Hello Summer

Skip answers listeners' phone calls all morning.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Kat r H Garden Line does notnecessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome toKatie r H Garden Line with Skimp Richter's
trim. Just watch him as tellus so many things to see boys back

(00:34):
again not a sign. Well,good Sunday morning. Welcome to Garden Line.
We are glad you're listening today.I hope you got a cup of
coffee or tea or something to kindof open one or preferably both eyes by
this time. We're here to doa little bit of garden talk with you

(00:57):
today. What are your questions,what are you interested in? What are
the topics that I guess that driveyou when it comes to gardening. You
know, we have some gardeners thatare into herbs, and gardeners that are
into flowers and trees and shrubs,and almost everybody, it seems like these
days, is a lawn ranger.You got to have that beautiful lawn turf,

(01:17):
Well, we can help you withthat too, got issues with trees.
That's what we're here for. Basically, it's a call in show,
So I'll try to do my job. You do your seven one three two
one two K t R eight sevenone three two one two k t r
H. So what are we gonnatalk about? First of all, you
need to look out the door,look out the window or your neighbor's lights

(01:38):
on. If they're not, gobang on the door. Tell them they're
missing garden line. For crying outloud, get up, you're missing garden
line. They will rise up thismorning and call you blessed. They may
call you something else this morning,but eventually they will be very grateful that
you turned them on the garden line. Oh boy, I can hear the
yelling from across town right now.All right, well, what are we
going to talk about? First?I want to talk a little bit about

(02:00):
turf some of the issues that wesee in lawns this time of the year.
Now you've heard me talk about myschedules that are online. They are
free to download at gardeningwiskip dot com. One of them is the lawn Care
Schedule, and it tells you aboutmowing, watering, fertilizing, air raiding,

(02:21):
tells you what to do when Someof the products that I would suggest
you consider because they are top notchproducts. Whether you're gardening organically or synthetically,
there are options there on the schedulefor you. The second schedule is
the lawn pest, disease and weedmanagement schedule. So that's basically I call
that the what goes wrong schedule?When do chinchbugs show up? When do

(02:45):
grubs? When should we treat forgrubs? When do we look for sod
webworms? If you've got large patchor brown patch or take all root rod
or gray leaf spot, when doyou expect to see those? When do
you prevent weeds with a pre emergent? When do you kill that are already
up that you're having to deal with? And what are the examples of products
and timing and everything that's you use. It's all on there. It's really

(03:07):
makes it really easy to do.It's color coded. I suggest you print
one out and have it and whenyou go get fertilizer, just take it
with you and just point at theone you're looking for and the people at
the store can take you right toit. I think that's helpful. We
are on the cusp of the officialsummer month of June. Actually May,
in my book, starts the summerseason. If you don't believe me,

(03:30):
just hang outside this week a littlebit, and we're still in May,
but in June is when we beginto keep our eyes out for chinchbugs and
soid web worms. Now, it'searly for chinchbugs to occur in June,
they can, though they can.Typically chinchbugs are worse as we get later
in the summer when we get intoAugust, even early September, that we

(03:53):
can have some pretty serious chinchbug problemsgoing on, and then they as we
get into September, they kind ofpaper off quite a bit. But just
because they're on the schedule doesn't meanyou have to treat every year. You
just watch for them, learn whatthey look like. I'll have some stuff
online to help you with that helpidentify them. But I'm just kind of
heads up we're entering that season andsideweb worms typically come later in the summer.

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But again, you know, naturedoes what nature wants to do,
so we just have to keep oureyes open for it. Grubs Grubs are
another issue. Now. Grubs webegin treating in June, and I'm going
to explain real briefly why that is. It's do you remember the things we
call jumbugs flying around by the backporch light. You see him flying around

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in the evening June bugs, littlebrown beetles, brown black beetles, well,
those particular beetles are mating and theylay eggs and the eggs hatch out
into tiny little grubs, tiny grubs, and then the grubs go down below
the surface just a little bit andthey feed there. And then as the
weather heats up and the grubs getbigger, they go through what's called in

(05:00):
stars. They become a bigger anda bigger and a bigger grub. As
they go down, they move downa little lower because they're so hot up
on top and there's good, dependablemoisture down below, but they're feeding on
our roots. Well. Once theymove down, it's harder to get a
pesticide to them because they're down inthe soil deeper. So what we do
is we treat for them in June. June is the time to put out

(05:20):
your treatment for grubs, and thatcatches the young, small, more susceptible
grubs right there at the surface.It's the best time to catch them if
you've got an ongoing grub problem.And then later on, if you look
at my schedule, there's a treatmentfor July and August. It doesn't have
to be both months, but oneof those months you can treat for older

(05:42):
grubs, but that's a different product. We use one that moves down in
the soil a little bit better toreach those that are down below. So
I'm just explaining to you what's onthe schedule. Print it out and take
a look at it. It's agardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with
Skip dot Com. We're going togo to the phones now and we're going
to head to Friends would and talkto Kathy. Good morning, Kathy,

(06:03):
good morning, Thank you for takingmy call. I have a citrus tree
and during the last freeze, Ihad protected it as best I could,
and it kind of froze, butit kind of didn't. It was grafted
originally, and now it's reverted backto two different plants. So the bottom

(06:24):
of this little tree, it nowhas one leaves and the top has different
leaves. Have you ever heard ofthat happening. What's happened is your rootstock
sprouted and you also got a sproutfrom above the graft. One of those
should be a lot thornier than theother. Have you noticed that I haven't
really. Okay, well, thebottom looks a little It just to me

(06:46):
looks like two different plants. Okay, Well, is the one that's originating
lower on the plant or the leavesmuch smaller on it? No, they're
that's the bushier part of it.Wow. Okay, we're gonna have to
take a look at these leaves becauseI'm I'm what you're saying is kind of

(07:08):
backwards from what should be happening.So I'm obviously not following exactly what you're
describing on the plant. Could Iget you to send me some pictures of
what you're seeing, because sure,And just to briefly tell you, the
bottom leaves are more pointy and thetop are more rounded. It's like two

(07:30):
different plants and the same plant.Okay, well, let me let me
see some pictures of them and takea look. And you are you out
there with the plant right now?I hear? Okay, yes, and
you don't notice thorniness on either eitherone? Let me see, okay,
well, yes there are there are, yes, yes, there are thorns

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on okay, both of them.Okay, what kind of citrus was it
before? Oh gosh, I don'tknow. Okay, you're tying both arms
behind my back, Kathy and havingme trying to box here, So let
me. That's good. I'm notgonna give you a hard time, but

(08:18):
I'm tempted to now seriously send mesome pictures of it. Let me take
a look and I'll see what Ican figure out from it. Also,
I'm want to see the bottom ofthe trunk where those shoots are coming out,
if you would, Okay, okay, thank you so much. You
bet. I'm gonna put you onhold, and we are, they're pretty
sure will pick up and give youmy email address. All right, we'll

(08:39):
take it. We'll take it fromthere. Yeah. I I was thinking
that probably we had a rootstock thatit sprouted, and you know, as
a result, we need to getrid of that because it's never going to
bear anything worth eating. Yeah,so anyway, we'll see see take a

(09:01):
look at those pictures. Pictures wortha thousand words. By the way,
regarding email and stuff, we've gothow many million people here in the greater
Houston area, let's just say alot, and so I can't just open
up wide open to answer all emailsthat would come in as it is,
with kind of restricting it down tocallers. I stay pretty busy on the

(09:22):
emails, but I just physically justnot a time wise not able to answer
all the emails. But if youhave a question and want to send a
photo and then call on the showwhere we can talk on the show,
that's helpful because you know, onquestions, I'm imagining what I see may
not be what you're seeing, andso a photo is very helpful. And

(09:43):
I don't mind if he's setting themsending them ahead of time. Just know
that I'll answer when I talk toyou on the air, because just again,
time wise wish I could, butspent thirty six years doing that,
and right now I've just got toomany irons in the fire. You're listening
to Gardenline, We're glad you are. By the way, our phone number
is seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. Seven one three

(10:07):
two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you have turf, if you
have a lawn and you haven't putyour summer fertilization down, it is time.
Let's get that done. When weget to summer, we usually like
to switch to a slow release fertilizer. And the reason is grass grows fast
in the summer with water. Ifyou've got adequate moisture, don't have to

(10:28):
be soggy, but it has tobe moist enough to grow. It'll grow
real fast, and we don't wanta flush of growth where you're mowing,
mowing, mowing, and the otherthing that happens when you overdo nitrogen at
one point in time, you endup with top growth at the expense of
root growth, and that's a problem. In the summer. The grass isn't
as resilient, it's not as droughttolerant, it's not as able to take

(10:50):
some grub damage to the roots becauseit has less roots to begin with.
When we do slow release, weget gradual feeding, and that is what
nitrophosts super turf is designed to do. Nitrovas superturf is a silver bag.
It's the nineteen four ten ratio fora product fertilizer. Nineteen percent nitrogen,
four percent phosphorus, ten percent potassium. That ratio, we say that was

(11:13):
about a four to one two orroughly that is kind of the ratio that
we aim for three one two fourone two. When we're feeding our turf,
it'll gradually feed over time. Infact, it'll carry you for the
next three or four months. Whenyou do a good application of Nitrofoss Superturf.
Now, the nitrofive Superturf product's widelyavailable. You're going to find it

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at a lot of different places.We find it often at our ACE hardware
stores. You know, almost everyACE hardware that I've ever been in,
to my knowledge, is carried Nitrofossproducts, So they're very easy to find
and get it from your local ACEhardware store. Nitrofis superturf. Get it
down now, and you probably don'tneed to fertilize again until we get into

(11:56):
the spring season, unless you justhave a very unusual situation where your lawn
is an extra need due to verypoor soil or something along those lines.
Ace Hardware I mentioned, and ACEHardware is a great place to get anything
you need to keep your lawn healthyand looking good, or your garden,
your vegetables, your herbs, yourflowers, your shrubs, your trees.
Ace hardware stores carry all the fertilizersyou hear me talk about on Guarden Line.

(12:20):
They carry products to control pests,diseases, and weeds. When you
read my weed pest in Disease LawnSchedule, well, you'll see a lot
of products listed on there for variousissues and you're going to find them at
your ACE Hardware store. That isa nice thing. They also have everything
you need for that outdoor enjoyment.You know, we were sitting outside the

(12:41):
other day and here come the mosquitos, and I just remind me of think.
Go to ACE, get your mosquitodunks. Go to ACE, get
your fogging machine if you need one. I mean, whatever you're going to
do to make that outdoor enjoyable.How about a new barbecue pit or a
string of lights to you know,create that ambiance in the evenings out there
on the patio. ACE will getyou set up with all that. And
with forty stores all over the Houstonarea, it's easy to find one near

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you. Just go to Acehardware dotcom and look for the store locator and
there you are. Makes it aboutas easy as you can make it.
Each Ace Hardware, by the way, too, is independently owned. I
like that because it each time yougo into one, it's not just a
cookie cutter of the other store.Each one has its own personality, its

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own kind of features and product,maybe some new product offerings that the owner
has gotten interested in. But I'lltell you this, when you go in,
you will look and say, thisis not my grandfather's hardware store.
That is for sure. They haveeverything you expect from hardware, but oh
my gosh, so so much more. You are listening to Gardenline our phone

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number seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. We're going to
take a little break. We'll beright back salt. Don't you thank you
for so much? Thanks, Welcomeback to garden Line. Good to have
you with us this morning. Weare talking gardening today. Got a lot

(14:07):
of things we need to talk about. One thing is incredibly hot weather coming
for this time of the year,really for anytime a year, but especially
for this early in the summer.That's okay. We can deal with that.
When you know, it reminds usthe importance of picking plants that want
to grow here and parts of theworld that are hot, sultry saunas are

(14:30):
typically a good place to get plantsfor the Houston area. You know,
there's a lot of parts of someparts of the Mid East, some parts
of Africa are all places where youpull a plant from over there. Something
like Okra, for example, Okacame from that part of the world,
and it's real happy here because thisis home. I mean, you know,
hot, humid. Yeah, wecan do that. When we pick

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plants that are like that, you'remore likely to have success. When you
get something wimpy that wants to beup north in an air conditioned house or
something you're not gonna you're gonna meltit down here. And our good garden
centers carry a lot of those kindof plants. And then you hear me
all the time talk about soil soil, so I got to prepare the soil.
When you get the soil right whereit can hold water, but it
also drains well, because the worstthing in the world is a hot,

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boiling, hot, sultry swamp forthe roots, they do not like that.
But when you prepare the soil rightand you put the right plants in,
well, they're just happy. They'rehappy here, and it makes you
look like a green thumb gardener becauseyou're doing it right. We will go
out to Jersey Village now and talkto Michelle morning. Michelle, good morning,
thanks for taking my cold skiffs.You back. My two houses away

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and I'm in townhouses, so it'syou know, small property. The dab
has a giant cypress tree, andI was wondering, how far do cypress
tree roots grow? How far canthey extend? Out far? I have
some that I have an I say, unfortunately, I have three cypress in

(16:03):
the house we purchased a while back, and their roots, their knees go
everywhere, and I find them allaround the other side of the house from
where the tree is. They goaround basically around the house. I've seen
cypress go two yards down the streetand you know, you see a cypress
need coming up at a driveway andthere's no cypress. The two neighbors down

(16:25):
has a cypress. So in otherwords, they can go pretty far.
Now, it's not normal that you'regoing to have a big root problem that
far away. I'm just saying thatthe capability is there for most trees.
About two and a half times theheight of the tree is how far roots
can extend. That's a general trees. Yeah, this tree is well over
the two story homes. Yeah.Yeah. The knees are those roots where

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they've grown upward. Yeah. It'slike imagine a little spaghetti sized root going
a couple of inches under the ground, maybe three inches on the ground,
and then all of a sudden itstarts to swell, and it's it starts
growing upward like a little knuckle ornot on the root, and it pushes
up out of the soil. That'sthe knee. So if you want to
get rid of them, you justkind of picture what I just described.

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And if you take a grubbing hoeand you swing down on the tree side
of the knee, and then youswing down on the away from the tree
side of the knee, you typicallychop the root in both places and that
knee comes right up. Some peopletry to saw them off and do all
that kind of stuff, and thatthat's a lot more work than just a
good strong swing with a grubbing hoeon each side. I actually dug up

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nine feet of it, you're myhero. That was worse. Will those
knees grow up into other trees?No? Like, what do you mean
grow up? And like I didn'tknow if like a secondary tree, you
would come out from it and startto grow up. No, no,

(18:02):
no, no, no, they'renot able to do that. They're not
one of those species of trees thatcan that can root sprout like that.
But they could do a lot offoundations, you know, It's correct,
not so much that, yeah,they're they're the biggest thing with roots and
foundation damage. And this is amisconception because we see them lift sidewalks and
we see them live driveways, butthe big foundation on your house, they're

(18:26):
not going to really lift it.What they do, though, is a
proliferator on the sides of the foundation, and they suck all the water out.
So when our clay soil is wet, it swells, and then when
it goes dry and roots make itgrow dry much faster in the summer,
then it shrinks up. And thatshifting of shrink and swell, wet and
dry is what causes the foundation problemsfor our plants. So tree roots are

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causing it, or they're contributing toit, but it's not underneath the foundation
like a cypress knee is lifting yourhouse up? Okay us questions? All
right? Randy used to promote theroot wall pro and I have the honor
of speaking with Gary Anderson, whoowned that company a long time ago.
But I haven't heard anything. Ican't see no find them. Are you

(19:12):
familiar with them? I'm not,and I don't know if they're still around
or not. But there are underground, there are companies that will create an
underground wall for you to stop theroot growth. And that's that's quite an
ordeal to put one in, butthose can be very helpful. Well,

(19:36):
thank you so much for your timein answering the questions. All right,
good luck with that. Have funwith your cypress. There are great trees
in many regards. Yeah, andI can tell you how many cypress needles
for our leaves fall each spring becausemy golden retrievers bring each of them in
on their tail every time they goin and out of the house. And

(19:57):
the feathers or the feathers on thehind. Yeah, yeah, so you
can see I've been dealing with cyprusfor a little while. You thanks for
the call, Michelle, Bye bye, take care. Warrens and Kingwood Garden
Center out in Kingwood are a greatplace to go and find color. I
was out there about a week agoand just amazed by the beauty that they

(20:18):
had. They have hibiscus that isjust out of this world. I mean,
gorgeous, gorgeous plumerias jumping jacks andthe plumerias are just beautiful that they
have out there. I was veryimpressed with some of the lantanas that they
had now I know you're probably familiarwith the lantanas, but wow, they
had some outstanding color. We havea lot of new lantanas, the Lantana

(20:42):
Cameras, the Genus and and it'snow a Texas Superstar Texas and m Agrilife
has designated it a Superstar. Thoseare plants that have performed all over the
state and done outstanding with little tono care, and Lantana fits into that
category. So if you're looking nowwith the new breeding, some that are
real short. They got them allout there Warren Southern Gardens. I mean,

(21:03):
I know we were. We werejust out there shopping the other day.
Beautiful, beautiful place. Warren's andKingwood Garden Center both out in Kingwood,
a great place to shop. Itjust really really will set your place
apart. There's no reason you shouldn'thave color and beauty in the summer,
and you go out to Warrens inKingwood Garden Center, you're gonna find it.
That is true. Well, we'rehitting up on a break for Nicki

(21:26):
and the news. I know you'vebeen waiting for me to shut up seeing
here Nicki in here telling the newsagain, So I'm going to do that.
Albert when we come back, youwill be our first up. And
if you'd like to give us acall and get on the board seven one
three two one two kt r H. Well, I'm all right a little
let I'm mailing to Maligalty Jane yetus a jump a little record. I

(21:48):
want my jockey welcome back to gardenLine. Good have you with us today?
We'll be too, man, Igot it here. What do you
want to talk about? We gota lot of things we can cover today
on gardening. Are still in aprimetime gardening season. A lot to get
done out there, a lot toenjoy out there in the garden. Sweet
Green is a product by Nitrophoss.It's a fertilizer that is based on a

(22:10):
molasses base with microbial activity, basicallyturning it into a fertilizer. This particular
product makes microbes very happy because theylike molasses. You know. That's why
organic gardeners put molasses in the garden, because it stimulates all the beneficial microbes
that work with your roots to helpkeep the grass happy and healthy. It's
eleven percent nitrogen and it's widely available. You're going to find sweet Green,

(22:33):
for example, at places like enchantedforests, down in Richmond, Rosenberg Growers
Outlet up in Willis and RCW Nurseryon I forty five North. Now would
be a great time to get somesweet green out. You can put a
light dose out now and then splitsplit, have the second light dose coming
a little bit later for an evenbetter slower feed. But remember it's not

(22:55):
just for lawns. You can useit in the garden or anywhere else you
choose to use it. We're gonnago to Montgomery now and talk to Albert.
Hello, Albert, hello, skipHappy Memorial Day, and do you
as well? Thank you, sir. What I got is I got a
shoe mar oak tree about fifteen feettwenty feet high. It's looking real good.

(23:18):
The leaves are real green. They'relooking good. But at the bottom,
right where the trunk hits the dirtand all that, the bark is
turning like black or brown and peeling. Should I be concerned or I need
to do anything? I don't thinkso that there is some natural flaking of

(23:40):
bark on a shoe mart oak.What might be happening is maybe if you
bumped it with a lawnmower, orthere was some sort of a physical damage
a weed eater. You could havelost some bark, and now it's peeling
back and exposing the inner wood,and there's nothing for you to do about
it other than don't do that againand just give it time for the callus
to form and to close back overthat wound. It's one of the reasons

(24:00):
I like to keep mulch around treesis to keep lawnmowers and weed eaters away.
Now, if you didn't, ifyou didn't get up close to it
and bump it with something, thenI just wouldn't worry about it. If
there's loose bark, go ahead andpeel it out of the way, just
so that inner wood can dry outafter it gets wet from a rain or
whatever. But it's just gonna taketime and the plant healing to close it

(24:21):
over. Okay, good enough,all right, thank you, yes,
sir, Thank you very much.Appreciate that call. Yeah, I was
talking about that sweet green and beingyou can get at RCW Nursery. I
was out at RCW yesterday and justvisiting with them out there, checking some
things out, a couple of thingsI needed to add to the garden.
So I always have to go buyour good Mom and Pops visit them periodically

(24:44):
to see what's going on. WhenI was out there, I was looking
at the sweet green that they hadsitting around. And they have a number
of different products that are heard abouthere on garden Line. That's kind of
what they do. You're going tofind a number of brands of fertilizer there.
You're gonna find a lot of productsfor planting plants, but you're going
to find a lot of great plants. Their selection on shrubs and roses and

(25:06):
trees is outstanding. Lots of beautifulperennials, lots of hibiscus. It's still
a good time to be out thereat RCW Nursery. They are the get
it, got it nursery, meaningif they don't have it, they will
try to find it and probably canif it's available on the market, and
bring it in for you. You'llfind a great selection of roses and because

(25:26):
they grow their own trees, they'regrowing types that belong here. Remember what
I said earlier about if it's happyin a sultry, hot sauna, it's
going to do well here. Theyknow how to choose those cultivars, those
species of plants, and that's whatthey bring in and that's what the that's
what they grow, and that's whatthey sell to you. And they will
take them out and plant them foryou can hire them come out and establish

(25:47):
that tree. And that is agood idea because when you plant it correctly,
you're setting the stage for success,whether it's shade or flowers or whatever
else you want out of that tree. They're located at two forty nine and
about way eight the website. Justwrite this down r CW nurseries dot com.
RCW nurseries dot com. Let's goup to Centerville. Now we're going
to talk to Brian. Hello,Brian, Hey, don't skip. Got

(26:12):
a newly planted sawd Saint Augustine,not an acre? How soon can you
apply a fertilizer? And what Godalmost always when you get turf in and
plant it, that turf is comingwith a charge of fertilizer that'll hold it
for at least a month, it'llbe fine. And so I would say,

(26:34):
you know it unless it's just reallynot looking, it doesn't have any
good green color at all and stuff. I would wait a month before I
start to fertilize it, so thatgives it time to put roots in the
ground. You know that brand newsad has about a three quarter inch root.
That's where they slice the clay offto bring to create the sawd pieces.
And there's no root to take upnutrients, so it needs time to

(26:57):
grow roots. And like I said, there's usually an adequate charge to get
you through at least a month.Okay, good deal, and then any
last minute recogndations for those that completelyslack, and then plant the vestables in
town. Any give vestables to lotsof good ones right now. Lots of
good ones. Yeah, talk toyour Kenny Extension office or go to the

(27:17):
Aggie Horticulture website and there's a lotof lists of vegetables there in the home
gardening section. But you can plantthings like okra, sweet potatoes, Southern
peas like black eye, purple wholecrowder cream peas. Those can all be
planted now. And then there's somegreens that aren't real common malabar and amaranth,
and some others that can take theheat very well. Even our storage

(27:44):
squash we call them winter squash,things like a spaghetti squash or a pumpkin
kind of things. We plant thosein the summer because they takes them about
three months to develop. So thoseare a few of the things that could
go in right now. You couldalso plant eggplant. Okay, awesome that
I appreciate your help, all right, take care up there in Centerville.
Yeah, appreciate that call. Youknow. The three sixty tree stabilizer is

(28:08):
a product that I think really oughtto be sold with every tree that's sold.
And it's because it is an ingeniousdesign, a brand new design on
the market. That it's like alittle stiff arm about two thirds of length
of your arm, and you putan iron post in the ground right beside
the tree attached the stabilizer, andit has a soft strap where you can

(28:29):
loosely attach it to the tree tohold the tree, but allows some movement.
That is how you successfully get atree established. You can put a
couple of them one nor south,one east west if you want, but
forget all the wires and the trippingand the trouble. This is fast,
it's easy and it lasts a longlong time. You can find them at
RCW. You can find them atBuchanans done in the Heights or Arborgate up

(28:52):
in Tomball. Plants for all seasonson two forty nine Hoorges hidden gardens down
in Alvin. Southwest Fertilizer down atSouthwest Houston corner of Busin and Runwick.
It's easy to find them, butyou need to get one and have it
on hand, because once you're donewith that tree, you or a neighbor
or something's got a tree that needsstabilizing, that thing's gonna last. And
tree stabilizer is the best way Iknow of to successfully establish that tree.

(29:15):
And remember, our goal is howfast can I hang a hammock in this
thing? So we want everything goingright and moving fast, and that'll help
you do that. We're going totake a little break here and I will
be back our phone number seven onethree two one two kt r H.

(29:37):
Yeah that's not Simon and Garfuncle,but I had to play that this morning.
Just a memory of Randy Man iscalled the Lemonheads. I'm not making
that up, Missus Robinson. Bythe Lemonheads. We do miss Randy and
good friend and I know a lotof you have enjoyed him for a very
long time here on KTR All right, welcome back to Guardline. Good to

(30:02):
have you with us today. MicrolifeFertilizers and that was plural fertilizers are an
excellent way to feed the soil.And you know when you're gardening in an
organic system, when you're gardening withnature, the idea is you feed the
soil, you build that bank account, you improve the soil, and then
the plants naturally are going to thrivebecause the nutrients are going to be there.

(30:23):
The soil structure is going to beimproved. Things like the humans plus
the purple bag zero zero four.That is something that helps with soil structure,
and you build it over time justlike nature does. About once a
year. Put that down. Thefertilizer. The prime fertilizer for your lawn
green bag six' two four Microlifesix two four. I use that for
a lot of things other than thelawn, but that is the one I

(30:45):
would say is the number one thingpeople put on their lawns. They have
an acidic fertilizer, things like blueberriesand azalias and acid living plants, and
they have many many others. Goto Microlife fertilizer dot com and you'll learn
about these fertilizers and the many placesyou can get them, and it's one
of the most widely available fertilizers.You're going to find throughout this whole region.

(31:06):
It's it's an excellent product. Itworks. I've used it myself and
I think you will be pleased withthe results as well. We're going to
go now out to Cynthia in spring. Hello Cynthia. Hi. Hi.
So my question is I've bought acouple of bags of barricade and my gardener

(31:30):
did not want to put the barricadein the soil with mulch on top of
it where the flowers are. Okay, we kill flowers. Is that correct?
Because I have another area that I'mgoing to put some boxwood down and
some flowers well, and I wantto control the weed desperately. Yeah.
On any kind of a herbicide,pesticide, whatever, you look at the

(31:52):
label and it'll tell you where youcan use it. Now. Barricade is
a pre emergent means that it keepsthe weed sea from getting established. So
if you put it in your flowergarden and then you threw zinnias and sunflowers
and other seeds out there, theywouldn't come up because it does that.
But if you have existing plants,it's not going to kill them. It's

(32:14):
not going to kill them. It'snot going to kill them, no,
because it doesn't. It's not apost emergent like you would spray something on
a plant to kill the growing plant. It prevents the seeds from germinating and
establishing. But check the label alwayson all these products. See what it's
labeled for. Are there some thingsyou can use in an edible garden or
not used in an edible garden?You know? And the same is true

(32:36):
with flowers and herbs and lawns andevery other area. Just always check the
label to be sure on things.But it's a pre emergent product. I
don't have a label in front ofme on the barricade as to what any
restrictions might be in a flower garden. But that's where you go for any
kind of a question about use ofa product like that barricade for sure.

(32:57):
Okay, all right, well that'sokay, Thank you so much, all
right, you bet, Cynthia,thank you for king. I appreciate that
Nature's Way Resources is an outstanding placeto get mulch and composts and all the
bed mixes, all those kinds ofthings. It's also a good place to
get the native plants and many othertypes of plants. In fact, right

(33:19):
now through July first, so basicallythe whole month of June. Now through
the month of June, they areoffering thirty percent off most of their plants.
Now it excludes the native sun perennialsonly, but the rest of them
huge. They have a huge selectionof Texas native pollinator plants and all of
the thirty percent off except the nativesun perennials. They have a twenty percent

(33:40):
discount on composts. Now this includesalso mulches and soil blends. Not just
composts, but mulches and soil blends. But to get that twenty percent discount,
Okay, I need you to listento me here. You have to
tell them that you heard about iton Garden Line. When you go in
there and talk to one of theemployees there, just say I heard on

(34:00):
Guardline you have a discount on compostand molt and soil, and whether you're
going to buy it by the bagor by the bulk, that twenty percent
discount applies. But you got totell them it's not just like they're given
everybody that discount. It's Gardenline listenersget that discount. So tell them that
when you go in Nature's Way Resources, and I forty five up north toward

(34:21):
Conra, almost to Conro where fourteeneighty eight comes in from Magnoia from your
left hand side when you're going north, you just turn right across the tracks
and you're there at Nature's Way Resources. That is where a lot of great
soil products were born, rose soiland leaf mold composts. How many times

(34:42):
have you heard Randy or me talkabout those things? That is where they
were originally created Nature's Way Resources.If you're interested in keeping bees or you
would like to learn about bees,the bee Supply in Dayton is the best
place that I've ever seen, andI mean that I've been. I've kept
bees myself in the past, andwe had a little a piece of acreage,

(35:04):
and I've seen a lot of beestores and a lot of places I've
never seen the knowledge and the justshopping options that you have at the be
Supply. That place is fun towalk through. But I'll tell you what,
if you're interested in learning about bees, they have bee keeping classes for
beginners and they're really cool. Youlearn. They'll blow your mind in the
classroom with all that they teach you, and then you go outside whether permitting

(35:28):
and you get to do some hiveinspections, kind of a hands on you
know, you suit up and yougo out there and do that. Classes
start at nine thirty, they gointil three thirty. It's an excellent They
got some other classes coming up.I'll tell you more about later. They
also have their be rental program.You got five to twenty acres and live
within fifty miles of the Bee Supplyand Dayton. Fifty miles of Dayton,

(35:49):
they will come out and put beeson your property and you can use it
as an agricultural exemption that bees countas an agricultural product. Go to the
website to find out more about thatand how that works and what the detail
the bsupply dot com thebesupply dot com. In the meantime, if you've got
family, friends and definitely your kidsand grandkids, take them out to the

(36:09):
Bee Supply and look at the observationhive indoors where you get to walk around
a little plexiglass box and watch thebees work. It is really really fun
and cool. Great great outing,great educational outing too. By the way,
the Bee Supply, have you beento Buchanans and the Heights I was

(36:30):
actually by the day and I loveBuchanans. Number one. I think the
Heights is just a fun area periodhere in Houston. But you're driving through
and you just all of a sudden, there it is on eleven Street.
As you're going down there, it'slike whoa, it's just nestled right here
into the Heights. So many greatplants, so much to see. By

(36:52):
the way, don't forget this weekendis tax exempt products for saving water.
That would include soakerhood that would goddrip irrigation, water saving surfactants, purchases
of mult rainwater collection systems that saveswater, turf grass purchases, drip irrigation

(37:12):
system plants, anything any product witha water sence logo. And that's this
weekend. It goes through Monday throughtomorrow. But they've got that going on
there at Buchanans, and it's justjust a statewide thing that you can save
on. So this weekend, makesure and make those purchases. Why you're
at Buchanans, check out the nativeplants. Best selection in the whole region
in native plants, hands down.It's amazing what all they carry there.

(37:36):
It's really really nice. I alwayslove shopping there and it's stuff you wouldn't
expect. You know, you maybe thinking about Buchanans Native Plants, that's
their name, but do you knowthey have one of the best house plants
selections you're going to find anywhere.They sell fruit, they sell vegetables,
herbs, flowers. If you havea shady area, what can I go
in the shade that will bring colorand beauty? They've got an area for

(37:59):
that, beautiful gift shop. It'sjust a nice fun place to wander through
and enjoy. Buchanans Plants on elevenStreet in the Heights. The websites Buchanansplants
dot com and you need to signup for the newsletter very informative and on
the website there is a lot ofgood free information, both in video form

(38:20):
and stuff you can print out thatwill help you have more success with your
garden or learn about some plants thatmaybe you didn't know about that you now
can't live without. In that howit works with plants, so many plants,
so little time, Well, Iwish I felt that before you know,
I'm a I'm a plant collector.Let me tell you the difference between

(38:42):
a plant collector and a landscaped person. A landscaper starts with a design and
then finds plants to put in it. A plant collector is shopping and they
see plants they like, and theybring them home without a clue as to
where they're going to go. Iknow, true confessions, don't tell anybody's
just shoeing me. Listen anyway,But when you go to a plant collector's

(39:05):
yard, it looks like a bombwent off in a garden center and everything
rooted where it landed. It's justthis, Oh, here's a plant.
I come home, I walk around, let's put it over there. Well,
actually it's not quite that bad.I do design and plan, but
it is fun being a plant collector. And that is why it is so
much fun to live in the GreaterHouston area and have all these awesome garden

(39:27):
centers with plants from all over theworld that you haven't heard of even And
it's all so many plants, solittle time. That's a little lament.
Well, the storms the other dayreminded us that the power can go off,
right to say, the least qualityhome products of Texas sells Genera generators
now Generaic generators, an awesome generatorbut the reason you get from Quality Home

(39:52):
is that it is an unbelievably awesomeplace. Quality Home. They are top
rated eight times. They won thePinnacle Award for the Better Business Bureau's Customer
Service Unbelievable Quality TX dot Com Qualityt X dot Com or column seven to
one to three quality. They walkyou through it. Listen, you can
buy generators are a lot of placesGeneraic and the service they give you can't

(40:17):
get anywhere else. It is absolutelythe best. From the time you walk
in to pick a generator out tothe time they walk off having done all
the work and set it up andgotten the permits and everything for you.
And then twenty four hours, sevendays a week, three sixty five customer
service. You can't beat that QualityHome product. I'll be right back.

(40:47):
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorseany of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH GardenLine with Scamp Richter's so trim and just

(41:07):
watch him as so many good thingsto sid Welcome back to the garden Line.

(41:29):
Good morning, good Sunday morning.I hope you're having a good Sunday
morning. We uh, we gota lot of things to cover today,
there's always something to cover regardening.You know, there's only ten bazillion plants
out there, and we try togrow them all right, and we especially
like to grow things that don't wantto be here, isn't it always is?
Have you ever have you ever hauleda blue spruce tree back from a

(41:51):
Colorado summer vacation or one of thoselittle blue columbines back there from The Society
for the Prevention of Plant has nowhas established check centers at the border between
Texas and New Mexico that when youtry to come across the border, they're
going to take it away from you, and they're gonna arrest you and they're
gonna throw you in jail. Notreally, but if the plants had their
way, they would, because thatplant's going to die a slow death.

(42:14):
Maybe you lived in the Midwest andyou love Forcythia. I love Forcythia.
It's beautiful. You can bring itall the way down here and kill it,
just along with the lilacs too,by the way, you can bring
them down here and kill or hostas. Hostas are kind of iffy. Some
people get by with them. Wedo, okay, we can make them
go, but you know what I'msaying. We always want to stretch a
plant out of its zone, andso when we do that, we run

(42:36):
into the kind of challenges. Buthey, that's okay. We love growing
different kinds of things. And whenwe have plants, we always want to
make them. We're want to developthem into something they didn't originally start off
to be. For example, ayellow African violet. There was a pursuit
for years. Can we come upwith a yellow African violet? Its name

(42:57):
is violet, its name is notyellow, it's not an African yellow,
it's an African violet. But peopleworked on it. And you know,
when we do things like that,we usually find some way to achieve them.
But it comes at a cost interms of the vigor and health and
stuff like that of the plant.But that's part of the fun of gardening
being able to do that. Partof the fun of gardening, too is
having good blooms. Nelson's has anumber of different fertilizer products. They've got

(43:22):
their Turf Star line, which Italk about all the time on guard Line.
They also have the Nutris Star line, and this is think of it
as for color plants. So theNutristar Booginvilla food. If you have boom
villas, this is an outstanding food, but it also is good for other
flowering vines like mandavilla or maybe across vine, you know the tandruine,

(43:43):
beauty crosswine, Virginia, creeper,things like wisteria, things like passion flower,
trumpet vine, honeysuckle, carolina,jussamine, all of it. Bougainvilla
by nutri Star. Just when yousee boog and villa, think vine and
that is the good the things youcan put it on, they really this
product really provides those nutrients to supportgood strong growth, and a good strong

(44:06):
plant is more able to resist pestsand diseases, and it just benefits in
many ways. There's a nutri StarCrpe myrtle. Someone was calling yesterday.
In fact, I had two callsyesterday about my crate myrtle is not blooming
and things well. Good nutrition isa big part of that nutri Star Crpe
myrtle. It says Crpe myrtle onthe label, but think flowering tree because

(44:28):
it's good for all of those.There's not like a fertilizer that has to
just be used on crate myrtle Nutristar CRP myrtle is good for your Mexican
plums, your mimosas, which bythe way, are blooming now. They
look beautiful out there. For yourred budge, your Texas Mountain Laurel,
your Vitex, your desert willow,all of those kinds of blooming plants.
Nutri star CRP myrtle. Buy Nelsonplant Food one of many quality Nelson plant

(44:52):
food products out there to help youhave success. You know, when we
plant these things, we want themto look good. We want them to
bloom. That's why we bought them. Good care and good feeding is one
of the ways that we get there. Let's go out to the woodlands now
and talk to Dinna. Hello,Donna, is it Dina or Dinna Dina?
Good morning, Good morning. Ihave some cannas and I noticed last

(45:15):
night that I've had this once beforeand haven't had it for a while.
But the leaves just roll up andthere's almost like if I unroll it,
there's something inside, but I can'tfind an actual bug. Okay, that
is called the Kenna leaf roller.It's a little caterpillar and the mama butterfly

(45:39):
lays it on the plant and itgrabs the leaves, and caterpillars have the
ability to produce silk. That's howwe get silkworm silk stocking. And they
take the silk and before the leafunfurls, it wraps it and ties it
together with silk strands and so itnever unfurls. And then they eat on

(46:00):
the inside. And when you seeone of these leaves, it's not unfurling,
and you kind of break it open. You see the big old fat
caterpillar in there, and you seea lot of caterpillar poop from eating your
cann of leaves. And so tocontrol them, you want to use BT
sprays or spindosid sprays, but youneed to do it pretty regularly to be

(46:22):
able to get ahead of those toshut them down, because once they're inside
rolled up like that, it's kindof hard to it's kind of hard to
get a spray down in there tocontrol them. But that would be an
option. Okay, well, thankyou very much. I appreciate it.
And also DANAE or Dana. Oneother thing is you can when you see
a stalk like that that's all messedup, just cut it off down near

(46:44):
the ground and it'll put the cannonswill put up new stalks, but get
that old material out of there incase there's any pupated larvae in there.
They're not just going to now turninto an adult and keep doing that to
your cannons. Great, all right, thanks, thank you very much.
Yes, I appreciate the call verymuch. Pierscapes is our go to landscaper

(47:06):
here on garden Line, and there'sa number of reasons for it. Number
one, they do just about everything. Go online to their website and you'll
see what I'm talking about. Theyare designers extraordinaiy beautiful, beautiful work.
The website, by the way,is pierscapes dot com. But when you're
there, you'll notice they also dothings like irrigation work. They do things

(47:27):
like hardscapes, a water feature.They do things like landscape lighting. Maybe
you've got a saggy area, rememberall that ring we just had. You
got a little farm pond in theback that you didn't intend to have.
They can turn that area into anarea that drains well. They have a
way they know how to do that. They also do quarterly maintenance. So
maybe you don't want new creations anddesigns and beds. I hope you do,

(47:50):
but if you don't, harm forquarterly maintenance. Every quarter they come
out. They change the color inyour beds. It's called seasonal color changes.
They put in umulch, they weed, they fertilize, they check the
irrigation system, do any trimming that'snecessary. That's all part of their quarterly
maintenance program with Puerscapes peerscapes dot com. Here's the phone number two eight one

(48:12):
three seven O five zero six zeroPuerscapes. We're gonna now head out to
k in Paarland. Hello. Okay, good morning, Skip. Thank you
for taking my call. You bet. I have a quick question and I
think the answer is yes. ButI want to be sure that mosquito dunks
are safe for turtles as well asfish and other They are safe for everything.

(48:38):
They don't hurt any they don't hurtother insects even like a lady beetle
or a family cat or any andthey're very safe. Yeah, it's a
disease of mosquito larvae. Yeah,that's what I thought. I just wanted
to be sure. I read everythingtwo or three times on the labels,
and yeah, I didn't say anythings specifically right, actually about even dogs

(49:04):
and cats, you know, kindof general stuff. But I heard you
mentioned that it was safe, verysafe. Day. Yeah, I thought
them in bird baths because the birdsdrink it doesn't hurt them at all.
Thanks for asking, though, that'sa good question. I appreciate that.
K. Yeah, mosquito dunks arewidely available. They're little donuts. There's
also a granular product that they make, sum Responsible Solutions makes, But the

(49:25):
little donut just floats in water andit covers like one hundred square feet of
water surface, and it lasts abouta month, and it releases a disease
of mosquito larvae in You can't getmore organic, you can't get more safe
than mosquito dunks, and you alsocan't get more effective. And you're going
to find them at you know,all our garden centers carry them, no
ares, hardware stores carry them,feed stores carry them. SOUTHUS Fertilizer carries

(49:49):
them. Mosquito dunks. You justdon't need to go through summer in Houston
without mosquito dunks. I'll tell youthat for sure. Well, Hey,
we're gonna take a little break hereand I will be right back. Our
phone number is seven one three twoone two kt rh. Call up the
producer, get on the boards,and let's talk to you about your questions.
Jerry and Fulscher you'll be our firstup. You come on like a

(50:13):
dream, like your sixteen Oh yeah, hey, that song has a special
significance today. We just lost thefellow that wrote it, a couple of
brothers, Sherman brothers. Richard Shermanpassed away. I believe he was about

(50:37):
ninety five. He brought for alot of you, especially those who are
a little bit older. Your childhoodhas made much much happier by the Sherman
brothers writing not only this song,but who remembers TDTD bang bang Remember that
one spoonful of Sugar from Mary Poppins, How about the Jungle Book? I

(50:59):
want to be Like You? Whowant to be like you? Yep?
They wrote that to Winnie the Poohfrom It's a Small World, Oh my
gosh, on and on and on, so many Disney songs and others.
Those guys put together a lot ofhappiness for kids through the years. So
just remembering Richard Sherman in the passingwelcome back to garden line. Yeah,

(51:22):
in addition to gardening, we playaround with music. This is a little
bit here. I I hope youappreciate that. Landscaper's Pride is a company
that has put together a collection ofproducts for the soil that will help your
plants thrive. That is an outstandingand widely available, which is very convenient,

(51:43):
widely available collection. For example,they have things like mulches, pine
bark multch, hardwood maltch, theblack velvet malt. It's not dyed mult
it's naturally dark black velvety mult excellentwhen our plants need mults, and they
need it now. Molt keeps weedsdown and temperatures heat up. Mulch has
a huge effect on sol temperature,which has a huge effect on roots success

(52:06):
and so Landscaper's Pride take your pickof the mulches. There's twenty seven different
Landscaper's Pride products, things like Gardener'sMagic Soil. It's an organic pine based
blend contains humus, green pine,composted rice holes and a chicken pellet fertilizer
in there that lasts up to threemonths feeding your plants. All at Landscaper's
Pride. Go to Landscaperspride dot comto find out where to get them,

(52:29):
and they are widely available, andlearn more about these really awesome products.
Because remember on guardline, what dowe say brown stuff before green stuff?
You get the soil fixed, right, and then the beautiful green vegetables,
herbs, flowers, lawns, whateverthe plant is is going to thrive because
you took care of the brown stufffirst. Let's go out to Jerry now

(52:49):
in full shre Hello, Jerry,ask you I have a watering problem because
my yard has such a steep slopeto it. It goes out about twenty
thirty feet and then it just takesa dive down toward the creek. Because
of that, the water runs offfast. And I've read your schedule about

(53:13):
cycle and sol process. But theissue there is the forty five minutes that
you mentioned to I guess cycle betweenyes, and I guess. The next
question about all of that would bedo I need a different type of sprink
or sprayhead for that area? Thetype I have this is a rotating type

(53:37):
that shoots out a long ways andso it just doesn't get the water there
in that area that it needs to. Okay, so can you clear me
up on that? Yeah, Now, the rotating tape you're talking about is
that a stream of water that kindof slowly drifts across the lawn. Okay,
that's coold. Well yeah, it'sit's not slow enough and it goes

(54:00):
out too far. You really,okay, it just property. Okay,
Well you probably need you know,unless you're a real good to it yourself
for you probably need an irrigation companyto come in and take a look at
that. But that's called a rotor, and it's better than the pop up
spray heads. Pop up spray headslike you see people using flower beds and
stuff, they put out water reallyfast and so it runs off too darn

(54:23):
fast. The rotors put out waterslower. But then there's another one called
a multi stream rotor, and insteadof one stream, imagine like little fingers
of water. They're drifting across inthe same way, and it's like they
appear on the left hand side andthey drift across, and on the right
hand side they just disappear. Butthe key is to get the sprinkler head

(54:44):
set so that water's the right areaand that that is something where an irrigation
company should be able to come inand fix that, or maybe you can
just go replace the head and makeit work. But yeah, the less
you put on at one time,the longer you can run it before you
you have to cycle off and letit soak. Uh, And so yeah,
you'd like to be on cycle andsoak once or twice, you know,

(55:07):
rather than five times trying to squirta little bit and then wait and
squirt a little bit and then waitthat that's not very efficient. Yeah,
well, ken again, like arunning bird system, can it be set
to cycle like that or you justhave to manually do that? Every every
system is different rainbird Netaphim Hunter.I'm trying to think of all the brands.

(55:31):
There's a lot of brands out there, and if you if you spend
a little more on the irrigation clock, you get a lot more features.
Some of them will even water accordingto the amount of evaporation that's been occurring
out in the environment, you know, so they they kind of control it
for you. But any of themshould be able to be set for multiple

(55:52):
run times in a day. Okay, uh, next question real quick.
But that area that I'm talking about, I'll have the problem with water of
course, now I know it needsprobably residing in an area of say twenty
by twenty to reside that area withSaint Augustine. Do I need to first,

(56:14):
I guess, clear all that areaof whatever weeds are in there.
Yes, and then I need toput down a topsoil before start putting the
reside down. You don't have toput down a top soil, but you
do want to level it out soyour your lawn level is acceptable and any

(56:35):
holes are filled in. And wecall that kill till and fill. Kill
means if you got something in thereyou don't want to grow in in your
lawn, you better get rid ofit now, like bermuda grass and Saint
Augustine or some other nasty weed.First you get rid of those, and
then you can loosen the soil up. You don't have to go very deep,
but just loosen it up a little, filling any low areas that you

(56:58):
have, and then go ahead withyour sodding. When you saw it,
though, and I don't know ifI put this on the schedule, I
probably probably need to do something elsejust for long planting. But you want
to water it about twice a dayfor the first week, especially when we're
getting in this hot weather. Thatlittle thin piece of sod has almost no
soil and no root on it,and so by the end I put it

(57:22):
in a lawn this spring, Jerry, and I was watering it before I
finished lay in the whole lawn.I mean, in other words, I
laid for about you know, twentyfeet long, and then I turned the
water on over there while I keptlaying. And because it dries out fast,
and so twice a day the firstweek, once a day the second
week, and then back and onoff. You got to get those roots
down without stress. It's not thatthe grass will all die. It's just

(57:45):
that it'll set it back so farthat it's it's a shame. Yeah,
okay, very good. Skip,Well, I appreciate that, and I'll
follow through it. Your suggestions,all right, good, well, I
wish you, I wish you well. Just just stay with it and you're
you're gonna find you know, you'vegot pretty good success. Don't don't don't

(58:06):
don't sweat it. It's not sometimesas hard as we make it. Uh,
you know, we try to gofor ideal, but it'll be fine
just even without that. Okay,I guess one last question. Do you
put a little fertiliser on that newsad right away? Or you just no
give it about a month. Giveit about a month and then begin get
you've got my schedule, go backto the schedule and that's where you go

(58:28):
from there. Give it a monththough, Yeah, all right, okay,
thanks so much, all right,Jerry, thanks a lot. I
appreciate your call. The arbor Gatein Tomball is a great place to visit.
You are going to find everything you'relooking for. You are, I
mean herbs and year round fruit treesat the Arborgate. You can buy fruit
trees year round at the Arborgate.Wonderful rose selection, outstanding, outstanding rose

(58:52):
selection, shrubs and tree there's somuch there it allow yourself some time.
You need to be able to wanderthrough that wonderful gardens and look at all
the plants and the garden blaying Icall it. That decorates our place.
Places. They have the beautiful giftshops you need to spend some time in,
but always go home with their onetwo three completely easy system. That's

(59:15):
a soil for anything with roots.That is a compost that you can mix
in to the soil. And thereis a food that's an organic food for
anything with roots. So basically whatyou're buying is you're buying a quality food
that's a fertilizer. You're buying aquality soil with some expanded shale in it,

(59:36):
which is important for clay soils.You're buying compost with expanded shale in
it. All one, two threebags, real simple. It's the brown
stuff, take it home when youtake home the green stuff, the beautiful
plants that Arbigate sells, and you'regoing to have success. Very knowledgeable staff,
a fun place to shop. Anddon't forget that new parking lot on
the backside off Trisheal Road. Itmakes it so so easy to get.

(01:00:00):
Then we're gonna head out now toSpring Branch and talk to Herta. Hello,
good morning, Thank you for beingthere. Foss. My questions about
when they were removing the trees thathad fallen. Uh, they used a

(01:00:20):
big old tractor and they skin tooka chunk of rock off of the bottom.
Okay, do I need to paintthat or protect that with something?
No, no, it's it didn'tdo them any good. But that the
tree will start to call us andclose that over in time, but there's
no way to speed it up.Just just yeah, nothing for you to

(01:00:44):
have to do on that, Okay, taken question. A giant oak was
upreaded. Uh, but anyway,they left a big Okay, it's about
six deep, about at least twoheat and diameter. Okay, uh like

(01:01:10):
some mouth break stump, no sinkagain, but for now, no I
heard. I've got about thirty seconds. So here's a quick answer. Don't
put anything organic in it. It'llrot and sink down. You want to
put soil in it, because that'llstay stable. You may have to mound

(01:01:31):
it, mound it up a littlebit, because it always settles when you
fill a hole with soil. Somake it a little higher, like a
picture mound, and it'll settle downto the level. But don't put anything
that will rot and shrink down evenfurther. Thank you, Thank you for
the cast s right to have torun, but we got to obey the
clock around here too. All right, give us a call seven one three
two one two K t R H. Will be right back. Welcome back

(01:02:01):
to guard Line. Good to haveyou with us. We love feed stores
here on Garden Line. And forthose of you down in League City,
you're fortunate because you have League CityFeed down there. The Thunderbergs have been
running that store for over forty yearsnow began down in an okra patch.
Just you know. It's located onHighway three, just a few south,

(01:02:23):
a few blocks south of ninety sixin League City. So for those of
you that are in Baycliffe, forclear Lake City, El Comino, Real,
Webster, Dickenson, Santa Fe,San Leon, Lamark, all those
areas, this is your hometown feedstore. And they give you the old
time service that you expect from anold time feed store. And we're talking

(01:02:44):
about carrying the bags out for youand treating you right in there. They
have all the fertilizers you hear metalk about on garden Line, and many
many products for dealing with pests,dealing with weeds, dealing with diseases of
your plants, quality pet food,quality horse supplies. You know, even
if you've got backyard chickens, theycan get you set up with what you

(01:03:04):
need to take care of them aswell. League City Feed will help you
have a beautiful lawn and a beautifullandscape, a beautiful garden, a productive
garden. They're open money through Saturday, nine am to six pm, closed
on Sunday, so any day duringthe week through Saturday you swing by after
work grab what you need. Here'sa phone number you want to write it
down. Two eight one three threetwo sixteen twelve League City Feed. I'm

(01:03:30):
going to go to Jersey Village nowand talk to Chris. Hello, Chris,
Hey, how you doing. I'mgood, sir, How are you?
I'm fine? A quick question,actually two. First one, you
know a wheeding feed the front yard, that's fine, no problem. But
the backyard. I've got two dogsand they tell me that the wheeding feed

(01:03:53):
is oxic to them. Is thereanything that I can put back there to
kill weeds that doesn't affect at all? Well? Yeah, I would prefer
that you would use a law,a fertilizer for fertilizing, and then when
you need to control weeds, youjust use a specific product to control the
specific weeds that are the problem.First of all, putting those combos together

(01:04:16):
sometimes it works, but sometimes theparticular product to control weeds in that fertilizer
may not be the best product forthe weed that you have. So so
we we always want to start withwhat are what are the weeds that you're
dealing with? Do you know offhandwhat they are? Just I got some
dollar weeds, I got some dandelions, okay, and I got some I

(01:04:41):
got some guys that are they're notthorns, but they're thorny like because I've
stepped on them. Yeah, okay, all right, So those are all
existing weeds that are perennials. Thethorny one could be an an annual,
could be a perennial. So whatyou're going to want to do is get
a product. There are a coupleof products if you go online to my

(01:05:03):
schedule at gardening with Skip dot comon post emergent weed control, I've got
three things listed there. One ofthem is celsius, like the temperature fahrenheit
and celsius, but this one iscelsius, not fahrenheit, but celsius.
And then there's a bone eye weedbeater ultra and a fertil om weed free
zone. Now the celsius warmer conditionswithin reason are not a problem to use

(01:05:27):
celsius, but the other two youneed to use them very early in the
morning when it's as cool as it'sgoing to be for the day, so
that they dry up before the weathergets up into the mid to upper eighties,
because it can stress your lawn atthat time. But you mix them
up in water according to the labeland just spot spray. I mean,
if you've got weeds all over thelawn, spray the whole lawn. But

(01:05:49):
as much as you can just spraythe weeds saves a little bit and that
that will not come back. Igot one more quick question. Okay,
when I was a kid over inGarden Oaks, right, we had a
climbing vine that had coral colored littlebuds. Okay, do you know what

(01:06:16):
that is, because I'd like toput it in that sounds like coral vine,
which is a sweet potato type perennialunderground in the summertime. It grows
long, long, vigorous vines andthey have clusters of coral shaped flowers that
almost look like buds because they're little, almost roundish little flowers as opposed to

(01:06:39):
what you think of it. Andthat's called coral vine, and it's it's
available local garden centers and nurseries.You can get it. Just know that
when it takes off running, itruns like a kindergartener on the first day
of school. I mean it runs, damn. Okay, Okay, my
neighbor it on my backyard. Iput it on my back fence. Yeah,

(01:07:02):
they're Indian people, very sweet people. Yeah, and it was growing
all over everywhere and I loved it. And for some reason, you know,
they cut it out. Okay,all right, go get you,
go, get you some pope.Yeah, corabine pollinators love it. Hey,
Chris, thanks for the call andgood luck with that. Yeah.

(01:07:24):
I think you'll enjoy it. Youbet appreciate it. Bye bye. And
the storm we just had told usanother thing. In addition to power goes
out, we got to take careof our trees because we saw a lot
of damage from the wind from trees. And hurricane season is arriving here in
June through November. You need todo the selective pruning, and you need

(01:07:45):
somebody that knows what they're doing.Don't trust your pruning to some guy that
owns a pick up, a chainsawand a business has a business card to
stick in your door. Call Martinspoon Moore, Martin spoon More at Affordable
Tree Service. It's seven to onethree six nine twenty six sixty three.
We'll say that again, seven onethree six nine nine twenty six sixty three.

(01:08:05):
I cannot stress enough the importance ofproper tree care coming into a storm
season. These limbs maybe your yourtrees made it through the one we just
had. Sometimes they do and thenthe next storm comes through and I don't
know why, but that's the onethat takes the limbs out. They can
damage homes, they can damage carsand other value of our property, and

(01:08:27):
then hurt people. You want tohave somebody look through, get the dead
wood cleaned out, do any kindof a maintenance pruning that's needed. Martin
will come out on a consultation.Charges one hundred and fifty bucks to come
out. He tells you what hesees and what he suggests needs to be
done. If you hire him todo it, that one fifty just goes
right into the price. So givehim a call, have him come out
and take a look. Listen,he stays busy. Tell him you're from

(01:08:49):
garden Line. That helps you getup to the front of the line.
He takes care of his garden Linecustomers. And just call Martin. That's
the bottom line. Don't delay.If you on a website, aff tree
service dot com a ff tree servicedot com. I was talking earlier about
the importance of doing our summer fertilizationnow and nitroposs superturf. That's a silver

(01:09:14):
bag. That's an excellent product forsummer fertilizing your lawn. It gradually releases
the nitrogen over time to create evengrowth, so you're not you know,
having just excessive amounts of mowing tryingto keep up with the overfertilization and then
you know there's not food for lateron. It gradually releases that over time.
Nitrophssuperturf is a quality product designed specificallyfor our southern turf grasses like Saint

(01:09:40):
Augustine, a Bermuda and Suisa herein our hot and humid climate. You're
going to find it at Ktace Hardware. You're going to find it at Ace
Hardware City, a Memorial Drive.You're going to find it at Stanton Shopping
Center down in Alvin, and manyother places. Nitrofossuperturf. Another place you're
going to find it is in ChanniGardens. You know, in Channi Gardens
is down there in the Kadiefoolscher area. It's on It's actually in Richmond,

(01:10:03):
but on the Katie Fulsher side ofRichmond. I said that backwards in Channigardens.
Richmond dot com is a website.Now when you go if you've never
been, go today. I mean, go see it. It is an
amazing place. Just I would sayAcres seems like it when you walk through
there because there's so many beautiful displaysand pottery and everything. They carry all

(01:10:27):
the fertilizers and the soil products thatwe talk about on Guardenline. But what
you're going to find down there isbeautiful color for your plants, dependable shrubs,
and knowledgeable staff that can you godescribe what you have, take them
a picture, say what can Ido for this bed? They will show
you some of the best options tohave success with it. That's the kind
of service you get it in ChenniGardens, Richmond in Chennigardens Richmond dot com

(01:10:53):
on FM three point fifty nine onthe Katie Folscher side of Richmond. We're
going to take a little break hereand I will be right back if you'd
like to get on the board sevenone three two one two kat r h
Gifts give us Welcome back to thegarden Line, good to Heaven with us

(01:11:21):
today. Kind of had to makethat up to Paul Simon since I did
a different Missus Robinson earlier today.Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have
you with us. Hey, Dand D Feed and Tomball is your hometown
feed store. They're out there onthe west side of Tomball on twenty nine

(01:11:42):
to twenty. As you go outwest and D and D Feed carries the
fertilizers that you hear me talk abouthere on Guardline, you're gonna find things
there like the age leaf mole composts. We talk about, the heirloom soils,
rose soil, their fruit berry citrussoil, their veggie and herb mixed
by the bag. They have plantsout front that changed through the seasons.
It's always a good time to gobuy D and D Feed. You're going

(01:12:04):
to go in there and find allthe quality feeds that you need, but
you're also going to find products tohelp control weeds, to help deal with
diseases, to help deal with insects, both organic and synthetic products. They're
at D and D Feed again westof Tomball. Just head out twenty nine
to twenty. You'll see them onthe left hand side. D and D

(01:12:24):
Feed is an outstanding place to shop. They continue to expand that shore store
to add new content, new productand it's always a good place to go
in. I always enjoy going toD and D Feed, one of our
favorite hometown feed stores. Sit outto Pairland now and we're going to talk
to David. Hello, David,good morning. How are you doing.

(01:12:46):
I'm well, thanks. I havea question on my front yard. There's
a section that every year it startsgetting these little lime green kind of marbling
of sections. It's not the wholepart that it just a part there.
You had a collar yesterday that requestedphotos had the same thing. So I've

(01:13:06):
sent you a photo of the longview and then a close up of the
blade itself, and I've done leafmore compost on it and to usual fertilizing
from the schedule and such. Buteach year I have that and it's currently
going on now. So I needsome help. David, you sent me

(01:13:30):
a photo I did. Oh boy, I'm not seeing it here. Uh
all right, describe for me onemore time the what you're seeing in terms
of the color. Okay, yards, nice grain, but there are sections

(01:13:50):
that it has lighter appearances, moreof a lime color. Yeah, and
then you know it's not as Isaid, it's not the whole thing.
Right. I pulled up a bladeand did a enlargement and it has kind
of a streaking. Okay to it? Okay, I got you. Yeah,
that is iron deficiency and it's causedby one of several things. Number

(01:14:13):
One, it could be a lackof iron in the soil. That's unlikely
but possible. It could be thatthe iron that's there is tied up.
That's more likely due to high pHor high phosphorus levels. And it could
also be take all root rot,which kills roots, and when you lose
roots, you lose the ability totake up that iron, which can also
show up as a yellowing. Initially, I would suggest you consider putting a

(01:14:36):
keylated iron product down on it.Thekelated iron is an iron that doesn't tie
up, is readily into the soil, and so that is the one reason
I like it. Another thing,have you fertilized? When was the last
time you put the fertilizer down?I would say late March, beginning of

(01:14:59):
April. And was it a slowrelease? Yes? It was the silver
bag, Oh, silper bag.Okay, Well, that has some iron
in it, about four percent iron. That's nitrofiss superturf. It's an excellent
product. I would go ahead andadd some additional keylated iron to it.
You can find that, you know, wherever you do your gardening shopping in
your area, it's ACE. Yeah, well you should be able to find

(01:15:23):
keylated iron at ACE. Just justgo in and ask them for it.
Be careful not keep any iron productoff your sidewalks and driveway because iron stains
concrete rusty. That whether you leavea nail sitting on the driveway or whatever,
it's going to turn rusty, right, and so iron products will do
the same thing, So be carefulwith that. But I would try that.
And the other thing I would considerif the soil is really tight,

(01:15:46):
heavy clay and doesn't have good aeration, doing some aerration can help with some
compost. Top dressing gets oxygen downin the soil, it gets organic matter
down in the soil, and thatthat will also help it in general.
A couple of go ahead. I'vedone a couple of applications of the leaf
mod compost. Sound sounds like you'reon the right track. Yeah. I

(01:16:11):
would just say, you know,other than doing the keylated iron, I
think you've kind of done what youcan do. Other than just punching some
good aeration holds in to pop aplug out onto the surface, You're you
know you're kind of in the areawhere BnB turf pros services down there,
and they they you know, thatwould be something to consider. I think
you're on the eastern end of theirarea in pair Land there. So if

(01:16:32):
you want to do that as aninvestment, that certainly would be helpful.
But I think it may grow itselfout of it too, especially with a
little bit of an added iron productapplied judiciously. With the same time that
when this turns yellowish, it diesoff at the same time. Is that

(01:16:57):
now that's starting to sound like taketake off root rot. That is starting
to sound like take all root rot. If you pull a runner up and
you look at it and the rut, the roots are not of fresh,
creamy white, healthy color, butthey're brown, even out toward the end
of the runner where it should havefresh new roots. Uh, then that's
take all root rot. Go tomy schedule online. It's at gardening with

(01:17:21):
Skip dot com. Look at takeall root Rot on the disease line and
it'll tell you what to use andgive you more information on that. Okay,
excellent, Okay, good luck withthat. Thanks a lot, get
thank you appreciate your call very much. Yeah. Ace Hardware they do have
it. You're going to get kelatedarm, You're going to get at Ace

(01:17:42):
Hardware pretty much everything you need.Their motto is ACE is a place.
You know, when when we hadfloods, ACE was the place where you
go and you get bleach and youget dehumidifiers and fans and rubber gloves,
and when we have storm damage.ACE is a place where you're going to
get a generator, little gas powergenerator to get things going, or a
chainsaw or things you need. Ace'splace where you get your lawn in order,

(01:18:03):
where you get your gardens in order, where you fertilize, where you
control paths, where you beautify thepatio. ACE is the place for all
of that. And just go toonline to Acehardware dot com find the store
locator. There's forty stores in thegreater Houston area. Pretty easy to find
one or two or three that areclose to you, and they will get

(01:18:24):
you set up because they are committedto carry the fertilizers and products we talk
about here on garden Line. Weare coming up close to a break here,
but I'm gonna v I'm gonna seeif we can get some done here.
We may have to carry you acrossthe other side of break. Okay.
When I had my dead pine treecut down and they ground up the

(01:18:45):
stump, they left a little bitof this stuff. It's about five feet
around and maybe about four four orfive inches deep. It's mostly dirt and
pines, right or I guess anyway, So I wanted to know what should
I do with that? Should Ibox it up and throw it away,

(01:19:08):
or should I use it in acompost heap or what? That's good stuff?
You can you can, you know, if you had a way to
kind of screen it out a littlebit, maybe just with a rate,
kind of pull out the chunks andstuff. That makes a good mulch for
your beds. You can use thatas a mulch. The soil itself should
go back in the hole. Butif you put a lot of that mix

(01:19:29):
of soil and woodchips, it's goingto rot, and that's going to sink
down. So what you thought wasfilled in and a level will all of
a sudden become a depression out inthe yard. So try to get as
much of the woodchip out of thereas you can. Okay, So just
leave it there and then I mean, you know, clean it up,
take out the woodchips, and yeah, leave it in place. You just
want it to be level, right, yeah, yeah, And I would

(01:19:53):
suggest even mounding it up a littlebit like a picture's mound, you know,
just a little bit of a rise, and that way when it sinks,
it ends up level. Because Imean you go out in the yard,
you dig a hole, and youput the same soul right back in
and come back in a month ortwo and all of a sudden, now
you got a depression. Well whathappened? I don't know. It just
the way it works. Oh well, okay, So I could just leave

(01:20:15):
it there and kind of leave italone. Yeah, leave it alone.
Put a flower bed there, puta let your long grow back over it,
whatever you want to do. Ohokay, I'll leave it there.
Then it's you know, not botheringanything. Really scatter, scatter a little
high nitrogen lawn fertilizer on the area, mix it in, water it in
really good, and that nitrogen willhelp speed up that wood decomposition. Oh

(01:20:41):
okay, that sounds like a goodidea. All right. I hope it
is. Well. Thanks a lot, because I've been worried about it,
you know, maybe hurting the thefront yard or something, So no problem.
Okay, thank you, thanks forcolvee appreciate that very much. Hey,
we're going to take a little breakhere and we will come look forward
to visiting with you with your questionson the other side. Seven one three

(01:21:04):
two one two k t R HGreg and Teresa your first stop. Kt
r H Garden Line does not necessarilyendorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to ktR H Garden Line with Skip Richter's Shoes,
crazy trim. Just watch him asmany sun Welcome back to guard Lines.

(01:21:48):
Got a nice little Sunday going onoutside here. Sure appreciate those clouds.
Weather starts to heat up, itgoind nice to have a few clouds
in the sky, that is forsure. We are going to talk about
the things that interest you at sevenone three two one two kt R seven

(01:22:11):
one and three two in two ktR eighteen was the last time you were
up at Plants for All Seasons?You know, that's the garden center that's
right where lu Weetta comes into TomballParkway FM two forty nine. Plants for
All Seasons has been around a longtime since nineteen seventy three. The Flowerty
Family has been in operation out ornear that location since nineteen seventy three.

(01:22:38):
That is amazing because in all thoseyears they have built a reputation for being
a place that has quality plants andquality advice and people love it. They
have a very strong following for avery good reason. You need to go
by there and find out why.When you walk in there where you have
a question, maybe you pull abag out of your pocket with a leaf

(01:22:59):
in it or a bug in it, and you need help identifying if you
want advice on the best plants,how to put things together. Maybe you
want to create a beautiful mixed plant. Or they have gorgeous pottery. I've
got some of their pottery. It'sjust outstanding, beautiful pottery. They can
help you with that. They helpturn brown thumbscreen, let's just put it
that way. And they do thatby providing good quality, accurate, locally

(01:23:25):
accurate information plants for all seasons.Dot com that's the website, the phone
number two eight one, three,seven six, sixteen forty six. You
know, you get through shopping,you head back towards the register to get
your business taken care of, andyou load up on the fertilizers. All
the guardline fertilizers are there. Youload up on the soil bags and products

(01:23:46):
that you need, because you know, don't go home with plants without the
stuff, the brown stuff as Ilike to call it, that makes the
green stuff thrive. Good information,good plants, good soil products equals success.
And that's what we're out for.And that's what they want you to
be out for. They want youto have success, and that's why they
provide education and selection and advice andassistance in that way. We're going to

(01:24:13):
now head out to Rosenberg and talkto Teresa. Hello, Teresa, good
morning, Skip. Thank you fortaking my call. And I want to
say right off, I have enjoyedyour so thoroughly well. Thank you,
folks. That's what a twenty dollarsbill will buy you. I slipped her
a twenty dollar bill last week andshe promised to speak speak that way.

(01:24:35):
My question is, Skip, Iwould like to have a yard, a
backyard where the grass is lush.Okay, you can sit on it,
children can play and they won't hurtthemselves. There you go. What's a
good kind of grass? Well,Saint Augustine is the standard around. That's
what most people have. It's anice soft grass and it does well.

(01:24:58):
It's very shade tolerant. So ifyou've got trees, it helps you have
turf in areas where bermuda grass,for example, wouldn't grow, I would
not do bermuda. Bermuda. No, it's a wonderful it's a wonderful grass.
It makes beautiful lawns. But whenyou talk about children rolling around in
it, bermuda grass harbors chiggers.Do you remember chiggers as a kid rolling

(01:25:19):
around and you're itching and everything.Saint Augustine doesn't do that, and so
for the little kids rolling around init, I wouldn't do the bermuda.
I mean it as far as whatis the grass. It gives you the
densest, most beautiful lawn if youreally mow it often and take care of
it. It's bermuda. Yes,that's why golfer screens or bermuda, not

(01:25:40):
Saint Augustine. But for most homelawn situations being able to go in the
shade and stuff, I would leantowards Saint Augustine or Sousia. There are
some really wonderful zuisias, as onecalled palisades, that is very soft leaved
zeusia. It is the if youhaven't seen Zeluysia before. The Palisades is

(01:26:00):
about a third as wide as aSaint Augustine blade, so it's not as
skinny as Bermuda grass, but it'scloser to Bermuda than Saint Augustine. Palisades
is very dependable. It's fairly shadetolerant, you know, not like Saint
Augustine. I get plenty of sunback there. I don't okay. Palisades
is a good one. Saint Augustine'sa good one. Palisades has got some

(01:26:25):
decent drought tolerance as well. Buteither way you're gonna do fine. And
then just following my schedule, Theresa, that's mow water fertilized. The most
important thing we do to have abeautiful density is mowing. The more often
you mow, the denser the grass. The fertilizing is very important for vigor

(01:26:45):
and density also, and then wateringon a good soaking, not often,
but a good soaking. Those threeput together, mow water, fertilizers really
the secret. It's no secret toa beautiful law. One more question,
skip, can I do this byseed? I would not. I would
do it. No, I wouldn't. There's no Saint Augustine's seed. Yeah,

(01:27:10):
yeah, that's right. No,there's no Saint Augustine's seeds. There
are some semi dwarf bermudas by seed, and I think there's some zouzias by
seed. It's hard to find theseed trying to get seedlings started, little
spinly seedling started with weeds and weedseeds and everything else around. It's more
of a challenge to do it.So you could do it with semidwarf bermudas

(01:27:35):
or I think some zoisias. Ifyou go to the Aggie Turf website Aggie
Turf, and it will give youa listing of Zoisia varieties, and I'm
pretty sure there's a section in thereof the seeded varieties that you could use.
I don't know anybody that does that, but technically, technically it could

(01:27:57):
be done. I would do sodeven and if it was a cost,
I would sod a certain section andthen next year I would take the next
section out, you know, justcontinue to build your lawn out a little
bit over time. That would bea good suggestion. Skips, thank you,
thank you, thank you, andhave a wonderful day, all right,
Teresa, Thank you very much.I appreciate it. Bye bye you

(01:28:18):
bet bye bye. Microlife fertilizers areoutstanding ways to provide an organic source of
nutrients to your lawn. But notjust nutrients. It's the six two four
bag, the green bag that's sixpercent nitrogen, two percent phosphorus, four
percent potassium. It's not just thatit's some microbial content that's also in them.

(01:28:42):
It's the fact that it is organicmatter that you're putting out and so
think of it as a composed typematerial in that you're putting organic material out
there onto the soil that will decomposein time and release the nutrients. Microlife's
humts. Plus the purple bag thatis concentrated IM posting a bag again chuck
full of all kinds of microbial activity. But it also is just helping with

(01:29:06):
the clay soil, helping loosen thatclay soil gradually over time. You know,
the thicker and denser the turf grows, the better the root system,
the more the soil opens up,and it just gets better. And that's
the organic way. That is hownature works, and that is how microlife
fertilizers are designed to work as well. Microlifefertilizer dot com. That's the website

(01:29:27):
if you'd like to go there andlearn more about it, find out where
to get it. We're gonna takea little break here. Our phone number
is seven one three two one twokt r H. When we come back,
Greg and George and Charlie you'll befirst up. I know you've heard
that worn out lime that love.Welcome back to the line. Those were

(01:29:51):
good to have you with us.We're ready to go here we go all
right. If you want to makethe brown stuff good, so the green
stuff is happening, we got todo that by putting down some quality,
organic better in the soil. That'swhat nature does slowly over time. You
walk out to a forest and youdig down in the soil and you're gonna

(01:30:14):
find very rich soil because years ofleaves and parrot poop landing on the jungle
floor have created a nice organic,rich, rich material. Well, we
can save you the eighty years ittakes to achieve that in nature by just
going out and getting you some qualityairloom soil. Airloom soil comes in fruit

(01:30:36):
berry and citrus mix. They've gottheir veggie and herb mix. They've got
a mix for succulentce and cacti.They have a mix called the Works.
It's a potting soil mix. They'vegot the roses and Bloomers blend. We
used to call it rose oil,now Roses and Bloomers blend. They've got
that as well there at Heirloom SoilExpanded shale, very important for our heavy

(01:30:56):
clays. They have that also rightthere at Airlom Soils. Makes it really
really easy to do. By theway, right now at Airloom Soils they
have fifty percent off clearance sale.It's an overstock it's going to go on
really from now all the way toJune second, June second, So don't
put this off. You need toget done while supplies last. When they

(01:31:16):
run out, they run out.But you can get it at Airloom Soilst,
Warrens Rock and Most. It's outthere in Porter on US fifty nine
on the right hand side, you'regoing up toward Porter and they've got the
cacti and second they've got the worksseven dollars each for the half cubic foot
of the works and the cacti andsucculent mix seven dollars each. While supplies

(01:31:36):
last, and then for you know, they have so many soils, it's
just kind of hard to know whereto begin. If you go down to
the eight quartz size, that's asmall size, which for most people.
For the works potting soil, that'sa good size because I mean, you
just don't need that much potting soiltypically at any one given time. Or
their cacti and succulent miss instead ofspending ten bucks on them, you're gonna

(01:31:58):
spend five bucks on each of thosebags. So fifty percent off of both
of those products are all those products, that's cacti and succulent and the works
putting soiled in different sized bags.So take advantage of that. Don't delay.
This is good stuff. When it'sgone, it's gone. But as
long as it will hold up,this is going to go on until June
the second. In airloom soils,you can find those in most garden centers,

(01:32:21):
lots of places here in the greaterHouston area. Let's go now to
Katie and talk to Greg. Hey, Greg, thanks for patiently waiting,
Fie. Good morning, Skiff.I have some cobwebs in my trees.
For the trees is about thirty toforty feet in the air. I send
some pictures. I don't know whatthey are, and I don't know what

(01:32:43):
I can do about them. Okay, I'm gonna pull your pictures up.
Okay, I see that that iswebworms. That is called the fall webworm,
and I know it's not fall.But they have a spring population most
years that's not too bad. Andthen when we get to late summer and
early fall, they have a heavyduty population that can totally to foliate a

(01:33:05):
tree in some years. At thispoint in time, if you want to
try to control them, you gota couple of options. Blasting water up
through the webs to tear up thewebs as best you can. If you
have a device that will send thatstrong of a stream up that high,
that's helpful. Paper wasps or theirnumber one predator, and paper wasp will

(01:33:29):
get in there and start hauling themout. The spray that controls them is
either BT or spinosid spinosid s pI n osa d spin no said or
BT, either of those ingredients.When you first have to break the webs
up with either a long stick ora strong blast of water, because the

(01:33:51):
web keeps the spray from getting insidewhere the worms are feeding. You spray
those products on the leaves, theyeat it, and it's a disease of
webworm caterpillars that kills them. Doesn'thurt any of the good guys out there,
you know the beneficials that are helpingyou. Okay, these are about
thirty to forty feet in the air. I don't have a water stream that's

(01:34:14):
that strong or anything else. Isthere someone that you can recommend they can
do that? You can talk toAffordable Tree Martin Spoon Moore. I don't
know, you know that with thestorms and stuff we've had, I'm sure
he's pretty pretty booked up, butit'd be worth giving him a call,
Affordable Tree Service. Would you likehis phone number? Yes? Please?

(01:34:35):
Huh seven one three six nine twentysix sixty three. Just talk to him
and see if he's able to getout and do the spray, and if
whether he does or not at thispoint in time, or whether you do
anything about it or not. Atthis point in time, when we get
to late summer, be watching andat the first sign of those webs,

(01:34:56):
that's the time to get out there, because they can go from none to
a covered up tree pretty fast.Those caterpillars are hungry. Yeah, I've
got about fifteen webs already in thetree. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
you know they'll eat the leaves off. The trees will grow leaves back,
so it's not going to kill yourtree. It just will look horrible for
a while. And if they're badenough, which, like I keep saying,

(01:35:19):
the fall, the late summer fallapplication or infestation is usually worse there.
You get enough defoliation that going intowinter it kind of weakens the tree.
Okay, thank you, all right, good luck with that. Thank
you very much. I appreciate appreciateyour call very much. And Chaney Forest

(01:35:40):
is a wonderful place to visit.It's down there in the Richmond Rosenberg area.
It's on FM twenty seven to fiftynine Richmond, Texas. So if
you're in Richmond heading towards sugar Landdirection, it's off to the right twenty
seven to fifty nine. They alwayshave things going on there. By the
way, this weekend is that taxfree weekend on water can serving products.
Now in Chenni Forest will not beopen on Labor Day tomorrow, which is

(01:36:04):
part of that weekend tax free,So you need to get it done today.
Plants trees, grasses, soil,compost, mults. All of that
tax free this weekend. A soakerhose, a drip irrigation hose, a
moisture control for a sprinkler, anirrigation system, a rain barrel, an
alternative rain and moisture collection system,a permial ground cover that allows water to

(01:36:28):
go through and reach the underground basinsand oxfords and whatnot, water saving surfactants.
All of that is tax free thisweekend. But get out there and
do it today, because today's thelast day out in Channy Forest where you're
gonna be able to do that.While you're out there, you're going to
find vegetables and herbs, and theircollection of succulents is outstanding. If you're
into butterfly gardens like none other.Plants for the adult butterflies, plants for

(01:36:53):
the larval food sources. They areloaded up out there, and it is
such a pleasant place to stroll throughand just enjoy. It is as the
name implies, it is an enchantingplace to go in Chenny Gardens that in
Richmond. We're going to go toJersey Village now and talk to George.
Hello, George, Yeah, goodmorning, Skip. I was pleased.
And surprise, here hear you onSunday morning. So nice. So all

(01:37:15):
right, I was out at theplant for all seasons. Yes, say,
that's to become my nursery of choice, thanks to you. And I
was interested. I learned a coupleof things. I was shopping for a
bog and v I learned how topronounce it. There's one thing. And
then the lady said I was goingto put in the ground. So he
says, they prefer to be rootbound. So what do you say about

(01:37:35):
that? Is that true? Yeah, that's true. You know, you
get them in a container, theirrootbound, they just seem to perform better
in the ground. Their roots bredout, They get all happy, they
get luxurious, they grow all overthe place, and you don't get the
same amount of blooming as you do. Okay, all right, Can I
use that you know, that littlejar you pass out the people that come
to your presentation? Can I usethat fertilizer form? Oh gosh, I

(01:37:58):
give a lot of different things away. There is a boom and Villia food
that Nelson makes. There's a boogand villion food that micro on micro ka
macapas man. My real question forcalling in was about my my sweet potatoes.
They put out runners going everywhere,right, and then h at wherever
those little joints when the leaves arepopping up, that's where it's digs into

(01:38:23):
the ground and puts the roots down, right, Is that where it grows
sweet potatoes too? Down there fromthe very base of where the vines come
out of the ground. All thesweet potatoes form up there around the base.
Okay, yeah, not out downthe long route. Then there's suddenly
a sweet potato. It's all aroundthat. They'll all be at the base
of the plant, not out wherethe runners are. Is that right,

(01:38:43):
correct? They will root out thereand you will get some little finger sized
swollen roots, but not anything you'regoing to want to take home and try
to bake it. Okay, goodto know, And you know, I
wish I had a pickup truck whenI went out there. I'll see you
because they always going to buy.Yeah, there's no room for my car
there. You go. All right, Well, good luck with that,

(01:39:03):
Good luck with the potadium. Yes, sir, you take care. Appreciate
that. Call. One of myfavorite new products that's out on the market
right now, and it is brandnew pretty much Medina supergrol Plus. Now
Medina makes a has to grow line, the regular has to grow, the
has to grow lawn. This isa has to grow super grow plus.
That's the name supergrow Plus. It'sa sixteen zero two fertilizer. It's a

(01:39:27):
little court bottle hooks up to yourgarden hose. It has got the sixteen
percent nitrogen two percent potassium in it. About a fifth of that nitrogen is
even slow release, so you geta little gradual feed. It's got iron
in a keylated form. Someone wascalling earlier we were talking about, you
know, the lack of good colorand talking about putting an iron keylate on.

(01:39:48):
I would try some of this supergrowPlus and see how that works on.
It is just a hose in coversabout four thousand square feet, takes
you about ten minutes to do yourlawn. It's got molasses in it,
it's go humic acid in it.It just is something that is going to
make your microbes happy and therefore gonnamake your plants really really happy. To

(01:40:08):
including seaweed extracts in this Medina hasto Grow supergrow Plus sixteen oh two.
You're gonna find it a lot ofplaces they've got it out in the market
now and it's easy to find andI would highly recommend you use it.
And why you got it hooked upto the garden nose. If you run
out a lawn, go hit yourtomatoes, go at your vegetable garden,
your flower beds. I mean,you can use it on a lot of
things and it works. It doeswork. We're going to now go to

(01:40:32):
Charlie at West University. Hello,Charlie, Hi, please recommend me of
grass for a shady area about eightpercent shade. Oh, Saint Augustine's is
gonna be as close as you're goingto get. It's not gonna be happy
in that much shade. If youcan get it. Yeah, if you

(01:40:55):
can brighten the shade, If youcan brighten it, then maybe you can
get by there. But I thinkwhat you're going to find is it's going
to be barely hanging on and you'renot gonna have the density that you want.
Maybe you ought to consider a differentgroundcover, something like a jugo,
which is a groundcover for shady areas. Lorioty monkey grass. What do you

(01:41:17):
say a juka a juga? Yeah, it's a little it's called carpet bugle
or a juga. It's a it'sa little groundcover. Broad leaf groundcover has
little tiny blooms on it. Mondograss or monkey grass. There's a dwarf
type. Now you got to buya lot of them because it doesn't spread
fast, but it makes a reallynice, low dense lan and it can
take more shade than just about anything. So I think you're gonna have to

(01:41:42):
come up with a different strategy inthere, but Saint Augustine Palmetto, Saint
Augustine's about the best you're going todo. Okay, all right, thank
you, thank you, Thanks Charlie, appreciate the call very much. We
want to take a little b herefor Nicky in the news and we'll be
right back at seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four. Let's

(01:42:05):
see Brian and Logan. You'll bethe first two up. Heye, every
wine. Welcome back to the guardenline. Heavy good, heavy back.

(01:42:26):
We're gonna get right back on ithere. Listen. If you're dealing with
pests in the lawn, Nitrofis hasa product called bug Out. Bug Out
is very effective, works against overone hundred and thirty different kinds of insects.
So here we are on the vergeof chinchbug season, not too far
behind that we're gonna be seeing possiblyhopefully that won't happen this year, but

(01:42:49):
some years are horrible, and thatis the sod web worms. Bug out
works on both of those. Bugout works on grubs. In June is
the time we do our first applicationfor grubs out there in the lawn and
landscape, chinchbugs in your lawn.I mentioned, well, how about ants?
How about fleas and ticks? Doyou know that fleas actually have larva

(01:43:09):
that're out in the thatch of yourgrass. That's why when the dogg or
cat goes out and comes back in, you're just you know, transferring their
hitching a ride. It's kind oflike their little subway service in and out
of the house. You deal withthem in the lawn, you deal with
them on the pet and that's howyou get ahead of the filea problem.
Bug Out MAX by Nitrofoss. It'sone of those products that is easy to

(01:43:29):
find because it's the Knight Foss productswidely available. So for example, plans
Fell seasons on two forty nine KingwoodAce hardware, a Taskeasita Ace Hardware,
the arbrogate up in Tomball, DanDefeed up INtime. All those are places
where you're going to find nitrofoss,bug Out Max, where you're going to
find night foss products. We're goingto head out now to Richmond, Texas
and talk to Brian. Hello,Brian, good morning, Skip. How

(01:43:54):
are you? I'm good, sir. How can we hey a question on
honeybees? I've always lived on landfor my near neighbor was no more than
tourist three hundred yards away, orno closer than tourist three hundred yards Yes.
Uh, what would you say aboutRichmond? I love right on Richmond
Parkway, So my property butts upto the Parkway and I've only got a
quarter acer Like, can you havehoney Bees? Is that what I mean?

(01:44:18):
I'm not actually in Richmond, I'min four Been County, so,
but but the question is can youhave run Honeybees in that location? Is
that what you're asking? Well,I'm asking if even if it's allowed?
Oh okay, yeah, am Itoo close? Yeah? Well here's what
I would do. I would callthe be supply out in Dayton and ask

(01:44:38):
them they stay up to date onall the rules, the short answer is
yes, you can have honey beesin town. Uh, but there are
certain regulations on how much or howclose or whatever, and I don't keep
I don't keep up with all thedetails on that. But let me give
you. Let me give you aphone number and talk talk, talk to
Paul or someone out at the bsupply nine seven seven six o seven three

(01:45:03):
nine. I'll say that again,nine three six seven seven six o seven
three nine. Talk to them andthey can direct you to the specifics of
what the law reads. And uh. Yeah. So the short answer is
probably yes. But the devil's alwaysin the details. You know, if
you got bees piled a mile highand all wall to wall across the edges

(01:45:26):
of the property next to somebody's house, there's probably some issues there where you
can't. Oh, I don't wantto one or two supers at the most.
Well, anyway, I'm going tobet a ninety eight percent chance that's
not gonna be a problem. Butcall the best pot talk to them.
They're the experts. Okay, Okay, one other question. Yes, so
my tomatoes, my cherries are doinggreat, but I've got German, Johnson's
and better Boys, and boy,they just aren't producing this year. Okay,

(01:45:50):
any thoughts, Well, we're notquite in hot weather yet, but
cherry set better in hot weather thanthe slicers do. So I would expect
this going into June and July andAugust, the cherries to be the ones
that's set. Uh. German johnsay, is a little slower to come in
to ripening. Uh, it's daysto harvest, if you will. And

(01:46:11):
so sometimes with those as we getinto the summer, but about the time
they start setting, it's starting toget a little bit warm. So did
you say celebrity was the other one? German John's no better? Better boy,
better boy? Okay, yeah,better boy. Again, it's a
good tomato. It had been arounda long time. Uh are you getting
blooms and the blooms aren't setting orare they not even bright? And and

(01:46:34):
I've started pollinating them with a witha model paint brush. Okay, good,
good, Yeah. So the tomatoespollinate not with bees carrying pollen from
one to the other, but bysomething shake in the bloom and the pollen
falls within the bloom and it pollinatesitself. And so that's why, uh,
you know, honey bees buzzing themand things that buzzing does it in

(01:46:57):
a greenhouse. They'll have them onwires and they used to use like a
little electric toothbrush and just go andtouch the clusters and just vibrate those clusters
and it would it would pollinate them, or hitting the wires and shaking them.
Wind usually does it outside, butwho knows, maybe weather conditions.
I don't know what all could havebeen involved, but something along the lines

(01:47:18):
of that. Those older varieties likeBetter Boy too, sometimes when you overdo
the nitrogen on them, they don'tset as well on the blooms. So
we're sort of throwing a bunch ofthings out there. There are possibilities to
think about. But yeah, thatthat's what I would say. Something in
there is what's going on? Ifnot more than one thing. Yeah,

(01:47:40):
I'm afraid I may have put outa little bit too much triple thirteen.
But oh well, okayleve and learn, all right. Well, thank you
Sirkay, you bet that's part ofpart of the garden. You know,
one year tomatoes thrive the next year. What the heck is going on?
But that's that is in the garden. Thank you, Thank you, Brian,
appreciate the call very much. Mossnursery is done in Richmond. It's

(01:48:02):
on it's in Richmond, it's inSeabrook. My head's still in Richmond right
now, Seabrook, Texas out onToddville Road. You've not seen a nursery
like Moss Nursery. You haven't.I don't care where you've been. It
is so unique. First of all, it's been a family operated nursery.
It's seventy year old nursery. Canyou imagine that eight acres to wander through.

(01:48:25):
It's tree filled and every time youturn a corner, it's like you're
walking through the jungle. You know, there'd be some ethnic wood carved mask
or some stone figure. You know, it's like you've walked into an inca
pyramid kind of setting or what.It's just always interesting there. And plants,
Oh my goodness, they are soloaded with plants, beautiful tropical plants,

(01:48:49):
gorgeous hanging baskets. If you're lookingfor everything from vegetables to flowers to
trees, to show up their houseplantgreenhouse is outstanding. Worth the price admission
right there, just to go inand see that place. And there is
no price of admission, by theway, intelligent helpful, friendly staff.
You go in there and it's justyou're talking to gardeners like yourself, people

(01:49:13):
that they've got their hands in thedirt and they know what they're talking about.
Moss Nursery, cactus and succulents.It's outstanding. In fact, I
just named the plant and they've gotit at Moss and it looks good and
they got a good deal on ittoo. Moss Nursery down in Seabrook on
Toddville Road. You need to goby there and check it out. If
you haven't, it's well worth atrip down you. It's a place like

(01:49:35):
none other. That's just the bestway I can describe it. I want
to go now out to Logan inKatie, Texas. Hey Logan, Hey,
how's it going. I'm well,sir. How can we help?
I'm looking to get air rates now. I know everybody does core aeration.

(01:49:55):
I saw a new thing on TikTokliquid aeration. Have you heard anything about
it? Does it work? I'veheard about it. It can help,
but it's not like cororation help liquideration. There are places that they use a
surfactant so that instead of water sortof getting caught up and not soaking in

(01:50:20):
really well. They say surfactants makewater wetter, it likes it soaks in
better, and that can help.In some types of clay soil, it
can help a little bit. There'salso sometimes there's some groups that will put
a slurry of a humus type materialout there and they will inject that down

(01:50:41):
into the soil to create space andto add that humus to the soil,
which helps over time. But Ihaven't seen the specific ad that you're seeing,
but i'd have to see exactly whattheir claim is as to whether I
believe it or not. Okay,And do you think it is too late
in the season to air rate oroh no, it's never too late.

(01:51:02):
No, you can air rate asoften as you want, whenever you want.
Uh. But typically because true cororation, it's an expensive process because
you're bringing out heavy equipment, qualityquality mix. If it's a company that
knows what they're doing, and they'rethey're running that equipment out and they're you

(01:51:23):
know, putting all the top dressingson it and stuff. But it actually
physically creates the whole down into thesoil and adds the compost on top,
and you get oxygen and you getroot growth, and it basically is doing
what nature does by getting or gangmatter down to the soil. But you're
cheating, you're doing it real fast. Yes, all right, all right,

(01:51:45):
well thank you, all right,thank you very much. Appreciate that.
You bet you take care. Allright, We're gonna have to run
to a break for the news hereseven one three two one two ktrh.
When we come back, Brett andLogan, you'll be the first two up.
And hey, where did we go? Welcome back, Welcome back to

(01:52:17):
the garden Line. That's a goodsummer song, Morrison. You need to
You need to enjoy yourself in thesummertime out in the gardens. You need
to have some good music going on. Remember you can listen to the Garden
Line on your phone by using IHeartmedia. You out there getting work done.
While we're talking about getting work donehere on the Garden Line. You

(01:52:41):
hear me brag about Southwest fertilizer allthe time because Southwest fertilizer carries everything you
need. If they don't have it, you don't need it. It's as
simple as that. If I talkabout a fertilizer, it's a Southwest fertilizer.
If I talk about a soul product. If I talk about controlling weeds
or pests, or diseases or insects, they have it all the tools.
They have everything you need to makeyour garden a more beautiful and more bountiful

(01:53:04):
place. They've got it to SouthwestFertilizer. They're on the corner of bess
Nutt and Renwick in south West Houston. You can go to the website Southwest
Fertilizer dot com. When you goin there, talk to Bob, talk
to Aaron, any of the staffthat's there, and ask him about the
kneeling bench that they have. That'sone of my favorite new tools that I've

(01:53:26):
gotten in the last few years isa kneeling bench. It folds up so
you can carry it around easy,put it away easy. You can set
it up one way and sit onit. You can flip it over the
other way and kneel on it.But those legs that you were sitting on
now become handles so you can getup and down. I don't know,
but if you're north of forty yearsold, that is a really cool thing
to have when you're up and downa bunch. They've got it. A

(01:53:47):
Southwest fertilize. They also have NitrofisSuperturf for example, that is a silver
bag Superturf. Superturf is the nineteenfour ten fertilizer that has four percent eyes
that also helps with good green color. It's a slow release, so when
you put it down, it's goingto give you several months of release and

(01:54:08):
a gradual feeding that gives even growth, so you're not going through crazy mowing
season, you know, just tryingto keep up with the growing lawn and
you get a good lawn root system, which is important. And by giving
a slow release, you spread outthe growth and you have a better root
system on your lawn by Nitrofoss,one of the many quality products available there

(01:54:28):
from Nitrofoss. We're going to gonow to the heights. I had forgotten
Nancy. You're out there on waiting, on hold. We're going to come
to you first. I think you'vewaited the longest. Good morning, Come
in. I spoke it to yesterday. My question yesterday, and then my
husband wanted me to ask something else. But for yesterday it was about trimming
my lore peedlum or Chinese cringe.It's not a tree, it's more like

(01:54:53):
a hedge in the front, andit's getting real wild, and I want
to know whether or not I canhim off the top of it and guide
of it and make it look alittle neater. Yeah, you can,
you can. You can do thetrimming. Sometimes I trim a little further
than you really want to trim becauseit's going to regrow, and that allows

(01:55:14):
you to shape it. You know, like if you want it exactly X
feet high and you cut it offthere, well it's going to get higher
than that, you know, andso maybe come back a little further and
then as it fills back in,you can do some shaping and end up
with whatever the desired shape you're goingfor it is. But yes, that's
fine, find it, do that, Okay, great, So it's not

(01:55:34):
who I can do it in thesummer. Now, it's not not going
to be a problem. No,it's not a problem. Typically we try
to do most of our pruning onplants in the toward the end of winter,
but this one, it is nota problem. Just do it,
spread it out over time. Youknow, if you're going to do a
lot of pruning, don't do itall at once, but spread it out
a little bit over time. Okay, all right, great, thanks so

(01:55:57):
much, thanks to the car.I appreciate, appreciate that a lot ana
Plants and produce up there in Montgomery. That is your go to nursery if
you've up, if you're in Montgomery, Conro, even the Lake Conroe area,
this is your hometown garden center.And they carry an unbelievable selection of
plants. They got knowledgeable staff.They usually keep my schedules there on the

(01:56:18):
counter for you just to pick upthere. But I'd suggest you print one
up and take it with you becausewhen you get there, you're going to
find every product I talk about.I'm talking about Nature's way, I'm talking
about airloom sols, microlife, Nelson'snitroposs for example. Out at Ana Plants
and Produce. By the way,their hours are also excellent, number one

(01:56:38):
seven days a week, but thehours nine to five, seven days a
week, knowledgeable staff. You justswing by there and it's all waiting for
you there. Take it back home. They have a landscape crew too that'll
come out and if you live outat the Lake Conroy area, they can
come out and do some really nicework for you if you need some assistance
with that. But They carry Nelson's, the Nelson's line, the Turf Star

(01:56:59):
line, Bruce's Brew which gives youa good quick green up but has two
different kinds of slow release that graduallyadd on to the end of that pretty
well. They carry the Slow andEasy, which is front forward with the
slow release. In other words,it will give you at least four months
of feeding out there a little bitnow, but a gradual release over time
that will take you all the wayup into the fall fertilization. That's two

(01:57:24):
of the excellent products in the turfStar line available from Nelson Plant Food,
and you can get a both outthere at A and A Plants and Produce
in Montgomery. We're going to gonow to Spring Branch and talk to Brett.
Hello Brett, Hello, good morning. So the big storm I lost
a couple of really big trees andI want to replace them. I was

(01:57:45):
thinking about a red oak, acouple of red oaks. I wanted something
that was fairly fast growing and lowmaintenance. What are your thoughts on that.
Red Oaks a pretty fast growing tree. You know the super fast trees
we say grow fast, die young, But red oak is one that gives
you a really good growth rate.And it is a very nice, long

(01:58:06):
lived tree if you train it right, take care of it, you know,
create a good structure as you're buildingthat. It is an excellent choice.
Is your area well drained or doesit tend to stay a little soggy
wet after rains. No, it'spretty well drying. Okay. You could
probably use a Schumart oak or anut tall oak. Either one would do

(01:58:27):
well in that area. Stumart,Schumard s h U M A r D.
If it's a good quality, well, very well drained soil, Schumart
will do well. Nutall will dowell in that soil. But it'll also
do well in a little bit ofa clay heavy clay, little on the
two wet side sometimes and you teachand you t t A L L.

(01:58:47):
I believe I'm trying to spell it. Okay, where would I where's a
good place to buy trees? I'venot bought a tree. Well, I
would try Vertin tree Farm. They'renot too far from you. There there's
a verdant tree farm. There's oneout west Barker Cypress. There's one in
the Heights where eleventh Street comes intoit. Ten and not eleventh Yale.

(01:59:10):
I'm sorry, Yale comes into itten north southeast. Would you recommend those
trees over the red oaks? Thoseare both red oaks, those are both
types of h wow. Yeah,I was just continuing what you were asking
about. Yeah, and Na,let me give you. Let me give
you a website for Verdant. It'sVerdant Treefarm dot com Verdant v E R
D A N T as in greentreefarm dot com. When you go there,

(01:59:33):
Brett, you're gonna be able tolook up those trees and read about
each one. They've got a listingof palms and a listing of trees,
and I would start online by doinga little online learning and shopping, then
go in and sit down with themand show them the area and describe what
you're looking for. Sounds good,Okay, Well, thank you for your
help. I really appreciate it.Yeah, you bet, Brett. Good

(01:59:54):
luck with that good quality trees.After that storm, I'll tell you we
we lost a lot of trees inthe Greater Houston area and it's a good
time to start preparing to get oneout. You know. Verdon nice thing
about them is they offer that whatwe call true turnkey service. You go
out there, you pick that theactual tree you want. You walk through
all these red oaks and say Iwant that one, and they tag it

(02:00:17):
and they bring it and they installit for you, and you get a
one year warranty when they do theinstallation. And you need to have them
do that because they have some bigtrees that you know, unless you have
a lot of very very good equipment. They've got trees up to seven hundred
gallons in size, which is crazy. That's nice, but Verdin's always a

(02:00:38):
good place to get that kind ofthing. By the way, I mentioned
the one in Barker Cypress and onat Yale in the Heights area. I
tend they also have one done inPerilant on Broadway Street for those of you
listening that are down in that area. Well, I'm just sitting there looking
at the clock, going, Idon't know, it seems to be running
too fast today. Because here weare, here, we are another break.

(02:01:01):
We will be back. I wantedto talk about a couple of things.
One thing you need to put onyour calendar for tonight. The Exchange
Club of Sugarland is presenting a Nightto Remember honoring our fallen heroes. And
this is going to be quite anevent. They're gonna have Grammy Award wringing
singers, a brass band, athirty member chorus, and dancers. It's

(02:01:21):
just a big tribute to folks.It's a good good thing for Memorial Day,
right a night to our honor ourfallen heroes. It's free, it's
open to the public. Bring somecanned food and donate them because the East
Fort beIN County Human Needs Ministry isgoing to be collecting canned food as well.
That is tonight Sunday, seven fivepm at the Sugarland Town Square right

(02:01:45):
in front of the City Hall facade. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse
any of the products or services advertiseon this program. Welcome to Katie r
H Guarden Line with Scamp Richter.It's crazy trip. Just watch him as

(02:02:19):
us many good thanks to septs.Not a sign welcome back, Welcome back
to Guardline. Good to have youwith us. Well, we got another
hour to do today before we shutthings down until next weekend. Get your

(02:02:44):
gardening advice in. Let us helpas best we can, and the kinds
of questions you might have. Forexample, here's a till how about getting
a hold of some sweet Green,which is eleven percent nitrogen organic product from
Nitrofox. It is a the molassesbased product between molasses with microbe activity working

(02:03:04):
on it. We have a verynice, fresh smelling, wonderfully smelling product
that will make your microbes very happyin the soil. They love sugar based
products. They need carbon, Theyneed a source of carbon. Microbes don't
make their own carbon. Plants dothat. They take carbon out of the
air and turn them into plant parts. Well, when it comes to microbes,

(02:03:25):
they need plant parts to feed on. But they also just need good
sources of carbon, and sweet greenis one of those. Now, sweet
Green is being a nit fross product, is widely available. You're going to
not have trouble finding it in theGreater Houston area. Nitrofoss products like sweet
Green are widely widely available. You'regoing to find a bit our ace hardware

(02:03:45):
stores all over the Greater Houston area. That's just one example of the kinds
of places where you can find it. But Nitrofoss Sweet Green is a product
that is going to dissolve away intothe soil again, make the microbes happy,
and make the soil happy, andmake the turf happy. That's kind
of how that all works. Nitrofissweet, green, good quality product.

(02:04:08):
Hey, have you been out tothe Nelson Water Garden and Nursery that is
in Katie, Texas. Think ofit as your West Houston garden center and
think of it also as a destinationgarden center. It is inspiring to walk
through. Now. We know theNelsons have been a leader in water gardens
nationally for a long long time.When it comes to creating a water feature,

(02:04:30):
whether it's a waterfall or one ofthose disappearing fountains or the beautiful glazed
pottery with the water spilling over theside and returning back through again, they
invented that. Well, they've gotall that, but their garden center's outstanding
that the plants they have, theselection they have is great. You need
to go see it and take yourfriends with you because, trust me,

(02:04:50):
it's fun to walk through because itis so inspiring out there. Now on
Memorial Day weekend, you know,this is a tax free weekend for water
saving things, so plants, trees, grasses, malt, soil, composts,
underlayment, groundcover materials, those areall tax free this weekend. But
in addition, to that. They'reat Nelson Water Garden and Nursery and Katie

(02:05:12):
they're having a twenty percent off allplants sale and a ten percent off all
their bagged goods and fertilizers sale.So there's the brown stuff that helps the
green stuff to thrive. Katie FortBenroad. Just go out to Katie.
Turn right, turn north on KatieFort Ben Road. It's a stone's throwaway
right up there, and trust me, you will love this place. Nelsonwatergardens

(02:05:36):
dot Com your West Houston area destinationgarden center. We're going to have now
back to the phones. If thisindividual being myself can figure out how to
click on the right box, therewe go. Kathy and Conroe, how
can we help today? Yes,I had a big tree years now and

(02:06:00):
it's yet to produce figs. Really, do you know? Do you know
what kind it's supposed to be?No, they were here when I they
were here when I moved in.A fig that doesn't produce this fig seem
like I read somewhere that that kindof tree was cursed and dug up and
shriveled away. But I mean it'sgrowing beautifully, it's gotten huge, but
not one single fig. Wow,I'm gonna have to chalk that up.

(02:06:26):
And it's in full sun, Iassume, yes, Okay, I'm gonna
have to chalk that up. Ifsomething's wrong, I don't know what kind
of fig it is. I don'tknow what's going on. Does it die
to the ground ever winner an regroor does it just stay huge and it
leaves, it loses its leaves andthen it comes back, Kathy, I
can't think of a reason for that, but I have a second So then

(02:06:48):
I planted a second fig tree andI and I don't have any figs on
that one either. M I'm nothave to work. I'm gonna have to
work on that. Here's what Iwant to do. I'm going to put
you on hold, and I wantyou to get my email from the producer,
and I want you to send mesome pictures of these figs. I

(02:07:11):
want to see the whole bush,okay, and then I want to see
maybe up close, the leaves,the ends of the shoots, the shape
of the leaves. Not all figleaves or shaped the same. And let
me look at this and look intoit and see if I can identify anything
going on on there, and Iwill get back to you. Via emails.

(02:07:32):
Was I supposed to use a certainkind of fertilizer? No, no
figs or figs grow just abandoned almostthey, you know, as long as
they have moisture. There used tobe a huge fig industry here on the
Gulf coast and our black clay soilsthat then became rice patties. But they
they they shouldn't be that hard.I don't know why this thing is in

(02:07:55):
producing, but I'll look into it. But let me hang on. Don't
go away. My producers go topick up and I have sent him the
email my email address, so thathe can provide that to you, and
let's take it from there. Okay, thank you so very much. I
appreciate it. I'm happy to dothat, no problem at all. You
know, we talk about the importanceof brown stuff, of taking care of

(02:08:18):
the soil, and I just can'tstress that enough. It's easy to get
excited about a tomato plant because youcan taste of tomatoes when you're taking the
plan home. You can already imaginethat you buy a little rose bush and
you can just picture the bush coveredwith blooms, and we get excited about
that. But what about the brownstuff? What about the nutrient and the
soil. What about the organic matterin the soil. What about building up

(02:08:39):
a raised bed or putting in abox for a garden for better, better
drainage even than that. Ciena Maltsdown south of Houston. Ciena Malts they
are near Roch Sharon, just northof Roach Sharon. On FM five twenty
one, they get you set upon the brown stuff. Now they're closed
on Sunday, but they're open Mondaythrough Friday thirty to five and on Saturday

(02:09:01):
from seven thirty to two pm.So any of you down there in these
neighborhoods like Brasspin State Park area,sun Creek Estates, quil Valley, Manville,
Meridian, First Colony, Pomona orCola Sweetwater Ciana Plantation, this is
your backyard. Green Brown's tough source. When you go in there, you're
going to find native hardwood mulches,double ground mulches, two inch screen materials,

(02:09:26):
beautiful dark chocolate colors, not dyed, beautiful color, not dye.
Smells wonderful. They've got it inbulk, They've got stuff in bags,
and they carry every fertilizer I talkabout on garden Line at cienamulch. It
is your brown stuff place. Yougo there, you bring that home or
have them delivered. They deliver withinabout twenty miles for a fee. Have

(02:09:48):
them delivered to you. They're onFM five twenty one near Highway twenty or
Highway six and two eighty eight cnmultchdot com. When you bring their stuff
home and then you put a plantin it, it's like you took the
plant to Disneyland. It's gonna behappy and everyone's gonna say you have a
green thumb, But what you reallygot is the secret sauce, the brown

(02:10:09):
stuff in the ground. First,we're gonna head out. Now, let's
see. Well, actually I gotto take a break. Keep having breaks
today. I gotta pay these bills. Fred and Joyce, you'll be the
first two up when we come back. Seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four And welcome back togarden Line. Good to have you with

(02:10:37):
us today. A lot to talkabout. Still, Hey, Wahbird's Unlimited.
You need to go into a Wabird'sUnlimited store. I'm telling you you
maybe you've never thought, yeah,I'm not a bird watcher. Okay,
that's fine. I mean if youare, you've probably already been in a
wild bird store. But if you'rejust a backyard gardener, you know,

(02:10:58):
I used to not be the intobirds. I just wasn't against that.
I just hadn't really thought about itmuch. I was into gardening and stuff.
I just year by year by yearget more and more interested. Yeah,
the end of the day, Igot up early in the morning and
I let the dogs outside, andthe songs of the birds, I mean,
it was a cacophony. They wereannouncing the day. They're probably yelling

(02:11:20):
at me to get out there andgive them some more feet. Wabirds Unlimited
as quality feed, and I lovetheir blends. When you buy Wibirds Unlimited
bird seed and you buy a poundof it, you getting a pound of
stuff that goes into the bird.That is how it works. They have
the complete hullless blends. For example, so sunflowers they put the seed in,
not the whole hole. Now theyalso have the blends that have the

(02:11:41):
holes in them, but they don'thave those little red beebes that the birds
kick out because they don't want toeat it. Nesting Super Blend, that's
a very important one for the birds. It gives them the nutrients, the
compounds, the proteins and things thatthey need right now. During this season,
we got a number of birds thatare nesting around our house. Some
little swallows, barn swallows moved in. We always love those things watching their

(02:12:03):
antics. But whether it's hummingbirds orwhether any kind of chickadee you are interested
in, out there, Wilbirds Unlimitedwill get you set up feeders houses in
incredible books. They have a bookcalled The Joy Bird Feeding by the founder
of Wallbirds. It's really good.My favorite feeder they've got is the Eliminator.
It is the Cadillac squirrel proof birdfeeder, And I mean squirrel proof

(02:12:26):
and squirrels are smart, but thatis my favorite feeder that's out there.
Go check it out. Just sayI want to see the skip talks about
the Cadillac out here. I wantto see it. Well, that's it
and the parts. It's a lifetimefeeder, it really is. I mean
it can be anything that ever needsto be replaced and stuff. They can
get that done on it. It'sa good feeder. Wabirds Unlimited quality materials

(02:12:48):
and it is just such a goodhobby. You know the birds are out
there then they're catching bugs for youin your garden. They're doing that,
You're enjoying their songs, you're enjoyingtheir beauty. Why not go buy wild
birds? Maybe a bird bath thatwould be a good one. To add
another good thing, a little bitmore for the birds in the garden.
Let's go to Kingwood. We're goingto go talk to Fred. Now.

(02:13:11):
Hello, Fred, Hi, Skip, thanks for taking my call. And
we're having a memorable Memorial Day andwe wish that for you and all your
listeners. Thank you so much.I have two questions on my Saint Augustine
turf. One is is there anyadvantage I bought a Honda mower a year
and a half ago that will goall the way up to four inches.

(02:13:35):
I prefer the look of the lawnat three and a half inches. Is
there any value in going all theway up to four inches? And my
lawn guy uses my mower and Ican have it set any place I want.
Tell me the kind of grass SaintAugustine, But do you know the
variety off hand or just Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine, that's okay, that's

(02:13:58):
all right. Most Saint Augustine atfour I think it looks a little too
high at four. Now, ifit were in a shady area where you're
trying to capture as much of thatlow light as possible, then mowing and
higher is better because the grass bladesare solar panels, and so when the
solar energy is down in the shade, having a bigger solar panel helps a

(02:14:20):
little bit, and so taller heightshelp with that. But three and a
half inches is a pretty good standardheight to go. That would be a
good heights to keep doing the thing, because I like the look of it
better at three and a half.Yeah, I would think you would,
yes, absolutely, yeah. Andthe second question was I put wheed Nator
Nelson's weed Enater on on March first. I've been using only Microlive six two

(02:14:45):
four for the last seven eight nineyears, and I plan to continue using
that. I put the wheed naton to help with some of the weed
control and it seemed to work.But when do I need to get the
Microlife six two four out this monthor early next month? Or do I
have time? Uh, you didthe weed Nator band, you could do

(02:15:05):
the you could start the sixty fournow, you could do that. Now
just do some moderate applications. Doit now and doing about oh I don't
know, six to eight weeks later, do it again. Just kind of
watch your lawn, see how itlooks, and return the clippings in the
meantime. Well, that's what I'mdoing with this mow where I bought I

(02:15:26):
multimo Good. That's good. You'rerecycling the store bought fertilizer that you put.
You're keeping those nutrients on the property. That's the way to do it.
How long should the weed nator last? Can I wait till late June?
Or should I just go ahead andget it on now because I'm also
going to put the azemite on thesame time. What weeds are you dealing

(02:15:46):
with? Well, I had avariety of weeds, and most of them
were the wild strawberries, and sothat's why I use the Nelson's weed Nator,
and it really seemed to take careof those. Okay, Well,
I mean you could. You couldapply it again. You just have to

(02:16:07):
get the weeds wet before you putit down, right, Yeah, But
I don't want to use it again. I want to use the six two
four. Oh okay, Well,I guess I'm not following. I didn't
follow your question. But yes,you can use the six two four for
your nutrients and stuff and then thatwould be just fine. Is it a
slow release or no. It isan organic so it has to break down
microbial lely to release the nutrients.It's not the ones we generally refer to

(02:16:33):
as slow release or things that aredesigned forms of nitrogen that just can't release
until either microbial activity attacks them orother other things caused that nutrient over time
to release. So ok, thankyou so much for your health. It's
slowish release the slowish okay, slowishokay. And and the lawn is really

(02:16:56):
lush. I have the lawn.Yeah, that's what nature does. Nature
does slow ish okay. Thank yousir. All right, thanks you a
lot. I appreciate you. Thanks. Bobby Hey fix my slab foundation repair
Ty Strickland. They've been in thebusiness twenty three years. Here. Ty
knows how to fix things. Heknows how to look for things. We

(02:17:16):
just got a lot of rain.The soil is swollen. When it gets
hot and dry, the soil willshrink. That rex havoc on our foundations,
on our sidewalks, on our driveways. When you see cracks on the
brick outside, when you see crackson the sheet rock inside, when you
got a door that starts sticking thatused to not something has moved and you
need to have Tye come out andlook at it. The website fixmslab dot

(02:17:39):
com. Fix myslab dot com.The phone number two eight one two five
five forty nine forty nine. Tellhim your guardline listener. You get a
free estimate guardline listeners. The thingI like about tie and fix my slab
number one. They know what they'redoing, but they show up on time,
they fix it right, and theygive you a fair price, and

(02:18:01):
you just can't ask for more thanthat for service. Tysand Native Ustonian,
fifth generation Texan. Here, whetherit's a sidewalk, a foundation, a
driveway, they can do it.Fix my slab, fix myslab dot com.
We're going to go now to Houston, it says, and Joyce.
Hello Joyce from somewhere in Houston.Hi, how are you? I'm good?

(02:18:26):
How are you? I have somequestion about blue bonnet seeds. I've
been growing blue bonnets to my gardenfor quite a few years and I want
to share the seas, so I'vetaken off my plants with friends, and
what's the best way I read online. It says to put them in the

(02:18:46):
freezer overnight and then put them ina dish the next day and put boiling
water on them, which is kindof wild. Okay, well, I
don't know about the freezer being thanyou. I don't know about the freezer
being a big help. The boilingwater is to soften the hard seed coat.
Blue bonnets, by design, havethis nice hard seed coat, so

(02:19:09):
they don't all sprout one year andthat ends up being a drought year and
they all die. They gradually itdecomposes away and then what some of the
seed sprouts this year, some sproutsnext year, and so on. So
the hot water boiling water won't killthem because by the time it's soaking in
there, the water's already cooling off, but it being hot it makes it
soaking faster and soften that extra seoutside seed coat. If you want to

(02:19:35):
speed things up, people do allkinds of different things, from putting them
in sulfuric acid, which is crazyfor the home end to do that,
but to using sandpaper, you know, rubbing them in sandpaper just to kind
of wear some of that coat off. There's a lot of things people can
do I think the hot water treatmentis a pretty good way to go,
just to get it soaking in.But then you need to immediately plant them,

(02:19:58):
get them in the ground, scratchedthem in and keep them moist so
they go ahead and sprout. Okay, Now that's not now, that's that's
his fall. Okay, but theyshould put them into the fall, not
now. Right now. Nature throwsthe seeds out right now. The blue
bonnets that bloomed in spring, they'vecast their seed, most all of them

(02:20:20):
have, and so uh that thoseseeds sit there all year waiting for fall.
So yes, you could plant themnow. Most people just wait because
they're not going to do anything betweennow and fall. And sometime in late
September, go ahead and put theblue bonnet seeds out and then fall takes
it from there. Okay, great, because the mind receed. I find

(02:20:43):
them coming up strange places. Yeah, I guess the animals that are you
know, pick up the seeds offand they can fling seed a long way.
The blue bonnet pod looks like alittle green bean pod, but it
turns brown on and the sutures thathold the two halves of the pod together,

(02:21:03):
they are when they break loose,that pod has a spiral twist that
it wants to form, and soyou know a barber poles spiral that when
that pod breaks, it twists.It's like put your two hands together like
a praying hand, and then thenbreak away the backside of your hand,

(02:21:24):
twist them around. That flings theseeds out, and that spiral twist just
flings those seeds along pretty far distance. But that's another natural dispersal, dispersal
method designed into the pod that makesit work so well. Hence our wonderful
state flower everywhere we're fascinating. Ijust love them, Yeah, I just

(02:21:45):
love them. Well, you're supposedto. If you if you said you
didn't, their authorities would come makeyou leave the state. They would.
They would hold they would escort youto the Red River or someplace and say,
good luck. You have to lienavy fast. Thank you so much,
sir. Appreciate you, you bet, thank you. I appreciate that.

(02:22:05):
Yeah, I mean, I'm prettysure if you're born in Texas,
when you see bluebonnets, tears streameddown your cheeks, your hand goes over
your heart and you run through thefield singing, Texas are Texas? Oh?
Do that? Right now. ZareTexas. By the way, that's
the state song, not that otherone. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I'm just saying, hey, Nicky'shere, time for a break. I

(02:22:28):
just want to remind you though,real quick. NITROPHI super Turf, the
silver bag. That is a qualityslow release fertilizer. It's got four percent
iron in it. Nineteen four ten. Those are the magic three numbers on
the bag. Put it down now. If you haven't done your summer fertilizing,
it's all my schedule. Put itdown now. Let it grad your
release your southern lawn. It's designedfor our southern lawns, and you will

(02:22:50):
see good density, beautiful color,and success in your lawn. We'll be
right back. Welcome back, Welcomeback to the garden line. Good to
be back with you. We've gotsome garden talking left Dennis today. If

(02:23:13):
you've got some garden questions, giveus a call. It's seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy fourseven one three two one two five eight
seven four. The Anti grows inPorium is one of those places that you
just have to go visit. Youjust have to see it. I can
describe it to you. I cantell you that it's a trip back in

(02:23:35):
time. I can tell you thatthe antiqu roses are just gorgeous and they
have a selection like none other.I can tell you that the roses are
high quality. They grow them intwo gallum pots, so you get a
very robust, good, strong rose. Uh. They do well. The
varieties and cultivars that is that theycarry are outstanding. I can tell you
that when you go there, youwill enjoy strolling through the gardens. That

(02:23:58):
they have display garden that is justlike none other. It is wonderful.
It's just an enchanted place. Ican tell you this too, that on
June fifteenth, they're going to behaving the Father's Day event in the gardens.
They're gonna have framp family friendly funincluding there'll be a classics car show
hosted by Showplace Classics. They'll belive music performed by Kathy Bolin, a

(02:24:20):
family friendly competition of lawn games,barbecue catered by Tiki's, lots more.
Just go to the website. Here'sthe website ready Antique Roseimporium dot com.
Antique Rosimporium dot com. Check outthe upcoming events tab. When you're there,
you will find that it's just anoutstanding place. It's an outstanding fun

(02:24:43):
place to be. And until Maytwenty seventh, that is tomorrow, they're
going to be offering seven dollars offselect roses such fan favorites as you know
Red Cascade that's a wonderful little deepred, small, small flowered rows,
just loads up in flowers, quietness, all hope. There's some other good
roses that they're offering for that,But the Anti rosen Perim is a kount

(02:25:03):
of place you really want to go. If you are interested in perhaps going
out with a group and an eventnumber one, I would highly recommend that
you can go. And it's it'sit's a wonderful, wonderful trip out in
the country, not that far awayfrom Houston, to just be there a
little bit and it just makes agood day. It's always a good day
out at the Antiqurosi period. They'vebeen doing this since nineteen eighty three.

(02:25:26):
A wonderful destination for gardeners and forfamilies and especially to bring the kids,
let them be part of it.Here's the phone number ninety seven nine eight
three six five y five four eightnine seven nine eight three six five y
five for eight we're going to gonow to let's see Joe in Plantersville.

(02:25:48):
Hello Joe, good morning. Hey. Want to have the question. I've
got a lot of fruit trees andpekan trees, and mowing around them this
time of the year is quite difficultbecause I is this the wrong time of
the year to do some trimming andpruning? And when I do, whenever
the right time is do I putany type of sab or antment or covering

(02:26:11):
on the cut? All right?Those are good questions. Are these trees
very young or are they already productionage? Oh? Their production age?
Okay, So on pecan trees,you don't have much pruning to do right
now. Do all your pruning whenyou get to the end of winter.
Do the prunting for the trees,pop out new growth for spring for the
peaches. For the peaches and fruittrees, any suckers which are upright shoots

(02:26:35):
coming off the base of the trunk, or any water sprouts which are upright
shoots coming off the spread out scaffoldedbranches, prune those anytime you have them.
So prune those now, remove thoseanything that is shading the inside of
your peach tree. Peaches, basicallywe train them to a big open bowl
shape, And so when branches comein and shade that out, those branches

(02:27:01):
are preventing fruit budge from forming downin there, and fruit buds will be
forming from midsummer on into early fall. Right through that region is when all
the fruit setting occurs, especially latesummer early fall for next year's crop.
So if you've got a bunch ofshade now, you're not going to get
the fruit bud set. So getthose pruned out now, don't wait until

(02:27:22):
winter, all right? Do Iput anything on the running areas? No,
No treatments needed at all for theprine cuts. Just make a good
quality cut. Learn how to makea cut, so you know you print
at the right spot and make anice clean cut and it'll it'll be fine
to heal without without paint. Allsounds good. I thank you for your

(02:27:43):
information day you bet thanks a lot. I appreciate your call. Azamite is
a micro nutrients supplement. I've talkedabout it before. We've talked a lot
about fertilizer today, but azamite isthe micro nutrients. It's not the big
three numbers on the bag. That'swhat you put out to promote a lot
of growth, especially the nitrogen andwhatnot. Asmite is needed in tiny amounts.

(02:28:07):
The micronutrients, the trace minerals areneeded in tiny amounts, but they're
essential. So just because you don'tneed a lot doesn't mean it's not essential.
For example, I'll pick one outof the air. Let's say you're
talking about manganese or selenium or something. You don't need a lot of that,
but if you could take every moleculeof it out of the soil of
plant could not live. That's calledessential, But it's also called trace because

(02:28:31):
it's small amounts. That's asamite.You put down asamite and it goes a
long way. A ten pound bagwill cover your whole of a thousand square
feet in your vegetable garden. Aforty four pound bag will go six to
twelve thousand square feet in your lawn. Just don't put it in the hopper
with your fertilizer. But when you'redone fertilizing, just follow up with azamite,

(02:28:52):
or do it in the middle ofthe summer when you're not even fertilizing.
Just want to put it out doit then. Asmite Texas dot com
is where you can get more information. On it, and I would recommend
that you look into that and dothat. We're gonna now go to Southwest
Houston and talk to John. Hello, John, Hi, Escape, how
are you doing today? Good sir? How can we help Loie L?

(02:29:13):
D Well. I'm in Zone Gin the Houston area, and I have
a maple tree up front, andI notice a fine like a goose,
like you know, like a meshover some of the branches. It's not
but does it fine mesh? Yes? What is that an insect? And
well, how do I treat it? Yeah, that's a caterpillar that's feeding

(02:29:33):
on the branches, and it's outon the branches. It's not on the
trunk right correct. Okay, thatis a caterpillar and it's eating the leaves
out there. Now, if youdo nothing, the tree is gonna live.
Usually early on in the season likethis, they are not very bad.
They may come back in the falland be a lot more of them

(02:29:56):
and cover more of the branches andtake off more of the leaves. If
it's one thing, you can reachto knock the webs apart. Wasps will
get in there and carry caterpillars away, or you can spray it, but
you have to be able to getthe spray inside the webbing. So if
it's a big tree with webs reallyhigh and you can't reach them with a
long pole or with a strong streamof water to break open the webs,

(02:30:18):
then you just you're not able totreat for it. But if you can
reach it, then you can spraythose leaves and kill the caterpillars. Okay,
old on, That won't detect thetree, do you Now? It
just weakens a little bit, butnot much. Trees are able to lose
their foliage and bounce back there.They're pretty resilient. Okay, Okay,

(02:30:39):
thank you all right, Good luck, John, thanks for the call.
Appreciate your call very very much.You've heard me talk about green Pro before.
Green Pro is a company that comesout and they do core aeration for
you. Now what does that mean. That means you push a plug a
machine into the ground and pull aplug of soil out and drop it on

(02:31:03):
the surface. That creates this hole. That's important. It gets oxygen into
the root zone. It breaks throughcompacted dense clays that don't drain well.
And then you follow that with acompost top dressing a very finely screened high
quality compost and a lot of itwashes down into those holes over time and

(02:31:24):
it builds that soil structure and qualityover time, so your lawn gets better.
You've got a lawn that's struggling,you need to get some vigor in
it. You need to get tofill in better, you need to get
it to thrive. Water and nutrientsare all important, but improving that structure
is also very important, and greenPro does that. Their website is greenpro
dot net greenpro dot net. Ifyou give them a call, they'll come

(02:31:48):
out now. They service the northwestquadrant of Houston, so that includes if
you live in Spring and Cypres andthe woodlands in Conroe and willis Over,
West Magnolia, Montgomery, down SouthI Katie, West Houston, Central Houston,
and then up toward North Houston.That's their area Greenpro dot net.

(02:32:11):
This is a process. They bringout very nice, expensive equipment and some
high quality materials and they do thejob for you. It's not a cheap
thing. It's an investment. Butlisten, when you're dealing with a lawn
that's struggling, it's one of themost important investments that you can make.
We're gonna take a little break here. I'll be back the number seven one
three two point two kt r Hand Charlie will be You'll be first up

(02:32:33):
when we come back. Welcome backto guard Line. Hey, good have
you with us today. We hada little bit of time left. Here
is our last segment of the day. Listen. If you're looking to have

(02:32:54):
a picture perfect lawn. I meanI'm talking to talk of the town lawn,
right, sweet green can help youachieve just that. You know,
it's one of the highest analysis ofan organic plant food. Basically eleven percent
nitrogen when it applies, has gotthat wonderful fragrance because it's made from a
molasses base, smells very sweet,and the microbes are going to love the

(02:33:16):
environment that it creates in the rootsystem, providing that carbon that they need
in order to thrive. When thesoil is good, when microbes are happy,
your lawn's going to thrive. It'sgoing to release those nutrients. They're
going to make sure the nutrients getreleased for the soil, for the plant
roots, and when you have that, you end up with a good dense
lawn. Nitrophosky sweet green available manymany places. You're going to find it

(02:33:41):
done in Kingwood at the Ace Hardwarestore there. You're going to find it
in Shades of Texas on Genoa RedBluff down South Lake Hardware in Angleton.
You're going to find it at Fisher'sHardware in Clute, excuse me, Lake
Hardware also Inclute, and Fisher's Hardwaredown in Baytown. There we go.
That is many, several of themany places you're gonna find Sweet Green Night

(02:34:05):
fash products. Easy to find thosethings. We're going to now head out.
Let's see, we're going to goto Charlie in Friends would Charlie,
how are you today? Good morning, skip fine, thank you, hope
you're the same. My wife andI had a lot of fun in the
last couple of days going our secondfight with the web works. A lot

(02:34:26):
of fun being out there most ofthe afternoon wondering if you have a good
preventive measure we can apply. It'sthe appropriate time next year so we don't
have all this fun. Yeah.Well, you know, the moths come
out and you never know exactly whenthey're going to show up, and they
lay their eggs and so you don'tknow what's going on up there, and

(02:34:50):
then next thing you know, oneday you happen to glance up and see
all these webs? Will it ifyou glance up more often and catch them
earlier, you can a little sprayover the foliage, and then any of
the webworms that are beginning to eatfoliage you shut them down right then once
the web's form, you got tobreak open the webs to get the spray
in because you got to eat iton the foliage. The caterpillars are eating

(02:35:13):
inside that webbing. So most people, the trees are too big to do
that. They don't have a longpole to break up the webs. They
don't have a little spray or devicethat will shoot a stream that far to
break them up, and we're leftwith just letting nature take its course.
They have their natural enemies. Thetrees bounce back after webworm damage. It

(02:35:35):
doesn't do them any good, butit doesn't kill them, and it's unsightly.
So that's kind of the trade offthat are hiring somebody to come in
and do a spray over the wholetree. Is there anything you can sprail
the trunk? Do they just flyin? Yeah? They fly The true
webworms fly in. There's a tentcaterpillar that crawls up and down the trunk,

(02:35:56):
and little herds. You'll see thoseas herds on the trunk. But
they're webs tend to be in thecrotches of branches where there's a V shape,
you know, where a branch comesup and forks into two right in
that crotch of the branch there,as they call it. That's where the
tent caterpillar webbing occurs. But you'redescribing something that's more like a fall web
warm most likely. Okay, sothere's really no really, no good preventive

(02:36:20):
if you can't reach the limbs withyour sprayer. No, no, not
really, not really. I mean, I guess I've never heard anybody talking
about putting a systemic insecticide in thesoil to go way up in the trees.
Might be worth looking into that.That's a that is a you know,
like killing a bug with a hammer. It's a little bit of overkill.

(02:36:43):
But uh yeah, that and there'ssecondary issues with that sometimes, So
I wouldn't generally recommend it, Butthat might be a possibility, but you'd
have to do it way ahead oftime because it takes time for that stuff
to get up there in the trees. Alrighty skip well, thank you very
much information and always enjoy hearing youevery Saturday. Well, thank you,
I appreciate nice nice to talk toyou. You take care you by bye

(02:37:07):
bye uh. Nitropous Speaking of bugs, Nitrovios has a product called bug Out
Max. Bug Out Max is aninsecticide that it's quite persistent in the soil.
You put it down now and it'llcarry you through the summer months and
in stopping things like chinchbugs which shouldbe showing up here in the next couple
of months. If sod webworms decideto rear their uglyhead, well, the

(02:37:31):
Nitroposs Bugout Max will be around forthem as well. Fleas and ticks for
example, fire ants crawling around onthe surface up there. It will get
to those and do a very verygood job of it. So bottom line
is you put it out, youwater it in, and it takes care
of things going from there. Withinforty eight hours, it's pretty much done

(02:37:52):
the total control of the insect thatit's after. But again it sticks around
through the season. Nitro Foss bugOut Max available plants and things up in
Brenham, Jim's Hardware in Montgomery,Fisher's Hardware in Baytown for example, what's
head now up to Andy and spring? Hello? Andy? Yeah, hi

(02:38:13):
Skip, thanks for taking the call. Yes, sir, I've got St.
Augustine grass in my backyard in acorner. There's no sun to fall
shade, so it's just dirt.Saint Augustine won't spread out into that area.
Can I see that? For likewith rye grass or something in the
cool season? Yeah, in thecool season you can. You can plant
that in late October early November andget it through the cool season. But

(02:38:37):
then when it heats up, theryet is going to kind of melt out
and turn yellow and shrivel away.It'll just be a temporary fix. You
might want to get creative and thinkabout, well, what else could be
done with that area? You know. The simplest thing is to put a
nice, good thick mulch over thesurface and maybe plant a few things that
will take the shade. Could beshrubs, it could be like riopy or

(02:39:00):
Aztec grass or one of those kindof things. Or it could be a
groundcover you could plant in that area. So I think it may be a
situation of you know, as theysay, when life gives you lemons,
make lemonade. It may be likegive up on the grass unless you can
find a way to significantly increase thelight intensity by doing some print. Well,

(02:39:22):
I appreciate the tip, Skip,thanks so much. All right,
good luck with that, Andy.Yeah, that is a that is a
challenge area when we hit that spotwhere we have a lawn, but it's
just not you know, just notquite enough light to keep it going.
Really good there, all right,we're gonna go now to Magnolia and we're
gonna talk to Manty Monty if Ican find the button. There we go.

(02:39:43):
How are you today? Pretty good? How you doing, Skip?
I'm doing well? Thank you?Yeah good. I've got a lot of
crepe myrtle pups coming up everywhere,and I can mow over them and mulch
them, no problem with that.But now I got them growing in like
the crotch of the tree, andI trimmed them out of there about two
weeks ago, and now they're alreadytwo feet tall. I was wondering if

(02:40:05):
there's something I can paint on therewithout making the rest of the tree sick
or you're talking about stuff coming offthe base of the trunk. Yes,
okay, I just dealt with someof those myself. And here's the thing.
When a shoot comes out of thebottom of a tree like a crape
myrtle, at the base of theshote, you don't see it, but

(02:40:26):
there's a whole bunch of little budsthat are hidden in there and their dormant,
okay, And when you cut thatshoot off, those buds sprout.
So where you had one shoot,now you got a bunch of them coming
up. And so, yeah,you're fighting. You're fighting a losing battle
if you can go right up againstthe trunk of the tree itself or the
top of the root wherever it's comingout and literally almost like gouget out.

(02:40:46):
I mean, just prune it asclose as you can get to that.
I used to know a guy whoused a crowbar and a hammer. He'd
use that little hook on the endof a crow bar and he'd stick it
up there on that thing, andhe'd hit it with a hammer and gouge
out that section and get all thosebuds away from the base and then spray
it with a product called sucker stopper. Sucker stopper, it's a hopper,

(02:41:07):
it's a hormone. Plants make theirown hormones, some cause growth on some
effect plants in other ways, butsucker stopper is a particular kind of hormone
that that kind of quiets down thattendency to want to re sprout. And
it's not a one to layman foreverit's fixed, but a start by getting

(02:41:28):
rid of all the buds by youknow, not just prning. If you
leave little one in stubs, you'rejust sentencing yourself to a thousand more suckers
and the coming. Okay, yeah, that's what I'm running into. Yeah,
there you go. Well that hopefullythat will help help for that's what
I do with mine, all right, I sure do appreciate it, all
right, take care out there,Magnolia. Hi, all right, thank
you, you bet, take care. Wow. Another one in the books

(02:41:52):
there, Hey, don't forget.Tonight the Exchange Club the Sugarland presents a
Night to Remember, honoring our fallenheroes. They're going to have quite an
event. Grammy Singer, Grammy winningsingers, brass band, a thirty member
chorus. They are going to beat in sugar Land at the town Square
in front of the City Hall facade. It's free, It's tonight, only

(02:42:16):
seven o five pm a night toremember our fallen heroes. I highly recommend
you also take some canned food todonate the East Fort Bend Human Needs Ministry.
It's gonna be collecting canned food aswell. It just makes it a
win win win event. Overall.I want to remind you too, it's

(02:42:37):
coming out a long time from now, but June fifteenth, I'll be at
wild Birds Unlimited in bel Air andI'll tell you more about that as we
get closer.