks like none because we've had decent amount of
rain this year compared to a lot of summers. But
there's some browning, and boy, the weeds showed through and
interesting how the long grass turns brown and the weeds,
a lot of them stay green. They are tough. Weeds

(04:10):
are tough. Someone once said that if you don't know
if a plant's a weed or not, pull it up,
it comes back it was a weed. It's about right.
They are. They're very tough and difficult, difficult to deal with.
But now's the time to continue to stay diligent about that.
You know, we talk about herbicides and pre emergent post
emergent herbicides and which one can I use for this

(04:32):
weed in this lawn at this time of the year.
The number one we control we do is building a dense,
healthy lawn through proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing. And so
if you don't do any of that and you just
want to fight weeds, then you're just going to be
treating your lawn all the time and your grass is
going to suffer anyway from it. It's better to start

(04:53):
with a good, healthy, strong, dense grass and mow, water, fertilized.
As boring as that those three are, that's the secret.
That's how we have success. Another way you have success
is getting good plants I was checking out in Channa
Gardens down there. They are in Richmond on the Katie

(05:14):
Fullsher side. So if you're in Richmond and you're going
to go north toward Katie Fullsher direction on FM three
point fifty nine, that's Encined Gardens. In Chenna Gardens is
a wonderland of places to go. I mean it is
just it's a destination. People love to go there because
there's always always something out there and in Chenna Gardens

(05:35):
a beautiful place. Right now, your fall decorations, oh man,
or they ever loaded up? If you need anything for
Halloween and Thanksgiving and all that, that stuff is already arriving.
They're at in Chenet Gardens. They also have some excellent
opportunities for color, some beautiful perennials. You know. One of
my favorite plants is the bird. It's not Bird of Paradise,

(06:00):
Pride of Barbados, also called red Bird of Paradise. I
like Pride of Barbados better because we have another plant
called Bird of Paradise. Beautiful deep deep orange, red and
yellow blooms. And I'm telling you, every time I see
that plant, I see butterflies, especially the swallowtail. The swallowtails
love some of the swallow tails love that plant, and

(06:22):
it's just gaudy. I've been seeing them all around town
at garden centers, different places. They got them there, chanted gardens,
beautiful plants. They're perennials, so die the ground here in
the winter. It's okay. Maybe the first year throw a
little mulch over them, just to be sure in case
we have a doozy of a winter, but a little
moundu mulch over the top to protect that base in
the winter. They'll be fine. They just come back here
after hear and never gets too hot for them. They

(06:45):
put up with some drought. They're really a wonderful tough plant. Again.
You can go to Chened Gardens Richmond dot com Enchanted
Gardens Richmond dot com. They're open Monday through Saturday from
eight to five and Tomorrow Sunay they'll be open from
ten am to four pm. So it's a good day
to get out there. And I promise you this, when
you go, you're always going to see stuff that you

(07:08):
cannot live without. That's my problem going to garden centers.
There's stuff I can't live without.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
Well.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Garden Line, thanks for listening, is a call in show.
So wouldn't it help if I gave you a phone
number to call in? Well, let's do that. Seven one three, two,
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call.
We'll visit with you about the things that are of
interest to you. And as I've said before, uh, you know,

(07:38):
the secret to getting through fast on Guarden Line is
to call early in the day. We get to the
end of the day and pretty much everybody's going to
be going, oh, I was going to ask this question,
and the phone rings and sometimes can't get to everybody.
So early in the day is a good time to
give a call if you are interested in doing so.

(07:58):
You hear me brag about Ace hard restores all the
time because Ace Hardware is everywhere. I mean forty stores
are in the Greater Houston area. It's easy to find
an Ace Hardware store. They're independently owned. Each has its
own unique flavor, its own you know unique. It's got
the standards. I mean, you're always going to find all
the standards stuff at ACE, but each owner is able
to do some things a little bit different as they

(08:19):
wish bring in some different kinds of items and things.
I think it makes it really interesting. In fact, I
enjoy going to different aces all the time just so
I can see what is at the latest. One. Langham
Creek Ace Hardware this weekend is a big one. They
on Friday, yesterday they already began with their grand reopening.
They gave away an Ego Power Tremor two hundred and

(08:40):
fifty dollars one. They did a demo of Weber grills
today today at Langham Creek Ase Hardware that's on FM
five twenty nine in Cyprus at the intersection of Barker
Cypress and five twenty nine. They're going to give away
a Weber Spirit grill that is a four hundred and
fifty buck grill. They're going to do demos on the
Big Green Egg and you've got to go see their
guys need pizza oven, they're gonna do a demo with

(09:01):
that too today. If you need a piece of steel equipment,
fifteen percent off all still units today and then they'll
be doing this again tomorrow with a painter of room
makeover giveaway and demos of Tregger Gross. You gotta run
over there if you're anywhere near a northwest direction of
Houston Langley Creek case Horderer five twenty nine, FM five
twenty nine at the intersection of Barker Cypress and FM

(09:23):
five twenty nine. All right, I'm gonna take a little
break here for some information and I'll be right back.
Welcome back to Gardener. Hey, good to have you with
us today. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here
to talk about gardening, to help you have a more beautiful,
bountiful garden and landscape. And I'd tell you everybody seems

(09:44):
to want a gorgeous lawn. Imagine that. Well, your lawn
is the carpet of your landscape. It's one of the carpets, lawns,
of groundcovers. I think they are the outdoor carpeting. And
you want it to be beautiful, you want it to
be done. So one of the ways we do that
is through periodic deep core aeration followed by compost top dressing.

(10:05):
That's how that works. So here's here's what that means.
That means we punch a hole in the soil and
pull the plug out, not just squeeze a hole open,
like you know, you're shoving a post down into the ground.
To open a no it's it's pull a plug out,
leave it on the surface. That leaves this hollow hole
in the soil in the turf area down in the
root system of the turf. You follow that with compost

(10:28):
top dressing, and it just over time, it just gets
better and better. It's one of the single most important
things you can do if you want to really turn
a struggling lawn around, because it's struggling for a reason,
and oftentimes it's compaction our clay soils. BnB turf Pros
can handle that. BnB turf Pros. Here's the Here is
the website, and you need to check it out because

(10:50):
the website, their website's awesome. It says it all BB
no end b B Turfpros dot com. BB turf Pros
dot com. Here's a phone number. You want to write
this down. Just check it out, have them take a look,
have them do you an estimate. We're talking about five
excuse me, seven to one, three two three, four, fifty

(11:11):
five ninety eight seven one three, two, three, four, five,
five nine eight. I unequivocally recommend them. They do awesome work.
They're all about customer satisfaction and for all of you
listeners that are like south of I ten and kind
of the south let's see south west quadrant. We're talking
about all down through Sienna, all the way across the

(11:33):
pear Land over towards sugar Land. That whole region down there,
that is their service area. And they only use products
that I trust here on garden Line, which is another
reason top quality. They don't cut corners on you bb
B and B turf pros seven one, three, two, three, four,
five to five ninety eight. We're going to go to
the phones now and head out to clear Lake and

(11:54):
talk to Wendy. Hello, Wendy, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Hello.

Speaker 7 (11:58):
Uh yeah, I last tweek about this time, you were
talking about planning small potatoes and you talked about putting
them whole in you could like jump start them by
putting them in a little pot. And I did that. Okay,
Now what do I plant them in the ground? Do

(12:20):
I plant them plant them that pot? Do I heal
them up? Do I not?

Speaker 1 (12:26):
You know it, when you say a small potter, I
think I was talking about four inch pot Lit't be
small one.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's that's all.

Speaker 7 (12:33):
That's that's what I put them in a four inch
pot with some soil.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
They are there and Wendy just to sprout and get
some roots started for you. That's what they're there for.
So I would put them. I wouldn't put them in
the full brunt of the sun right now, although you
know they can take sun. But let's get them a
little more happy by keeping them in a slight, cooler area,
by giving them a very bright maybe some mornings sound
or bright shay. Let them get up and going. And

(12:57):
once they get going, well, then you can move them
out into your garden. And so this is an unconventional
way to do potatoes. Most people just cut them up
and they drop them down in a trench. But I'm
telling you, in the summer heat that soil, those fresh
cut potatoes will rot even if you let them scab
over a little bit. So transplant thing that I talked about,

(13:19):
and you're doing that is just another option. If you
have an acre of potatoes, you're not going to do
it with the transplant way, that's for sure.

Speaker 8 (13:26):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (13:26):
Well, what I'm what I'm going at for here is
now that I've got them, and you know, once I
get them planted, once I get some roots and something growing,
can I plant them in a container. Do I plant
them in the ground, And if I plant them either way,
do I heal them up or do I just plant
them at the bottom of the pot And all right, yeah,

(13:48):
what do I do?

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Good question? Okay, So here's how the new potatoes, the
Irish potatoes, all the everything, but like sweet potatoes, the
other the normal standard potato grows. You start off with
what we call a seed piece. It really is either
a whole potato or a potato cut, so they's got
a couple of eyes on it. The potatoes will grow
above that. They're not roots. So the roots go down

(14:13):
and the stem comes up, and then we have to
cover the stem so that the potatoes as they are
offshoots of that stem, they have a place to go
out and grow. So if you're going to use a container,
you could do one or two things. I've seen people
put a container on the ground, excuse me, and have
holes in the bottom where the roots can go down

(14:33):
in the soil from there, and then they just sort
of fill that container as the potato stems come up,
so that they have to come up. You don't want
them to have to crawl through like twelve inches of
soil to get to the sunlight. That would not be good.
So as they grow, where we call it heling them up,
but we're bringing soil in around the stem. So you
can do that in a pot too, or you could
just use a larger pot and make room for it

(14:56):
that way. I've known people that drill the hole maybe
the size of a gull off ball in a five
gallon bucket and set the potato down at the bottom
at that hole and then covered it up with about
four inches of potting mix and just watered and the
roots go down in the soil below where the bucket's
sitting on the ground, and they just end up with

(15:16):
a bucket full of potatoes.

Speaker 7 (15:19):
Okay, all right, Well I have tried growing potatoes for
five years and I might have gotten ten potatoes over
that time. So I keep trying to figure out what
am I doing wrong. I've tried the healing up process.
I've tried the just planning them in a you know

(15:39):
container from the you know on top basically, and okay,
and then of course, now when should okay, so at
this time of year, when should they How long will
it take them to actually mature?

Speaker 1 (15:57):
You know? You can you can start going in and
stealing some small potatoes off the plants, you know, just
kind of dig in there, get one out, and kind
of back up whenever they're the size it's acceptable to you.
Sometimes people like the little golf ball size new potatoes,
you know. Or you can just wait until it's about
time for frost and that's going to kill the tops
and you just dig them at that time. It's not

(16:19):
a right. They don't ripen. There's not a right or
wrong way.

Speaker 7 (16:23):
So I don't have to wait until the top dies
down or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
You don't have to know. Most people wait because they
want to get the most pounds of potato out of
each plant as they can, and so they wait to
give them every day they possibly can. But there's nothing
wrong with removing some along the way if they're an
acceptable size. So your success is going to be good
sun good sunlight when they're growing. Once you get past

(16:48):
this transplant stage, then you want to make sure they
get adequate water, and then they you held them up
and get as much If you can get about ten
inches of soil above the seed piece above that potato
you're planning, it's going to settle down. It won't be
ten inches but if you want to give them a
good section of soil there that they can send out
roots in no need to get more than ten inches.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
So I is the bottomless pot basically, and put them
at the bottom and heal them up a five gallons top.
So a bucket like a five gallon bucket would be sufficient.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
You could use that, yeah, because that's plenty tall. And
I've seen people use, you know, wicker baskets and those
fellas bags that people are. Hey, Wendy, I got to
run to some calls. Time you want to go about.
Give it good good luck, and if you have any success,
bring half the potatoes to kt rch studio. Yeah, good luck,
Thank you, bye bye. All right, We're going to go

(17:46):
out to Fairland and talk to Chuck. Hey Chuck, thanks
for waiting. Welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
Good morning. I appreciate you taking my call. I have
two quick questions for you. The first one is I
have seven or eight what I called medium sized crpe
myrtles in the front of my yard in front of
my house. And when I say medium size, up to
the knuckles it's probably ten feet. Yeah, So I'm one
of those guys that cuts them down every year to

(18:12):
the knuckles, and last year I got the little white
aphid z on it, and I waited probably a couple
of three or four months too long before I treated them,
but I finally didn't.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
I killed them.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
Now this year, when they started growing again, they had
a black residue on the top of the knuckles and
on probably half of the trees. The branches only came
out on half of these stalks, if you will.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Okay, well the second part of that, the branch is
not coming out. I don't know. I mean, we have
had some cold damage in the past that when a
December freeze came to early. Normally there plenty cold trapes
are plenty cold hardy, but we had a freeze that
cut them off guard. That was that. The black you're
seeing is city mold growing on a sugary substance called

(18:59):
honeydew that's produced by several different kinds of insects. Can
do it on a crpe myrtle. It's almost always crpe
myrtle bark scale. That's the number one. Those are little
white flecks along the trunk and branches.

Speaker 9 (19:11):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
It can also be aphids that do that. Either one
can produce honeydew, and from honeydew you get the city modles.
So the city is not the the disease, it's the
it's the insect that's causing the problem.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
So I should wonder you worried at the moment about.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
The well crape myrtles live with both of those just
fine if they get If it's really bad, it's worth
giving a treating for. But that that will be a
whole nother discussion is depending on which which insects you have,
how you go about it. Aphids are easy, that's easy
to control.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Showing the stalks that got no branches this year, I
shouldn't just cut those knuckles off and let them regrow
next year, or just wait and see what happens.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, you got if it's if it's dead up there
then and you can scrape the bark back a little pocket,
and I just kind of go under the bark a
little bit and look and see if it's creamy, creamy
white to light green. If you just see like paper
sack brown, that's dead, and you might as well cut
it back, sometimes removing the whole stalk and letting a
new one come up by the ground. If it's fun

(20:20):
if it's dead that far back, Chuck, I'm not saying
make sure it's not alive before you did that, but
sometimes sure we've had to cut on back to the ground.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
I thought that's what you're going to say. Okay, last question.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Case is different, but those are the principles. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, question is. Hey, I'm gonna have on hold and
go to a break and I will come back to
your chuck right after break. All right, folks, we'll be
right back. Houston's welcome back to the guard Line. Good
to have you with us today.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
You know Nelson Plant Food. You heard me talk about
them before. We Normally when I think of Nelson Plant Food,
I think about all the different lines that they have.
I mean, they got the turf Star line, things like
Bruce's Brew, which is good for a quick green up
when you need that in your lawn. It even feeds
a little bit gradually over time. But I want to
tell you something. Their nutri Star line and their color

(21:20):
Star is just these fertilizers are very popular because people
know when you put them down, they're going to work,
and they last, and they provide you if you want
one for let's say nutri star tree and shrub. Maybe
you plant it a shrub or even a tree recently
and you're wanting to give it a boost, you know,

(21:40):
like we say, the goal is how fast can I
hang a hammock in that thing? Well, nutristar tree and
shrub will help speed that process up. I mean, they've
got products for tropicals, products for blooming vines. Nelson Plant
Food's array of products that are in the canisters, widely
available and very very effective. Now the thing I like
too is a lot of our places now offer canister refill.

(22:03):
So you buy that plastic canister with a screw top lid,
and when it's time to go refill, you get a
better deal on the fertilizer. Plus you're not throwing away plastic.
It just makes sense. Next time you go to the
garden center, take your empty canister with you and refill
it again. Again. A great idea, Nelson Plant Food. And
look at all the different products when you're out there
that they carry. There's one for pretty much anything that

(22:26):
you would want to grow. We're going to head now
back to Chuck. Chuck, I think you had one follow
up real quick.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yes, sir, thank you. In my backyard. I have three
or four spots at every spring, the dollar weeds come
out furious and I treat them with weed Beater ultra
and that thills them off. After two or three weeks,
and then three or four months later, they're right back
just as they were before.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Okay, we just have to stay with them. There are
other products you can use. Get a little warmer. Celsius
is not as hard on the grass as some of
the other combo broad leaf post emergent products like the
ones you mentioned, and you can switch over and try
some of that too, But you just have to stay

(23:16):
with them on it. And the more you allow that
lawn to dry out a little bit between waterings, like
a good soaking so there's a big volume bank account
of moisture, and then let it dry out a little bit,
that doesn't cause the dollar weed to proliferate, like when
you keep it wet. It's hard to hold dollar weed
back when you're keeping it soggy wet, because it loves

(23:38):
living in that wet condition. So culturally, let the lawn
dry out a little bit and then stay with it.
Follow up your early spring applications or whenever you did
that product to with something like celsius as it warms
up a little bit.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, I'm a good way to treat it during the
hot summer, but I'll try that then.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, celsius in the early morning in the summer is okay,
but just get it done in the morning before temperatures
get up, you know, above ninety for the day. All right,
I'm gonna have to run. Thanks, thank you for that call.
Let's go back to Montgomery. Now we're going to talk
to Scott. Hello, Scott, Hey, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 10 (24:15):
Yep, Hey, Yeah, I got problem my cedar tree in
my front yard. I've had a problem with my sprinter system,
and I've been watered manually with the mottos. But the
top habits about seven foot tall. In the top half
of it is kind of brown it up and stuff,
and a bottle half is greenier it could be.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
All right, here's the deal. Yeah, I got bad news.
The top is never going to come back alive and
reach sprout or anything like that. Whenever a cedar, when
the needles turn brown on any branch or the whole
tree of a cedar, it cannot reach sprout. It's not
like other trees are mom off at the ground. With
a chainsaw and they come back out of a stump.
Cedars can't do that. And so when you lose that foliage,

(24:59):
now what your to do is go in and trim
out all the branches that have no living needles, and
you're gonna end up with a very unusual looking tree.
But so the options are either to live with that
or to pull it up in plants, plant, replant, or
do something like that.

Speaker 10 (25:14):
What about you're talking about the trimming, what about the
main stalk or the tree, leave it or just turn
the dead off of it.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, in order for a seedar to send out a
new shoot, it's got to be where there are living
needles living in a little scaly like leaf needles that
a ceedar has. Junipers, you know, all the junipers and
arbor bide and stuff are like that. Uh. And so
you know, if if the top the branches have no

(25:44):
if a trunk or a branch there's no living needles
out that branch, then it's dead. It's not going to
come back. Yeah, boy, now you can give it a
little time if you want to be sure. I know
I told you wouldn't like what I had to say, but.

Speaker 10 (25:56):
I'm just telling you how I love that tree about
seven foot tall, and it's been gorgeous and I'm just
that problem with my sprinter system. And now the top
half of it, you know, the bottom of green is
ever gorgeous, but the top is just gone.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I understand.

Speaker 7 (26:12):
Now.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
You know, there's a possibility if you've got a branch
that's somewhat upright on the side, that you could kind
of train that back up into become a new tree.
But it's gonna still be kind of weird looking.

Speaker 10 (26:24):
Yeah, it's standing up straight and every day there's nothing
no lem, no little limbs or anything grouping, but it's
just brown.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah stuff. Well but what about.

Speaker 10 (26:38):
What about bend in the limbs sick and see if
they're if they're sturdy, just leave them, don't crim them off.
But you know, as far as the stem of the
limb itself on the tree, you're talking about the parts
of the brown, yes, sir, or the green? Yeah, well
going away brown. See if it's dead, just kind of bending,
see it breaks, And there's word about the top being

(26:58):
dead that lem it so being dead.

Speaker 11 (27:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well, I mean, if you don't wait, just watch it
a while and see if what I'm telling you is
the truth. Uh, you can do that, that's for sure.
Cedars a little brittle anyway, so when you bund them,
they're gonna snap. Even when they're alive, they're gonna snap
because they're they're stiff and brittle.

Speaker 10 (27:19):
I'll just give me some good loving and there's all right, tell.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
That plant, go tell that part what I said. All right,
you take care. Maybe the maybe the plant will prove
me wrong. That's what we're gonna that's what we're gonna
hope for, because you know, nobody wants to lose. You
got a nice little tree going, you don't have to
go backwards. But if you've got pine trees, if you've
got juniper's cedar, arbor vity, all of that kind of thing. Uh,

(27:49):
that's how they are. So Christmas tree growers. They have
this beautiful little Christmas tree they're making, and if one
branch dies, it's gonna be a hole in a Christmas tree,
which is not a syllable mystery. And so it's just
the nature of the beasts. So always make sure that
those are tough. Cedars are tough. But I saw a
lot of seedars throughout the Greater Houston area, especially up

(28:11):
north and to the west where there's a lot of
seedars out there that they're just turn brown, completely brown.
The drought last year just was too much and it
led to a bunch of things like that. Hey, you
been to the Plants for All Seasons garden center right
there on just north of Luetta on Highway two forty nine.

(28:35):
You ought to stop by and check them out. They
always have good stuff going on, always cool stuff going
on out there. Number One. When you go in, you
know you're gonna get plants that belong here, that'll do
well here, and you know you're gonna get advice on
how to grow them successfully. The website is Plants for
All Seasons dot com. The location just exit two forty

(28:56):
nine for Luetta and it's just just north of Luetta
on the east side of two forty nine, right. They're
easy to get to phone number two eight one, three
seven six sixteen forty six. Go in there and you
may think you have a brown thumb, but they'll they'll
turn it grain for you with good advice and good
plant You can also bring samples and questions you have

(29:16):
and they're really good about helping all. Right, time for
a quick break. I'll be right back yes, today our
phone number if you'd like to give me a call
seven one three two one two ktr H seven one
three two one two kt r H. You know, the
folks at Medina have a number of great products that
are out there, and it's been Medina's been around since

(29:38):
the nineteen fifties, I believe, and gardeners have long known
the benefits of the various products they have. One of
them that I haven't talked about in a good while.
At least has to grow six twelve six plant food
has to grow six twelve six. Yes, it's got six
twelve six. That's an NPK nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium in it.

(29:58):
A good arrangement by the way for fruiting and blooming
of plants to stimulate that. But it also has medinosol
activator to stimulate the biological activity. It's got humate humic acid.
You know, humus improves soul, structured improves nutrient uptake. It's
got seaweed extracts which also help with fruiting and blooming.
You can use it as a folio. You're not gonna

(30:19):
burn with it. It's not this salty, salty fertilizer you
might mix too strong and sprowl. You just follow the label.
It's real easy to use. But you can use it
as a folier. You can drench it into new transplants.
In fact, that's a great way to use it. You
put a new plant transplant in the ground and just
watered in with a watering can full mixed with water

(30:41):
and has to grow six trove six simple as that
very effective and a good way to give a little
bit of insurance to that plant that you just purchased
and have now put in the ground. And by the
way fall this planting season, so grab you some has
to grow six twelve six, so you can have good
success with that. You know, when we pull a plant

(31:02):
out of the pot and put it in the ground,
the root system is still a cylinder of roots right
shape of the pot, and it takes time for those
roots to go out and get in the soil, and
so you need to take extra good care of those roots.
Everything the plant can get water and nutrient wise is
still coming out of that cylinder of soil. And then

(31:22):
as we get a few weeks a couple of months
into the line, now we got roots that are going
out and they've started to move out into the soil
around it, and we have a little larger area that
we're taking care of. But just remember, especially in hot weather,
when you plant, that whole root system is still wound
up in that little container sized cylinder of roots. And
that's where something you know is mentioning the haster grows

(31:44):
watered in. That's where something like that helps and helps
it get established successfully. You hear me all the time
talk about brown stuff before green stuff right here on
garden line, and I don't know if that makes sense
or not, but by basically all trying to say is this,
get the soil right and ready and then put in

(32:07):
your wonderful plants. I don't care if it's a tomato plant,
a flower, a groundcover, a tree or a shrub or
a perennial flower, whatever it is, you'll have better success
with it. And Siena Maltz, if you're down south of
Houston southeastern area, just north of Roach Sharon, Ciena Maltch
is down there and there your go to place. Let

(32:27):
me give you the website because there you can find
phone numbers, times, all that stuff when you need to
know later. Sienna Multch dot com, Sienamultch dot com, all
of you out there in a Iowa colony, Quell Valley,
riverstone Man both any Point, Lake or Pomona and Lake
Olympia both that whole region. Cianna Maltz is your one stop.

(32:48):
They deliver within about twenty miles for a small fee.
You can buy bulk, you can buy bags, and all
the fertilizers I talk about on Guardline are at Siena
Mulch as well. I'm telling you the way to put
it is when you drive off the property having visited
Ciena Mulch, you have everything you need to make the
brown stuff right, so you have wonderful success with the

(33:09):
green stuff that you plant, the wonderful plants that you have.
Cenamulch is open Monday through Friday till five, seven thirty
to five and on Saturday, that would be today from
seven thirty to two pm. Close tomorrow. So we get
through a garden line. You need to head out there
and start preparing for fall. Important to prepare for fall.

(33:31):
You are listening to garden Line. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
r KTRH. Sometimes I give numbers, sometimes I give letters.
I hate pecking through a phone looking for Okay, where's
that letter? You know, I don't know. I know it's
not rocket science, but it just seems tedious to me.
But it's easier to remember letters. So we'll do that.

(33:53):
Seven one three two one two kt r H. When
was the last time you were out at Kingwood Garden Center?
Are at Warren's Southern Gardens? You know they're both out
there in Kingwood. You guys are spoiled at Kingwood. You've
got two great garden centers right there, right there in
the same area. Well, both of them are two go

(34:17):
destination centers. You just have to go there. You got
to see them. Warren Southern Gardens has a beautiful array
of color right now and they have all the products
you need to have success with it. Got some really
good sales going on.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Late summer is always a good time people lose some
gardening enthusiasm, and that's where smart gardeners go. Hey, is
a great time to pick up some plants. And they
go out there and they get them and they get
them planted and they take care of them and they do. Okay,
there's not a problem with that. Warren Southern Gardens. You
got to go visit them just no matter what you're
looking for, they're going to have plenty of it right

(34:52):
out there, including the brown stuff in the bags that
you want to take home with you to have success.
And the fertilizers like the ones you hear me talk
about here on garden Line. Warren Southern Gardens out there.
They're actually out there on North Park Drive two eight
one three, five four sixty one eleven two eight one

(35:12):
three five four six one one one. Or you can
just go to visit them on the web. I mean
you can go. Actually, the website's pretty pretty beautiful. They
did a real new revamp of it. I kind of
like the new the new look. It's Warren's Southern Gardens
dot com. Warren Southern Gardens dot com. Go check it out.

(35:34):
That's a really good helpful information. Well, you're listening to
garden Line. Let's see here we are about short on
being able to take another call right now, But if
you would like to get on the phones with Chris
and we can have you first up next hour. Just
all seven one three two one two k t R

(35:55):
eight seven one three two one two k t R eight.
I was visiting with one of my children. Who is
buying a house and looking at some different things that
you know, import on on the property in terms of
having success and things. And I was just I always
kind of always check the outside. When you're gonna buy

(36:16):
a house, check the brick and see if there's cracks
in the brick. If you got a house, do the
same thing. Cracks in the sheet rock inside, cracks running
from the corner of a window down the wall. Those
are all signs that you may have some foundation problems.
And our clay soil that shrinks and swells and literally
moves it wrecks havoc on foundations and sidewalks and driveways.

(36:38):
Fix my slab. Foundation repair is our go to place
for all foundation types of issues here in the Greater
Houston area. Ty Strickland has been doing this for twenty
three years. He knows what he's doing. Ty is committed
to giving you a fair price, and when he says
he's going to show up, he shows up. Is that
unfortunately a little on the rare side, and the service

(37:00):
to industries today, Well, he shows up when he says
he's going to show up, and he fixes it, and
he gives you a fair price. It's all that's what
all you would ask, right, fix it right, give me
a fair price, show up when you're going to show up,
when you say you're going to show up. Fixmslab dot com.
That's his website. Go check it out. Fix myslab dot com.
Tell him you're a guardenline listener. If you think you

(37:21):
got a problem, call him out to do a free
estimate for garden line listeners. And I've talked to Tie
about a number of different things and if it there
may be a little bit of an issue starting, but
it's not something that needs to be dealt with at
this point. He'll tell you that, but if he needs
to be he'll tell you that too. Two eight one
two five five forty nine forty nine two eight one

(37:41):
two five five forty nine forty nine for fixmyslab dot com.
Would not mess around with that kind of issue because
it's your home. Buy of your home. Well, I want
to talk a little bit about vegetable guarding. I think
I'm gonna have to wait until we get into our
next segment to be able to do that, but we

(38:04):
will be right back. I want to remind you that
I'm going to be at the Fall Home, an outdoor
living show up in Conroe, Texas next weekend September seventh
and eight. September seventh and eight. I'll be there on
the seventh, that's Saturday, the DIF from twelve to two.
I'm going to be answering gardening questions. First of all,
I'm gonna give a little talk on fall gardening, so

(38:24):
come on in and hear that. Also, while you're out there,
I'll be sticking around for lots of Q and A.
You folks normally about whereby brain now with questions and answers.
And I enjoy visiting with gardeners and meeting our show
listeners and things, So come on out the Fall Home
and Outdoor Living Show next Saturday, September seventh. They'll also

(38:45):
be going on the eighth as well. Let's see, it
is at the Lone Star Convention and Expost Center out
there across from the County Extension Office on Airport Road,
Lone Star Convention and Expost Center, So anyone up in
that region, hope you come on out. Given away a
lot of really nice micro life products that have been

(39:05):
provided and you need to kind of get some of
those sample and try anounce yourself. We'll be right back.

Speaker 12 (39:13):
You hear more and more about idline.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
We are glad you're listening, looking forward to talking to you.
You can call in if you like seven to one
three two one two k t r H seven one
three two one two k t r H. Buchannan's Plants
in the Heights is another one of those wonderful destination
independent garden centers that there's just nothing like it here

(39:39):
in the greater Houston area. You know, we're so fortunate
here type places like Buchanan. Buchanan's Native Plants is actually
the proper name, because they do specialize in all kinds
of natives, and I mean they have. They had to
post recently. You got to follow them on Facebook, by
the way, and subscribe to their newsletter, but there to
post recently about ten plants that you can plant for

(39:59):
the cold and flu season, things that you know help
with cold severity or boosting the moon immune systems, and
all kinds of stuff. If you want to go in
there and get the native plants from this area, they're
going to have a wide variety and be able to
tell you how to do that. If you want to
go in and say, hey, I like hummingbirds, what can
I plan to attract hummingbirds. They're going to have stuff
like that. That's the kind of place it is. And

(40:21):
you're going to be surprised if you haven't been there
and you walk in and you see the house plant greenhouse,
it's going to be like, this is huge. Yeah. Yeah,
I thought this was just a native No, it's not
a native plant place only. It's a native plant place
and a lot more. I love going into Buchanans and
you will too, those of you already go. You know
what I'm talking about. Buchanans Plants dot Com on a lease.

(40:44):
That's the website Bukinsplants dot Com on East eleven Street.
They're in the heights today. It would be a great
day to go and check them out. Let's go up
to Willis, Texas and talk to Ann. Hello Anne, Hi,
welcome to gardener.

Speaker 13 (41:02):
Thank you. I spoke to you a couple of weeks ago.
We recently built a house and the pad that it's
on is clay, of course, and you had said to
till in decomposed granite and rose soil. But I didn't
ask how much how.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Flower bed? Yes for a flower bed, yes, And I
wouldn't I wouldn't tell you decomposed. Granted, it's it's expanded
shale that you.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
Put in shale. Okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
You scared me to death right there for just a moment.

Speaker 13 (41:40):
Sorry about that. So expanded shale and rose soil? How much?
How thick of a layer and how far do I
till it?

Speaker 11 (41:50):
In?

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Well? To get the full effect of expanded shale, you
need to put three or four inches down and mix
the things deep as is practical. You know, a rotortiller
only goes so deep, a spade only goes so much.
But it's the it's having a good volume of it,
you know, just like a granule here and a granule
there with clay all in between them, that's not going

(42:13):
to be as helpful. So if anything you put down
and maybe next year when you're replanting things or whatever,
put more down or whatever. But expanded shell lasts and
so several inches of that and as far as the
what was the bed mix you mentioned? Just roast soil,
roasts oil, thank you. Yeah, and the roast soil. I
would if you can go like at least thirty percent

(42:36):
with the soil that you have. If you can go
more than that, that's even better. So like, if you
are you using a spade and fork or a rototiller
to do this?

Speaker 13 (42:45):
Well, I was going to use a tiller, but okay,
I would have but either one.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean if you go as deep
as that tiller is going to go, you're probably looking
at about five inches, right, probably not that well, no,
I mean it's fine. You can break the soil up
a little lower with that. But here's what I'm just thinking.
If you're gonna go like, let's say you can mix
six inches deep. If you add three inches and mix

(43:14):
it of rose oil and mix it in as deeply
as you can, then add another six inches and mix
it again. You're getting a lot of volume mixed with
those two. And the bed just keeps getting higher as
you do that, which is important for drainage. Also.

Speaker 13 (43:29):
Okay, okay, sounds good.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
All right, have fun.

Speaker 13 (43:35):
That's appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, all right, take care, Thanks for the call. I
appreciate that. Have you guys ever tried sweet green from
nitrofoss I talk about it from time to time, and
you know, sweet green is an eleven percent nitrogen fertilized
which is really high for an organic type product. It's
a it's a molasses based type product, and that's why

(43:58):
it has its name sweet green because it literally smells
sweet and it's got that sugar in it that those
carbon chains feed beneficial bacteria and they're just good for
stimulating microbial activity and the soil. Sweet grain is available
widely across this area. If you're up to hide and
feed on Student Air Airline, you're going to find it out.
RCW Nursery on tom A Parkway is going to have it.

(44:20):
If you got to Kingwood to the Ace Hardware on
Kingwood Drive, you're going to find it there. Sweet Grain
from nitrofoss It works well at this point in the season.
I would apply about half of it and a few
weeks later apply the other half. Just kind of spread
it out a little bit more. You can apply it
all at once if you want. That's also okay. Just
know that we got fall fertilizing season coming soon and

(44:41):
sweet grain will get you that quick boost for the
end of the gardening summer gardening, lawn care season to
give you a quick greening up of the sod that
you have. So if your area is struggling and needs
a little boost, sweet grain be excellent, excellent product just
to do exactly that. You're listening to garden Line, and

(45:04):
the number, if you'd like to give me a call
is seven one three two one two kt RH seven
to one three two one two kt RH. Nature's Way
resources up toward Conro. In fact, if you're going up
Highway forty five where fourteen eighty eight comes in, that's
the road that comes in from Montgomery or Magnolia. Excuse me, Magnolia.

Speaker 7 (45:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
If you turn right and go across the railroad tracks
Nature's Ways right there, and Nature's Way has been building
quality soils for a very long time. That is the
birthplace of rose soil that we were just talking about
within Nature's Ways, the birthplace of the leaf mold composts
that we put on the top of this the ground

(45:47):
when we're doing aeration and compost top dressing and a lawn.
Super high quality product. You're going to find at Nature's
Way lots and lots of different compost blends for whatever
you need, including other products. They've got it in bulk,
they've got it by the bag. Tell them that you
heard about it on garden Listen. Listen to that. I
need your attention for just a minute. I want to

(46:08):
save you some money here, tell them that you heard
about them on garden Line, and you get a significant
discount on all of the products, whether you're buying mulches,
whether you're buying a composts, whether you're buying a vegetable
soil mix, a fruit and you know, growing mix, a rose,
soil leaf, molcump all of that bag or bulk. But

(46:29):
you got to tell them you heard about it on
guard line for that to work. Hey, here's our phone
number seven. Excuse me nine three six three two one
sixty nine ninety nine three six three two one sixty
nine ninety You can go there and pick it up.
You can have them deliver it either way you want
to go. And while you're out there, if you go
pick it up, check out their native plants and other

(46:50):
plants in the nursery, a very nice little garden center
of plants that they put together. Also out there on site,
they're at Nature's Way Resources, and the whole crew out
there has done an outstanding job. It just keeps getting
better every time I go visit. I'm just oh, look
this is new. That's that's cool. I like what you
guys have done. That's just how it's going out there

(47:12):
at Nature's Way resources. I was wanting to talk a
little bit about vegetables. You know, fall vegetable gardening is
really kind of here, and when we come back, if
I got time, I want to talk a little bit
about what we can plant and when. So stay tuned.
I'll be right back or looking forward to talking to you.
And if you'd like to give a scalt, the number

(47:33):
is seven to one three two one two kt r
H seven to one three two one two kt RH.
I was talking about vegetables, and I just wanted to
say that it's time. It's you know, we're already been
playing for a while now. We've been planning tomatoes and
peppers and eggplant for the fall garden. You know, they
have to have time to grow and to set fruit.

(47:55):
And once we get a little bit of a break
in the temperature, then things like tomatoes that don't like
to set in the heat, especially the big slicer types,
they'll begin to set. But you got to get them
far enough along so when we finally do get the
first frost, you've gotten a harvest in the meantime. That
is important. As we get into September, we start to
get a coal front in. That always reminds me, hey,

(48:16):
it's time to get out there. And by the way,
a September coal front should be called a slightly cooler front.
That's about what it amounts to, but tied to plant
the coal crops, which are also called cruciferous vegetables, which
are also I like to just say the blue leaf vegetables, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower,

(48:37):
a cole, robbie, collards, kale, Brussels sprouts. What did I
leave out to say cauliflower. Anyway, those all begin to
go in in September when it cools off a little bit.
More lettuce and spinach will be added to the mix
as we go along into the cool season. Carrots also,

(48:58):
they don't like the heat, to do a little bit
better when we wait a little bit on planting them.
But there's a lot of great vegetables out there. And now,
if you don't have a vegetable garden, don't think you
have to plow up the back forty to have one.
All you gotta do is get you some good sized
containers and you can grow anything that we grow. Typically
for fall, you can grow in a container at least

(49:20):
five gallons I like to do that because it just
makes it easy to care for them. A little bit
of container. You're trying to water them twice a day
when it's so hot and things, it's not worth it.
About five gallons are larger. Larger is fine. You can
grow carrots, You can grow all the things I talked
about in a container. So if you got kids, especially
get them involved. You know, when kids grow their own vegetables,

(49:43):
they are much more likely to eat them and maybe
set them on their way to a healthier lifestyle. Which
we know that our number one health issues are caused
by the things we put in our mouth. Basically, that
and a lack of moving around. Those two things. It's
easy to fix those two things. Especially you're a gardener
and all you need is some containers to be a

(50:03):
vegetable gardener. You can do it. So never done it before,
Try it. Try it out this spring in Chanted Forest
down in Richmond Rosenberg area. They are they would be
a great place to go get your plants. They got
a wonderful selection of herbs down there and their new
vegetable I say house. It's kind of a pull barn

(50:24):
type structure. Wow, pull Bard's not a good description of it. Anyway,
they just put that up and it's loaded with vegetables.
They're always going to have whatever's timely for the season.
And Enchanted Forest, and they're not just a vegetable place.
I mean they've got every kind of flour and shrub
and tree. I don't know, what are you looking for?
Are you looking for shade plants? You're looking for blooming plants.

(50:46):
You want things that'll bring in hummingbirds and things. They've
got that down there. All you have to do. Chanted Forest.
It's on FMS twenty seven fifty nine, So if you're
in Richmond heading towards sugar Land up fifty nine, it's
off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine. Check
out their their website. It's Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com.

(51:11):
Enchanted Forest, Richmond, t X dot com. They have an
outstanding website, very very good website, and it will give
you a lot of good information and it'll inspire you
want to go visit. And today'd be a good day
to get out of Enchanted for us too. By the way, See,
let's let's go back the phone here. We're going to
go to the Woodlands and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike,

(51:32):
Welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 14 (51:34):
Morn you skip. I have some sure knockout roses that
are played in the ground about five foot tall. I
was wondering if it's a time that cuts them back
for like a fall bloom right now, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
You can. I would cut them back by I don't know,
maybe a fourth or something like that. We're getting a
you know, it's still a good time to cut them back.
You cut them back by third some people, we'll do that.
And then when we get to the end of winter,
if you want to keep those knockouts smaller, if you
want to, you don't have to do this, but you
can cut them back significantly at the end of winter,

(52:11):
and then just be ready to prune them once or
twice more as we go through the season with a
lighter shearing to maintain a more compact size.

Speaker 14 (52:21):
So a quarter to a third then right now, a.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Quarter to a third, Yeah, something in that range. Follow
that up. Get you some you know, gets you some
good fertilizer sprinkled on the ground, watered in really good,
and get those things up and growing again. You know
you want to. After you cut them back, it's going
to invigorate them. And so you just want to provide
them some nutrition so that as they begin to grow,

(52:45):
they they've got all the nutrients they need to support
that new regrowth that comes because you prune them back.

Speaker 14 (52:53):
Ay fertilizer you recommend.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
We got a lot of great ones out there. Nitroposs
has a special fertilizer for the for roses specifically. They've
got a number of significant quality fertilizers. There are a
couple of different hibiscus blends, but they do have a
really excellent rose fertilizer comes in a little canister, typically

(53:16):
in the garden center. She would find it like that
and it would work very well. Roses respond to a
boost a fertilizer following the pruning. You're gonna have one
heck of an October if you get that done real soon.
I wouldn't put it off too much.

Speaker 14 (53:29):
By the way, great, Thank you all.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Right, sir, Thanks very much, appreciate your call. Let's see
here if you'd like to give as call seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. That is
the number. We love. Feed stores on guard Line and
League City Feed is no exception. I mean, it is
a perfect example of one of the good old mom
and pop type feed stores, you know, still carries the

(53:54):
bags out for you and you go in there and
it just of course they got feed. I'm more interested
in the gardening part. They've got all the fertilizers that
I talk about here on guarden Line. They're going to
have some of the soil blends too, by the way,
some real high quality they carry. I know they carry
heirloom soils down there in the feed store. They also
have the things you need to control pests and insects

(54:16):
and diseases that are there. So it's really a one
stop shop. They're open money through Saturday, nine to six,
closed tomorrow, closed on Sunday, but nine to six alives
you to swing by after work if you need to.
So all of you down in that whole region, Oh Comino, Ria,
Webster Bay, Cliff, League City, Stanley owned Lamark all through there.
This is your hometown feed store. Here's a phone number

(54:37):
two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. Two eight
one three three two sixteen twelve. That's it. League City
feed Store. Just what are they now about? Just a
few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway three.
It's real easy to get to. While you're listening to

(54:57):
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richtor, and we're here
to answer your gardening questions. What are your questions? What
would you like to talk about today. We've got a
lot of things we can be visiting about, for sure.
I was talking about vegetables and the things that we
can be planting at different points in this fall season.
I just want to remind you with any kind of
thing you're growing, but vegetables are certainly no exception, the

(55:20):
higher quality the soil is, the better off you are.
And that includes adding organic matter into the soil, bed mixes,
veggie nerd mix those kinds of things. It includes adding
nutrients to the soil quality fertilizers for example, asamite is
a micro nutrient. And I talk about azimite all the
time for applying to the lawn, and that's fine. I

(55:42):
mean that's primarily what people use asmite for applying to
the lawn to give the trace minerals into the soil
bank account so the turf grass can draw from that
as it needs them. But you use azimite in a garden,
I would say put it out. You know, if you're
looking at a vegetable garden, about ten pounds per thousand

(56:02):
square feet, one pound per hundred square feet and a
vegetable garden. It goes a long way. But remember this
is a trace mineral. You know, it's not like we're
putting out, you know, forty pounds of fertilizer for a
lawn or something over an area. This is a trace mineral,
so we doesn't need as much. Goes a long way.
Azamite Texas dot com Asomite Texas dot com. That is

(56:25):
the website. If you want to learn more, you're going
to find this everywhere you go. There's a lot a
lot of places here in the Greater Houston area. Feed stores,
garden centers, ace hardware stores, Southwest fertilized. All those places
you're going to find azamite. I always like it when
people carry stuff, so, you know, the most frustrating thing

(56:47):
in the world is to be told, oh, you need
to go get some of this, and then you go
and you can't find it. Well, we try to avoid
that from happening here on Garden Line. The Nelson Watergardens
out there in Katie is a place that I suspect
a lot of our listeners have not been out there,
and I think this is a good road trip suggestion,

(57:10):
and grab some people when you go, get some friends,
gardening friends or whatever at Halm out there, because it
is not just going to a garden center. This is
a place. They have set up water gardens all through
the back end of that property and you walk through there.
They ought a charge a mission just for the peace
of mind. Maybe give you a lawn chair and charged

(57:31):
mission just to sit among the sound of the moving water. Oh,
it is therapeutic. It is wonderful. You're going to want
to put some of that in your house, in your
landscape or rather, and they're going to be able to
tell you how to do it or do it for you.
They'll do both. They have an excellent selection of plants,
always plenty of things to choose from there. And if
you want to do a water garden or a waterfall

(57:53):
or a disappearing fountain, which they invented at Nelson's by
the way, they are nationally known for that. Nelson Watergardens
dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot com. Just head out ten
to Katie Turn north on Katie Fort Benroad and it's
just a stone's throw up the street there on the
right hand side. I'm telling you that. I keep trying

(58:16):
to talk everybody into going out and seeing the place
because it is really really cool. I put some water
in my backyard. I have a little multi layer fountain
in the backyard, and just the sound of that, and
you know, you go out and you sit outside and
it just it's wonderful. And birds hear that too, by

(58:36):
the way. They hear the sound of splashing water and
they come and boy along with my feeders. The birds
just they love that, absolutely love it. And other things
that are important to us need water, you know, like
beneficial insects. There's a lot of beneficials, including our pollinating
bees for example, that need a place where they can

(58:57):
get a little drink of water. And it is hot
in some places, it's been pretty dry as well, and
so it doesn't have to be hot and dry for
very long for these insects and birds and things to
need a place. So i'd encourage you to think about
doing something like that. You are listening to Guardline. Our
phone number is seven to one three. Excuse me, let

(59:20):
me give you the right number, seven to one three
number seven one three two one two k t R H.
The folks at Heirloom soils have a wide variety of
great blends, including the fruit berry and citrus mix. They've
got the veggie and herb mix. They've got cactus and succulent,
which I was just using that as repotting some of
our products here the expanded shale I talked about. You

(59:42):
can get it from them Heirlooms Soils off Texas dot com.
Heirloomsoils of Texas dot com. Grab a bag too, are
their works potting soil, high quality stuff all from Heirloom
Soils of Texas dot Com. Widely widely available here in
the Greater Houston area. You won't have any trouble finding it. Well,
it's time for me to take a break for the

(01:00:03):
news today. Hey, if you'd like to give me a
call and talk gardening, well, here's the number you need
to do that. It is seven to one three two
one two k t r H. Seven to one three
two to one two k t r H. I was
discussing doing some vegetable gardening in the fall, and it
is time. It is time to start doing that. If

(01:00:24):
you were going to start your coal crops by seed
that again, coal crops, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, co Robbie Collared's
kale am I forgetting Brussels sprouts. I love Brussels sprouts out.
You can start those seeds, but you need to get
that done really soon because you're going to want to
get those things planted. Definitely about four weeks after seeding.

(01:00:47):
It'd be good if they could last a little bit longer.
It's probably better at this state to just go ahead
and get you some transplants. That makes it easy and
may if you're planting an acre of it, okay, start
some transplants yourself. But if you're just putting some plants
out there and the gardener and containers, just go buy
a transplant and do it that way. It's off to
a good start. When you get that transplant home, you

(01:01:09):
want to put it in the ground and you want
to give it a good start. And I would suggest
that you take a product like Microlife Biomatrix that's an
orange labeled liquid. It's a gallon or a quart, two sizes.
You can buy Biomatrix liquid. It's a seven to one
to three fertilizer. It would be great for watering those

(01:01:31):
plants in. There are many other great microlife products that
you could use. Certainly the dry the dry fertilizers down
into the ground. And this is you know, normally I'm
talking about the green bag and say put it on
your lawn and things. Use a green bag in your
vegetable and if you want. But they have many others.
They've got products for citrus and fruit trees, for example.
They have products that are designed for different times of

(01:01:54):
the year. For example, we're going to be talking about
some of their fall fertilizer a little bit later on.
Right now, I'm thinking more in terms of transplants. You know,
they've got the humates, plus they've got the the microlife molasses.
They've got the Microlife ocean harvest, which is a fish based,
the seaweed Microlife super seaweed, the combination. If you're going

(01:02:14):
to do seaweed, I would do the ocean harvest and
the seaweed together. Just get the right amount put in,
put in a gallon of water, you know, a little
bit of this, a little bit of that, Put them
together and use them as a folier feed. They work
really well. But back to the watering d there's a
Microlife soil and plant energy product. It's kind of a okay,
here I go I'm color challenged. Pink ish, maybe violet pink,

(01:02:40):
I don't know what color that is. But anyway, Microlife
soil and energy it works very well, as does the biometrix.
Just by the way, I use biometrics on houseplants and
it works super super well or for them as well.
Offer microlife go to microlifefertilizer dot com. You find out
where to buy it, which is pretty much everywhere. In fact,
if I talk about a gardens or a feet store,

(01:03:01):
talk about Ace hardware stores and Southwest Fertilizers, all those
places and more. Down at Ciena Mulch they carry these
microlife products. So when you're down there, remember I said,
that's a place where you get everything. You need to
have good brown stuff, so you can have good green stuff.
All microlife products also available down at Cenamulch. You're listening

(01:03:22):
to Guardline. Our number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four, and that'd be a good
time to call. We've got some open lines here seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
want to remind you if you are into strawberries or
you would like to grow your own strawberries, there's an
event coming on out in Lake Jackson, Texas at the

(01:03:45):
Lake Jackson Rec Center. The Recreation Center on at ninety
one Lake Drive and Lake Jackson. This is September the
twenty first. That would be a Saturday from eight a m.
Till twelve noon. I can annual Strawberry Jamboree by the
Brazoria County Agrolife Extension Office Horticulture Department. Now the time

(01:04:07):
to apply strawberries here is really you know, October is
a great time to do it. Late September is okay too.
October is a great time to do it. And if
you go to this event, you're going to learn how
to grow strawberries from a number of super speakers. I
was at the event last year and very impressed with
the quality of speakers that they had. They're going to
have exhibitors there and they're also going to have strawberry

(01:04:28):
pluge that you can pre order if you'd like to
do that. But here's the most important part of the
whole event. Strawberry shortcake contest. I'm just saying. I'm just saying,
if you think you can make strawberry shortcake, well step
up prove it. This is a free event. If you
want more information called nine seventy nine eight six four

(01:04:48):
fifteen fifty eight nine seven nine eight six four one
five five eight, or just go to the Brazoria County
Agra Life Extension Office, go to their website, give them
a call. They can get you all set up with
the information that you need to know. Don't delay, though,
because these kind of things they tend to fill up,
so I would I would go ahead and get that

(01:05:10):
done sooner rather than later. And I don't care where
you live in the Greater Houston area, it's worth the
drive over to Lake Jackson for the second annual Strawberry
Jamboree September twenty first, from eight am until twelve noon.
Need to you know, I always tell people when when
I give advice on vegetables, that they have to bring
half the vegetables or half the fruit that they produce

(01:05:32):
to the to the KTRH and we'll call it even.
That's fair enough, right, don't charge for advice. But I
can be paid in fruit and vegetables. Maybe I should
be paid in strawberry shortcake on this one. That would
That's just what I need is more more strawberry short
cake to put in my mouth. I love that stuff.

(01:05:53):
All right, Well we're gonna I'm gonna quit mumbling around.
We've got to talk. We've got to share own tech Rose, Sharon,
I believe and talk to Gary Gerry.

Speaker 9 (01:06:01):
Are you and road sharing, yes, sir, ROAs shar in Texas.
But my question is about some property that I have
up in Livingston, Texas. Okay, so it's mostly it's mostly
pine trees, but I've got about an acre and a
half field that I would like to get some kind
of color up there, some flowers growing on the edges
or something. And I was reading about periwinkle, which is

(01:06:23):
pretty prolific. Do you think that would be a good
idea for that sandy soil up there? Would a take
root and grow well?

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Perry periwinkle is a really summer tolerant plant. And the
only thought about periwinkle. You could do that now, But
when it cools off, that periwinkle is gonna kind of
quit doing its thing. And then with the first frost
it's gonna or freeze, it's gonna kill it back. So
you may get a little more bang out of your
buck going with some other things that maybe wait a

(01:06:54):
little bit, make sure and get that soil, right, and
then plant something that's a little more of a cool,
cooler weather plant.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Are you wanting to do it by seed?

Speaker 15 (01:07:04):
Is that the Is that the well?

Speaker 9 (01:07:06):
Either either way? Either either way?

Speaker 7 (01:07:08):
I was.

Speaker 9 (01:07:09):
I was thinking I was really wanting something that would
come back every year, and I thought Perry Winkles were
I thought they would come back from reading about it,
but maybe not. Any suggestions you have.

Speaker 11 (01:07:22):
Would be great.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Yeah, well that would be a good one for summertime
if you're going to do that. Another option, did you
say this was an acre that was.

Speaker 9 (01:07:30):
Cleared up and it's about an acre and a half
acre and a half yes, sir, And I don't want
to do the whole thing. I just want to do
around that, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
I was going to suggest wallflowers. Fall is an excellent
time to plant wildflowers. You could throw out, you know,
things like seeds of blue bonnets and other wildflowers. Plant
them in the fall and you have a beautiful spring
and then they recede and come back. As you said, okay,
well then that's so.

Speaker 9 (01:07:57):
And then suggestions on where to get seeds.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Yeah, well, for that volume, there's two places that I
would suggest you consider. One is called wild Seed Farms
and it's in Fredericksburg wild Seed Farms. And the other
one is in Junction, also out West Hill Country area Junction,
Texans called Native American Seed and they both have wildflower

(01:08:24):
mixes for every area. For your area, you're gonna want
to make sure and get blue bonnets that are the
sandy land blue bonnet for up there. Sandy lands a
little different than the blue bonnet you see down here
in most places. Okay, you can go online, go online
to those websites and you'll see the difference. I'm not
going to try to describe it on the air, but

(01:08:46):
it's a little different, but it does good in sandy soils.
And then another option, I would get some seeds of
different kinds of puppies. I know that these places, I
know wild seed farms cells like the red core corn poppy,
but there are a lot of different kinds of poppies
that will recede. I would not use the bread seed
poppy in that big of an area that uh well,

(01:09:10):
I don't know if we need to go into that
or not, but I would use the corn poppy. Uh
California poppy woil would all be good for you up
in that area.

Speaker 9 (01:09:20):
Okay, well, I sure appreciate your advice this morning, and
hopefully I can make my field look beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
All right, all right, thanks La Carl. Good luck with that.
Sounds like you got a beautiful thing going on up there.
We're gonna take a little break and I'll be right back.
Happened to be cleared out, so I guess they knew
you wanted to call. Seven one three two one two
k t r H. Seven one three two one two
k t r H. I was down at Southwest Fertilizer

(01:09:51):
the other day, which I often go by there because
I'm telling you, Southwest Fertilizer has everything you could possibly need.
I need to pick up some products for some weed
killing that I've been doing, and Bob just has a selection.
If he Southwist doesn't have it, you don't need it.
And I really mean that. That's not just a joke.

(01:10:11):
That is serious because they have everything that you need
to have success. Are you an organic gardener? Are you
you know not organic? Don't you don't care? You use
organic or synthetic? Bob has products for everything, fertilizers and
past control and weed control and whatnot. I was getting
some stuff I'm still experimenting around on some different approaches

(01:10:32):
to nutsedge control. We posted something to the garden line
Facebook page just yesterday. Reposted something which, by the way,
if you don't follow garden Line on Facebook, you should
just go to Facebook. Do go type in garden line,
what word garden line, and you'll find that post. It's

(01:10:53):
easy to find it as you scroll down. It's a
picture of me with a shotgun in my MD pointing
it at a nut sedge. Do you ever feel that way?
Do a lot? Anyways? I put up their instructions on
first of all, I put something that's a little linkedy.
It's three pages, but it explains the different types of
nutsedge we have, how they grow, and why that's important,

(01:11:15):
and knowing how to control them. Most people fail at
controlling nutsedge because they way too long to start, or
they do a good job starting and then they stop
for a while, they get busy, life goes on. I
know how that is, and the nutsedge has time to
recover and then they go back again. And just remember

(01:11:36):
nuts edge. If you cannot ever let it have air,
don't let it up for air. Think of it that
way when it sticks its head above the ground. Has
three to five leaves on it. You need to do
something hand digging, spraying, whatever you do, you need to
do something at that stage and you will wear it
out and you will win if you use the right products.

(01:11:57):
And this publication tells you all about it and it's free.
Also up there as a publication on making your own
weed wiper.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Weed wiper is a nice little tunes made from a
climbing tool with suction cups and you just put sponges
where the suction cups where Bob's got that tool at
Southwest Fertilizer, Those suction cup type grabber tools. You know,
they're not that hard to find, but he's got some
there and he's got all the products that you would

(01:12:25):
put on it. So go online download that. How do
you build your own weed wiper? The reason I like
it is it allows you to treat weeds. It doesn't
have to just be nuts edge. It could be poison ivy,
it could be some grassyweed. It allows you to treat
them in areas where if you spray, you'd hurt your plants.
It also allows you to treat them without putting a
lot of product out there in the environment. Takes very

(01:12:46):
little when you just apply it to the sponges of
a weed wiper. But Southwest Fertilizer has that tool and
they've got everything you need to go on it. Southwest
Fertilizer dot Com is the website Southwest Fertilizer dot Com
and the phone number seven one three six sixty six
seventeen forty four seven one three six six six seventeen

(01:13:08):
forty four, and you swing by there and check it out.
It's in Southwest Houston. Been ronsis nineteen fifty five corner
of Bissonette and Runwick. We're going to go now to
Port Natchus and talk to Janet. Janette. Yeah, hey Janet,
Welcome Toguardline. Hello, good morning, more, good question.

Speaker 7 (01:13:28):
I had two questions about tulip bups. When I bought
them a long time ago.

Speaker 16 (01:13:34):
Someone told me to put them in the refridgerr rator
about four weeks.

Speaker 10 (01:13:39):
Before you plan them.

Speaker 16 (01:13:41):
And I was sisted also in knowing what months to
plant them.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
Okay, so we typically buy bulbs in the fall. Tulips,
most tulips, there's a few very obscure exceptions, but most
tulips are what we call one shot wonder. You know,
you plan them, they bloom and they just don't naturalize
and come back year after year after year like some
of the other bulls can. So what we typically do

(01:14:09):
is when we get the tulips, just go ahead and
store them in the fridge, put them down, put them
in a crisper or something. But make sure there's no
apples or other vegetables in that crisper because those give
off ethylene, or they can give off ethylene, and that
messes up the bloom that's inside that bulb you put
in there, So don't store them with fruits and vegetables.

(01:14:29):
Then when we get to I typically would say between
Christmas and New Year's you would begin to put them out.
You want to get them in the ground and they'll
get established, they'll get roots, and then they're going to
come up and bloom. And if you wait it until
let's say February to put them out, it would just
be so fast and it'd be so warm that your

(01:14:51):
blood times even shorter. So I like to start between
Christmas and New Year's. The way I like to put it, Janet,
is about the time the relative that have been hanging
out at your house over the holidays you start to
get away from them. That's a good time to walk
outside and plant your tulips. That's how you know when
it's time to plant.

Speaker 11 (01:15:09):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
And how many ways in the fridge.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Oh, you can leave them as long as you want.
But the typically they're stored just you know, when you
buy them, they're just you know, in a box in
the garden center, sitting on a shelf or something, so
they don't have to live in a refrigerator. It's just
before you put them out, you know, leave them in there.
I would say, give them a month in there if
you can. A lot of times. I don't know how

(01:15:37):
many times those would be pre chilled, but I would
just store them in there to keep them in top shape.
Because if you just go months sitting out in warm,
hot weather in a garage or something, that's not gonna
be good for you.

Speaker 8 (01:15:48):
Okay, I sure do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Thank you for all your hap.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Have a nice I have fun. Send me pictures tulips
when you when they started, you're real. Thank you, Bye bye, Janet.
Tulips are interesting, interesting things. They're so beautiful. I mean,
do you look at the pictures. Oh gosh, it's just
I've never been to Holland to see tulips. I guess

(01:16:11):
that's a trip I need to make. Not made that
trip yet, and I need to that would that would
certainly be good. I wanted to. Since we're talking about
bulbs and things, when fall comes it is prime time
for planting bulbs, and I would encourage you this fall
to add a perennial bulb to your landscape. I mean,

(01:16:33):
certainly I had several different types, but at least one
it could be the ox blood lilies. Those are the ones.
They're also called schoolhouse lilies because they typically bloom in September.
You know, it's been parched, hot sun ground, and all
of a sudden we get a little co front and
some cool rain down on the ground, and here they
come up with their little red tubular flowers. They don't

(01:16:53):
last a long time, but they are tough. I mean,
you see these in homesteads where no one is taking
care of them for decades and they're still going strong.
That's a great bulb to have. You could consider iris.
The cemetery iris is a beautiful iris. It does just well.
Some types of bearded iris do well. There are certain
daffodils that do well. The big larger flowered, and then

(01:17:18):
the little clusters the paper white. It's the type of
narcissus that they also there are certain ones that do well,
and you go to a good here's another reason to
go to a good independent garden center. They're going to
carry ones that will naturalize you, or they'll be able
to tell you if they do or not. And to
buy one that naturalizes is an investment because think about this,

(01:17:38):
that bulb is just going to multiply over the years.
It's going to come back every spring or every fall,
or every whenever. The thing blooms every summer. Rain lilies
bloom typically in the summer, as do copper lilies. But
there's a lot of great naturalism books, some of those
garden our garden centers, as they may already start getting

(01:18:00):
I was like, man, I suspend I hadn't, but anyway,
it's a great time, great time, and it just gives
you those rewards. I like to plant mine in a
way where when they die down in the village, I
cut it back to she hollowed and done. Uh, you
don't even know that they are. All of a sudden surprise.
I walked around the corner of my house the other day,
and I've got some ox blood lilies or scull block

(01:18:22):
squaws lilies, and they were in an old black nursery pot,
been setting up for years. The soil is almost all
gone out of the pot from oxidizing, and the little
boogers had balloons on them already because they got a
little rain the other day. That is the kind of
blow by life like one of my mentors, doctor Bill Welts, says,
get your flowers, find your flowers and roses and cemeteries,

(01:18:43):
because if dead people can grow it, you can to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Have und.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
All Right, folks, welcome back to guard Line. We're glad
you are with us today. Always like to have folks
listening in. And even better than talk to folks, find
out how we can help you have a more bountiful
garden and a more beautiful landscape. Do you live down
south of Houston, Down south to Houston, and you know
down direction of Alvin Well in Alvin on Elizabeth Street,

(01:19:19):
you've got a garden center Jorges Hidden Gardens Horaes Hidden Gardens.
If you haven't been by there, you need to swing
by and check it out. They're open on Friday and
Saturday and Sunday Friday from nine to three, Saturday from
eight am to four pm, and on Sunday from eight
am to four pm again, so it's easy to find
all kinds of things out there. They really have a

(01:19:40):
lot of different kinds of fruit trees too that you
know contain our fruit trees. So whatever kinds of fruit
you want for that area, well they've got the load
shell stuff and that that's what you need for down there.
You need apples and things that don't require a lot
of chilling hours, plums, pears, avocados, peaches, all of that
they seasonally will get in their vegetab plants and tomato

(01:20:01):
plants specifically Peggy Martin roses and just on and on.
If you need a tree or a shrub, they're an
outstanding source for those. You got them right there on
site and they'll come out and plant them if you
need them to, happy to do that. On Elizabeth Street
in Alvin. This is Horges Hidden Gardens seventeen seven twenty
one Elizabeth Street in Alvin, just south of the Highway six.

(01:20:24):
So all of you down there in Alvin and certainly
Santa Fe, Dickinson Hillcrest, al Goo, Arcadia, Alta, Looma, all
those communities. You got a little garden center there. You
need to go check out, and I think you'll be
very pleased with what you find when you get there.
You are listening to garden Line and we're about to
head out to the phones. Now to Spring Branch and
talk to Herta. Hello, Hrta, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
Good morning. I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
I'm doing well, hurt, I hope you're doing well. Oh
I am.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
Thank you. My questions about shrip plants a friend of mine,
I have a number of them, and she wants a
couple of them, but she wants them in a pot
until she decides or she's going to put them in
her yard. What's the best method?

Speaker 10 (01:21:18):
Is that good?

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
And when do we do that?

Speaker 8 (01:21:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
You go, it's the garden center her till you see
those things in gallum pots. That's how people buy them typically,
and so you can recreate that. So what I would
do is if she's not in a hurry to put
them in the ground, then I wouldn't be in a
hurry to dig them. Let's get into fall. Let's get
into late October, even early November. If you want, uh,

(01:21:43):
and get them dug. Then the cooler it gets, the
easier it is to get them dug and in a
pot and watered in in that pot so that they
have success. It's just so stressful to try to do
it right now.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Oh I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Stressful on you too.

Speaker 3 (01:22:01):
Oh well, yeah, that's true. Well thanks a lot, take
care all.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Right, you bet, thanks for the call. Appreciate you bet.
Appreciate that a lot.

Speaker 11 (01:22:13):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
You know, I like birds, if you listen to garden
Line more than once. I used to not be a
bird person, but now I just enjoy them, and I'm
not into the thing where I can hear every song
and know what they are. I got a lap that'll
do that though, by the way. But wild Birds Unlimited.
That is the place for everything you need. Quality bird seed.
And I don't mean cheap stuff full of red bebes

(01:22:34):
that junk the birds kick out. I'm talking about if
you buy it and it's in a bag at wild Birds,
it goes into a bird's stomach. That's the kind of
feed we want to feed the birds want to eat. Now,
of course, there's things like sunflower seeds that they'll shell
out and drop the shells on the ground. But you
can even buy a no no waste, no mess. They

(01:22:56):
call it blend of seeds. There it's hummingbird season though.
You got to get your bird feeders. To go to
Wallbirds and ask for the high perch hummingbird feeder. That's
my favorite one. There. I've got several hummingbird feeders. That's
my favorite one high perch from Walbirds. You go to
WBU dot com forward Slash Houston w BU dot Com

(01:23:17):
forward Slash Houston that sells all shows you all six
wallbirds that are here in the Greater Houston area. The
hummingbirds are here. I've already had them in my yard,
and you got to get those feeders out there, take
care of them because they are a long trip ahead
of them, and as some of them head down south
further than this, so we need to get those taken
care of. Any kind of bird seed though, any kind

(01:23:38):
of bird feeders, any kind of bird houses, and probably
most important of all, quality bird advice. I always ask
those Wildbird Unlimited manager soore managers and their staff bird
questions every time I go in because there's something I
need to know. All right, We're going to go now
to talk to Dan. Hello Dan, and welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 17 (01:24:00):
Morning skiff. But that you're doing well today, and I
am than you had another addition to your fall vegetables
and probably don't think about it as much as I do,
but turnips and most oh yeah, and beets I left.

(01:24:21):
I left the beats out as well.

Speaker 11 (01:24:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:24:26):
And another thing that I have hadn't had a chance
to talk to you about is uh turf grass for
shade areas. I have had Saint Augustine for years, and
my trees kept getting bigger and bigger in the shade
and got more dense, and the august is going away.

(01:24:49):
So I did some grass, some some medium bladed soyge
of grass some in there, and if uh it has
thrived and has filled in where I had take all
patch and then killed the sat And so my my

(01:25:12):
grass has been transitioned from Saint Augustine in spots to
Zorzia grass.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
And did you say palisades was the one? Okay, just
one variety.

Speaker 17 (01:25:27):
There's some other other varieties, but that was that was
one that I had access to and used it. It
has a wide enough blade that it doesn't contrast that
much with the with the width of the Saint Augustine.
It's a dark green than the than the Saint Augustine.

(01:25:51):
It's a beautiful grass and very good.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
I've got some palisades in my yard. It is a
very beautiful grass, very tough and and versatile too.

Speaker 17 (01:26:01):
Yes, and as I say it, it stands to shade.
And I've never seen the problem with all Right, say Dan, Dan?

Speaker 11 (01:26:10):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Did you have a question or just kind of reporting
on some things?

Speaker 17 (01:26:14):
I just wanted to tell you feel to that end.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
That's perfectly okay. Hey Dan, I'm gonna I'm gonna have
to go to a break, and so if you want
to hang around, go ahead. We'll hold on to you.
But I got to run here before before they cut
me off. All Right, folks, I'll be right back. You're
listening to the garden line, have you here? We're gonna
head back to the phones here, Dan, I think you
may have had a follow up question.

Speaker 17 (01:26:39):
Well one more comment?

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:26:41):
You interested in oakrah?

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
Yes?

Speaker 17 (01:26:45):
And I have an oakrah variety that I have not
been able to find in any seed catalog. But it's
it's something that was planted out in my pasture. I
guess carried it out there by birds, and it is.
It's a wonderful spineless okra long slender pods and I've

(01:27:08):
i'd just like to share seed with you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. Yeah, I'd be
interested in looking at it. So you don't know, though,
how it got there. You just know somehow it got
out there, right.

Speaker 17 (01:27:18):
Well, the only thing I can figure is in the pasture,
and the birds abound to have carried it because there
was a long ways from any any other gardens or
any other place.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Yeah, well, hey, thanks, I'm going to put you on hold.
I'm going to put you on hold and uh, Chris
producer will give you an email address, and if you
would just email me, then we'll figure out how to
get those seeds straight out. I may even trade you
some seeds if you don't try something else. All right, Okay,
thanks a lot. Appreciate, appreciate you call very much. You're

(01:27:54):
listening to Guardline folks, and we're here to answer your
gardening questions. Yes, I have an idea. You have an
okra problem. I don't know if there's a wing of
the Betty Ford Clinic for Okra growers, but if there is,
I need to be admitted pretty quick, because my whole
garden is basically okra right now, because I breed okra,
cross okra different varieties and then take the out from

(01:28:17):
that and plan them out and pick the ones that
are best out and cross some more, and just I'm
always messing with okra, and I think it's fun. It's
easy to do, and boy, it likes the heat. You
know what I was reading the other day. Okay, this
is a let me nerd out here just a little bit.
But a lot of people turn their nose up at
okra because it's slimy. Well, first of all, let me

(01:28:38):
expand your vocabulary. We do not say us okra. People
do not say slimy. We say mucilaginous because it sounds better.
But if we grill ours, put a little olive oil
on the outside, sprinkle them with sea salt, put them
on a grill two minutes on each, two sides, and
you're done. And it's not as a mucilaginous that way.
When you cook it with acidic things like tomatoes and whatnot,

(01:29:02):
it is not as musiclagins. But sometimes it's worth accepting
the mucilage because it helps thicken soups and other things.
I actually dry and grind the ocre up into a
powder and my vitamins and basically turn it into something
that could be added by the spoonfuld anything from a
smoothie to a soup to you name it, and I'll

(01:29:22):
tell you why this is important. Okra has two kinds
of fiber. One fiber soluble, one is not soluble, insoluble
and soluble fiber. One type helps with things like heart issues,
you know, when we're dealing with things like cholesterol and whatnot.
Another type helps with your intestinal track. You know, we

(01:29:42):
all know that fiber is important in terms of good
healthy microbes and let's just say it, things function properly
in the intestinal tract. And Okra does all of that
and a lot of other things. So there's my little
mini Okra commercial. This was brought to you by the
National OCRA Board. There's not one to my knowledge, but anyway,

(01:30:03):
I'm basically like Rodney Dangerfield can't get no respect. I'm
trying to get Okra some respect here because it is
a it is a good vegetable and I can tell
you a lot of ways to use it you probably
haven't heard of before that are very helpful because it
is a good, healthy, healthy thing to have. All right,
thanks for thanks for bearing with me through that green

(01:30:25):
Pro green Pro. You've heard me talk about green Pro
when you need to have your lawn core air rated,
followed by a quality compost top dressing. Green Pro is
a number on a company and a number you're going
to need to have green Pro. The phone number is

(01:30:45):
two eight one three five one Green two eight one
three five to one green, or you can just go
to Greenpro dot net Greenpro dot net. Now, Greenpro services
about a forty five mile radius of Magnolia, So if
you're north to north central over and around maybe too,

(01:31:07):
you know High ten in the northwest quadrant. Pretty much
that's their area right there. They're not going to go
all over the listening area, but Greenpro up in that area.
So Porter missouris the Cypress, Kadie Tomball, all of that.
Those are all areas of green Pro Services, and they'll
come out and they'll do a good job. They are

(01:31:28):
experts in the field and they will turn that soil
that's compacted into something where your grassroots can grow. That's important.
They use quality tompos compost, not top soil, high quality
leaf mold composts. They put it down there, and as
you build that lawn by improving the soil. That's you know,
with a garden, you can rototoil compost into the soil.

(01:31:49):
What do you do for a lawn, Well, the roots
themselves live and die and they add some organic matter.
But the deep aeration, the core aeration, followed by compost
top dressing. That's how you slowly, overtime build that lawn
root zone healthier and healthier, and you get the roots
healthy and your lawn's gonna look better. It's one of
the most single most important things we can do for
our lawns. Not it's not cheap. It is not cheap

(01:32:12):
to do, but it works and it gives long term results,
and that is important if you want to have success.
Let's see here, I am. We got a phone call here.
I'm gonna take you just one second.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
I did.

Speaker 1 (01:32:29):
We were talking, I was talking just a minute ago.
You know about vegetable gardening and the fall gardening and things.
Fall is also for herbs. And if you are looking
for any kind of herbs for seasoning your food, you know,
a regular time those kind of things chives, garlic and onion,
chives and all all those are yes, that's fall is

(01:32:51):
the time to plant those. Anything you don't plant and
fall that comes to mind immediately would be basil. Basil
likes hot weather. But the rest of them, yes, plant
them now. If you look for herbs, for flowers like
Mexican met marigold blooms in the fall, Copper Canyon daisy.
I don't know if they count that as an herb,
but it has. It's a fragrant one. You wouldn't eat it,
but it's fragrant h And also Mexican met maragol blooms

(01:33:14):
in the fall. Those are herbs. Make plans. Do an
herb container, Put herbs at the end of your vegetable beds.
Put herbs in an herb garden. Put herbs and flower
beds herbs. You can grow your own tasty meal enhancing
herbs easy, easy here in the Greater Houston area. Let's see,
I'm going to go out now to bel Air and
we're going to talk to is it Zefel.

Speaker 17 (01:33:38):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
Well, like heifeltower? But what disease gotcha Zeifel? How can
we help today?

Speaker 6 (01:33:44):
How you doing? Good morning?

Speaker 11 (01:33:46):
A backyard? I got patches of clover like grass.

Speaker 18 (01:33:52):
It's starting to take over the.

Speaker 11 (01:33:54):
Whole entire backyard.

Speaker 15 (01:33:55):
I've heard some phosphorus mix some of the soil might help,
but I deferred your judgment that long time listener, the
first time caller.

Speaker 1 (01:34:04):
Oh, thanks for colling. Tell me again the specific weeds
that you said.

Speaker 11 (01:34:09):
It's like clover like looking weeds.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
It's just okay, it's trying to take over. Okay, Well,
first of all, do not put more phosphorus on your lawn.
The chances of your lawn needing phosphorus are extremely low. Okay. Now,
just not to say lawns don't need phosphorus. It's just
that they're there's probably enough in your lawn, and they

(01:34:34):
do a soul test and prove me wrong. But in general,
if I had to guess, I'd say, don't don't add
much more phosphorus. But as far as those weeds, the
thicker you get your lawn, the less clover like weeds
you're going to have, whether it's a medic or a
clover or you know, all those kinds of plants that

(01:34:55):
you're just gonna have lass. So that is number one.
I've got a schedule. I don't know if you've ever
ever been to my website. It's gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot Com. There's a schedule there that
tells you. It's the mow, water and fertilized schedule. It's
a law. It's called the lawn Care schedule, and it
tells you exactly how to do all the things you
do to make that lun denser and these problems go

(01:35:17):
away over time as you build density. Secondly, there's the
weed Disease and Pest schedule. It's also free online, just
download it, uh, And that one tells you about what
products you would use to prevent weeds from sprouting and
what products you use to kill existing weeds. And with
those clover utweeds, you can approach them both ways. You

(01:35:38):
can prevent them with products like nitrofoss barricade, or you
can kill them once they're growing. But you just have
to follow that schedule because there are certain products that
will hurt your lawn and you don't want to use those.

Speaker 11 (01:35:52):
Yes, sir, all right, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for the Oh, good
luck with that. Good luck with getting that under control.
I get my hang I turned trouble here in my
computer this morning. It's not cooperating with me. There we go. Yeah,
I Uh friend of mine out in Mississippi, his name

(01:36:20):
is Builder Rushing. I say, he's a friend, we're an acquaintance.
Uh Veelder has an interesting approach. He has a la
faire approach to lawn care, very lisi fair. And I
realized that when I'm talking to a lot of people
here on the air, right, it's not just you and me.
And there's some people that are lawn Nazis. I call
them the lawn rangers. On the weekend, they are going

(01:36:41):
to have that long, perfect, immaculate, not a weed in sight,
cut regularly, beautiful, edged, perfectly. Okay, that's one end of
the spectrum, and good, go for it. If that's you,
go for it on the other end of the spectrum.
Or people that just want something green out there. And
I know that's you know, Felder says, why does he

(01:37:05):
put it? Oh, if you want to make all your
weeds go away, take off your glasses. It's true. You
mow a weedy lawn and take off your glasses and
look at it and it looks birty good. Now, some
people aren't tolerant of that, and I think most of
you probably fall somewhere in between the two. But it
doesn't matter how you go about. It's your yard. You
can do what you want steen you and the homeowners Association,
I guess, but we try to help you have as

(01:37:27):
good a lot as you want to have here on
Guardline and that's why we create these schedule That's why
I put them both online gardening with skip dot com.
I want to tell you about RCW Nurseries. RCW Nurseries
is at Tambaw Parkway where it comes into belt Wag eight.
Now the website, you want to write this down r
Cwnurseries dot com. I call them to get it. Got

(01:37:48):
it nursery? What does that mean? It means if they
don't have it, they'll get it for you. They can
get it. And they carry huge selectious herbs and perennials
and annuals and shrubs and native plants. They got some
great deal is going on on woody ornamentals and shrubs,
trees by the way, including their ceterus too. Uh RCW
RCW nurseres dot com on the corner Tomball Parkway in

(01:38:10):
belt Wag eight. Easy to get to Monday through Saturday
eight to five, Sunday ten to five. I'll be right
back in just a moment with more of garden line.
I'm good to have you with us. If you would
like to give me a call and talk gardening, that
would be a good time. Seven to one three two
one two k t r H. Seven one three two

(01:38:32):
one two k t r H. The folks at Landscaper's
Pride they have I don't know, twenty over two dozen,
twenty five or six or seven, I don't know. Different
kinds of products and bags. It's crazy. We're talking about
soil products from about Moltz products, all kinds of blends
and mixes. Their rose mix is outstanding. A rosemix from

(01:38:55):
Landscaper's Pride is going to give you a boost of
nutrients that will carry your roses on end to fall
really well. Now you can build a rose bed from that.
You can you can use just straight mix and plant
the roses in it. You mix it with the soil
that you have, if you want to go about that,
about it that way. Their premium potting mix another outstanding

(01:39:16):
product from Landscaper's Pride. And here here's why I say that.
When you look at their premium potting mix, you are
looking at a product that not only contains a wonderful
blend of all the different things that you might need
in terms of loosening the soil. Like spagnum base, it's
got rich compost ingredients in it, but it also has

(01:39:37):
color Star slow release fertilizer that's going to give you
three months of feeding. So when you get some landscaper
spride potting mix, put it in a container. You're gonna
have great root development in that container. And by the way,
it's good for outdoor and indoor planting either one. But
with that boost of nutrient additionally to it UH and
then the pearlite to help keep it open, you're gonna

(01:39:58):
have good drainage and you're gonn have beautiful color all
the way into the fall season. I would even plant
vegetables in a container in that by the way, I
think that would be an excellent choice for that now
that there is a number of other products they have.
The topsoil is a sandy loam kind of material with
some composts added to it. So if you want to
feel divots in the yard, got some lower areas or

(01:40:21):
sunken spots, you're trying to level it out, don't just
youse straight organic matter for that, because it's just going
to decompose away and you'll be back with a hole again.
But this tops one mix with a little of the
compost in it. But also that sandy loam is an
excellent choice. And then on top of the ground, it's
always a good time to malt. The black velvet. It's
not dyed, it's naturally very dark, velvety color and it's

(01:40:44):
an outstanding product. Again, another of the mini products from
Landscapers Pride. You can go to Landscaperspride dot com find
out more about the products they carry. You are listening
to Guardenline and our phone number is seven to one
three two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. I mentioned this is

(01:41:08):
fall is a good time for herbs. Fall is a
good time for everything, and I just I really want
to stress the importance of fall planting. If I could
change one, well, you know, one thing. If I could
change ten things, this would be one of the ten.
There's a lot of things I'd like to change in gardening,

(01:41:30):
but this is one, and that is if I could
take some of that spring fever and bottle it up
and spring everybody's itching to get out and plant, and
everybody's a gardener, it seems like fall. We need to
take that bottle of spring fever and put it in
the water supply for fall, because fall is the best
planting season of the year. Anything perennial, anything, woody trub trees,

(01:41:54):
woody vines, any perennial flowers, ornamental grasses, a cool season color,
all of that. Fall is prime time for that. And
the reason is especially for these perennials and woodies, is
they have all winter to grow a good root system
before next summer arrives. So fall gives you the biggest
head start on that and you need to take advantage

(01:42:14):
of that. We got all these folks you heard me
talk about our sponsors that have quality saw mixes. Sponsor
to have quality plants. That's how you go about it.
We're going to go out to Baytown now and we're
going to talk to Carol. Hello Carol, and welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 3 (01:42:30):
Good morning.

Speaker 7 (01:42:30):
I'm in the military, and you a couple of pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:42:33):
Hang on one second, okay, Hey, let me put you
on hold and let you send those and I'll come
right back to you. How about that.

Speaker 7 (01:42:41):
Okay, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:42:43):
You've got it. You've got it. We're going to go
now to Carol in Spring, Texas.

Speaker 18 (01:42:47):
Hey Carol, another Carol.

Speaker 11 (01:42:51):
Yeah, I hate to admit, but I was not able
to do my.

Speaker 18 (01:42:54):
Summer fertilizing when they usually do in July the nineteen fourteen.

Speaker 1 (01:42:59):
No problem.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
Can I do now to make up for anything?

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
You can do a couple of things. You could put
on something temporary to give a little boost if your
lawn is not looking real great. Uh, and that could
be a number of different products. The Bruces brew from
Nelson's is a good good one for that.

Speaker 11 (01:43:18):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
The oh gosh, it just went blank. Sweet Green from
nitroposs is another good One's going to give a good
quick release and do that. Fall fertilizing is coming. Have
you ever been to my website and looked at my
lawnch schedule on there?

Speaker 15 (01:43:33):
No, I just usually look, okay, book.

Speaker 1 (01:43:37):
Well that's fine. Here here I want to give you.
I want to give you a It's gardening with Skip
dot com and on there I tell you exactly when
to fertilize through the year and what to use. And
it's similar to Randy schedules. I've I've I've developed them
a little further along, and so I encourage you to
go take a look. There's a lot of information on there.
But we're going to be doing fall fertilizing at the

(01:43:58):
end of September or in early October. We'll be doing
fall fertilizing and things. So that's right, kind of caught
in between. But you could do a little. If the
lawn doesn't look good, go ahead and give it a
little something that's quick release, right.

Speaker 7 (01:44:11):
Okay, okay, very good.

Speaker 18 (01:44:14):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
Thank you, you bet appreciate the call. We're going to
go now. I believe this is the original Carol. Is
that right?

Speaker 8 (01:44:22):
Just send me an email I did.

Speaker 7 (01:44:25):
I did.

Speaker 1 (01:44:26):
Okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go looking for that right.
I hope that darn thing comes through real quick here
so we can take a look at it. Go ahead
and start asking me your question.

Speaker 19 (01:44:34):
And okay, well, I've never grown to sparagus before, and
so I decided.

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):
To do it.

Speaker 19 (01:44:39):
But I put it in a bed that had zinias,
and then some morning glories have come over it. I
bought it as a bulb, and I heard you weren't
supposed to a read you weren't supposed to cut it
until like year.

Speaker 1 (01:44:51):
Three or something.

Speaker 7 (01:44:53):
Well, it looks like a hairy child. Okay, yeah, And
I don't know whether to cut it back or not.
But if you see the pictures, there's morning glories all
in it, and I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (01:45:04):
All right, Well, I haven't gotten the pictures, but I
don't need them for this question. What you're going to
want to do the morning glory follow that line wherever
it comes out of the ground. There's a little tuber
under the ground, swollen root like a sweet potato, because
they're kin to sweet potatoes, and just dig those up.
That's the best approach in a crop that is edible

(01:45:26):
that you don't want to kill with herbicide. Trying to
kill the morning glory, you kill the asparagus too, So
just hand dig those if you can. If there are
too many of them. There's some other approaches to that.
We could talk about that maybe on another call. But
and as far as you're asparagus, when we get into
winter and have some really good cold weather, cut it
back to the ground and then in the spring as

(01:45:47):
it comes up, if they have a decent size shoot
coming out of the ground, you can go ahead and
harvest them, but at some point those shoots are going
to get smaller where they aren't like pencil size, and
then you got to stop harvesting and let that asparagus
plant send up shoots to capture sunlight to replenish its
stored reserves.

Speaker 19 (01:46:07):
Yeah, because that's what the weeds are doing right now,
or the greenery right it's storing.

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
Yeah, that's what they're doing. But when we get into
a good, good freeze, then go ahead and cut it
back and then you can harvest in spring. Which spring
here for asparagus comes really early. It's probably January February.

Speaker 7 (01:46:24):
Oh really, okay okay, And I grow okra and I
got a purple okra from.

Speaker 19 (01:46:31):
Buchanans and I love it if I have one, been
sixt plant, and then I got two purple ones.

Speaker 7 (01:46:38):
And yes, we roasted all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:46:40):
So all right, sounds good. Thank you appreciate that. You bet,
you bet. We're gonna let's see here. We've got to
take a little break and when we come back, Tom,
you'll be our first up. You're listening to garden line,
hang around. We've got more to talk about Bill in
storm season and it doesn't have to be storm season,
have a storm come through. We Affordable Tree Service specializes

(01:47:03):
in coming out, taking a look at your trees, seeing
if anything needs to be done, and if it does,
recommending what they would do. They charged a little bit
for you to come out. It's a it's an inspection fee,
it's a you know, what do you call it consultation
out there, and if you decide to go ahead and
hire them, it just goes right into the price that
you're paying for the work being done. So it's a
really a really good deal. Seven one three, six nine

(01:47:26):
nine twenty six sixty three. That's Martin's number, Martin Spoon
Moore and his wife Joe. They answer their own phones.
It's that kind of company, that old fashioned service and
care that you would hope to get from all companies.
You're going to get that from Affordable Tree Afftree Service
dot com. Call Martin now, get on the schedule. There's

(01:47:46):
always work to be done, whether it is, you know,
doing winter pruning, whether it's doing summer trimming, whether it's
advice on training and pruning and whatever else needs to
be done on your trees. Barn's been doing this for
a very long time. And he knows what he's talking about.
That's why here's our go to fellow. You're at garden
Line Affordable Tree Service Afftree Service dot com. We are

(01:48:09):
now going to go out to Beaumont and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike,
welcome to the garden Line. Do we have a mic?
All right, Mike, I'm gonna have to put you on hole.
We're gonna go to Janice in Katie. Hello, Jennis, Yes, Hi,
good morning morning.

Speaker 7 (01:48:29):
Yes.

Speaker 8 (01:48:30):
I was calling him because I have some sort of
issue with my tree and I sit pictures. I'm wondering
if you get help me with that. It looks like
spiders or something. Is our email the leaves?

Speaker 1 (01:48:44):
Okay, Jennie, I do not have any emails from a
Janics in my box. Let's need this. Would you try
res sending. I'm gonna put you on hold. Just make
sure you got the right email. If you've already, If
you already talked to the producer about that, that's fine.
But I want you to resend and if I can
see them, I will take a look and see if

(01:49:05):
we can help you. But I just don't have those
photos right now.

Speaker 20 (01:49:08):
Okay, I'm looking for it now, I'll send it again,
because I'll send it all right.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
Well, I've looked back that far and I don't see him.
If maybe if the email addresses something other than Janice.

Speaker 2 (01:49:21):
Uh, but.

Speaker 11 (01:49:25):
I'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:49:25):
But I'll all right send it again and call in.
If we don't get the pictures, I'll still try to help. Okay, thanks,
thanks a lot. I appreciate that. I'm gonna go out
to Mike and Beaumont. Mike you there, Hey, Mike, how
can we help?

Speaker 11 (01:49:43):
No, this is Russell. I guess we have the wrong name,
but this is Ruffll and Beaumart okay, O good. Yeah,
And what I got here is peaches. And I'm trying
to fan out.

Speaker 21 (01:49:55):
But the peach tree that I have in Beaumart, when
it gives this, it gives them about the size of
a ping pong ball. And then I noticed other trees
that I've seen in the area. They're about the same
side back, the side of.

Speaker 11 (01:50:10):
The ping punk ball, you know, not very big like okay,
and I'm trying to see is that their size? If
you know what tree I'm talking about, Can they get
up to about a pool ball size?

Speaker 1 (01:50:25):
Oh no, they'll get bigger, even bigger than a poolball.
They can. Uh, Mike, did you plant this from a
seed or did you purchase a peach tree and planet?

Speaker 21 (01:50:34):
No, this is one that was fun in the yard
that I have, and it's been given pieces. But it's
a part of one that was throwed out and it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:42):
Growed got you gotcha? Okay? Well, Uh, so that could
be part of the problem. You know, it's not an
improved variety, it's just a seedling.

Speaker 16 (01:50:52):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:50:52):
It'll still make an edible peach. But in order to
have good size on your peaches, you need a good
healthy tree. So I say out all the weeds and
grass from around it as far out as the branches,
if you can go that far, and just have a
big mulch bed underneath there so that tree doesn't have
to compete with things. Secondly, you're want to print it
so that it gets good sunlight all through the tree.

(01:51:14):
And there's instructions online how to prun peach trees and stuff.
But the more you open it up and get good
sunlight and it the better. And then here's the last thing.
You need to thin those peaches so that if you
were to open your hand as wide as you can,
like you raise your hand, all your fingers are sticking
out in all directions, from the tip of your little
finger to the tip of your thumb. That's how far

(01:51:37):
peaches should be apart on a branch. If they're closer
than that, something's got to go. I know that's hard
to do. But when you make them stay at least
that far apart, which is going to be over six
inches probably across, you're going to end up with a
bigger peach by thinning them out. So thinning and then
adequate water. As we're getting into summer and it's hot.

(01:51:59):
If the water lacking, the peach is going to be smaller.

Speaker 11 (01:52:03):
Oh okay, And I got the prone and part. When
is a good time to do that? Pune? And since
the piece is off now, but it still have leave
on that on the tree.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
Yes, they're into winter before the new spring growth begins
when it. Don't wait until it's already blooming. But I'll
get on into winter. Once all the leaves are off
of it, you can prone it. But it's better to
prune later in the winter than early in the winter.
It's better to prune mid to late winter.

Speaker 11 (01:52:31):
Okay, okay, all right, and then just do a good
pro life and uh, yeah, around the base of the tree. Okay,
we'll do.

Speaker 1 (01:52:44):
All right. And when they occur, all I ask is
you bring me half the peaches to the radio station,
drop them off here and we'll call it even Mike,
you take care of stay out of trouble, all right,
all right, we're gonna go now to let's see where
are we going next?

Speaker 2 (01:52:58):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):
Texas to talk to Wally.

Speaker 4 (01:53:01):
Hello Wally, Hello Scart, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (01:53:07):
Good beat. How can I help?

Speaker 11 (01:53:09):
Okay?

Speaker 18 (01:53:10):
I have a twenty two year old Japanese magnolia sitting
outside my kitchen window. And typically in the leafs all
come off in the December time frame, and then about
mid February it buds in the little Uh. I guess
it's the buds for the flowers. And then it's leaves

(01:53:33):
out and it's green all year. Well, last week all
the leave turned brown and they all dropped and guess what,
I got buds on the tree all over again. Is
that normal for a It's magnolia in the middle of something.

Speaker 1 (01:53:51):
Yeah, I don't know what happened. You know, Normally that's
what it would do in a drought or if it
had root injury or something like that. It would it
would do that. I don't know what caused it on
your tree specifically, but if it's putting out new buds,
let it go ahead and do it. It's not a
great thing to happen, but there's plenty of time for
those new shoots. It's using stored energy to grow new

(01:54:11):
shoots and leaves, and when it uses that, then those
leaves can capture sunlight and strengthen it before we hit
real winter. Okay, but that's about water. What is in
your control. Make sure it doesn't lack for water, but
don't keep it soggy wet either.

Speaker 11 (01:54:26):
No.

Speaker 18 (01:54:26):
It we water about three times a week and that
bed only gets it for about ten minutes, so it's it.

Speaker 1 (01:54:36):
Yeah, probably needs probably needs a little more of a
deep soaking when we get into hot weather than that.
That would be okay my suggestion. All right, Hey, Wally,
thank you appreciate your call very much. Good luck with
getting that under control. You know, with storm season. I
was talking about it on trees, but a lot of
people right now are looking for generators because what twice

(01:54:57):
we lost power for a very long time. Well quality
home products of Texas that is the place where you
get not only a quality generator like a generat automatic
standby generator. By the way, if you give them a call,
because they have a trade in summer special right now,
you turn in some old portable generator you got and

(01:55:18):
you get a discount on a generator purchase. The phone
numbers seven to one three Quality seven one three Quality.
The website Quality tx dot com. Listen. This company takes
care of you from the point when you first contact
them to getting you in the generator size and type
you need to do in the whole process, including getting

(01:55:39):
permits or anything like that that's required with the city
or whoever. Quality Home Products of Texas. They have award
winning service with the Better Business Bureau and over fourteen
thousand and five star reviews, and that's because they take
care of their customers. We're going to head out now
to Genus in Hello Jennis, Yeah, Hello Ah, this is

(01:56:04):
the Jennis that I was talking to while ago.

Speaker 8 (01:56:07):
Yes, did you receive the picture?

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):
I did not. I do not know what's going on.
I'm going to look into it. We're about to have
to have at the top of the hour break here, Jennis.
I will look at it and keep listening. I will
either say Jennis call back or I will tell you
the answer when I finally get the picture. But I
don't know what's going on. I'm gonna put you on
home Ale more time. Let's just make reels all right.

(01:56:32):
We'll just make sure we got the right email and
I will pick that up. Thank you. I hear the music.
That means I got to quit talking, but not until
I tell you that. Next Saturday, September seventh, Montgomery County
fall Home an Outdoor Living Show Montgomery County Falling Out
to Home Living Show Saturday, I will be there from

(01:56:53):
a twelve until two. I'm going to be given a
talk on Faulk gardening. Hope you can come and hear that,
and then I'm going to be answering gardening questions till
the cows come home. I don't know when the cows
come home in Montgomery County, but I'll still be there
engine righty til two o'clock. Seriously, I'll be giving away
some really cool products from micro Life Fertilizer, and you

(01:57:14):
definitely want to get some of these samples in there,
so show up, show up with your questions. If you
got some samples, put them in a ziplock bag, bring
a photo on your phone of something you need identified
or diagnosed. We're gonna get it all done. Mainly, we're
gonna have a really good time. Fall Home an outdoor
Living Show Montgomery County at the Lone Star Convention and
Expo Center next Saturday and Sunday or that wows f

(01:57:43):
Welcome to Katie R. H. Guarden Line with Scamp Richard.

Speaker 2 (01:57:47):
It's just watch as all.

Speaker 1 (01:58:00):
Right, all right, and you're listening to garden Line. I'm
just jumping right in on the music this time. We
got a lot of things to talk about, and so
let's get on to it. First of all, I wanted
to talk to you a little bit about some of
the quality products that Nilson Plant Food has to offer.
You know, people often will call and say, well, what's
a good fertilizer for you know fill in the blank. Well,

(01:58:22):
my answer is, I don't know. Ask Nelson. They've got
fertilizers for everything hibiscus and flowering tropicals. That's one of
their nutri Star fertilizer lines. Comes in a jar a jug, which,
by the way, their jugs can be refilled at certain
places that have the low refill stations. And if you
don't know what a refill station is. You've been in
a grocery store and you see that wall of little

(01:58:43):
things where you pull the handle down and it gives
you peanuts or whatever your you know whatever kind of
deal snacks. Well, that's what it's like, except that's got
Nelson fertilizer in it. They've also got an indoor plant
nutri Star. They they have some really quality stuff for
outdoor trees and shrubs. The nutrient Star tree and shrub
is very very good. Nelson Plant Food makes quality products,

(01:59:05):
that quality products that put the nutrients your plants need
in the ground and in the case of nitrogen, releasing
them over a period of time in many cases so
that you get a continual, gradual feeding of the plant.
That's how plants eat, that's how the fertilizer releases gets
it in the ground. I would encourage you to do that.
And one of the best, one of the best coolest

(01:59:27):
things that kind of new to me over the last
five years as seeing these little refill stations everywhere. So
you don't waste money on plastic, and you even save
money on fertilizer when you refill those things. Just another
good deal, another reason to go with Nelson's products. I'm
going to head back to Katie now, Jennis, I found

(01:59:47):
what we're looking for, and I think I had sent you, sir,
I sent you a reply to your email back. This
was a good while back. But anyway, what that was
a red bud tree right blooms in the spring. Okay,
so that tree, there's nothing you need to worry about
right now. I know it looks bad, but it's got

(02:00:09):
lots of green leaves on it that are producing carbohydrates,
and it's going to set bloom buds and it's going
to bloom beautiful next spring. You had some old caterpillar
damage and they have moved on. And if you look
whenever you see a leaf that's been chewed, if you
get up in the morning and you go out and
look at it, if it was a caterpillar that was feeding,
you know, during the night or whatever, you would see

(02:00:31):
fresh cuts on those leaves. But where you see the
little brown edge around where the feeding has been done,
it means it was done days ago. And now that
edge has dried and turned brown. And so that's why
I'm thinking there aren't any check it over. But the
culprit's going to be a caterpillar if they're still around,
and if you find if you find one sprays a

(02:00:53):
b T B as in boy Tea is in tom
bt BT will control them. I'm going to put my
money in the basket that says you don't need to
worry about it. They're long gone. Some bird ate them,
some wasp carried them away. Those paper wasp beat caterpillars
all day, so who knows, they probably went in there

(02:01:13):
and cleaned them up for you.

Speaker 20 (02:01:15):
Oh okay, so I just just ignored. Next year, it'll
blow them as it normally does later this year.

Speaker 1 (02:01:24):
Yes, And I know we get all nervous when we
see holes in leaves and brown spots and things like that,
and that's natural. But the bottom line is trees do
not and plants do not need all their leaves to
be able to succeed and do well. And so a
little bit of damage here and there, while we don't
like the look of it, it's no cause for alarm.
You don't need to go spend money and spend Saturday

(02:01:46):
afternoons spray and stuff.

Speaker 20 (02:01:48):
Oh great, because this is the first year this has
ever happened. I've had the tree about seven years and
it looked like it was like a spider web at
one point on their Okay, it was.

Speaker 1 (02:02:01):
It was that particular. If you saw that, that is
the fall webworm. The fall webworm. Now they'll be coming
back to one degree or another. That this is usually
when we see them coming back. But if you see
the spiderwebs, you can just take a strong blast of
water and blast those thing open and squirt them in

(02:02:22):
the face with a little bt Let them eat that
and it'll get them too.

Speaker 11 (02:02:26):
Okay, oh great, okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (02:02:29):
All right, Jenny's thank you for the call. All Right, folks,
we got a little bit of room here on the
phones if you'd like to give a skull seven one
three two one two kt r H seven one three
two one two kt r H. I want to remind
you this weekend listen, if you are anywhere in the
northwest quadron of the Houston area, you need to run

(02:02:51):
down to the Ace Hardware store at Barker Cypress and
FM five twenty nine. Barker Cypress and FM five twenty
nine right on the edge of the Copperfield neighborhood over
there Langham Creek. Ace Hardware. This is their grand reopening.
I was there this spring. We had a great time
at an event out there, and they kind of said, well,
they told me, then they go, we're going to be

(02:03:13):
kind of closing down here a little bit, getting it
redone and having a grand reopening. So they got all
that work done. I mean, they didn't completely shut down,
but boy it is. They're having a party out there.
Yesterday they gave away an Eggo power string turmer two
undred and fifty dollars value. Today they're giving away a
Weber Spirit to gas grill four hundred and fifty dollars value.

(02:03:35):
They're doing demonstrations on the Big Green Egg and the
Gosny pizza oven, the best one of the top pizza
ovens on the market. You got to see that thing.
If you need any kind of steel power equipment, fifteen
percent off today only at Langham Creek Ace Hardware at
the corner of Barker, Cyprus and FM five twenty nine

(02:03:55):
Northwest Houston. Fifteen percent off today only. Don't go tomorrow
and look for that deal. It's today. Tomorrow they'll be
doing a giving away a painting room makeover two hundred
dollars value and doing a demo on trigger grills another
great grill. Ace Hardware always carries lots of good grills.
You know, if you need an ACE Hardware in your area,
you just have to go to acehardware dot Com find

(02:04:16):
the store locator, and there's forty of them to choose
from in the greater Houston area. I'm going to head
now out to Spring, Texas, and we're going to talk
to Carl. Hello, Carl, Hi, Skip, How are you doing
this this morning? I'm good, I'm good. How can we
help you before I have to go to a break here?
I'm sorry.

Speaker 17 (02:04:35):
I've got an oak tree that's about a foot around
in diameter and it's losing its bark in chunks. Got
one piece that's about palm size and another that's about
double the size of your hand.

Speaker 1 (02:04:49):
The diameter of the tree is what did you say,
it's about twelve inches. Are those bark chunks coming off
on the south west side of the tree, Yes, it is, Okay,
that's old coal damage that occurred from just a freezing

(02:05:11):
temperature when the bark had warmed up a little bit
and it got that damage. The tree is now healing
that area back over and the loose barks coming off
just pull off the loose bark so that interior wood
dries out real quick after it gets wet, and it
should be okay. Make sure you give them adequate fertilizer
and what it needs. I really have to run here,

(02:05:32):
but I just wanted to get you that answer. Just
fertilize and water and I think it'll be okay. All right, folks,
I got a break for the news here and I'll
be right back. If you are dealing with insects in
the lawn that could be chinchbugs, that could be the
fall not the fall web worm, side web worm, that's
the one that gets in the grass. You never know
every year where it's going to be a bad side

(02:05:54):
web worm year or not. But if it is, night
Fross Bugout Max has got you covered. It kills over
one hundred and thirty different kinds of insects within forty
eight hours. It's done its work and it lasts. It's
six round, so it's going to give you a number
of weeks through really through that season of control. Nitro
Foss Bugout Max is easy to find. You can go
up to the Arborgate in Tomball. You're going to go

(02:06:16):
down to shades of Texas on Genoa Red Bluff in
South Houston, or maybe out to plants and things out
in Brunham, all places among many places where you're gonna
find nitrofoss products like bug Out Max. I want to
heading out of the phones. We're going to go up
to Humble and talk to Bernie. Hello, Bernie, welcome to gardenline.

Speaker 10 (02:06:33):
Hello, Yeah, theys take my call.

Speaker 22 (02:06:39):
I have an evergreen tree I planted a couple of
years ago, and it's been growing well. But all of
a sudden, it start turning brown and ask completely brown,
and I don't know what would have happened to it.

Speaker 1 (02:06:51):
Do you know anything about what kind it is? By
any chance?

Speaker 4 (02:06:56):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (02:06:57):
No, I really don't.

Speaker 1 (02:07:00):
Let me. Let me ask you this. Does it have larger,
you know, broad leaves, flat leaves like most plants do,
or is it more like a cedar or a juniper planet?

Speaker 6 (02:07:11):
Yes, it's more like a cedar.

Speaker 1 (02:07:14):
Okay, good. So those plants can only put new shoots
out where they have green leaves. They have a scaly
like leaf. It's sometimes called a needle, but it's a
scally like leaf. And if those die, that shoot can't
reach sprout like it would on most other plants. So
any branches on that tree or shrub that are brown,

(02:07:38):
it's it's just going to go away. I mean, it's
never going to come back. So if you want to
give it a little more time to be sure, you can.
But I think you need to look at that tree
and imagine it without all the limbs that don't have
a green needle on them, And that is going to
be the decision. Do I want to go ahead and
pull it up because that's too ugly, or do I
want to leave it and live with it?

Speaker 2 (02:08:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (02:08:01):
That the way it looks now, it looks like it
needs to be pulled up. I don't know what it
all to die, but it just it's gone.

Speaker 14 (02:08:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
We lost a lot of those during last year's hot,
hot summer and drought outright kills some partially killed others
and weakened some others that had started to continue to
die this year. Uh, And it's just, you know, just
too much of stress on that particular plant. But they're
tough plants, but one day hit that point where the

(02:08:32):
needles turn brown, that branch, or if the whole plants brown,
the whole plant is lost, all right, Bernie. Sorry to
be the bearer of bad news. But uh, the only
other thing will be wait and watch a little bit.
And maybe the plant proved me to be a liar,
but I don't. I would bet my ys take the case. Sir,
Thank you, thank you very much. We're going to go

(02:08:54):
now to Mark in Cyprus. Hey, Mark, how can we help?

Speaker 6 (02:08:58):
Hey, good morning, thanks for taking my call. I don't
dug what they call a vertical drain. I got a
low spot in my yard, and I think I dug
about eighteen inches in or down.

Speaker 23 (02:09:09):
It seemed like it worked, but I don't know if
I dug like further, like far enough down?

Speaker 6 (02:09:15):
Do you have any recommendations?

Speaker 1 (02:09:18):
Well, a vertical drain doesn't hold a whole lot of
water because it's just a hole, right, Are you talking
about a trench that leads off somewhere else.

Speaker 23 (02:09:26):
No, I dug about eighteen inches and I lined it
with that like fiber, like that yard fiber. I don't
know what it's called. Then I put okay, some some
gravel not gravel, but you know, rock.

Speaker 6 (02:09:38):
Rock in it. And then I put like one grates
over it. So it worked. But yeah, you know, I
just don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:09:46):
How well it holds a little bit of water. But
you know, when you start looking at the amount of
water that can run off, you may be looking at
hundreds of gallons of water that could potentially run to
that area. I don't know. I'm not there at your site,
but so partially effective. Normally, what's done is either a

(02:10:11):
subsurface drain sideways pipe is put in through the ground
like a sewer line, except it's going to work backwards.
It's going to bring water in and drain it away
to a lower area. That's called a French drain. Or
you can create that pit like what you described and
have a sump pump in it that when it gets
water in it, the pump kicks on and a pipe

(02:10:32):
takes the water off somewhere else. That can also be
underground so you don't see it. But so either a
natural gravity drain to a lower spot, or like a
pit with a sump pump in it, to a lower
spot and they make containers you sink in the ground
that the water it goes through the grade, it goes
into the container, and then when water gets in there,

(02:10:54):
the pump kicks on just like a sump pump would
normally work. Those are your two options for going past
what you've already done.

Speaker 6 (02:11:01):
Okay, I appreciate it, sir.

Speaker 1 (02:11:04):
You met, thanks for the call. Mark. I appreciate appreciate
that lot. And by the way, folks, Piercecapes does this
kind of work. Pierscapes is a landscape company. They do
all kinds of things. They'll fix you irrigation system it's
got problems. Do you want landscape lighting? Do you want
hard scapes? You know, beautiful outdoor, a patio area with
a stone barbecue pit, enclosure kind of thing. They do

(02:11:28):
all of that, but they also do drainage work. And
here in Houston, where we have clay sools and it
rains a lot, most years, we end up with these
areas that stay two wet, you know, just like Andy's
having to deal with out there, and Piercecapes can come out.
They've got all the equipment to do it right, to
make it work, and I would encourage you to get
them a call. You can go to the website. It's

(02:11:49):
Piercescapes dot com, Pierce Scapes dot com, or you can
call them two eight one three seven o five zero
six zero two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty.
We're going to go now to the woodlands and talk
to Matt. Hey, Matt, welcome to Gardline.

Speaker 15 (02:12:08):
Hey, good morning, Skip, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 4 (02:12:11):
Went down the spring Guardens nursery.

Speaker 15 (02:12:14):
The other day and bought a real red grapefruit in
a Miho satsuma. They were in two gallon containers. We
transplanted them into twenty gallon containers that they still have
the support steaks. And I was listening to your show
earlier and a couple weeks ago, maybe in you mentioned

(02:12:36):
that the wind helped strengthen the root system and all
that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:12:42):
I was wondering when I could pull those those steaks
off of those plants.

Speaker 1 (02:12:47):
You can do it kind of when you want, And
it's actually the stems that it strengthens whenever. You know,
there's a principle in nature that, Matt, when do you
stress something that's living, it gets stronger. You know, you
go to the gym and you work your muscles out
and so we you can hardly lift your arms up,
and you do that week after week, and your muscles
get stronger. Well, the same thing happens to a tree

(02:13:10):
branch or trunk. When the wind bends and stresses it,
it just gets more lignant and it gets stronger.

Speaker 11 (02:13:17):
And so.

Speaker 1 (02:13:19):
I don't see the tree that you have. I'm not
there looking at it. But could you could give it
a little looser wrap where it can move a little bit,
just so you don't take the steak away if it's
a little if it's a little skinny, scrawny, you know, branch,
I might not want to take it off just suddenly,
and it may just kind of break or something. But

(02:13:41):
just take a look at it and get a feel
for it. If you think it's strong enough to hold
on its own, take the steak out. If you want
to leave it for a while, that's fine. Just allow
it to move a little bit. Just move in a
little bit, is all. It takes a little bit. Yeah,
And by the way, Miho's one you can I've seen
satsuma's in half whiskey barrel size containers and you can

(02:14:02):
grow them in that. They do want to get bigger
than that, but you can do that. The grape root
may be a little more of a challenge to keeping
a really small container because it's an even bigger stature
tree in nature, but you can give it a try.
Maybe at some point you have to you have to
move it out of the ground. Just just keep an
eye on it.

Speaker 4 (02:14:21):
No, I appreciate that, Skip, Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (02:14:24):
All right, Matt, take care. Thanks for the call. Appreciate
that very much. Let's see here. We're going to go
now to Andy in spring. Hey, Andy, welcome to guardline.

Speaker 4 (02:14:35):
Hey, thanks, Kip.

Speaker 14 (02:14:37):
Is it too late to plant a second crop of
tomatoes for a fall harvest?

Speaker 1 (02:14:43):
We're on the line. Normally I would get it done
before now, so it has time for those plants to
grow to a good size. So you can have more
of a tomato harvest if you did it now and
you had a tomato that was very quick to harvest,
not something like a brandywine that takes a days to
get there, but something like, I don't know, something that's

(02:15:04):
going to be more of a seventy five or seventy
two or even shorter day to harvest variety. You might
get some from it. You have to do a little
bit of protecting it if we have a little bit
of a frost and keep it going. But here's the
thing about tomatoes. As we go into fall and the
nights get cooler and cooler, the growth slows down, so
that you know, I say sixty days to harvest in

(02:15:25):
you and think, well, I got sixty days before the
first freeze. But it's going to slow down, so it's
going to take even longer than that normal time that
it would take because it's getting cooler and cooler on it.
So it's a little bit of a roll of the dice.
If you're determined to give it a try, I wouldn't
talk you out of it, but in general I try
to get that done a little bit earlier. All right, Well,

(02:15:47):
thanks so much, Skip, take care, thank you. Let me
let me Yeah, you bet, Thanks Andy, I appreciate I
appreciate your call very much. All right, folks, Ana Plants
and Produce up in Montgomery. That is the place to
go for all of you up there in the Montgomery area,
the Lake Conroe area, really all those neighborhoods around Lake Conroe.

(02:16:08):
This is your backyard garden center.

Speaker 19 (02:16:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:16:11):
A and A has been providing high quality and great selection,
outstanding selection of all kinds of things for a long
long time. This operation has been going on for a
good while. And you know, those of you who drive by,
I used to drive by all the time, and I
was living in the Conroe Willis area, and I don't

(02:16:33):
always see it, and just over the years watching it
develop and grow, it is just so cool. There's always
something going on out there, by the way. Right now
Friday and Saturday and Sunday. This is Saturday of the sale.
Three days sale going on. Twenty five percent off all
their bagged products. That includes and they have the whole

(02:16:53):
selection of garden line fertilizer, they got nitroposs, they got Microlife,
you know, they have the Nelson's Turf Star line, the
Ladybug stuff. They got the Heirloom soils and Landscaper's Pride
mixes too. They got azamite there. Yeah, they've got it all.
So I'm telling you they got all. So you want
to get the brown stuff right swing by a na
Plants and produce right now today or tomorrow. Twenty five

(02:17:16):
percent off all bag product, so don't delay. They're out
there on the east side of Montgomery on one oh
five and it's just a hop, skipping or jump for
all of you folks that are out in the beautiful
Lake Conroe area, by the way, that is a gorgeous,
gorgeous area out there. Let's see here, we are going

(02:17:36):
to go to Valdo and Pasadena. Valdo, I'm going to
have about thirty seconds here before I have to go
to break, But can you just give me the initial
question and then we'll come back to it.

Speaker 5 (02:17:47):
Yeah, So I have a maple tree. I put in
a couple of years back, thirty gallons, and it was
doing great. Then a real strong, strong windstorm came through
and broke it, and it broke out the right at
the top. Anyhow, that's where we're at. And then I'll
wait when you come back and finish the.

Speaker 9 (02:18:05):
Rest of it.

Speaker 1 (02:18:06):
All right, you take care, I'll be right back. You'll
be the first stup when I come back. Folks, is
time for news break. We'll be right back. Did you
have you back on garden line. We're going to go
straight back out to Valdo and Pasadena. Hey, Valdo, we
were talking about your tree and when how long has
it been in the ground, Like months years it's.

Speaker 2 (02:18:24):
Been in the ground.

Speaker 5 (02:18:25):
Yeah, it's been in the ground for It was thirty gallons.

Speaker 1 (02:18:28):
I put it in in twenty twenty.

Speaker 5 (02:18:31):
Two and it was a thirty gallon maple. Some wind
came through Pasadena, a really strong wind, and it broke it,
leaving me about a two foot you know, two foot left,
and so I basically didn't do anything with it. I
just took what was broken, took it off, and I
left it in the ground. Well, sure enough, we're here

(02:18:53):
today and it's branched off like a bush. So it
now the middle is still damaged, and you can see
where it's split, but it's like branched off, and it's
it's it looks like a bush now. So my question is,
outside of the aesthetics, do I leave it in there?
Or should I take it out?

Speaker 6 (02:19:10):
Is it how?

Speaker 11 (02:19:12):
You know, it's kind of what I'm wondering, But it's blooming.

Speaker 1 (02:19:14):
If it were yeah, if it were mine, i'd take
it out and put a new one in. I think
overall that's the simplest and the best long term. If
you were trying to keep it, the way you would
do that is you would cut everything off except a
very upright shoot coming out of it. Anything upright coming
out of it. Cut off the trunk right above that
about an answer above that, and then in time that

(02:19:39):
would become the new trunk. But in the meantime you're
going to be taking away other branches and shoots from that,
pruning and whatnot. And it's really set back. So again,
going back to my first answer, I would replace it
if it were mine. Okay, sounds good.

Speaker 5 (02:19:55):
I never thought again, I thought it was going to
be done.

Speaker 6 (02:19:57):
But apparently, yeah, it's bloomed like crazy. All right, I
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (02:20:01):
Yeah, yes, sir, apparently I had a will to live.
Let's go out to Parallel now and talk to Mark. Hey, Mark,
welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 12 (02:20:09):
Hey man, I am sitting here at the ground up
and I'm ready to get some two year old leap
polst composts. I just aerated my grass yesterday and a
beautiful day to do it. And if one of what
else should I drop in there?

Speaker 11 (02:20:19):
That might be good for my lawn.

Speaker 12 (02:20:20):
I had some bug damage and some fungus damage and
it's coming back.

Speaker 11 (02:20:23):
But I'm throwing down.

Speaker 12 (02:20:24):
I'm throwing down some two year old leap polst compost today.
What else do you get to drop in there? Since
I just did it so that just erated, I would.

Speaker 1 (02:20:33):
Oh, you've done the aerration. You put the compost on,
rake it around a little bit. Make sure it's a
very finally ground compost, not anything chunky, because you want
it to some of it at least to fall down
in those holes. And then I'd wait, we're coming up
on fall fertilization season, and that's not far away, about
a month away, and so let's just hold on and

(02:20:54):
then the next thing you do is that fall fertilizer.
And if you go online to my website Gardening with
Skip dot com, that's where the schedule is and it
tells you when and what.

Speaker 7 (02:21:03):
Got it?

Speaker 4 (02:21:04):
Okay, perfect, all right, thanks, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:21:07):
Good luck with that lawn getting it back in shape.
Appreciate that. You know, one of the quality of fertilizer
blends that are out there is Microlife. You know, Microlife
has a wide variety of things for the lawn. Typically
through the summer, we put on the green bag. We'll
be putting on the brown patch here pretty soon. That's
the brown bag that's designed for fall fertilization. And so

(02:21:29):
that's coming. But I want to talk a little bit
about some of the other great products that Microlife has
some outstanding liquid products, and they don't talk about those enough,
so I just kind of will mention those a little bit.
Microlife has one called Soil and Plant Energy. Now that
is not a fertilizer, that is something to think of
it as food for the microbes. And that is one.

(02:21:51):
It's got over sixty three minerals in it. By the way,
good good simulation of the root system. So drench it
in whenever you're going to plant a plant. And by
the way, it fall, and I hope you're planning on
planting a plant. Falls the best planting season of the year.
Mix up some of the Microlife liquid energy. That's kind
of a I got somebody. I gotta get somebody who
knows colors to tell me what color this is. It's

(02:22:12):
kind of a pink, kind of a periwinkle. I don't know.
It's some I'm gonna quit. I'm I'm saying something I
know nothing about. And that's the names of all these colors.
But anyway, that's the bottle. It's cork bottle. You can
get in a gallon two and mix it up and
put it in together. I also like a lot Microlife's Biomatrix.

(02:22:33):
It's a seven to one to three fertilizer that'll give
any plant you have growing a boost. You can use
both of these foliar feet too, by the way, that
you want. But when you provide these kinds of products
for the soil. It's not just the nutrients and them,
it's the addition of microbial life. It's the addition of
the things that stimulate root growth, that help the soil

(02:22:56):
to be a better structure, to help it to form well,
to help the roots to get off and get started.
And that's the main thing. We've got to get those
roots off to a good start. Good start on the roots,
get them off to a good start, and you're gonna
have success. And you're about to be putting perennials, ornamental grasses, shrubs, trees,
woody vines, lots of things are going to be going

(02:23:18):
on the ground this fall. And when they go in,
they need to be watered in like this to get
them off to a good start. I like to jokingly say,
you want them to hit the ground running, Just don't
hold your head above the plant because it may take
off growing so fast it hits you in the chin.
Wouldn't it be good? Wouldn't it be nice if plants
grew that fast. By the way, those products are off
of Microlife, and you can go to Microlife furlizer dot

(02:23:39):
com if you want to learn more about them. They're
widely widely available. Yeah, wouldn't it be great if plants
took off growing that fast? I always say when you
plant a tree, you know, my question when I plant
a tree is how soon can I hang a hammock
in it? In other words, how do I get that
thing up to where it's a tree and not just
a broomstick out there in the yard. Well, take care

(02:23:59):
of it, provide good soil, provide these good products when
you plant them, and then continue to feed gradually over time,
and it does well. You're listening to garden Line. Our
phone number is seven to one three two one two
five eight seven four R seven one three two one
two KTRH. It's another way you go about it. KTR

(02:24:23):
makes it easy to dial in. We got oh, We're
about to go to a little breaker in a couple
of minutes and then we'll enter our last segment of
the morning. If you got any questions today, and i'd
be a good time to ask, We'll be back tomorrow morning.
Remember that garden Line is here every Saturday and Sunday
from six am to ten am. If you're just choosing in,

(02:24:44):
if you're just tuning in, welcome. We're glad to have you.
Tell your friends and neighbors about it. I don't care
if they live here or not. We've got people that
listen to garden Line from other states that they listen online.
By the way, you can listen on your old radio,
the old t way. We listen to a lot of
things right still around. You can also listen online on

(02:25:05):
your computer, go to the website, or if you like,
you can go I said to call in, and I
just watched the boards light up like a Christmas tree.
Oh my god. Okay. You can also listen on your phone,
and that's how I listened to a lot of things.

Speaker 6 (02:25:20):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:25:20):
With the iHeartMedia Past podcast app, you can listen to
live radio. But you can also listen to podcasts, which
garden Line is available like that too, So either way
you go about it, you can listen to garden A
lot of gardeners turn that phone upside down in their pockets,
so the speaker's pointing up and they just take off
and listen while they're doing their morning gardening chores. We'll

(02:25:41):
take a break, we'll be right back. Boy did you respond?
So here we go. We're going to head out to
New Caney and talk to John. Now, Hey John, Hey,
how you doing.

Speaker 24 (02:25:52):
I got these two paar trees that I've had for
fifteen years, and they just make tons and tons of pairs,
and one of them bit the dust. So well, I'm
thinking I've tried planting pairs and they don't grow.

Speaker 1 (02:26:04):
I'm thinking I need to just go buy a new one.

Speaker 24 (02:26:07):
But I need to know where to go buy one,
and how I can make sure I'm getting the same
variety as the one I've already got, if there even
are different varieties.

Speaker 1 (02:26:17):
There are many different varieties, and pairs do best if
you have some cross pollinating. There are a few that
will pollinate themselves, but in general it's better to have
two different varieties. When you do that, I don't know
how to tell you which one you have. The shape
it can affect that you can depending on the shape
of the pair. I could give a guess as to

(02:26:37):
what variety you have, but that'd be about as good
as I can get. You're out a new canny. You're
not too far away from Kingwood over Warren's Garden Center
there in Kingwood would be a place to go. I
would call them first and say, do you guys have
pairs in stock? I know they will by the end
of the winter time, but they may have some now
as well. But you can eed the plant. You can
plant something now. The best time to plant is in

(02:26:59):
fall or in late winter. And so that that is
how I would go about it. Uh well, if possible,
go ahead.

Speaker 11 (02:27:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 24 (02:27:08):
The only reason I was concerned about the variety is
so they would cross pollinate. So if it doesn't matter
regarding the cross pollination, I can just get any kind
of par tree right.

Speaker 1 (02:27:20):
Well, if they if they bloom at the same time
and they're not genetically not the same variety, they'll cross pollinate.
But if if it is the same variety, it may
or may not pollinate itself, which is basically, even though
it's two trees, if it's the same variety, it's like
pollinated itself. It's the same same difference. So they may

(02:27:41):
or not may not do that. But I can't guess
as to which one you currently have. But anyway that
hopefully that will That's the best advice I can give
you at this point with as much as we know
right now, I think I'll just get any old par
tree and see what happens. Sounds like a plan. Good
luck with it. You can always use more pairs right.

Speaker 24 (02:28:04):
Oh brandy wine. Yeah, I gotta still I make brandy.

Speaker 6 (02:28:10):
I make wine from him.

Speaker 1 (02:28:12):
It's bush. Oh wow. Well you know normally I say
bring half the produce to the to the radio station.
We will accept that product as well. Take care of John,
stay out of trouble. We're gonna go to Texas City
now and talk to Brian. Hey, Brian, Hey, good morning, Skip.

Speaker 17 (02:28:32):
How are you, sir?

Speaker 1 (02:28:33):
I'm good, sir. How can we help? Just a real
quick question.

Speaker 24 (02:28:37):
I'm trying to get rid of an overgrown corner of
bamboo in.

Speaker 11 (02:28:41):
My car other than a shovel and a good act.

Speaker 1 (02:28:47):
Any suggestions, yes, yes, When the new shoots are coming
up out of the ground, Uh, you want to treat
those with either a grass only killer. There's a couple
of products like that, or you want to or you
want to use something that contains a glyphosate which used
to be called round up. The stuff called round up
RW in the garden center is not glyphosate, So either

(02:29:08):
one of those. If you go online to my website
Gardening with Skip, I have a instructions on how to
build a weed wiper which would allow you to treat bamboo.
If you don't want to spray it. Maybe your spray
would get on something you care about. The weed wiper
is a way to do it. But even if you
don't do the weed wiper way, you can go online

(02:29:30):
and there's a list of herbicides for the weed wiper.
And if you look under grass grass killers, it has
a list of the different ingredients that will kill grass.
And Brent Bamboo's a grass excellent.

Speaker 6 (02:29:42):
I will give that a look.

Speaker 11 (02:29:43):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (02:29:45):
All right, you take care, Thanks for the call. Appreciate that. Okay,
let's see we are now going to head out to Connie.
Hello Connie, Welcome to garden Line. Hi, Hi, how could
we help?

Speaker 15 (02:29:59):
Okay?

Speaker 16 (02:29:59):
So, so I lost two trees in the in the
freeze last winter, and I kept thinking they would come back,
but they didn't. So the mountains that the trees were
in are completely overtaken with ants. So I need to
plant two new trees. But I don't want to kill

(02:30:24):
the ants if it's going to kill the future trees
that I plant too, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (02:30:29):
So what do I know with that? I would say
the ants aren't a concern. Do you feel like they're
like carpenter ants that are going into the old wood
of the tree that died.

Speaker 16 (02:30:39):
Or or I don't know one of the trees. All
three we have three, and all three of them we
thought were dead, and one of them came back.

Speaker 1 (02:30:49):
That's why I thought the other two may come back.
And but are the ants on the tree trunks?

Speaker 2 (02:30:57):
Pardon?

Speaker 1 (02:30:58):
Are they are the ants on the growth the tree
trunk or the tree that's coming back, or are they
done in the soil?

Speaker 7 (02:31:04):
They're the soil?

Speaker 1 (02:31:06):
Okay?

Speaker 17 (02:31:07):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:31:07):
You know how big a fire ant is, right, Yeah,
I honestly don't.

Speaker 16 (02:31:16):
I'll look again whenever I go home today.

Speaker 11 (02:31:18):
But I don't know.

Speaker 16 (02:31:20):
I just know that there's it's it's like a huge colony.

Speaker 7 (02:31:23):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (02:31:24):
Okay. Well, if there's something about the size of a
fire ant or smaller, uh, that's probably fire ants. But
if it's like four times that big, it might be
a carpenter ant, and that would be one you probably
would want to treat. You could, you could deal with.
But if it's small, I would ignore them. Go ahead
and plant, do what you want to do. It's not
gonna be a problem.

Speaker 16 (02:31:44):
So don't kill the ants.

Speaker 1 (02:31:48):
I would not unless they're really large ants, very large.
That might be a.

Speaker 16 (02:31:53):
Cause they're not gonna. They're not going to like kill
a new tree being planted right at Absolutely not awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:32:02):
That's what I needed.

Speaker 1 (02:32:03):
Thank you, all right, you bet, you bet, take care.
Let's here. We're gonna now. Run out to Katie and
talk to Catherine. Hey, Catherine, welcome to guard Are you?
Thank you? Well? Thank you? Okay.

Speaker 25 (02:32:18):
So I have a main cando that I have had,
and I have moved it from house to house to house.
I've moved a few times. It's been in ground and
in a pot, and right now it's in ground. It's
done a little well, worried him.

Speaker 11 (02:32:28):
Now.

Speaker 25 (02:32:29):
Last year FROs down and I cut it back because
everything looks like it was closed. It came back, but
this year the league it's kind of a yellow green
with like black brown spots on them, and it's covered
and it's like power, not powdery. It is like fuzz
like yellow white brown and a few flowers out of
it first and the flower and then y'all fall died.

(02:32:51):
And it only had it happened a couple of times.

Speaker 9 (02:32:53):
I just was wondering what it was and have I
lost my plant forever?

Speaker 1 (02:32:59):
Well, if slantana, you might be looking at a meatly
bug or something like that that's out there on it.
It's probably not powdery.

Speaker 25 (02:33:05):
You'll do bugs on it a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:33:09):
But yeah, you know, Catherine, one thing I hate to
do is send people out to buy chemicals and spray
them when we don't know what we're going after for sure.
Why do we do this? You take some pictures of
it as close as you can get, make sure they're
in very sharp focus. The closer you can get in
the better. Show me the whole plant, show me the
leaves that you're describing as the color, and then show

(02:33:32):
me is the white stuff as close as you can
get to it. I'm going to put you on hold. Chris,
my producer, will give you an email. Send me those pictures.
Let's take a look at them. It may be that
nothing needs to be done. And on the other hand,
that way, if something does need to be done, I
send you in the right direction. Rather than waste some
time and money, it needless spray all right, you bet.

(02:33:53):
I'm going to put you on hold and Chris will
pick you right up. Wow, Well, this morning I went fast.
I don't know if we went fast for you, be
sure went fast for me. This morning. We're about out
of time here on garden Line for the day. I
will be back in the morning six am in the morning.
Just a little tip, this is how it often goes
at the end. We got so many calls. If you

(02:34:15):
want to call me first thing in the morning, it's
a lot quieter right then, and you won't stress the
host of garden Line as much by filling up the
boards when I'm trying to walk in two gum At
the same time, I want to remind you I'm going
to be at the Montgomery County Fall Home and Outdoor
Living Show next weekend. Next weekend, the show is Saturday
and Sunday, the seventh and eighth. I'll be there on

(02:34:37):
Saturday after garden Line. I'll head that way from noon
to two. I'm going to be getting to talking fall gardening.
I'm going to be answering your gardening questions. And also
we'll have some free giveaways from micro Life Fertilizers. You
don't want to miss that. And most of all, we're
just going to have a really good time. That's always
a great show to go. There's that love going up
there and doing that. If you listen where up in

(02:35:00):
the northern areas of the listening area. Come on out,
love to meet you if you want to bring me samples.
You know, we're just talking there with Connie about or
not Conny anyway, talking about the lantana and the little
bitty bugs that are on it. Throw that in a
ziplock bags, zip it up and bring it up there.
If you've got a picture, some good quality pictures. Remember

(02:35:22):
that the diagnosis or identification is only as good as
a photo. Give me a fuzzy photo. I'll give you
a fuzzy answer, and I don't want it. Mongemmy Canyon
Home and Garden Show Next Saturday, drawled the two. Come on,
maybe you'll win a micro Life giveaway