Herbicide Advice

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Success. And you know, it's easy to get excited about
a tomato plant because you can taste the tomatoes before
you even get the plant home. Right, It's easy to
get excited about flowers because they're gorgeous, maybe fragrant, maybe
attract butterflies or that's easy. But if you want to
realize those dreams and those hopes, you got to start

(00:21):
in the soil. Sometimes the brown stuff isn't so exciting. Personally,
I get excited about it. I mean I could lay
in a polo composts and make compost angels and just
be happy as a clam. But for a lot of people,
it's like, yeah, it's dirt, that's brown, that it's something
I have to do so I can have flowers. Okay, Well,

(00:41):
if I can't talk you into enjoying compost as an
end in and of itself, at least let me tell you.
If you want those flowers to look good, you got
to start with the foundation that the plants are going
to thrive in, because plants live in their roots. So
there we go. That is my constant every show, public service.
And then because that's where I see most people make

(01:02):
their mistakes. When the soil isn't right. The plants won't
be happy, and you won't be happy because you won't
be enjoying the things that you get to enjoy. Last
year was a hammering year when it came to storms.
We had two that knocked the power out for extended
periods of time. Family members in the area were out
of power for two about they've been two weeks, maybe longer.

(01:28):
And it's just crazy. And basically the reason the power
goes down is because the trees. That's one of the
single most significant factors is the fact that trees break
a limb, the tree falls over whatever, and it takes
power out on a storm. And you know, we don't
know when those storms are coming. They may come even

(01:48):
in the winter time with a nice storm or something.
They're unpredictable. But what you do have control over is
making sure your trees are as strong as they can be.
And I encourage you when you planted tree, start training
it from day one into a strong structural form. And
there's information out there. You can learn how to do it,

(02:10):
or you can hire somebody to come in and do it,
but start from day one. Because trees develop bad structural problems.
They just do It's kind of like people picking up
bad habits and they're harder to break later when you
don't when you allow yourself to pick them up and
establish them early on. And so if you let a tree,
a young tree, develop a real narrow branch angle, that

(02:32):
branch is going to get that situation's going to get
worse year after year after year, until someday you come
out and that branch is split off because it was
poorly attached. There wasn't as much strength in the attachment
as there could have been. You got to take care
of your trees. And unless you're a certified arbist, know
what you're talking about, a specialist in trees, just a

(02:52):
very experienced arbuss. Whatever you are out there, you're not
going to know how to do it right. And marnspoon
More knows how to do it right. Martin is with
Affordable Tree. That's his company. He and his wife Joe
run the company Affordable Tree Service. And if you've not
just listen to this. If you can't remember the last

(03:13):
time you had your trees pruned and evaluated for health,
now's the time. Get it done now. Uh You everything
that an experienced person like Martin can do to a
tree just helps build resiliency in it. Now, when we
get a hurricane come through, that'll blow a house over.
I mean you, you know there's things that are going

(03:35):
to happen to trees. But there's so much you can
do to increase the strength and to get you through
the storms. It should not be causing problems. Martin Spoon
more Affordable Tree Service. Here's the number seven one three
six nine nine two six sixty three. I'll say that again.
Seven one three six nine nine two six six three.
You can swing by the website at Afftree Service dot com.

(03:59):
But Martin come out and he evalue at your trees.
He can give you an estimate on what needs to
be done, including pruning, including things like deep root feeding.
For example, maybe you need some advice on you know
you're gonna put a trench in toward the house and
that's gonna take out a bunch of tree roots. Martin
can advise you on the best way to go about that,
what needs to be done. He is able to do

(04:20):
a lot of things from root barriers to you name it.
Just call him, have him come out, have him take
a look. He'll explain what's what's wrong. What's going on,
and maybe nothing's wrong. Maybe maybe it's fine. It just
needs a little support during the summertimes. But this is
pruning season, and don't delay on this. Just go ahead
and get it done. Martin Spoon More Affordable Tree seven

(04:42):
one three, six nine nine two six sixty three. All right,
that was my best effort at making you making sure
you have a long term success. You know, the most
valuable plant in your landscape is a tree. It is
a lot of other good, beautiful plants, but when it
comes to trees, you can't fix broken bad pruning practices

(05:08):
is what I mean by broken. Now, you can go in,
you can clean it up, you can try to make
the best of it. But when you allow somebody that
just happens to own a pick up a chainsaw and
sticks a business card in your door to train your
trees and they do a bad job, that is for life. Again,
there's things that a good tree person can do to

(05:28):
fix it a little bit, but the damage is for life,
and the weakening of the structural integrity is for life.
So don't let people touch your trees. Don't know what
they're doing, and don't delay. The longer you delay, the worse.
The problem gets We like to be ostriches and put
our head in the sand because we don't want to
deal with this right now. Well, I'm telling you delaying

(05:52):
makes it a lot worse, could make it more expensive,
but definitely takes away from the value of your home.
You know how much a tree add to the value
of your home. Now imagine that tree being split in
a storm, and now you're going to sell out the
same house and you got a tree that's half a tree.
You see what I'm saying. It's worth investing to take
care of things like that. All right, I'm gonna have

(06:13):
to run here, take a little break. I'll be right
back by the way. Our phone number ought to give
you that since this is a call in show seven
to one three two one two kt r H. Seven
one three two one two kt r H. We'll be
right back. All right, Good morning, and welcome back to
Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricker, and we're here

(06:34):
to help you have a more beautiful garden, a more
bountiful landscape. And this is very important more fun in
the process. Gardening is fun. Gardening should be fun. Let's
figure out how to make it fun for you. If
you've been struggling along with something, give me a call
seven one three two one two kt RH. We're going
to run now out to Meadows Place and talk to Girardo. Hello, Girardo,

(06:58):
welcome to garden line. Uh all right, hello Girardo. We'll
get Oh there we go. I got you, all right,
I'm well, I'm well. How can we help today?

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Heard last on last week's show, you own a bunch
of peach trees back back in the day, And I
have a couple of peach trees? What do I need
to uh spray on them? Do I start spraying something
on them? I mean, because we just had the cold weather,
all the leaves fell off, so, you know, and dormant
and stuff to uh young, should I go ahead and

(07:39):
do a dormant spray? I figured you'd be the man asked.
Is you're like you owned a bunch of them?

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yep, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Did so right now. The only spring we would be
doing is is dormant oil sprays. And you want to
do that before the new foliage comes out. But as
as you wait a little long, just watch the buds
on them, and when the buds start to swell up,
you need to get that spray on. Once they start opening,
the spray will burn bloom petals and little tender leaves

(08:07):
coming out and whatnot, So you got to get done
ahead of time. Now that spray is primarily for scale.
That's the main thing the Dorman oil spray controls. So
if you don't have scale, then you may not need
to do it. Now, there's nothing wrong with doing it
just in case, but watch your trees. Scale will show
up in different ways. Usually on peaches it'll be a

(08:29):
white kind of flaky material, almost like kind of like
cigarette ashes, I guess, but white, very white. Or there
are some little scales that look like little flattened volcanoes
that are smaller than a typed o that lowercase o
that you would see along the branches. But look for
those things. If you see either of those, you definitely

(08:49):
need to do Dorman oil and get good coverage. Every
square inch of a branch needs to have oil on
it because it only once.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
You just do it.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
You just do it once, okay, and then and then
is there anything once?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Every winner After that, The next time you might spray
would be at the end of bloom, when you would
spray to protect the peaches from a little insect that
causes the worm inside the peach. Uh. Again, I tend
to go I tend to stay away from the spray

(09:27):
and all the time approach, you know, I try to
go with the avoid spraying. When you can't or don't,
don't waste your time and money spray. And if you
don't need to so like if you don't have scale,
well you don't really need to do a Dorman oil spray. Now,
if they start to show up, then you're gonna be
on a Norman oil schedule going forward.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
If you have peaches and they don't have a worm
in the fruit, you don't see any of that, Well
you can wait. And once those things arrive, then they're
going to be in your in your area. Uh and
you're gonna it'll be an annual thing to control them.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Okay, okay, thank thanks so much, sip.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Thank you you bet all right?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Good luck with that ot. You know, Gerardo, we don't
charge for advice on garden Line, but we do ask
for half of your produce because I figure it out.
You got peaches, all right? Thank you?

Speaker 3 (10:19):
All right?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Bye bye our phone number seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two k t r H. I have been in uh well,
I've got a flower bed that is needing to be finished.
I started it, I put some organic materials in there,
started working on the soil, got busy with other things,
and I'm going to get it planted. It's going to

(10:41):
have mostly some tropical types of plants, you know the
well I like what white butterfly ginger. I absolutely love
that plant, and so I'm going to be planting some
gingers in there, although they are perennial here with a
little malt, but i need to get that soil right,
and I've got a bunch more organic matter got to
put in. They're going to build it up good, make

(11:01):
sure it drains well right at the under the eaves
of a house, so that ginger is kind of happy
when it's not in the full brun of sun. So
I'm going to be getting that worked out. And anytime
you're building the soil, you want to make sure and
do the content of nutrients too. And there are a

(11:22):
lot of nutrients plants need, you know, they need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium.
That's the big three NPK, that's the three numbers on
a fertilizer bag. But they also need secondary nutrients and
micronutrients also called trace minerals, and Microlife products have the
trace minerals in them because they are made from organic

(11:42):
materials from things that were once alive. If you will,
you know, leaves that have been decomposed, whatever the organic
material is when when the plant is gone, or you
have the materials left the compost, the leaves, the whatever
you have. Those materials contain everything a plant needs because

(12:02):
they came from that. So they don't just have the
three numbers. They've got all the other numbers as well.
And here's why, because to grow a plant you have
to have all the nutrients. You have to have, not
just the big sixteen we talk about, but even up
to twenty different or more different nutrients depending on the
plant and the stage of its life that are needed.

(12:24):
And so with Microlife, you're applying the whole nine yards
when you do that. And Microlife has They've been around
for a long time, over thirty five years now, well
over thirty five years. They're the number one organic fertilizer
in sales in the whole Houston area. And they're not
going to burn because they're organic they have. Again, I

(12:47):
said they have a lot. They have more minerals than
standard fertilizers because over one hundred minerals are in microlife,
because that's what's in the materials that Microlife's made of
that I have poultrymner in them. They're safe for humans,
safe animals. They are really designed to create success in
the soil. Each bag of Microlife has over seventy essential

(13:08):
nutrients and each bag contains billions of billions of beneficial
microbes that helping growing a stronger plant to help in
improving your soil. When you use that on a regular basis,
little by little, you are improving the soil, not just
adding nutrients. Because you're continuing to improve the soil. You
can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out where

(13:29):
to get them. They're widely available. Microlife products are all
over the place, so get out there, get some on hand,
and use them everywhere from your houseplants to your yard plants.
The stuffworks, and I say that because I've used it.
I've been using Microlife products for over ten years now
and they work. You are listening to garden Line if

(13:51):
you'd like to give us a call this morning, seven
to one three two one two KTRH will be happy
to help you have success. What's going on at your
guard gardener? What are you going to do at your garden?
This has been my theme all through January. Now I'm
just going to keep going in February here. What are
you going to do nude this year? What are you
going to do different this year? You're going to try

(14:11):
a new kind of gardening like herb gardening or vegetable gardening,
or flower gardening, or growing orchids indoors or making a terrarium.
Do you see what I mean? I mean they are
all kinds of ways to get involved with gardening. What
are you going to do new this year? What new
plants are you going to grow that you haven't grown before?

(14:31):
I just talked about white butterfly ginger or the butterfly gingers.
I love gingers, especially the butterflies, because they make great
cut flowers. Some of them have unbelievably heavenly fragrance. Just
if you like something like a gardena, the smell of
that will get you a white butterfly ginger and smell

(14:51):
that it's good. We had when my their daughter was born.
We were my wife and baby. We're in the hospital
and I brought a cut headachem from home, a white butterfly,
gender stuck it in a vase in the hospital room.
I'm not kidding you. Nurses were coming. They're walking down
the hall smelling something and followed their nose into that

(15:14):
hospital room. Wanted to know where that wonderful smell was
coming from. That is how wonderful that ginger is. Have
you grown that before? Why not try it this year?
That's just one of ten billion plants that you could grow.
How about a different way of pest control I mentioned yesterday.
Have you ever used garden mesh fabric? Think of something

(15:36):
super lightweight, super soft and pliable. But it is a
tiny little screen, a little smaller than screen on your
house and definitely softer, and you just put it over
your plants and bugs can't get in. So the question
is not you know what insecticide kills beetles or caterpillars.
The question is where do I get garden mesh and

(15:58):
just put it over the whole plant and they can't
get it in. The mots can't get into lay eggs,
and it's a screen porch over your plant. That's something
new That's just an example. Well, I was checking out
plants for all seasons the other day and stop by
and say, hey, talk to them, see what's going on.
I always like to see what's happening in the garden centers.
And if place looks great, they are loaded up. They

(16:19):
got all the fertilizer and soil stocked up. You know,
you can't get out of that place by what without
walking through the fertilizer and soil. I like that. You
know you got your plants. You're excited, all right. Don't
go to the checkout until you get your fertilizer and
your soil. That's very important, and they've got it. They
understand that because they are gardeners. They've been around since
nineteen seventy three. They're right there on Tombol Parkway two

(16:42):
forty nine, just north of Luata, and you can go
in there. You can take pictures, you can take samples
and ask them questions. You know, you're driving down the
road and you see this plant in somebody's yard, zoom in,
take a picture, go buy plants for all season? Say
I need one of these? Do you have them? Can
you get them? And the chances are they do You
can go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com,

(17:03):
or you can give them a call to eight one
three seven six sixteen forty six two eight one three
seven six one six four six. Is it like to say, there,
get your green on it. Plants for all Seasons. I
don't care if you are a experienced gardener or if
you're a rookie gardener. They've got what you need and

(17:24):
they can help you to have success outside. Yesterday had
some little tiny birds that were coming along and I've
got my feeders out and they are really happy and
doing great. You know, wild Birds Unlimited has got everything
you need for your birds. They got the feeders right now.
The new thing, the exciting thing is the cardinal confetti.

(17:44):
That's a special blend of oh, just a lot of
different kinds of really great seed that bring the red
cardinals in just by the flocks. It is a really
cool seed. They also have a cardinal tube feeder and
a good evening cardinal feeder. It's called works really really well.
And while you're in there, check out their bark butter products.

(18:06):
This product has been documented to bring over one hundred
and fifty species of birds in go to WBU dot
com forward slash Houston to find the wild birds near you.
I'm taking a break. I'll be right back. Don't go away,
We'll be back with your questions. Alrighty, alrighty, we're back.
We're back with garden Line, talking gardening everything gardening. What

(18:31):
are you going to do new this year? What are
you going to do different? What are you going to
try out? There are parts of gardening you've never experienced
that you need to experience. They are fun and you
know what, if you don't like it, well, don't do
it anymore. At least you tried it. But I guarantee
you this your favorite tomato you have yet to eat.
I mean that there are tomatoes that are out there

(18:53):
you haven't tried, and there are tomatoes to come. As
readers keep improving on things in various ways, that you
will never discover them if you don't try some things new.
Every year, when I'm in my vegetable garden, I try
to grow my standards, and then there's I have some
personal standards, and then I try to grow some new things,

(19:14):
some things that haven't grown before. For example, tomatoes celebrity
that is one of the few nematode resistant tomatoes. By
the way, it is. It is a Texas Superstar TEXA
and M Superstar Trial tomato. That is the standard. It's
been around a long time, but it is an awesome tomato.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
Now.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
I'll try new ones every year, two or three different
things I haven't grown, and who knows, I'll find my
new favorite sometime. But it's a standard contender. Green beans,
the old bush contender green bean is just a great
green bean, you know what. I was talking with Joey
out in China Gardens a while back, and he was
telling me the Valentino bean has just really impressed him

(19:56):
when he's grown it in the gardens. He loves that bean.
So guess what's on my list this year. I'm gonna
try Valentino. We're gonna throw it in there and see
how it does, see what I think about it. Who knows,
it may become my next new favorite. By the way,
Oh well, I mentioned Chenne Gardens. I'm going to be
audited in Chenne Gardens on Saturday, February fifteenth, So we've
got a couple of saturdays away here. I'll be there

(20:17):
from twelve noon to one thirty and I'm going to
be talking about something I love to talk about, and
that is how do you get more from your garden
with less sweat and less ibuprofen. The title is Tips
from making Gardening Less Work and we're gonna have a
good time. I'm gonna give you all kinds of ideas
on ways to make your gardening easier, make it more productive,

(20:38):
and make it more fun. But anyway, I'll be there
two Saturdays from yesterday the fifteenth, twelve noon to one thirty.
Now add in Chenne Gardens if you haven't been out there,
They've got a whole bunch of ship They got a
whole shipment of the beneficial insects in you know, things
like the prank mount is, the green lace swings and
others that are out there. And you can beneficial nematodes,

(21:01):
that's another one. You can pick them up. But don't
delay because those are living creatures that need to find
a good home and they will. They'll be gone if
you delay going out to get them. If you're interested
in that, always good things out in Chanta Gardens. You
know you're always going to find an excellent supply of
all kinds of plants, from strawberries to right now. They

(21:24):
got some great herbs in they look awesome. Of course,
this is still the time to plant shrubs and trees,
and their supply of shrubs and trees is outstanding. It is.
It is roses also, roses also ceterus. Just keep naming
things and they've got them. That is in Chanty gardens
out in the Richmond Rosenberg area. Let's see. I am

(21:48):
gonna be doing some traveling in the coming weeks, and
I love when I travel to go to botanical gardens
because every you know, every and also garden centers. One
of my stops will be Phoenix and Phoenix, Arizona. That's
not quite Houston, Texas, is it. It's a little more

(22:09):
humid here, but Phoenix has a beautiful desert botanical garden.
I was out in West Texas, a big bend area,
at one of our botanical gardens out there at Saul
Ross State University, and it's just fun go into those
and then you go check out the garden centers in
that town and you always get to see something new.
And I call that horticultural tourism, and I think you

(22:31):
should do it too, wherever you're going. You know, if
you were going to go I don't know, Boston or
Kansas City or wherever. Find out what's local there that
you can go visit. And it's a lot of fun.
I'll tell you one thing you'll learn when you do that.
We are lucky to have all the garden centers we
have here in the Houston area. And when I say
garden centers, I don't mean a placing by plants along

(22:53):
with hammers. If you know what I'm talking about, I know,
I'm talking about a garden center that is mom and Papa,
I'm locally owned, that is filled with people that know
what they're talking about. You walk in, you ask them
a question, and you get an accurate answer, and you
get treated right. That is the kind of garden center
we're talking about. Someplace you can grab a bug and

(23:15):
put it in a bag and bring it in and say, Okay,
this is eating on my fill in the blank, and
how do I control it and what do I do
about it? That is the kind of garden centers. And
here in the Houston area, north, south, east, west, and
central there are great garden centers everywhere. And you need
to you need to make a gardening tour, you know,

(23:35):
like wouldn't wouldn't February be a great month for a
garden tour around Houston. Just go visit some of our
garden centers, go to the botanical gardens, go to any
kind of place where you can get inspiration. Because you know,
you're not a landscape designer, unless you're one of the
few that are landscape designers. I'm not a landscape designer.

(23:58):
But when I drive around and I a plant or
I see a plant used in a different way, it
gives me an idea. It's like I can do that
at home, take a picture of it and do that.
I think that is a good idea, and plus it's
a lot of fun. But I'm not kidding you know,
I'm not just saying that because I'm here on the
air in Houston. I've been to a lot of cities,

(24:19):
and that includes San Antonio and Dallas and Austin. Here
in our great state of Texas too. We're fortunate we
have more great garden centers than any place I've ever
been to. But I'll keep shopping around the country as
a travel different places and learning more and having more fun. Well,

(24:41):
there you go. If you'd like to get a skull
here on garden line. I'll be happy to visit with
you about whatever you're interested in. Related to gardening seven
one three two one two kt r H seven one
three two one two kt RH. This is a time
to get fruit planted. It is fruit planting seas and
the best time now a container grown fruit. You can

(25:03):
plant twelve months out of the year, but make it
easier on yourself. Get it done now so that tree
can get its roots down, and this summer will be
less touch and go. It'll be less difficult, less you know,
touch and go constant maintenance. When you get your fruit
trees and get them in the ground, grab you some
nutri star from Nelson. That Nelson makes a nutri star

(25:25):
that is called citrus fruit and avocado. So if it
is a tree, shrub, vine, or bush that you're growing
to eat and eat stuff off of citrus fruit and
avocado from Nelson is the one. It's got essential nutrients
that enhance the growth and fruit production. And as you
build a better leafy, healthy fruit tree, shrub or vine,

(25:46):
you're gonna have better tasting fruit. The flavor comes from
a lot of fat activities, but good healthy leaves in
sunlight is the big elephant in the room. When it
comes to good, big tasty fruit, you're gonna use it
about every three months. But every three months is enough
for that. And uh, I don't know whatever kind of

(26:06):
fruits you got. If you have fruit and a container too,
Nelson's nutri star citrus fruit and avocado comes in a
little jar is good for container fruit, your container citrus
as well. All right, got to take a quick break.
Don't go away. I'll be right back with your questions.
By the way, the phone number seven one three two
one two K t R H. A little bit of

(26:27):
the music. I love Toby Keith, late Toby Keith. Well,
if you want to hear a nice uh word about
Toby Keith, uh, there's Stephen Colbert did a little thing
on his show one time where he talked about him.
And you're not going to have two people that are
kind of polar opposites in many ways than Stephen Colbert

(26:51):
and Toby Keith. But talking about hearing it, hearing about
Toby Keith from Stephen Colbert, that was a very interesting thing.
Quite quite quite a nice fellow. Good great music too,
by the way. Well, this isn't a music show, although
I do like to play music. On this show. This
is Garden Line, and if you want to talk about gardening,

(27:11):
we can do that. Just give me a call. Seven
one three two one two kt R H seven one
three two one two k t R h Okay, I
got a quiz for you. I got a gardening quiz
for you. Where can you find a huge selections of
seeds and seed starting supplies? Where can you get your

(27:34):
lawnmower blades sharpened? Where can you get your small engine
weed trimmer repaired? If you're an organic gardener, where can
you go to have more organic choices than anyplace else
in the Houston area? Where can you go to get
every product that you hear me talk about on Garden Line.

(27:58):
Southwest Fertilizer corner Bisnett and Renwick. Southwest Fertilizer's been a
Houston lawn and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five. I'm
the fifth host to speak for Southwest Fertilizer, the fifth.
They've been around a while now. By the way, they're
celebrating their seventieth anniversary this year, So happy seventieth birthday

(28:19):
the Southwest Fertilizer. You don't last seventy years if you're
not taking care of your customers, and they walk in
and they walk out with what they wanted. Not we
ain't got any on the shelf. Now they have it.
They carry everything I talk about on garden Line on
and on. I mean ninety foot wall of tools, quality
brands like Falco and Corona. The garden neil seat that

(28:40):
I keep talking about is there. Do you want to
do a soil test? Well, go buy Bob's got a
probe there. You can check out and take a really
accurate vertical core soil test samples to send in so
you can find out what's in your lawn. That's a loaner.
That's not a you know, you got to pay for it.
You can't walk off with it. He makes youre a
hold on a deposit. But bottom line is that's just

(29:04):
typical for the quality products, expert advice, and old fashioned
service that you get. A Southwest Fertilizer. You can go
to Southwest Fertilizer dot com or you can give them
a call seven to one three six nine nine one
seven four four seven one three six nine nine one
seven four four. I talking about different things to be

(29:26):
doing this time of year. We are in the season
where if you are dealing with weeds. If you if
you've got a weed problem that you're having to deal
with in your gardens and your lawn and whatnot, now's
the time when we get the things that prevent weed
problems down on the ground to stop the weeds from
sprouting from seed. Now, that's called a pre emergent. A

(29:49):
pre emergent means before the plant emerges from seed. Now
there are perennial plants that pre emergents aren't going to
control because they're not coming back from seed. Primarily, they're
coming back from underground storage roots and organs. Now there
are post emergents to kill weeds that exist. Now is
the time to do post emergents on cool season weeds.

(30:10):
So those weeds in your yard right now are cool
season weeds. They are already growing. You see them. The
warm season weeds, you're not seeing them yet. The cool
season weeds. You spray with something for weeds. Controlling weeds
after I'm mostly hand pull mine because I don't have
a lot of them. I tend to practice what I

(30:32):
preach a little bit and do as what they say,
do as I say, not as I do. Well, I
try to do as I do. I mean, I try
to do as I say, but if you need to
spray weeds, now's the time. And here's why. Those cool
season weeds, clover, handbit, chick weed, all of those things
that are in your yard right now, they're about to
bloom and go to seed. In fact, I saw the

(30:54):
start of some chickweed or handbit ballooms just the other
day on some weeds in the yard. And so if
you wait, the products that kill them effectively don't work
as well. Once the weed becomes a reproductive it as
blooms and seeds, it's not going to work as well.
But if you get ahead of it now and do
it now, you will get good control. And you can
do a little spot treatments. You have to nuke the

(31:15):
whole yard, just little spot treatments to take them out.
As far as pre emergence, that's things that prevent weeds
from getting established. They prevent the weeds from even coming up.
The seeds try to sprout and the pre emergent is
there and it cannot sprout. It shuts it down before

(31:35):
it even gets started. That's a pre emergent. And now's
the time to get those down. For warm season weeds.
Once we get later into February, and so if you're
way down in the southern part of the listening area
or up in March. Typically for a lot of the
listening area, that's when our warm season weeds like let's
say crabgrass that's a prime example, and many other warm

(31:57):
season weeds. That's when their seeds are sprouting. A pre emergent.
You put down, You've watered into the soil surface. They're
made to stick to the soil, so they don't wash
down and they don't wash off, and when that seed
tries to come through, it's like a little barrier, a
little force field right there at the surface, and it
shuts it down. Now, if you wait too long, if

(32:19):
you wait until late March to do it, you're going
to already have a bunch of weeds. And that product
is not going to stop something that's already growing. It's
a pre emergent. So if you look at my schedule
on my website Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with
Skip dot Com, there is a lawn care schedule and
then a lawn pest disease and weeds management schedule, and

(32:39):
that goes from January to December. It's like a little
calendar chart, and one row is insects, one row's diseases,
one row is preventing weeds pre emergent, one row is
killing existing weeds post emergent. You go down too the bottom,
and for each of those rows, you've got your organic
and your synthetic options for control. It's real handy. And

(33:01):
guess what, it's free. Can't talk me down on that price.
It's free to download it and use it, print it out,
and take it with you when you go shopping. You
can just point and go, hey, do you got one
of those? You got one of those? That's what I need.
And it makes it really, really easy. But we are
at this unique crossroads in spring where we need to
be doing both of those things. If you're going to

(33:22):
do them now. The long term way to control weeds
in your lawn for the majority of your weed issues
is to mow, water and fertilize properly all through the
season so that you make a dense lawn that chokes
out weeds and blocks out sunlight and prevents weed seeds
from getting established. To the degree that your lawn is
struggling and thin, that's the degree to which you will

(33:43):
have a weed problem because wherever sunlight hits the soil,
nature plants a weed. All right, there you go download
those free publications on gardening with skip dot Com. I
in my yet, you know, I shouldn't have admitted on
the air that I allow weeds in my yard. But

(34:04):
I don't allow them. They just they don't listen and
they tell them not to and they do it anyway.
But I actually enjoy getting out and doing a little
weed hand pulling. I know I'm weird like that, but listen,
there are a lot of things in life where you
can work and work and work to do something. Do
you have a job where at the end of the
day you kind of go I know, I worked all day,

(34:25):
but I have no idea really what I accomplished. I
pushed papers around and talk to people. And anyway, with
weed pulling, you sit down. I mean, maybe you got
a garden bed full of weeds and you just get
your little garden kneeler bench from Southwest Fertilizer and you
kneel down there and you just get to pull in.
And after thirty minutes of that, you look back and

(34:47):
you see this clean, beautiful bed. And there are a
few things in life where you just have the satisfaction
of seeing wonderful results immediately. And so that's one reason
I like I like to pull weeds. I also like
to so I don't have to pull weeds. So there
you go. All right, Well let's see here. I believe
we're about to run out of time in this hour,

(35:09):
so I'll be uh, I'll be turning it over to
the news here in just a minute, and we'll be
back for our next hour of the show. You might
want to We've got an open board, so if you
want to call during the break seven one three two
one two KTRH, Josh will get you or Josh Jonathan
will get you up on the Sorry I got that, Jonathan.

(35:30):
My brain is glitching. Get you on the board so
we can talk to you one of the first calls
when we come right back. I want to remind you
that in two weeks I will be at in Chennick
Gardens down there in Richmond Rosenberg area, and Chenni Gardens,
by the way, is north of Richmond, like you're heading
toward Katie, or if you're Katie, coming down toward Richmond.

(35:52):
So it serves that whole area really excellent place, easy
to get to, so I hope you'll make plans to
come out and see me. We'll look forward. We're gonna
give a talk. I'm gonna be answering your gardening questions.
If you want to bring samples in, uh, you know
your weed sample?

Speaker 4 (36:07):
What is this?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
How do I kill it? A bug? A disease? Or
maybe take a picture of your landscape and say, this
area right here is too shady? Everything does? What can
I plan there? We'll do that, have some fun, love shoulders.
You can even browbe about the tomatoes you thro one time,
and I'll pretend to believe you. I'll be right back.

Speaker 6 (36:27):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Richard's.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Crazy trim.

Speaker 7 (36:40):
Just watch him as so many.

Speaker 8 (36:47):
Things to set double again not a sign.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Welcome back to garden Line. We are rolling this morning
early on. I hope you got at least one eye open,
maybe a cup of coffee in your hand. We're here
to help you have a beautiful garden, a bountiful landscape,
or actually I usually say it the other way around,
A bountiful garden a beautiful landscape, but I guess it
could be a bountiful landscape if you're talking about flowers.
You want plenty of floral bounty anyway, and more fun

(37:29):
in the process. That's the last part of that that
is important. So I was talking earlier about right now
we are in this huge important time to deal with
weeds in the yard. The long term weed solution is
to grow a healthy, dense lawn that chokes out most
of its weeds. The short term fix is either to
prevent them or to kill ones that are growing. And

(37:51):
there's different ways to go about that. But this is
a crossroads this springtime that I would say probably the
month of fabrusy. In general, we can do some weed
prevention back in January even But here's the thing. You
got to get the with the pre mergent. You're wanting
to make sure you get there before the weed sprouts,
and they'll be sprouting over time that warm season. Weeds

(38:13):
can be sprouting way into the summertime too, but you
want to get ahead of the sprouting. And secondly, those
products don't last forever. You know, you put down a
pre emergent product watered in could be a great product.
You like barricade from night Fross for example, put that
down and sixty days ninety days, you know, as you
get off into the go forward from there into the season.

(38:37):
At some point just breaking down. You got to get
another application downe if you want to continue that prevention,
that force field, if you will, that shell, that barrier
over the surface of the soil. That's shutting everything down.
But that's why our timing is important. You know, if
you put it on January first, well, it's going to
play out sooner than if you had put it on

(38:58):
in February, for example. So that's part of that's part
of the timing. I would like to just mention that
if you are planning on putting in some sort of
an herb planting this year, go ahead and get you
a quality mix, one that is gonna provide drainage provide

(39:21):
water holding capacity. And that sounds like, isn't that two
different things? Well, no, it's not. Water holding capacity means
the soil holds moisture. So compare broken glass to a
sponge which holds moisture more well, of course, the sponge
broken glasses sand, This sponge is organic matter. Okay, so

(39:42):
a highly organic mantrol that holds. But good drainage means
that the access water runs right out. It doesn't stay
a soggy, mucky mess, and so drainage is important. Quality
soil and raised beds are what helps us have or
create good drainage in the soil. Now, Airloom Soils has

(40:02):
kind of got you covered on all that. They have
something called the Veggie and Herb Mix, and I use
it for a lot of things beyond veggies and herbs,
by the way, but that is what it's designed for.
And you can buy it by the bag. It's sold
all over town. Lots of places carry heirloom soil bags.
Or you can go out to the Orange Rock and

(40:24):
maultch In porter and pick it up right there, take
your truck, take your trailer whatever. They also have it
by the supersack. A supersack's a cubic yard. And let's
say you're going to do some significant garden bed preparation,
putting in some new beds. You may need a supersacker
too to have enough to fill up what you're doing.

(40:44):
Or you can have them just deliver it and dump
it on the driveway if you to go that route.
They can do it anyway you want. Now, it's not
just veggie and herb like that. I mean all their products,
their leaf moll compost. They have a lawn mix, they
have mulches and gravels and all kinds of things you
can get from them. But the bottom line is just
do it. Just go out there and do it. If

(41:05):
you want to check into having them deliver, go to
this website rock inmoltz dot com slash delivery. I'll say
that again, Rock the letter in moltch rock in molts.
That's one word, dot com, slash delivery. Just go there,
check it out. You can find out all about it there.
Find out what they got, what the price is, you

(41:26):
know what takes to get it here to your yard.
But in the meantime, just do something because whether it's
vegetables or herbs or flowers or whatever you're going to
grow fruit trees, getting a good quality mix in is
really important. And Heirloom Soil has got you covered on
all those things. I was checking out some of their
products in a local store the other day, one of

(41:49):
our garden centers and just looking at the different things
they were carrying from them, and it's nice stuff. There's
such a thing as compass and molts that are not quality,
and there's ones that are quality. And there's a big difference.
What are some of the differences. Well, cheap stuff typically
you should be nice fine texture and it's got big

(42:10):
old chunky wood chips in it. They don't screen it. Well,
that's one. You rush it through real fast. You don't
pay attention to the temperatures when you're composting, when you're
making it. You don't allow it to fully complete the process.
So what you're getting is we would call it a
raw material. It hasn't fully cooked and become what it
can be to become a quality product. And if you

(42:34):
hear me talk about a soil purveyor provider, it's going
to be one that takes the time and does that.
And I think that's very important. Just a tip by
the way, I have noticed in general that sometimes you
put a new bed in and you put a good
fresh load of some type of a growing mix, a

(42:54):
bed mix in it, and the first time you plant,
you don't see success with the plants. They kind of
sit there and powder about things and stuff. And that
is a that is a natural process. Now bed molts
can do that, but even with our soil, but even
with quality soils, sometimes there's a balancing out. You know,

(43:15):
there's nitrogen and carbon ratio that really affects plants and
decomposition and everything. And I just be patient with it,
give it a little time to mellow out. And maybe
the first time you're using a new bed mix, you're
putting in your brand new garden, you're all excited. Just
give it a little extra boost to nitrogen, a little
extra boost to nitrogen because it's coming in typically with

(43:37):
a pretty high carbon ratio. And I have found that
that extra boost to nitrogen early on, until that soil
has a season or so to mellow out, is helpful.
So that's just a little tip that you might want
to think about in order to have success with that.
All right, well, let's see, I am going to take
a break here in just one second, but I did

(43:59):
want to give you one more time our phone number
seven to one three two one two kt r H
seven to one three two one two kt r H.
Also check out the website gardening with skip dot com.
Maybe that's a good thing to do during break and
see some of the material that's up there. We set
it up to be helpful to you. I'll be right back.

(44:22):
Sure you made my speaker's going boom dots it on
the tail get in the phone.

Speaker 9 (44:28):
That kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Makes a man.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us.
What do you want to talk about today? We've got
lots of things. I mean, I can sit here and
talk about what's going on in my yard. Things you
need to know about. Like I was talking about weed
control stuff. I can do that, that's fine. But what
are your questions? What's going on that you have questions about?
Maybe you want to try to grow something you haven't

(44:52):
tried it before. You want some direction, advice on having success.
You know, the best thing you can do is to
ask the question first. Yesterday I I had a number
of questions, and each time they're asking them, I was
saying it, thank you so much for calling first, because
I'm glad you didn't just do that because they were
about to do something that they shouldn't do or they
were wondering about it. And we can see or save

(45:15):
you a lot of headaches and pain and suffering gardens,
horticultural suffering. That's probably a category there. Anyway, that's what
we're here for.

Speaker 10 (45:25):
I am.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
I've been talking about some different things like lawns and
the importance right now we're in the crossroads a week
control fertilizing is coming up not long from now. We've
got a couple of options on fertilizing. If you go
to my lawn care schedule, that's one of the two
January December schedules that I have on the website. The

(45:47):
lawn care schedule talks about when do you use your
synthetic fertilizers, when do you use your organic fertilizers, what
are the ones that you use, What about applying trace
mineral supplements, what about out doing aeration, correation, and so on. Well,
it also goes into mowing, the proper way to mow

(46:08):
and the proper way to water. And what I did
is I took weather data from the last ten years
I think it's ten, maybe twenty years, and I looked
at what is the historical average of rainfall per week
that a lawn needs in the Houston area if it
hadn't rained, if it hadn't rain. Okay, so we are

(46:29):
in February. The average amount of needed rainfall per week
in February. When you look at what grass uses, we're
talking about the science of this now, We're not just
talking about winging it here. What grass uses versus what
normally falls. It's zero that you do not need to
be water in your lawn in February. Now these are averages.

(46:51):
So yes, if we go through a weird year and
it's eighty degrees in February and hadn't rained in six weeks, well, okay,
you can sell me. I'm put a little water down,
but in general you don't. When we get to March,
it's only a half inch a week, roughly a half
inch a week, and then April is three quarters. Then
we go to one inch a week from May through

(47:14):
September or through August, and then we back down to
three quarters and we wind down in one half and
drop off. So it kind of gives you an idea
what generally we can expect. And I put that in
there because a lot of people think you got to
set that thing to come on every week, and some
people way too many times a week when we get
hot in summer, and we'll talk about watering and miswatering

(47:36):
because most lawns are miss watered by applying too little
too often. But anyway, it's on that schedule. It's right there,
and all the fertilizers are listed down there in products
it's easy to it's easy to find what you need
and just kind of guide you along. So download that again.
It's another one that's free, help guide you as you're going.

(47:59):
We are in a great time to be doing vegetable gardening.
In fact, you know I mentioned that what we control,
we're at this big intersection where we're killing existing weeds
or we're preventing soon to come weeds, all in the
same month. We got all of that happening right now.
When you look at vegetable gardening, we have a spring

(48:21):
what should we call it, a traffic jam in the
vegetable garden. And that is when all our cool season
vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, carrots, things like
spinach and lettuce and so on. The cool season vegetables
they're going to be reaching harvest as we get here,

(48:45):
whether they already are reaching harvest, but in February and
March and even a little bit in April, some of
those are still going and reaching harvest. But our warm
season vegetables need to go in when the last frostate occurs.
And the last time I checked did the again research
over a number of years of weather data. February eighth

(49:07):
was the last average freeze date at Hobby. March first
was the last average freeze date at Bush Intercontinental. Did
you how far apart those are? So to say the
last freeze date in Houston on average is such and
such date. What's where in Houston?

Speaker 4 (49:23):
You know?

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Is it in Sugarland? Is it in Webster? Is it
up in Gonro. I mean there's a huge difference, but
just in the just the Houston itself. February the eighth
at Hobby, March the first at Intercontinental. Now, average average
is a misleading idea. If you stick one foot in

(49:45):
boiling water and one foot in ice water on the average,
you're comfortable. I love saying that. The point is that
we never have an average year. It's always gonna you know,
I say February eighth for airport, Well, it's never gonna
be February eighth, hardly. I mean, it's gonna be the
last freeze date. Maybe January first at Hobby. Some years

(50:08):
it may you may have a freeze halfway into March
at Hobby. Okay, So that the average just gives you
an idea what to go for. Then you decide how
conservative do you want to be. You know, if you
like to run with scissors and live wild, well, then
plant whenever you want and good luck, and you can
just replant if it freezes. If you are super conservative,

(50:30):
the kind of guy who wears a belt and suspenders
just in case, well then you're gonna want to look
at those averages and even go a little later than them.
And when you put things in, but don't wait too long,
because when it comes to vegetables, we on narrow window
and spring to make hay. Well the sunshines, as they
put it, because when it gets too hot, a lot
of our vegetables play out and don't want to produce.

(50:53):
Let's head out the phones. We're going to go to
Deer Park now and we're going to talk to Kim. Hello, Kim,
welcome to garden Mine.

Speaker 11 (51:01):
Hi, how are you.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
Well?

Speaker 1 (51:04):
I'm doing great. How can we help you today?

Speaker 11 (51:07):
Well, I just sent you some pictures of what I
believe to be a fungus that is growing in our grass.
We used to have three big old oak trees in
our backyard that we cut down about eight years ago,
and since then we have these really tough, hard to

(51:29):
pull out kind of like it almost like a mushroom
at times.

Speaker 9 (51:33):
But it's hard, and they're they're they.

Speaker 11 (51:37):
Get entwined in the grass and and now they're so
plentiful that we're kind of tripping over them sometimes when
we're mowing or walking in the yard. Would love to
get rid of them.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Okay, uh, well, uh, the good news is they're not
they're not a problem to worry about disease wise. Okay,
we're seeing and for those of you listening who aren't
looking at the pictures, I see these are These are
called shelf fungi. And if you were to look at
a log in the forest laying on the ground, they're
the kind that grow flat straight out, and they have

(52:10):
little stripes through them like they're you know how like
a like a dartboard has consectric circles going out on it.
They look sort of like that coming out from the wood.
There's there's those little changes in color going out. That's
a shelf fungi. It's a decomposer fungi. So its job
in nature is to turn wood back into great dirt.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
And so where there was a little wood, that's why
you see them sticking up. There's a little wood near
the surface there. Maybe it was a root from a
tree that you cut, maybe it's a stump itself, but anyway,
that's just part of the decomposing process. They will go
away as that would decomposees. Now, if you wanted to
go in there, you could take a grubbing hoe and

(52:54):
just hit kind of come in horizontally like just below them,
and pop them loose and kind of pull them out.
We're not talking about digging a hole. We're just talking
about making a couple of chops not downward, but kind
of down and mostly inward underneath them to pop them
out of there and get that chunk of wood out
of there. That's just part of nature.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, okay, that's kind of what I thought.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm glad you sent me the pictures
because if you had tried to describe them, we probably
wouldn't have been picturing the same thing.

Speaker 11 (53:25):
Right, So in several years we'll have some really good
soil after it all decomposed.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yeah, you know, nature is constantly building soil. It is. Yes,
as wood decomposes away, it becomes rich soil. The forest
floor is the rich soil. And the way it got
that way wasn't because we went through it with the
rotor to learn fertilizers and compost bags. It's because it's
dropping leaves on the ground and they're rotting, and the

(53:52):
roots live and die and slough off and rot. And
in your yard, your grass root, each root on your
grass in your lawn, every single route lives about a
year and then it dies and all of the organic
matter of that root decomposes into the soil. So with
every year that goes by, your soil is getting looser
and richer if you have a healthy grass stand So yeah,

(54:13):
nature knows how to build soil.

Speaker 11 (54:15):
All right, Well, I thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Thank you for the call and for the pictures. Good
to help. All right, and got there, And now now
you and I can go and worry about big problems
like world peace or whatever. We can check us off
of us to worry about. Thanks Kim, all right, ay bye. Yeah,

(54:39):
nature knows how to build soil. You know, in the
spring we see this a lot. But the types of
decomposers that get on molts are really interesting too. Sometimes
you have this nice woodchip mults bed or not woodchip,
bark chip, whatever kind you got, it doesn't matter, and

(55:01):
you look at it and it looks like scrambled eggs.
Somebody dumped a plate of scrambled eggs on top. That
is a decomposer fungi. Isn't that cool? And it goes away.
It goes away. You got in your yard and you
look at those rings of mushrooms. Have you ever seen that?
They call them fairy rings. All of a sudden, here's

(55:22):
this circle of mushrooms that pops up. Why and why
are they in a circle? What would cause that? Well,
here's what causes it. A decomposer fungi starts to send
it's my celia, that's the fancy word of the day.
Decomposing through all the thatch of your yard. And it goes.
It lives for a certain amount of time and then

(55:44):
it could be a change in the weather or just
the maturing of it. It sends up its fruiting bodies
and that's mushrooms. And so you get this circle. Just
like if you put a match in your if you
had dragrass and you put a match in it, you
know how that fire would burn out. That's what that
fungi is doing, composing that that and then here comes mushrooms.
Then go up further and do another and do another
circle of it too. That is some pretty cool stuff

(56:07):
right there. Anyway, you get the idea, if you live
in Kingwood, you are a fortunate person because you've got
both Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Centers right out there.
So that whole region Kingwood, humbold A Tesca Seed to Porter,
New Caney Valley Ranch, that that whole area out there
is served by these two awesome nurseries. Both of them

(56:28):
are open seven days a week. Warrens is on North
Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow Drive. And
when you go there, you're going to find the products
I recommend on garden Line like microlife and nitrofoss and
Nelson Turf Star, like heirloom soils, Nelson's plant food canisters
out there, Mosquito dunks and other products you hear me

(56:50):
talk about are going to be carried out there. At
those garden centers. You're always going to find a good
stock of edgies and herbs. Citrus and fruit are in
right now, Roses are in right now, beautiful native plants.
They have nice little greenhouse too where you can see
some plants. At Warn southern gardens. They can even design
and make potted containers for you. You pick a container,

(57:11):
you pick some plants, they put it together. They have
full landscaping services for that area. Do you need to
do something in your landscape, we'll talk to them.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
They got the shrubs and trees there on site. They
can come out and do some of that work for
you if you want. And when you're at Kingwoich, I
got that gift shop there. It is absolutely amazing. They
just revamped it through the cool season and they are
creating a really nice new revamped gift shop. Clean got

(57:40):
some of the new products that are coming in. All right,
what's time for me to take a little break here.
Welcome back to the garden line, folks. We are here
to help you have success and to enjoy your garden more.
Gardening is the greatest hop there.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
It really is.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
It's one of the number one hobbies and it gives
you things that very few other hobbies can do. For example,
health benefits, mental health benefits and physical health benefits both
come from gardening. They can now it can stress you
if you if you let it, if you worry about
it and don't do things right, you know, but we're

(58:24):
here to help you have success. How can we help
you take it up a notch or how about take
it up ten notches because gardening is just too much
fun to let it slip by and not enjoy it.
And I know, I know, we got these out there.
I was talking to by the other day. They've got
I call it plastic grass. It's we've moved past plastic

(58:44):
to better material. They are plastic grass in their yard
and here we are talking about that and whatnot. And
it makes me want to go out and get a
bunch of plastic weeds at night and go in like
a ninja and superglow them into their yard and deal
with that. But anyway, aside from the horticultural to terrorism,
it's a lot of fun. You know. Do you realize
your what your lawn contributes in terms of environmental benefits?

(59:08):
It number one, it protects the soil and prevents soil erosion.
That's one thing it does. Now, if it's a healthy
lin it does. If it's all dirt, you know, then
it's not doing as good a job at that. It
moderates soil temperature. They can actually tell you and measure
the term the number of bt us that a soil
that a good healthy lawn provides in terms of cooling.

(59:30):
If you look at a hard scape, even even plastic grass,
even a sidewalk, or certainly an asphalt members a kid
running barefoot across an asphalt in the summer not for long. Well,
lawns cool. They are a plant, so they're releasing water.
They are transpiring water. That's a cooling thing, okay, and
so that effect of that loss of water, it cools significantly.

(59:54):
It makes a much more cooler. Trees do the same thing.
Of course they shade you, but they're also doing a
cooling effect in the atmosphere is they release water. And
there's many benefits that are environmental that plants provide us
as well. All right, well that's just a little soapbox,
but yes, that's going on out there. By the way,
if you haven't joined ACEH Rewards, you really need to.

(01:00:18):
ACEH Rewards is a great program. ACEH Rewards. You sign
up for it. It's painless. You don't even have to
carry the cart around if you don't want to, but
you can go in. Just give me a phone number
and they put it in when you check out, and
that counts toward your rewards, and it builds up and
it matters. It also matters in other ways. For example,
let's see, you buy a barbecue grill at a lot

(01:00:40):
of ace hardware stores. If you're an ASH Rewards member,
they're going to assemble it. They will offer to assemble
it and deliver it right to your home. Now that
is amazing. And boy does Acever have barbecue grills. They've
got Traeger and Rectec and Big Green Egg and Weber
and those are some Cadillac stuff as well as all

(01:01:00):
the supplies you need. Right now, in my garage, I'm
doing another revamp I've been. I'm always having to clean
it up. Have you ever noticed how you know, flat
spaces in your house tend to collect clutter. My garage
and yours two tends to get full. You get it
all cleaned out and beautiful and pristine, you want to
take a picture of it, and next thing you know,

(01:01:21):
you're having to turn sideways to get from the car
to the front door to the garage door to walk out,
walk in the house because it's so full of stuff. Well,
you need some bends, you need some shelving. Ace has
got you covered. Is your outdoor garbage can on wheels.
Is it looking bade, you know, wearing out? How about
a new rubber made thirty two gallon garbage can on

(01:01:43):
wheels for twenty six ninety nine. That's Ace Hardware. They
got a still tremor sale going on right now, thirty
dollars off starting this weekend. They also have garden pruners
power puners. You know, you buy one and you get
a free battery for it. And if you you haven't
seen those, go to as show me show me your
power garden printers. I want to see that. Let them

(01:02:05):
show you that it is really really cool. Now there's
Ace Hardware All Seasons up in Willis. And by the way,
I'm going to be at All Seasons Hardware and Willis
on February the twenty second. What is that three one two,
three weekends or three saturdays from yesterday, So put that
on your calendar. I hope you come see me. Cyprus Hardware,
Ace Hardware and up in Porter j and r Ace Hardware.

(01:02:28):
I'll be there in March and then Kilgore Lumber down
in clear Lake. Lots of great Ace Hardware stores in
our area. If you haven't been in one, you need
to go because this isn't your father's hardware store or
your grandfather's hardware store like the old o'smobile commercial used
to say. It has all of that stuff. It still

(01:02:49):
has the old time service, and it still has the
great selection, but it has a whole lot more Ace.
ACE is a hardware store on steroids. I mean it
is amazing the kinds of things that they have there now,
just you know, like power tools, Like I say, you
have still nuts, I said, still a well ago, what's
the one I'm trying to think of? Uh, any kind

(01:03:11):
of the big categories of power tools. They may have
a whole section, uh for that particular thing. I have
d Walt tools. Well, Ace stores that you've got a
whole section, you know, all the du Wault power tools
and things.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Pretty cool stuff. You're listening to Garden Line.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I phone number here is seven to one three two
one two k t r H seven one three two
one two k t r H. Give me a call.
Let's talk about the things that are of interest to you.

Speaker 12 (01:03:38):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
If you've got outdoor metal equipment or ornament, you know,
like those those metal iron fixtures that hang on the
wall for decoration. Those kinds of things uh. The uh
the metal chairs that have the cushions in them, but
basically the chairs metal bit the cushions and in time
those start to rust, they start to chip and lose

(01:03:59):
their coats and things like that. Maybe you've got one
of those old time remember the old time chairs they
were they had a metal back and a metal seat
and then a curved leg that kind of went forward
down and came underneath you. Those you could sort of
rock in them because they had a springiness to them.
How about having one of those that is like brand new.
Maybe we have a stool in our house that was metal,

(01:04:20):
old time metal stool. Uh, and they start to russ,
they start to have issues. Houston powder Coders one of
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is starting to look pretty bad, and we stuck it

(01:05:04):
out there to stick plants on. They could do a
coating on that kind of thing as well. One hundred
plus colors, I'm telling you, any color. I saw something
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iron rustic. I like that, has that been coated? You're
going to coat that? And they go, no, it has
been coated. I walked up to it and it was
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(01:05:24):
you want red or blue or one hundred different colors
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two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight.
And if you live as far as this radio signal

(01:05:46):
goes almost to San Antonio and Austin employees wherever you
live and hear this, they service your area too. They
just talk to them and they'll tell you about how
this works, and it is pretty cool. It was time
for me to take a little break and I'll be
right back with your phone calls at seven one three
two one two KTRH. Boy, I haven't heard that in

(01:06:08):
a while. All right, folks, we're back on guardline. Good
have you with us. I was talking about earlier. We're
going to be fertilizing our lawns soon. That's coming up.
It's on the schedule. But I want to remind you
that you can do azmite at any time. Really, I
mean it. It is not a it's a nutrients. You

(01:06:31):
could call it a fertilizer, but it's not the standard nitrogen, phosphorus,
potassium that we put on it certain amounts of time
according to plant growth. We're putting azamite down to build
the soil bank account with trace minerals. There's seventy seven
known trace elementary micronutrients in azamite. It's a volcanic ash
and freshwater mineral mind substance down to the ground. Now

(01:06:54):
there there's a concept called Lee bigs Baryl Lee bigs barrel.
It's a law of Minimus. Here's what it means. Imagine
a barrel with those staves coming up, and you cut
off different staves at different heights. Right, one is a
full of top. One's halfway once a quarter of the way.
How much water can you put in the barrel. You
can only fill it to the lowest stave and then
it runs out. That's the concept of Liebig's barrel. That's

(01:07:18):
the concept of the law of the minimums. If you've
got some trace mineral that's limited, even just one little
tiny trace mineral, it's limited. That limits the production the
optimum growth of that particular plant, whether it's a lawn
or whatever. Asmite is a trace mineral supplement. A forty
forty four pound bag covers six to twelve thousand square feet.
If you've got a vegetable garden, about ten pounds per

(01:07:40):
thousand square feet. You can do it anytime of the
year you want to do it. If you want more information,
just go to azimite Texas dot com. I'm going to
head out now on the phones and we're going to
talk to Jerry and West Houston. Hey Jerry, welcome to
guard Line.

Speaker 13 (01:07:54):
Hey Morner, how are you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
I'm well, Thank you well.

Speaker 13 (01:08:00):
I got a little something here. My daughter got a
banana plant tree. I supposed to have blue bananas and
taste like ice.

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):
Cream.

Speaker 13 (01:08:11):
She don't have a green thumb, so I put it
in my yard. She wants to see what the fruit
looks like. But anyway, because of the freezing temperatures, well,
the first year that banana plant just skyrocket is probably
it was about fifteen feet tall with about five little puffs,
but the freeze took care of that. I was just wondering,

(01:08:32):
I know, to cut it back, but how far back
do I cut it back? Do I leave a four
foot trunk or do I leave it cut it at
the base because it's about a ten foot diameter trunk
at the base and all right, puffs.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
Gotcha. So bananas are technically they're an herbaceous plant as
opposed to you know, we think of them as a tree.
We call them trees because they grow up like that.
They have a trunk. But that stem the degree that
it freezes down, it tells you whether you're going to
have a chance to make fruit on it or not.
So if it goes all the way to the ground,
the pups just take over. I mean, your banana can

(01:09:09):
turn to mush all the way to the ground, and
it's going to re sprout out at the base with
little pups. Like you're describing. If you can save some
of that trunk, what's going to happen is the new
growth is going to come unfurling out of the center
of that stumped off trunk at whatever height you cut
it off if it's alive. So I wouldn't automatically cut

(01:09:29):
it to the ground. We need to see how far
back gets killed, because you don't want to cut it
further back then you have to because you may still
get some foliage on it, and by the end of
the season it takes them a long time, many months
to be able to set bananas. But I would probably
just kind of feel it if it's mushy and dark,
or maybe cut it off a little bit and then
look at it a little bit more. As much as

(01:09:52):
you can leave of that trunk. Leave it.

Speaker 13 (01:09:54):
Yeah, Okay, well, I know it's warm enough this week,
but I'm tempted to cut it, but I think my
better good until they just to leave it alone for
a little while longer before you cut it back and
wait till March.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
The roll on post freeze damaged decisions is learned to
live with ugly And I think you got it there,
so thank you. Jerry I appreciate that call. Good luck,
good luck with that banana. Appreciate that. Have you been
to Buchanans Naty Plants in the Heights. That is an
awesome garden center. There's always something going on at Buchanans.
I mean, they have educational programs that are outstanding. They

(01:10:30):
are like the coming up here well actually today from
noon to one is something called the Gallantines Flower Workshop.
Just go to their website and you learn more about it.
Buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. They have stone fruit
in lots of cool nectarines and apricots. Well, they have
everything in you know. The house plant greenhouse is gorgeous, beautiful,

(01:10:54):
certainly a well prepared section of native plants, a well
prepared section of shade tree plants, beautiful vines like the clemitists.
We don't we don't plant clemitis enough in a nice
area of the morning sun and afternoon shade ultra roots.
It does well here. Buganis can tell you all about that.
They're experts on this. Sign up for the newsletter if
Buchanan's Plants dot com. We're now going to go to

(01:11:18):
Marty in Fairfield. Hey Marty, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
Good morning Skip.

Speaker 14 (01:11:24):
I have a blueberry, a self pollinating blueberry from arborgate,
and I've had it in a plot for years. It
just hadn't done anything since the first year. I was
going to think about finding somewhere to put it in
my yard garden, okay, and don't know what exactly, how

(01:11:45):
or when or what I need ye to do to
do that.

Speaker 9 (01:11:49):
Can you help me?

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
Okay? Is it not growing or is it just not producing?
Or what is the symptom you're seeing on the thing?

Speaker 14 (01:11:59):
Well, I think it's been water logged basically. Okay, I
haven't been I haven't been able to switch out the soil, Okay, So.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
What you want to do is you want to create
an acidic soil for it. Now, there are soil mixes.
You know, you're probably going to be looking at a
bulk delivery, a supersac or something you go to. Heirloom
soils go up to Nature's way resources. Both of them
have a soil blend for acidic loving plants. In the
old days, we just took sand and peat moss and

(01:12:29):
mixed them together to create a blueberry bed. But you
know for your area that just get one of these
quality soils. Always use an acidic plant food, something for
acid living plants. And again most of our fertilizer people
can provide you with that. I know Microlife has one
in kind of a pink bag that's for acid loving plant.

(01:12:50):
Just always keep it on the acidic side. As much
as you can use rain water. If you've got a barrel,
use it. It's better than tapwater, especially for blueberries. They
don't like high pH water and they don't like buy
carbonates in the water, which some of our water supplies have,
So that would be the secret, along with a lot
of sunshine. Blueberries will take some shade. But the more

(01:13:12):
shade you get, the less blueberries you're going to get
to eat.

Speaker 14 (01:13:17):
And how tall if I I hate to take up
my veggie garden, but how how tall and how wide
would they actually get? Should I put it in my
veggie garden?

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Do you know if it's a southern high bush or
a rabbit eye by chance?

Speaker 14 (01:13:37):
Yeah, it's the pollinating one she has.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Okay, I think it's well, uh, Southern high rabitie rabbit eye.
They get pretty large. I've seen rabbit eyes important many
years ago. They were probably ten foot tall. Now, I
had rabbit eyes adam and a container, and I kept
kept them at about five feet tall, you know, so
that that can be done, But they do get larger

(01:14:04):
in time. What with a blueberry, you always want you
want to prune every year, removing the oldest canes, so
you're kind of on a five year renovation of the
whole bush schedule. And that also avoids getting really big. So,
you know, a cane after it's about five years, it's
not very productive. It's woody, it's a trunk, it's got
growth way up high. Cut it off at the ground

(01:14:25):
to get fresh new canes coming out, and I think
you'll keep the height a lot lower that way as well.

Speaker 14 (01:14:32):
Oh okay, that may be the problem then, because I
don't I haven't been prune yet.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Yeah, so the oldest canes the fun all right, Marty,
thank you?

Speaker 9 (01:14:45):
Wait, okay, takes a lot skip all right, bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Appreciate that if you want a quality landscape job, I
mean something that is gorgeous. Pierscapes is the place to go.
Pierscapes is our preferred provider. Pescapes dot com is the website.
Go there and look at what they do. It is awesome.
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(01:15:11):
have certified employees that'd been with them forever. This a
company does things right, whether it's lighting or irrigation, or
landscapes or rock borders or whatever you need. Piercescapes dot com.
All right, it is time for me take a little
break here top of the hour news. Let's see here
we've got Doug and Seabrook and Jim in spring. You

(01:15:33):
are our first two up when we come back. If
you can hang around, thank you for your call and
we'll be right back in just a bit with your
calls in the meantime, got a top of er break
unless you will listen to the news. Go check out
gardening with skip dot com and all the stuff up
there that I tell you I keep putting up very
helpful things for you. Also a good time to go.

Speaker 4 (01:15:58):
Go.

Speaker 15 (01:16:03):
This is Michael Berry, And in almost twenty years of
being on the radio, I have had companies who support
and sponsor our show. I don't use the term advertising
because it's a partnership. Say to me, I know when
your listeners come in the door to my company because
they're the best customers I could ever have. If you
want to support our show, sponsor our show, be a
partner and have me endorse you and what you do

(01:16:26):
well to our listeners, email me through our website Michael
Berryshow dot com. Michael Berryshow dot com.

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Speaker 6 (01:18:17):
Welcome to kat r h Garden Line with skimp Rickard's.

Speaker 7 (01:18:21):
Shoes trim just watch him as well.

Speaker 8 (01:18:37):
Thanks to Sun.

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back to guard Line. If
you've been with us this morning. We have got two
more hours. Let's see one two Yeah, two more hours
a show this morning. It's flying by as usually does.
But if you've got a question you'd like to ask
seven one three two one two k t RH, we'll
be happy to visit with you about that.

Speaker 12 (01:19:13):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Let's head on out to Spring, Texas and we are
going to visit with Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 18 (01:19:22):
Hi Skip, thanks for having me on your on your show.

Speaker 3 (01:19:25):
Listen to you all the time, appreciate us to work.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
So he can help well, I.

Speaker 18 (01:19:32):
Sent you a couple photos on Friday. One was my
front yard looking for some advice to replace some box
woods with something that would give us a nice little
head along our sidewalk leading.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Out to the street.

Speaker 18 (01:19:49):
I'm trying to grow some box woods there for two
years now, and I've replaced them a number of times.
I don't know, you know, I've done everything I can
think and listen to you a lot. Anyway, they just
keep dying and they're not growing worth a corn. So
I'm looking for something else that I can put out
there that's kind of fast growing, grow up to maybe
you know around thirty thirty six inches high, and I

(01:20:10):
can keep it trimmed like that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Okay, yeah, you had that height, and when I looked
at it, my first thought was, that's pretty tall for
an area like that, because you as you're coming up
and you're seeing the yard and the beds and everything
around the house, you have a nice place. I seemed
a little on the high side. But the first thing
that came to mind was was dwarf yopon. And now

(01:20:33):
dwarfy opon generally doesn't get that tall. In time. It can,
but we usually keep it at about a two foot
a height somewhere and around two foot. It could be
a little higher than that though it will get up,
but that would be a good one. It's a native plan.
It does well here, you know, not hard to grow,
easy to do. Then the other things, there are some

(01:20:57):
very dwarf types of hollies. Yes, why a you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Huh?

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Why a you p o n hy au p o n.
You have seen them a lot as you driven around,
maybe not even thought about what they are. But yopan
it's a pronounced jopon uh. It's compact. There's some different
varieties of it. You know, you're down there, or just
you throw a rock from where you live to Ma's nursery,

(01:21:24):
so they they're going to have dorothyopon there when you're
when you're at Moss, though, ask them, ask them what
else they carry. You know, all our garden centers carry
a variety of different things, and I can't keep up
with every plant and every one of them. But they
may have another suggestion that is in their group of plants.
But that would be the one that I would say

(01:21:44):
would be dependable. Simple. If you want to share it
and make a box out of it, you can. If
you want to let it grow into a natural mound,
you can do that too.

Speaker 4 (01:21:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
It's a pretty versatile.

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):
Plant, okay. And two foot would be okay.

Speaker 18 (01:21:58):
I recognize that thirty thirty six inches is kind of
high for that for that area.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
So yeah, that that'd be that'd be great. I'll check
out my local nursery. Good stuff.

Speaker 18 (01:22:11):
The other one was I sent you with some follow
up pictures of some grasses that I have grown in
my backyard. They came last year and I seem to
manage to get rid of them, I don't know, by
luck more than by skill, and now they're back with
a vengees this year. So there are these tufts of
grass and they're very shadow They come up very easily.

(01:22:34):
When you pull one up, you pull up a mount
of dirt with them. I sent you too far off
the photo, and I hope.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
Might give you a better idea of what it is.
But they're right.

Speaker 18 (01:22:45):
They're just kind of popping up everywhere in my backyard.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
Okay, looking at the photos, it looks to me like
that's called dove weed. Dove Weed is a it's a
shiny leaf, I don't want to say rubbery, but it's
a thick, thicker leaf than normal grass. Normal grass almost
has a dryish feel to it. Doveweed you feel like,
probably if you pulled it open, it has some juice

(01:23:11):
inside or something like that. I think you've got doveweed there,
and doveweed is You got different options. It's not easy
to kill. It likes warm weather. Typically it doesn't want
to start growing a lot until we get into May.
But it seems to be hanging around now. If it
is doveweed, a product called Celsius would be one of

(01:23:31):
your best bets. Celsius like the temperature. It's not cheap.
You buy little packets of it. Makes a gallon and
that'll go a long way and spray in the doveweed.
So that's one another option for doveweed if you don't
have a lot of it is a cinnamon based product
called Agralon, and it literally it's ground up cinnamon. When

(01:23:54):
the doveweed is wet, you sprinkle that powder on there
and it will just turn it black. Now, we comes
from seed, it can bounce back out of the base
of the plant, so the sentiment approach may not be
as long lasting as you want, and if it's a
large area, can get a little pricey to do it
that way. But the other option would be there. Nelson

(01:24:15):
has a Nelson Plant Food has a fertilizer called we Donator,
and we Donator has an ingredient in it that is
a post emergent herbicide that is effective to some degree,
pretty decent against doveweed. Okay, uh, not not as good
as celsius, but but but it's pretty good. And it's

(01:24:37):
if you got any other broad leaf weeds in your grass,
it'll control those two. You just want to follow a
volabel very carefully. You want to make sure your weeds
are wet so when you put it out the granules
you're putting out stick to those weeds. It won't this
stuff won't hurt your grass, but you want it to
stick to the weed leaves and start there. It's gonna
some's going to fall onto the ground. That's fine. But

(01:25:00):
a turf star we donator and it'll last. It'll feed
for about six months. It's a little early now to
be fertilizing. So if you don't do that a little
bit later, or maybe you try something now and you
still got some dove weed, then just try that weedonator
is an option. See how that works for you. It
from what I've seen in research, that ingredient in there

(01:25:20):
should do.

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
Okay, okay, and that dove d ov dove weed.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
Yeah, d o v E. Yeah, it's it's not a
grass really, it's more kin to wandering jew than it
is to grass.

Speaker 3 (01:25:34):
Oh I got that all righty, Well, thank you very much. Skip.
I'll look into this and and.

Speaker 18 (01:25:41):
Get out my dove weed back here, because it came
last year and it just seemed to kind of go
away with the heat maybe in the in the later spring.

Speaker 3 (01:25:49):
But this year it's it's back early with a vengeance.
It's I got it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Everywhere, all right, all right, so we'll just check that out.
You bet you now that? Yeah, that's a turf star
weedon eator that I was talking about there. It also
does a really good job of it has an effect
on your grass where you gress didn't grow up straight
up as much, or you're not mowing as much, but

(01:26:13):
it still spreads. Well. That's a growth regulator type of
effect in the weed nator. Kind of interesting the way
that works. All right, I got to run to a break.
Doug and Seabrook, you are first. When we come back,
Mike in the Heights you will be next. Alrighty, let's
get this going again here on garden Line. We're going
to run straight out here and talk to Doug in sky. Doug,

(01:26:38):
welcome to guarden Line, and thanks for hanging on.

Speaker 4 (01:26:41):
Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 10 (01:26:42):
I really appreciate your program.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:26:48):
I had a question.

Speaker 19 (01:26:49):
I recently moved from the Dallas area and up there.

Speaker 10 (01:26:54):
I would put potatoes in the ground on Valentine's Day.
That was kind of my marker to do it. I
was wondering when is the best time to do it
in this area?

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Right now? Right now?

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
Any you could do it on Valentine's Day here too
as well, if you like. But really the primetime in
general for this region is going to be the first
three weeks of February. That's the prime time. If you're
further Let's see, you were in Seabrooks, so yeah, you could.
You could go a little earlier even than now and
be fine, But that right now is the fast answer.

Speaker 4 (01:27:34):
That's what I figured.

Speaker 10 (01:27:36):
Just love being in this area and learning the new
ropes of the horticulture world here.

Speaker 3 (01:27:42):
My second time, you grow a lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
I was gonna say, you can grow a lot of
stuff down here you couldn't grow in Dallas.

Speaker 3 (01:27:50):
That's true.

Speaker 19 (01:27:51):
Yes, I'm really looking forward to redoing some of the
flower beds and growing some new stuff down here.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Good.

Speaker 19 (01:28:01):
My second question is has to do with the lawn fungus.
That's new to me as well, and didn't have to
deal with that before. I treated it in the fall
and that worked, but it came back right before the
big freeze with the snow, and I was wondering when
should I put down that another treatment to deal with

(01:28:24):
those few places that it came back.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Describe to me the symptoms you were seeing on the lawn.

Speaker 19 (01:28:32):
It's kind of a round area the size of a
small car.

Speaker 4 (01:28:38):
In the big areas, are.

Speaker 10 (01:28:40):
Are smaller like a little tabletop in other areas.

Speaker 1 (01:28:44):
Gotcha, Okay, So that is called large patch or brown patch.
Brown patches the old name for it. We still use that,
but it's also called large patch. Now now that you're
in the area, what you need to do is bookmark
my website gardening with skip dot com, Gardening with skip
dot com on there. I've got two lawn schedules. One

(01:29:07):
is the lawn care schedule, mowing, watering, fertilizing, things like that.
The other is the lawn pest disease and weed management schedule.
So if you go to the pest disease and we'd management,
you will see on there that in October you were
and first three weeks in November you're treating for brown
patch because that's when it typically would arrive. So had

(01:29:28):
you treated in October, the circles that you saw would
not have been able to develop. We also start treating
again in late January, and we can go all the
way through mid March if we want to. But that
is that this whole time is when we would see
the reappearance of the of the brown patch circles now

(01:29:48):
because our weather is so irregular. I mean we can
have warm days in January and whenever you have mild
temperatures and moisture, brown patch is going to pop up
the circles or potential going to pop up. So the
other things you want to do, Doug, is avoid overfertilizing,
especially late in the season. The fall fertilizing does not

(01:30:10):
need to be as much nitrogen compared to like some
of the other numbers as we do during the growing season,
So hold off on the nitrogen. Avoid wetting the grass
more than you have to, and you shouldn't have to
water much in the cool season here, but wet conditions
continually wet high nitrogen that all predisposes your lawn to

(01:30:31):
that infection. So the combination of those cultural advice along
with the schedule that I have it's right there on
gardening with skip dot comics pre to download, print out
and everything.

Speaker 4 (01:30:44):
Thanks for the helping.

Speaker 10 (01:30:46):
Right now, I can treat for fungus, is what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
You can. You can just follow that schedule on what
to use. Okay, all right, thank you, Sar, appreciate your call.
Let's see here We're going to go now to Mike
in the high Hello, Mike, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:31:02):
Good morning. It's my first call. I wanted to call
and asked Yeah, I listened to you as I can.
I wanted to call and ask you about my desert rose.
It's a potted plant. I've had it about ten years,
so it's very durable, it seems in spite of me,
and it's it's really took that that storm hard and

(01:31:27):
the leaves became really wilted and yellow and brown, not
all of them, you know, sixty And I wonder do
I cut it back?

Speaker 4 (01:31:36):
Do I?

Speaker 5 (01:31:37):
You know, it's like I say, it's ten years old.
It's it's had vibrant colors for months on end much
of the year, it seems, and really pretty. And I
don't want to lose it. I don't want to do
the wrong thing.

Speaker 3 (01:31:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:50):
Well, if anywhere you like, if you had stem damage
and it's mushy or anything like that, that's not going
to come back alive again, So I could be removed.
I would wait and kind of let's see what it's
gonna do.

Speaker 16 (01:32:02):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
I like to be patient with plants and let them
tell me where to prone you know, we can scratch
them around and feel this stuff and try to decide
where to cut out. Or you could just wait and
when you see new growth, then something that's dead is dead,
and go ahead and remove it out of it. But
who knows, we'll see maybe that maybe that's going to
bounce right back and put new foliage on it.

Speaker 5 (01:32:23):
Okay, all right, and maybe water it once a week
or so or.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
Yeah, it needs water, but it doesn't need to be
wet all the time. It doesn't like poor drainage. Definitely
not poor drainage. So you shouldn't have to water it
a lot until the weather gets warmer than you're watering
a little bit more. But you know, right now, the
demands are almost nothing on that plant, right and so
so just just be careful that the worst thing you

(01:32:50):
can do is overwater.

Speaker 5 (01:32:52):
Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm trying to about that. Well, Thank you, Skip,
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:58):
Yes, sir, thanks for the call. I appreciate your call.
Let me ask you a question. Are you inserted in
planning a rose this spring? This late winter and spring,
now's a great time to plant roses. What if I
told you you could go someplace and there are one
hundred and ninety three roughly different varieties to choose from.

(01:33:19):
That's RCW Nursery. That is the length of their rose
list of what they get in. Now, every day you wait,
there's roses going and varieties disappearing because they got bought out.
And so that you know that not one hundred and
three to pick from in March, I can guarantee you
that because they sell people go nuts on these roses.
But RCW is the garden center where about Way eight

(01:33:43):
comes together with Tomball Parkway, which is Highway two forty
nine northwest Houston, easy to get to. When you get
in there, you're have everything else. You know, they grow
their own trees and shrubs up in Plantersville, so they've
got one of the best selection of the trees and
shrubs that want to be here in our area. They
know what grows here. That's what they grow and that's
what they sell. You can buy smaller ones and planting yourself.

(01:34:05):
You can have RCW come out and plant them. So
they got some big ones. Unless you want to put
your chiropractice kids through college, you need you need to
let them do that. But they've got it all. R
cwnurseries dot com. Right now rows amazing. Can you imagine
a place that orders in I need three different varieties

(01:34:26):
of roses? That's RCW. Let's go out. Uh here, what
are we looking at on tower? We're good on time.
We're gonna go to Tomball and talk to John. Hey, John,
welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 20 (01:34:37):
Want to skip right. A quick, easy question for you.
My daughter's planning some Sant Augustine grass because she's moving.
She wants to get things fixed up a little bit.
When's the best time to plant Saint Augustine?

Speaker 1 (01:34:51):
Well, Saint Augustine. Really, all of our warm season grasses,
they're not really wanting to put out roots right now
much a little bit, but not much. But once it
starts to warm up a little bit, all the fresh
new roots system goes in. So when you're putting sawed out,
getting fresh roots in the ground. You can put sod
out every month of the year technically, but my least

(01:35:14):
favorite time is in the winter to put sod out,
just it's just not going to get the roots down
very fast. So if we can, if we can start
doing that in March, that would be okay. Starting doing
it in March April's even better. But if you you know,
like she's got to be out of there at the
end of February, we'll put something down on the ground,
get it watered in as best you can. You're not

(01:35:36):
gonna have to water as much or as often at
this time of year because the demands are so low.
But if you want the best looking lawn, wait a
little bit longer.

Speaker 4 (01:35:45):
All right, thank you, Chip.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
Yes, sir, thank you, appreciate that call. All right, folks,
we've got an open line here at Garden Line. It
cleaned it all out seven to one three two one
two kt RH seven one three two one two kt RH.
We love our feed stores here on Garden Line and
Spring Creek Feed up in Magnolia area. It's on twenty

(01:36:10):
nine seventy eight FM twenty nine seventy eight up in
the Magnoia area. It's just a few minutes away from
the Grand Parkway and Highway two forty nine, you know
that area. They carry the full line of the turf Star,
the Microlife, the nitroposs products for fertilizing your lawn. They
also have the products you need for controlling weeds or

(01:36:30):
dealing with diseases, or dealing with pests. They've got all
that excellent lawn, garden and even pond supplies for that matter.
Of course, they're a feed store, so livestock feed, pet
food like Victor by Victor and Purinea purina purina. Growing up,
I used to raise my livestock animals for the show
on Purina food. They got that there, and they also

(01:36:53):
perhaps most importantly of all, it is a wonderful You
walk in and you go, wait a minute, is this
a feed store, because there's all kinds of cool stuff
for the home and whatnot. But yes, it is absolutely
a feed store, and it's absolutely a garden supply store.
The friendly, courteous staff that greet you, that is it
just makes it a pleasure to go in there and

(01:37:14):
top if you're FFA or four h or military or
a senior citizen, there's discounts for you there. They will
special order products for you there, and they have a
delivery service at Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM
twenty nine seventy eight twenty nine seventy eight. I love
going in there. I always I am amazed at the

(01:37:37):
various kinds of things that Boy, if you're into backyard chickens, too.
They've got you know, you can get everything from the
little feeders and the lights and waters and all the
supplies you need to have those backyard chickens. Backyard chickens
are cool. My daughter, I've got one of my daughters.
It has backyard chickens. And you go to our house
and look out the living it's actually kitchen slash dining

(01:38:00):
room door, and there's a bunch of chicken faces looking inside.
There are the nosiest little things you've ever seen in
your life, but they're cool. People that are into chickens
are into chickens, that's for sure. Well, you're listening to
garden Line. If you want to give us a call,
I'm abou to take a little quick break, But if
you'd like to be first up or one of the
first ones up, depending on how fast you don't, you

(01:38:22):
can give me a call at seven one three two
one two kt r H and we'll be back and
enter your calls as well as I've got things I
want to talk about, things that you might want to
be considering right now that are very timely in the
garden and the landscape. We're about to enter spring and
that is our crazy busy season. So let's get ahead

(01:38:43):
of it. Let's be ready to go so that you
can have success with what you're about to grow. All right,
welcome by, I got I got a lot of garden
talk left in me. I give me a all we'll
talk about it. Seven one three two one two ktr h.

(01:39:05):
Good to have you with us. By the way, I
love products that Medina carries. They have so many good products.
You know, Medina has been around since I don't know,
nineteen fifties, and their products are beloved by gardeners. Many
different options. You know, I've talked about over and over
the has to grow six twelve six. The fact that
it's got so many things in it. It's got the

(01:39:27):
course of the nutrients, the nitrogen phosphores, it's got Medina soil activator,
it's got hemic acid, it's got seaweed extracts. I mean,
you use it for drenching new transplants. You can use
it for folier feeding if you want. There's another product
that I like a lot too. It's called Medina Plus.
It's got a lot of micronutrients in it, fortified with
micro nutrients. It's got seaweed extract in it as well,

(01:39:50):
and it's a good all through the year folier feed
for plants, you know, trees, shrubs, lawns, vegetable gardens, flower gardens.
Over four different trace elements. Got some natural growth hormones
in it. That's Medina Plus. And the Medina Plus gives
you lots of benefits that Medina Soil Activator has plus.

(01:40:12):
They increased bloom and leaf growth support, increased fruits, set again.
Transplanting seed treatments. You got some seeds you want to transplant,
gets you Medina plus water. Mix it up, three seeds
in it, let them soak overnight and in the morning
when they're swollen up, or the next day, go out
there and plant them and look at the difference you're
going to see from that. That's from the folks at Medina.

(01:40:33):
They're widely available products, easy to find everywhere, and they work.
Let's go back to the phones now. We're going to
head to Houston and talk to Cheryl. Hey, Cheryl, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 21 (01:40:44):
Hey, Hello, Skip, thanks for taking me call. I have
I have a question about mapcone trees. I have probably
ten to twelve trees and they're all full grown and
they all produce.

Speaker 3 (01:41:01):
Pecans.

Speaker 22 (01:41:03):
But I never get pecans, even if they turn black
and they're no good, or the squirrels get them, or
if they get ripe and they open and fall on
the ground and I crack them, they're dry and bitter.

Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
All right, let's take that and backwards order squirrels. Pecan
fed squirrel is some You can make some of the
best dumplings you've ever had in your life with a
good pecan fed squirrel. So that's not a problem, that's
an opportunity. Seriously, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, seriously that

(01:41:39):
you know. The only way you can keep pecans squirrel
free is to have on the pecan trunk one of
those pieces of metal flashing that's up off the ground
so that the pecans cannot jump above it and they
can't climb through it because that flashing, they can't get
a little claws in that. So you just kind of
have to get at the right height, and then you

(01:41:59):
have have to trim all the lower limbs so they
can't jump from the ground. And then you got to
make sure there's not like a power line going through
or some other tree that they just jump into the
top of. And if you can have all of that,
you can keep squirrels out of a pecan. Otherwise we're
up a creek. The squirrels just love those things. Now,
as far as the what we call pops, that's the

(01:42:20):
pecan kernels that are pecan shells that are just empty,
called those pops, that's caused by one of two things.
If you have significant disease damage by the end of
the season when pecans are filling and finishing their kernels,
you will get hollow shells. Pecans up until about August

(01:42:41):
first grow the shell size and harden the shell and
inside their liquid. After August, first that liquid begins to
turn into dowe, and then even the hard then finally
the hard kernel. So that late season problems. Maybe webworms
defoliate the tree, maybe diseases decimate the leaves that affects spilling.

(01:43:03):
The other thing that affects spilling or diseases of the shuck.
And this isn't a disease, it's the thing on the
outside of the pecan, believe it or not. The nutrients
from the tree go through the shuck and then enter
the nut and fill the kernel. So if you kill
the shuck with diseases that turn it black before it's time,
then you're not going to get filling of the pecans,

(01:43:25):
so it's going to be Those are the two main
things that we run into, is the foliage disease and
the shuck diseases. As far as causing those pops, those hollow.

Speaker 22 (01:43:36):
Kernels, Okay, I've never had a hollow kernel. Oh okay,
I've had them look like they're two years old whenever
I crack them, and they're dry and a bitter.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
Okay, Well, if a pecan gets old, it does get bitter.
It's an oil, and oils go rancid, So if it's
not stored at a cool temperature, that will happen. But
anything that causes you know, a lack of that proper
filling process, you may it may go as far as
you have a kernel, but it's kind of shrivelly and black,

(01:44:14):
dark in its color and bitter. That that I still
think is the causes that I was describing.

Speaker 22 (01:44:21):
Okay, But the biggest you know, the squirrels.

Speaker 3 (01:44:25):
I can.

Speaker 22 (01:44:25):
I have so many trees that the squirrels could probably
have a heyday, and I could deal with that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:31):
But the.

Speaker 22 (01:44:32):
Kernel on the outside turns black.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
What is that is? It? Is it? Healthy looking? Dense
nut meat? Underneath that black skin of the kernel.

Speaker 22 (01:44:46):
Yes, if you crack it open, it's just not right.
But it's black and it looks pretty.

Speaker 1 (01:44:55):
And we're not talking about little round black spots. We're
talking about the whole kernel skin in as black. Actually,
I've had both.

Speaker 22 (01:45:03):
I've had both. I've had it for the whole shell
turns black on the outside, okay, and then i've had
it where it has.

Speaker 1 (01:45:11):
Spot all right, well, shell black on the outside. That
is that is a shock disease. And you have the
spray for those, just like you have to spray for
leaf diseases. And in your situation that's probably not practical,
you know, to get a sprayer that can cover those
trees and do that. If it's little round spots, that's
stink bug damage or leaf footed bug damage. They stick

(01:45:33):
their little beak down there through the shock, through the
shell and they they cause those little black spots by
their feeding on the kernel. So it's gonna be one
of those. Hey, I tell you what this year, next
time you see that happen, take some pictures. Crack them open,
break a kernel open, show me the inside, let me
see the outside, and some photos. Let me take a
look at them. And maybe I'm seeing something that I'm

(01:45:55):
not picturing right now with your description. Okay, I think
I've given I've told you what. Go ahead.

Speaker 22 (01:46:04):
If I sprayed momp this tree, they give me the most,
what do I spray them with?

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
For that part? All right?

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
There is I tell you what will you? I'm going
to put you on hold and my producer I will
give you an email. I want you to email this
question and I'm going to send you more information. I
got to run to a break. I'm over time here,
but I'll point you to the information you're asking for. Okay,
wonderful things and you're you're in Houston. Just run over
to Southwest Fertilizer. They have a wide variety of products

(01:46:34):
for spray pecans that you're not going to find most
other places. All right, Cheryl, here you go. I'm putting
on hold, folks. I'll be right back. All right, Welcome
back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today.
We're here to answer your gardening questions. Looking forward to
doing that. Hey, when was the last time you're out
at Enchanted Forest? Enchanted Forest? They have got all kinds

(01:46:56):
of stuff going on this spring. They got a good
lineup of different talks coming in different events. You just
got to go to their website and check that out.
It's an easy one. Just remember this, write this down.
Enchanted Forest, Enchanted Forests. I'm trying to. I just went
blank on the website. It was okay, here we go.

(01:47:22):
Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX
dot com. They got good stuff going on all the time.
You need to go check it out. By the way,
they've got their potatoes. And we've been talking about potatoes today.
When do you plant potatoes? Now? Now, now, now, now,
now's the time. They got red milesoda. They got Yukon gold.

(01:47:43):
That one's cool. It looks like it's already been buttered.
It's golden inside. I red Pontiac and you know, they
just have a wide variety of Kennebec. They carry the
Kennebec variety two all great potatoes. Now's the time to
plant them. You haven't done it. You need to do it.
They've gotten so many plans on I don't even know
where to begin, but gorgeous foliage plants for sun and
for shade, beautiful flowering plants. You know it's the season.

(01:48:07):
Have you ever planted dahlias? Before you know. They have
their their little Personnicoty about going year round for us,
although that can be done, but they have got dalias
that you look at them and you're just going, I
didn't know that color existed in nature. It is so beautiful,
absolutely beautiful, and do real well for you too. By
the way, but in Chenny Forest Garden Center. It's the

(01:48:29):
garden center that is out there on FM twenty seven
to fifty nine. So if you're in Richmond Rosenberg, you're
heading towards sugar Land. It's off to the right down
south of fifty nine on twenty seven fifty nine. You
need to check it out. Let them help you create
a beautiful paradise at your place. By the way, they
have low chill varieties of apples and peaches and plums.

(01:48:51):
They even have some tree fruit trees that are three
and one. There are three grafted varieties on one tree.
So if you don't have room for like three trees,
and you want one tree, but you want three kinds
of three varieties on that tree, go by. I say,
I want to see your three in one tree. Skip
was talking about on garden Line. They have citrus that
is an outstanding selection especially those satsumas that and I

(01:49:15):
like to promote those in our area because they were
We are a great place for satsumas. We're fully winter
hardy plants for our area. Now, if we have seven degrees,
how often does that occur? Almost never. Yeah, you got
to cover them up, but heat under them and all that.
But satsumas are good, tough, hardy trees. Once they're established,
they're gonna go down in the middle teens. Once they've

(01:49:36):
had a couple of two three years in the ground,
they're established and ready to go. But they're a great plant,
and they got all the tools and fertilizers and soils
you need for your little fruit orchard. Let them help
you create your own fruitful paradise right there to the chanted forest.
We're going to go to Sugarland now and talk to Pat. Hey, Pat,

(01:49:58):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:50:00):
Thank you. I appreciate you're taking my call. I have
the issues with our grass and we've been having issues
since the end of August, and we were thinking it
was chinch sprug and so we've been putting this micro
grow bio inoculant, which a local true Value person totis

(01:50:21):
to use but anyway, it started out like in the
circle and just grew and we can see new grass
coming where it originally started. But it just keeps spreading,
so we think it's changing. Bugs do have something, you think?
It's kind of hard to tell now with all the
frozen grass from the freeze and the snow, but it's

(01:50:43):
still there. We don't know if we should treat it
now or wait till springtime.

Speaker 1 (01:50:49):
Okay, don't treat now, not right now. I don't know
what did it. If it's happening back, you know, in
August time, it could be chinchbugs.

Speaker 4 (01:50:57):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:50:58):
Biinoculant. Micro Biinoculant is a quality product from the folks
at Microlife, but it's design to enhance the microbial activity
in the soil, which helps the plants in many many
ways and can help with some disease issues. But it
is not going to do anything for chinchbugs. It's not
designed or made for that. If it was chinchbugs, you're

(01:51:20):
not going to see them again until the weather really
heats up in summer. So let's see what's going on
with your grass going out of the winter time. If
you want to be extra careful, just you know, kind
of a just in case thing. I normally don't like
to send people out to spray if we don't know
what we're dealing with. But there is a product that

(01:51:41):
works pretty good on the brown patch also called large
patch and take all root rot, which is what you
may have been seeing when that lawn was not looking good.
And so if you're dealing with the take all, there
is a product in green called a zoxy stroban. Do

(01:52:02):
you have a pin or pencil handy?

Speaker 9 (01:52:04):
Yes, my husband's right here. How do you spell that?

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
I will spell it azo x y A zoxy and
the second half is stroo b I N A stroban
A zoxy stroban. That's the ingredient. You're going to find
it in different products. But you go to a quality
you go to an ACE hardware store. Where are you located?

(01:52:29):
You're down and oh you're done. Surely you're just right
next to Southwest Fertilizer Bob. I know Bob has this too,
But tell them you need that ingredient and a long
product and what that will do. It works well against
a number of different diseases, but they take all especially
and I'm leaning toward my best guess being that probably

(01:52:51):
you were seeing take all based on what you said.
But if it's if it's, if you do that now,
it's kind of a preventative. And then let's watch your
lawn as you get in the season to start to
see issues. Take good pictures of it up close and
from a distance and email them to me, and we
will then give me a call on guardline and we
will have a more intelligent answer because we'll be able

(01:53:13):
to see what's going on.

Speaker 9 (01:53:15):
So how often should we put this stuff on the lawn?

Speaker 1 (01:53:19):
Just once? Now? If it turns out that take all
is the problem, you will do it again in the fall.
But let's not jump ahead to that. There's a lot
of other possibilities out there.

Speaker 9 (01:53:31):
Oh, lots of different bugs.

Speaker 1 (01:53:34):
Yeah, you mentioned ginger bugs. You know, there's there's other
diseases and the sideweb worms, and there's other things that
it could be.

Speaker 9 (01:53:44):
So the take all actually the name of the product.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
Take all is the name of the disease.

Speaker 1 (01:53:53):
Take all is the name of the fungus, and the
fungus kills grass. So in spring, if you have areas
that are graining up and areas that are dead, that
probably was take All. It could have been chinchbugs, too,
but chinchbugs are not going to attack until next summer. Hey,
I'll tell you what. Write something else down Gardening with

(01:54:15):
Skip Gardening with Skip dot com. That's my website. On
there you'll find both my launch schedules and everything I'm
telling you in a calendar form from January to December.
You can see exactly the diseases the insects when they attack,
what you use for them both and organically.

Speaker 9 (01:54:33):
Okay, all right, okay, all right, thank you so much.
You have a wonderful day. God bless you boy.

Speaker 1 (01:54:41):
You as well take care bye bye. All right, folks, well,
we're gonna have to wait until the music stops and
we come back for our final hour of garden Line
to continue our discussions here. If you'd like to give
us a call and the waiting online. When you come back,

(01:55:02):
you'll be one of the first up that way. Seven
one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two k t r H.

Speaker 3 (01:55:15):
Well we'll get a coffee.

Speaker 6 (01:55:25):
Welcome to k t r H. Guarden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 23 (01:55:29):
It's crazy Trim, just watch m as so many.

Speaker 8 (01:55:45):
Good things to set crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:55:48):
All right, let's do this. We got an hour left,
one hour of garden Line left until next weekend. So
if you got a burning question, that's the time to
ask it. Seven one three two one two k t R.

Speaker 4 (01:55:59):
Eight.

Speaker 1 (01:56:00):
We're gonna go to George in clear Lake. Hey, George,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 24 (01:56:05):
Hey, good morning, Thank you for kicking a call. So
I'm in a garden dude. I just hang out with
you guys on the weekends because my wife listens to
you all all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:56:16):
I'm like, man, so where do you start?

Speaker 24 (01:56:18):
Because I definitely after this freeze and everything got.

Speaker 3 (01:56:22):
One that zone.

Speaker 24 (01:56:24):
Man, it's like everything he's wiped out. Like we're gonna
start from the bathroom. Man, where do you start?

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
Good question? So tell me what you're seeing and what
you want to change. Why don't you what are you
seeing me? You don't like?

Speaker 4 (01:56:38):
So?

Speaker 24 (01:56:38):
So everything's in pots. I got a pool, I got
a level grass area. We're trying to to level out
the back because there's a lot of mounds and different
things going on.

Speaker 3 (01:56:51):
Not not a lot.

Speaker 24 (01:56:52):
Of grass area, but the pool takes up most of
the backyard, and so I want to take it out
of the pots and put it in the ground. But yet,
you know, we have a lot of fence problems in
Houston because hurricanes and stuff. So your fen's gonna come
down at some point. You're going to have to dig
that stuff out. And we just went through that. And
if there's a bunch of plants planted close to the fence,
you know how far away, you know, so just kind

(01:57:14):
of make it look like a I don't know, for me,
it's tropical. For her, it might be a different type
of setting. But I guess trying to identify the culture
that you want, I guess would be a start. I
don't know, you know, I think the thing to do.
What I would start this is kind of the big picture.
I would As you drive around town and see things
you like, take a picture of them. Just pull over

(01:57:35):
the curtain, snap a shot. Say I like the way
that bed looks, or I like I like that planner,
I like the way they did that there. Take some
pictures and get some inspiration from that. You can certainly
send me photos like that and say, hey, I like
this about it, any any thoughts, and maybe I could say, yeah,
that plant doesn't normally do well here, or yeah that's
a great one. Or one common thing is making beds

(01:57:58):
in a curve so that as you mow, it's easier
to mow. When you got a bunch of right angles,
it's it's a.

Speaker 1 (01:58:04):
Pain to mow, and weedyed in there and everything. So
I would I would, you know, kind of consider aesthetically
how you want to design it. Getting the right plants
is important, you know. Now down in the area, you
don't live too far away from Moss Nursery and Seabrook.
That's an excellent option down there, and they can help

(01:58:26):
you with that. They look at photos and designs and
stuff and see the most important thing, George is getting
the soil right first, and that means buying a quality bed.
We call them bed mixes because they may have some
soil in them, or they may be just primarily organic materials.
Getting that build up so when it rains too much,
their plant roots aren't soggy, saturated, submerged kind of thing.

(01:58:51):
That's important. And then when you put plants in, they're
gonna they're gonna do better for you. Now you're containers.
If they were tropical, they're probably gone if they were
not protected, but give them a little bit, just wait
and watch and see how they're gonna do. In general,
larger containers rather than smaller and the reason that it
is so blazing hot here day and night in the

(01:59:13):
summertime that it's hard to keep them watered. And the
more soil volume you have, the easier it is to
keep them. And every time the plant gets drought stressed,
you know, let's say every day, it just it just
kind of shuts down for a little bit because it
gets too dry. That's going to affect their growth and
they're blooming or if they fruit, they're fruiting, and so
a larger container is always a good idea. And those

(01:59:35):
are a few of the things. Bookmark my website gardening
with skip dot com. There's helpful stuff on there, from
getting your soil tested to protecting plants against a freeze.
And then just keep listening to the guard line and
you can chime in anytime. If you got a something
in your yard, you know, you say there's a spot
in my yard, Well take a picture of it, show

(01:59:57):
me what that looks like, email it to me and
then call it and we'll discuss it. Photos are really
helpful because you know, right now I can't picture your
landscape or the issues that a kind of roamed how
far in the ground.

Speaker 24 (02:00:11):
Do you go like to prepare your soil, you go
six inches and you do that all across where you're
going to plant your Yeah, you're your flower bend.

Speaker 3 (02:00:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00:20):
It kind of depends on what you want to grow.
If it's a if it's a shallow rooted plant like
an annual flower or a most vegetables beds are not
eating to be that deep. You don't have to dig
very deep. If you're going to do something that's very
particular about drainage and stuff, I would go a lot
deeper and improving it, But mainly it's going up upward,

(02:00:42):
because surface drainage is important. So if you had a spot,
let's say it was saturated, like you go to the
beach and you dig into the sand and there's a
water table a few inches below the surface. If that
that happens in our yards, and let's say you're going
planet a plant that that would kill. Well, you can
make a bed a foot high and it'll settle down
in time. But now your roots are primarily up in

(02:01:05):
well drained soil. So I would say going up more
than going down. Because if you picture a massive clay
soil and you dig a hole in that clay, and
I'm gonna exaggerate fill it full of potting soil. Well,
now you just have an underground bathtub, and when it
rains that potting soil, the water level is gonna come

(02:01:25):
up and it's not going to drain out of there
because there's clay all around it. You know, you've created
a clay bathtub underground. So that's why coming up helps
a lot on plants that are like that.

Speaker 24 (02:01:36):
Yeah, and I have nothing but clay because we just
dug up our electrical line about twenty four inches.

Speaker 1 (02:01:42):
Man, it's nothing but clay down there. Yeah, well that's normal,
normal in our area. Not a problem. If you have
clay soils and you have somewhat of a lift to
the clay where you know, you've gotten got to raise
bed a little bit to it. Adding expanded shale in
helps and you can do this a little at a time,
but it's going to take about three inches of expanded

(02:02:02):
shale to make a difference. You would mix it into
the top four to six inches of soil. Three or
four inches of expandede that's a lot, But that is
like LoVa rock. It's tiny, kitty letter sized particles that
are porous and they open the swell. They hold it open.
Compost breaks down over time, you have to add more.

(02:02:25):
Expanded shale tends to hold it open really well. So
when you're dealing with a yard full of clays, expanded
shale as your friend, and just use it profusely as
you're getting those beds right. Especially George, when you have something,
let's say like a rose bush that you can't just
dig up and redo the soil every year, you want
to get that right to begin with, because you're going

(02:02:47):
to have to live with what you've done for the
life of that plant.

Speaker 24 (02:02:51):
Gotcha, all right, Well, thanks for your hall, appreciate it,
and I'll bookmark your website.

Speaker 1 (02:02:57):
There you go. Call back anytime and if I'm gonna
put you on hold, and my producer will give you
an email that you can send photos to, but just
have to follow up with a call on those and okay,
talk about all right, folks, it is it is time
for me to take a break here and I'll be
right back with your questions, and Carolyn, you'll be our
first up.

Speaker 3 (02:03:19):
Please.

Speaker 1 (02:03:21):
All right, we're back in this here. We are moving
from a trot to a gallup here on garden line
as we as we finish out the show this hour.
If you are someone who has not had your trees
looked at now, you can't even remember when the last
time someone came out and took a good look at him,
someone who knows what they're talking about. Now's the time

(02:03:42):
to get that done, and you need to call Martin
Spoon Moore an affordable tree. It's as simple as that.
Martin knows what he's doing. He does good work. Tell
him you've heard about him on garden Line, and but
do it now because you wait a week or two.
Our prime time for pruning is now and you need
to get that done. You can print any time of

(02:04:03):
the year, but have him come out of value your trees,
and if something needs to be done, give you an
estimate that would include printing, that would include things like
deeproot beating and other stuff. He does it all. If
it's a tree, he takes care of it. Martin spoon
More Affordable Tree seven one three, six nine nine two
six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two

(02:04:23):
six six three. If you want to go to the website,
it's Afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service dot Com.
We're going to head out here now and talk to
Carolyn in southwest Houston. Hey, Carolyn, welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 5 (02:04:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 9 (02:04:41):
I have been successful in receding okra and basel, but
I'm curious about eggplant. The seeds are on the inside.
Is there any way to receive your egg plants?

Speaker 1 (02:04:58):
Well, the okra you have to break pod open to
get to the seed and egg plants. What you do
is if your egg plant is not a hybrid variety,
it's just what we call open pollinated. And I'll come
back to that in just a moment. You can just
clear out the seeds. What I would do just kind

(02:05:19):
of smash them up as best you can and put
them in water. Sometimes I'll put them in like a
quart jar with some water in it, screw the top
down and just shake it really hard and try to
get all the try to separate the seeds from the
pulpy debris that's inside. It takes a little bit, but
you can do that and then spread those seeds out
to dry on a counter. And once they dry, you

(02:05:42):
can pick those little seeds up, let them fully dry,
separate them. There'll still be debris and them separate them
out and once they fully dry, store them in the
refrigerator in a sealed, air tight container like a jar,
one of those little plastic or glass containers with pop
down sealed lids, and you ready to go. Then you
can plan them. Now the difference between open pollinated and hybrid.

(02:06:05):
It'll tell you on the name of the variety the
seed packet, or if you go online to look at it,
whether it's hybrid or not. If it's hybrid, that means
it use two different parents to create this unique variety.
And if you take the seeds out of that variety,
they're gonna have children that are Duke's miss mixtures of
all kinds of variety characteristics. So hybrids don't come back

(02:06:30):
true to seed. They won't be like the mama plant
she took them off of. They may be very similar,
but they won't be identical. Seeds that are not hybrids,
you can save the seed and they'll be pretty much
just like the mama plant.

Speaker 9 (02:06:44):
Wonderful.

Speaker 1 (02:06:45):
I'll try it all right, and if it has success,
send me a picture of your eggplants. I'd like to
see that. Thank you, Carolyn, appreciate that. I appreciate your
call very much. I was talking about micro life products
earlier and I I wanted to mention we're getting close
to that spring fertilization season. But something you can do

(02:07:06):
then or now is Microlife hum mates plus. That's a
zero zero four. So although it has a little potassium
in it, don't think of it as a fertilizer. Think
of it as a soil condition or a soil amendment
because you put it down and that humus, the humate's
in it. That is part of what helps take a
clay soil and break it up so where it has

(02:07:27):
a better structure, it's looser. Think of a bul of
popcorn where air can get in and water can move
through between the particles. That's what we're trying to do
with those massive clays out there. And as you do
that year after year, adding that to you can do
it two times a year if you like, or more.
I guess it won't hurt anything. Microlifehu makes plus in
the purple bag is a product that is going to

(02:07:48):
improve your show. And you can do that and launch.
You can do that in flour bed, you can do
that any vegetable garden. Anywhere you got soil, you can
add Microlife hum mats plus and have success. It is
it comes in a jar, one of those plastic jars
of the screw top lids, and it also for larger
quantities comes in the bag, like if you wanted to
do your lawn for example. All right, now we're going

(02:08:08):
to go out to spring and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (02:08:14):
Good morning, Thank you for taking my call. Is it
too late to pre emerge?

Speaker 1 (02:08:18):
Yes, sir, No, not at all. No, we are in
the big middle prime time for pre emerging. Now is
the time.

Speaker 4 (02:08:28):
Well, hardware I have or anything I can use.

Speaker 1 (02:08:32):
Absolutely Ace Hardware are going to carry barricade by Nitrofoss
and that's the one you need to get. Barricade by Nitrofoss.
They're going to have it. Follow the label carefully. It
is important anytime you apply something to control anything, weeds, diseases, insects,
to follow the label. Don't double the label it. The
amount on the label is the perfect amount for controlling

(02:08:55):
those weeds. Don't don't underdo it. Don't overdo it. You're
you're in the you're in the spring area. Excuse me,
you're in the spring area, right, Okay, uh so yeah,
there's spring branch and their spring and so I always
kind of have to figure out which one you're in.

(02:09:16):
All right, So if you're up in spring, like you're
close to ninety nine.

Speaker 4 (02:09:23):
Right at night and forty five.

Speaker 1 (02:09:28):
Okay, all right, good, all right, Well you've got some
you've got some close to.

Speaker 4 (02:09:32):
You old spring cypress.

Speaker 3 (02:09:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (02:09:40):
Yeah, there's a there's a spring cypress, not unless they
have a wound on them. But they're not a typical
sap producing you know, like some trees have sap on
the outside rolling down. They're not that.

Speaker 4 (02:10:00):
O good. I appreciate your help.

Speaker 1 (02:10:04):
Yeah, yeah, And you're right, like I said, you're down
the hall, all right, you're just down from spring Ace Hardware.
So that's good. All right, Well, thank you very much, Mike.
Get that down, get it done. You have to water
it in with about a half inch of water because
you've got to move those particles, the stuff on the
particles that you put out. You want to move it
into the soil surface where it can do its work.
So don't forget to water it in, or if you

(02:10:26):
have a little bit of rain, that'll do it for
you too. You take care and thank you for your
call to garden Line. I appreciate that very much. Nature's
Way resources is up in the Conro area. In fact,
if you're heading up forty five, right where fourteen eighty
eight comes in from Magnolia, you turn right, the railroad

(02:10:48):
tracks are right there. Cross over the railroad tracks, turn
right on Sherbrooke Circle and you're there at Nature's Way.
Now you can call them and have them bring you stuff.
They'll dump it in the driveway if you want. You
can go around. Some places carry their bags around all
through the Greater Houston area. You can buy their stuff
by the bag. But the main thing is know this.
When you get something from Nature's Way, you're getting a

(02:11:10):
product that has been made right, whether it's one of
the products that was born at Nature's Way that's now
sold all over the place. Like did you know ross
soil was born there that leifmore compost was born there. Well,
it's one of those, or any of the other products
they have, they know how to make them right. John
Ferguson long ago became a student of the soil and

(02:11:30):
spent his life learning and learning and learning with experience
and with watching research and stuff. He knows how to
make soil. So now his son Ian is carrying the
same tradition on. They know what they're doing there. And
you go out to Nature's Way, you can take your
truck or pick up and they'll put some in the back.
They'll sell you some bags if you want to go

(02:11:50):
that route. While you're out there, check out their plant nursery.
They've got a lot of native plants and other types
of plants as well. But Nature's Sources is where you
get good stuff that you can depend on. I would
highly recommend that you go visit them just to see
what's out there and take part in that. Bring some
plants home, but also just call around. If you go

(02:12:14):
to the website, they will tell you you know where
their products are sold. Nature's Way is a one of
those companies that sells by the bag all through the
Greater Houston area, and that kind of makes it nice.
For example, if you if you go to the website,
they have a lot of information on all kinds of

(02:12:36):
stuff like that, including the where to buy from their
products all through the Houston area. All right, well, I'm
going to take a little quick break. No, I got time.
Oh my gosh, I thought I was out of time.
That's like saying I thought I was wrong. Once, but
I was mistaken. Debbie and Northwest Houston, welcome to garden line.

Speaker 9 (02:12:56):
Thank you.

Speaker 22 (02:12:56):
Hey.

Speaker 3 (02:12:57):
I have a couple of questions.

Speaker 5 (02:12:58):
Are is winter over with forests?

Speaker 20 (02:13:02):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:13:02):
Wait a minute, let me get my crystal? Oh dead,
gumm it it cracked. I can't read it.

Speaker 9 (02:13:07):
Sorry, Fox and County feel saw his shadows, so they
said six more weeks of winter.

Speaker 1 (02:13:12):
So anyway, Yeah, but that's a dad gum. That's a yankee.
That's a Yankee hedgehog. Debbie, we got to dig an
armadilla up around here to find out what's going to
happen here. All rights joking aside.

Speaker 9 (02:13:24):
A couple of questions.

Speaker 11 (02:13:25):
I'm trimming my crpe myrtles, and do I need to
wait till the end of February to do that?

Speaker 9 (02:13:31):
Number one?

Speaker 1 (02:13:31):
I need to wait.

Speaker 3 (02:13:32):
You can do it right now, now, okay, it right now?

Speaker 9 (02:13:35):
And then you put down the pre emergent Armyston. What's
the best time to air rate the yard?

Speaker 1 (02:13:42):
I like to wait a little bit to air rate.
In the spring, our grass is waking up. It's putting
down some fresh new roots, and the aeration process, you know,
just in punching all those holes in the swat you're
gonna hit some grass runners and stuff. It's a little
and you don't want to catch your grass at a
time where it's trying to get going and do that.
Just let it get go on a little bit and
then you can technically narrate it in time of the year.

(02:14:04):
But it's better, it's it just works better. Just make
sure you get a good errator and up in your area.
Greenpro is the one you need to call. They service
your area.

Speaker 9 (02:14:19):
Okay, all right, okay, well great, thank you so much.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (02:14:23):
All right, Debbi, you bet, thank you very much. I
appreciate that. Let's see here, we're going to go talk
to Rooster and Brenham. Rooster, I got about a minute left.
Let's see if we can get you taken care of
before we have to go to break.

Speaker 25 (02:14:33):
All right, good morning. You had some time back by
Probly a month ago recommended door you found replacing Japanese
box woods that I had purchased twenty five of them
and planted. They lasted about eight months and died, and
you said that the door would work. To put in those,
increase the size bed, put malt on it, and they

(02:14:57):
look really nice. I'm hoping they will suc it's in
a sarebus shaded area. I got to think and I said, well,
this this mault that I put on top of my beds.
And I also did two really featured trees out in
my front yard, put a big bed around and brick

(02:15:17):
them in. Hang and it's, like I said, two to
three inches thick. And I got to worry about this
nipage under They say that Mike deplete the soil hub.

Speaker 3 (02:15:27):
What can I put?

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
Hey, hey, rooster, I'm sorry, I might have to cut in. Uh,
I got to go to break. Hang on, we're going
to continue this. I want to help you with this,
but I just hitting a hard break right now. I
just want don't be back in just a bit, all right, folks,
we're back. We are back. Hey. By the way, have
you been to arbor Gate Nursery yet? If you want

(02:15:50):
to grow potatoes, you don't to swing by there. They've
got all the potatoes ready to go. You just take
them home, cut them open. They've got the wettable sulfur.
And what's that for. Well, when you cut a potato,
if you stick it right in the ground, it's gonna rot.
I mean, you're putting a fresh cut piece of vegetable
in the ground. If you will dust those fresh cut
surfaces with sulfur dust to stick to them, and sulfur

(02:16:10):
itself helps bend against some types of diseases. It's very acidic,
of course, and so that that is helping. Let those
cut pieces dry and then put them in the ground,
you're gonna do well. And Arbigate's got both of those.
They also have a little bag called a potato plant
or bag. So if you live and let's say you
live in a high rise in Houston, you got a

(02:16:31):
little patio outside hanging out over the over things, you
can get one of those bags, put it up there
full of soil and grow potatoes on the twenty ninth
floor of someplace downtown in Houston. Yes, those bags are cool.
So if you just have a patio in the yard
around you, you have to try one of those. They've
got some types of lavender. They do pretty good here.
As long as you get them in a good, well
drained bed, they will do well for you. Arbrogates got that.

(02:16:55):
And you know they always have a wide variety of everything.
I'm talking about fruit trees. You won't believe how long
their list of the fruit species and varieties they have
is it is outstanding. They also have shrubs and trees.
You know, someone wanted to door Field pH go to Arburgate.
They got door fieldpont. All you have to do is

(02:17:15):
swing by there. They are on twenty nine to twenty
west of Tomball, just outside of town on the left
hand side. Park in the back. There's a little road
called Trishel Road that takes you around to the back
of Arbigate. That's the best place to park when you
go visit there and allow some time. That place is
a wandering wonderland and you're going to want to spend

(02:17:36):
some time. Take someone with you so you both can
enjoy the trip. Let's go to Branham. Now we're going
to continue on with Rooster Rooster. Let's let's I don't
know where we stopped, but let's just pick it up
from there.

Speaker 25 (02:17:50):
I put down i'll thick layer of malt around my
oak trees. Two oak trees in my front yard is
my feature trees. Also, you had advised me to get
the dwarf you find, which I'm real happy with right now,
and I put the vault around it. And I got

(02:18:12):
concerned about this mulch being maybe too sick or maybe
depleting the nitrogen and the soil which I read up
on said that might do that. So what can I
put maybe the like a spray on that would filter
down through the month the mulch and feed the trees

(02:18:33):
and the shrubs that I just planted.

Speaker 1 (02:18:38):
Okay, so about a fertilizer for the trees and shrubs?

Speaker 3 (02:18:41):
All right? Yeah, yeah, Well that's.

Speaker 1 (02:18:44):
A lot of questions, and let's hit on them.

Speaker 25 (02:18:46):
Here is really bad in this area. I don't know
if you're bad in Houston or not, but liking gets
these oak trees here over a period of time.

Speaker 1 (02:18:56):
Yeah, it does. But liking didn't hurting anything. So ignore
the lichen. It's not. It's not a parasite. Lichen grows
on fence posts and rocks, and so it doesn't need
plant juice to live. So back to the moults and
questions you had. It's good to melt your plants like
you did. I wouldn't pile the mulch up against the stems,

(02:19:19):
like to put three or four inches of mult up
against the base of those iopon stems. Pull it back
just a bit, but have good mulch around them and
that works really well. Now there are ten million things
out there when people say, you know, give you gardening
advice that are wrong, that are based on truth. And

(02:19:39):
the idea that multch ties up nitrogen is based on truth,
but it's absolutely wrong from a practical standpoint. Here's why.
If you put a high carbon material into the soil
for the microbes to break it down, they need to
take nitrogen out of the soil to help break down
that carbon. That's how that works. But that would be
true if you rototilled sawdust or wood chips done in

(02:20:03):
your soil. But when you put a mulch on top,
there's this little line of interface where the soil and
malts come together and they'll be a little tie up
right there. But as those microbes do their work and die,
they release their nitrogen back in the soil, and so
you have a little circulating nitrogen pool up there at
the top and it's not affecting the phr your soil
down below where the roots are at all. So don't

(02:20:24):
worry about the malt and nitrogen. Yes, wood can do that,
but not sitting up on top of your soil. So
as far as fertilizers, you have some options. You know,
some people just use a turf type fertilizer around their
trees because turf types have more nitrogen in them, and
that works just fine. You certainly do that. The folks

(02:20:47):
at Nelson Plant Food if you go to the Nelson
Plant Food a story that carries the Nelson Plant Food
types of things, they've got a lot of really great
products that can be used for that, and specifically some
that work really well for your trees and shrubs. So
that's what I would suggest. The line is called Nutristar.

(02:21:11):
It comes in jars, so you're just doing a few
trees and shrubs. You can do Nutristar tree and shrub
and just sprinkle it around according to the label. That
would be a good one to use. There are other
brands that have tree and shrub fertilizers and they work well,
but typically they're going to look like a lawn fertilizer rester.

(02:21:32):
So the Nutristar, for example, is a twenty one six
eight that sounds like a lawn ratio to me, you know,
and so that would be a good one for use
on that tree or shrub.

Speaker 25 (02:21:43):
What about Madina, When I put in those yo ponds
I had killed up the soil, dug theholes. I think
I put a little, but Medina it's not the has
to grow. It's the one that supposed to do something
to your soil and make it. I call it a
B twelve shot or something.

Speaker 1 (02:22:06):
Yeah, no, all those.

Speaker 4 (02:22:09):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (02:22:10):
I'm sorry the timing of things makes me talk over you,
but sorry about that. But yeah, Medina products are great.
It could be Medina Soil Activator, it could be Medina Plus,
and it could you know, there's also the Medina has
to Grow six twelve six that's good to put in
the soil itself, and then afterwards, if you're going Medina,

(02:22:30):
they have one called growing Green that's typically used for
lawns that would be fine for trees and shrubs. They
have a couple of versions of the growing green, two
different ratios that would both be okay, any of those
would be fined as well.

Speaker 25 (02:22:46):
Okay, well, I'm trying to do my best and give
life to my tree that really valuable and really start
taking care of these new points that I just put in,
and I really appreciate your help on get me started
on that.

Speaker 1 (02:23:03):
Yes, sir, you bet. Let me give you one little
quick tip as we close down here. And that is
if you if you go up to a tree, look
at how wide, how thick the trunk is. Let's say
you had a tree the size of a Coca Cola
can that's about three inches. For every thumb with or
for every inch of tree diameter, give it one or
two cups of a synthetic fertilizer, or give it two

(02:23:25):
to four cups of an organic fertilizer, and you'll be
in the ballpark.

Speaker 3 (02:23:30):
All right, sir, fantastic, Thank you, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:23:34):
Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. You bet all right. Guys,
We got to run to a quick break here, and
I'll be back for the last segment of Garden Line.
We're bout with you. We're back for our last little segment.
I've you got time for a call, maybe two if
somebody wants to call in, but we are running short here,

(02:23:55):
so I wanted to talk about sianamultch again. You know,
they're the play I say, is the one stop shop
for the brown stuff, because my mantra is brown stuff
before green stuff. Get the soil, right. That means compost,
that means fertilizers, that means any kind of amendment that
improves the soil structure and drainage and nutrients and microbial

(02:24:16):
activity the animals.

Speaker 4 (02:24:18):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (02:24:18):
So if you've got a plant, that plant's gonna come
home and you're going to pick it up, you know,
about to plant, it's going to look at you and said,
wait a minute, have you put the animals in the
ground here yet? Because I'm not going in there. I
will kick and fight and throw up a fit if
you stick me in there, I'm going to report you
to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Plants if
there is one of those. All Right, I'm caricaturing a

(02:24:40):
little bit, but I'm serious about the about the fact
that soil. First, you go to see animalts. They're down
near Highway six and two eighty eight on FM two
or five point twenty one down south of Houston, and
they're open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five, Saturday
seven thirty to two clothes on Sunday. Close today. But

(02:25:00):
go by there, get a good bed mix, get if
you need compost, if you need you know, they carry
bulk of like landscapers, pride back, velvet, maltz. They carry
rose soil from airloom soils. They carry the the veggiean
herb mix from airloom soils they've got. They also, by
the way, have stone and sand and gravel and if
you know, I made a beautiful patio and those flat

(02:25:22):
stones are just gorgeous. They deliver about twenty miles for
a fee in their area. But also part of the
brown stuff. They've got microlife. They have azamite, they have
Nelson turf Star, they have airlooms soils products by the bag.
They've got nitrofoss products. They have Landscapers Pride, they have

(02:25:42):
the jars of Nelson plant food. They've got products from Medina.
I'm telling you you want to get the foundation set
for plant success. Ciena Moltch. Here's the website, Ciena Maltz
dot com. Simple as that.

Speaker 3 (02:25:58):
There.

Speaker 1 (02:25:58):
You can find a phone number there, you can on
a map how to get there. Everything you need to know.
You just need to know that it's time to get
that stuff, get it home, get it ready to go,
because it is time to beat planting, and we got
to get soiled right first. I don't know how to
make it any clearer than that. I have to work
on that thing about the plant. Arguing with you if

(02:26:19):
you're going to stick it and ground they haven't prepared first.
There's potential in that I had talking about Ace Hardware earlier,
in the fact that they got the great barbecue pits
of all kinds of brands, you know, all the top ones.
I had a friend that a while back, he was
into Big Green Egg, and oh my gosh, it's like
you couldn't cook, you couldn't eat food if it didn't

(02:26:42):
come off a Big Green Egg, and it Big Green
Egg is the best thing since sliced bread. And they are.
They're wonderful. I mean, they have a fuck cult following.
They got those days you can get a trigger at
a same thing quality Weber. I've got a Weber growing myself.
They got w rec tech and then all the debris
you need to cut with barbecue, and you know whether
you're gonna start charcoal and a little canister and get

(02:27:04):
it fired up for you put it in there, the spatulas,
the grow cleaners, the grow covers, the you know, little
baskets to put veggies in the end for if you're
gonna grill some veggies, which you ought to do too.
That that is a great way to go. They got
all that stuff. They also have really quality garden tools.

(02:27:25):
You know, you go in there and you're gonna find
skilled trimmers, for example, right now thirty percent off. They
even have a power garden pruner, where you buy one,
you get the battery for free. They've got fiberglass handled
yard and garden tools, and I've got some of that.
That is really good stuff. I love those fiberglass handles.
They're on sale for twenty one ninety nine at Ace Hardware,

(02:27:45):
and that's a good deal. Now, Where's Ace everywhere? Go
to Acehardware dot com, find the store locator, find the
ones plural near you. You can go to Paco Ace
up in Alvin. You can go to Brennam Ace Hardware.
You can go to Katie Ace Hardware. You can go
to League City Ace Hardware. You can go to Child's
Building Supply in Orange, Texas. All examples of the many

(02:28:09):
Ace Hardware stores that are around our area that have
everything you need to have a beautiful outdoor space and
a gorgeous lawn, a gorgeous landscape. Yeah. Ace is the place, easy,
easy to do, all right. I got time for one call.
If you can dialve fast, I got time for a call. Otherwise,
call it a day here on the garden line and

(02:28:32):
get ready for next year. I hope you have a
great week too. By the way, I always forget to
talk about that, but I hope you have a great
week out there in the garden. This is a time
to be doing a lot of things. But I would
say the front burner of the front burners right now
is if you've got a weed issue in your lawn
or you have had every year and you want to
prevent it. Now is the prime time to do that.

(02:28:55):
A post emergent killing an existing weed. That's the one
that you see if you look outside and you see
a weed that's a cool season weed. Now's the time
to do it. Once they start blooming and setting seed.
Even the good products at work don't work as well
on them, so you got to get it done now.
If you don't mind hand pulling, hand pull them now.
But now's the time now. As far as preventing weeds,

(02:29:18):
the best thing to do is to mow, water, fertilize,
and grow a dense, healthy lawn. When you don't have
a dense healthy lawn, you can put a pre emergent
herbicide down and that will when you watered in with
a half inch of water. When you watered in, it
goes to the soal surface and it's its own weights
for at least sixty days until a weeds he tries

(02:29:40):
to sprout and it says no, and it shuts them down.
You never see the weed in the first place because
it shut it down. But that has to happen before
the weed sprouts, which is why we're doing it now
as things warm up. In fact, you know you go
down south far enough right now, and we're going to
have a warm week. There're gonna be weeds sprouting this
week due to the temperatures we're going to be having,

(02:30:01):
So don't delay. Like crackgrass sprouts at about fifty five
degrees the soil temperature fifty five degrees, it starts to sprout.
So we're getting ahead of them by doing an early
primarily early to mid February application. You can do it later,
but again, the longer you wait, the more weeds are
already going to be up, and you're going to have missed.
The analogy I like to use that is baseball. If

(02:30:24):
you're standing of the plate with a bat in your hand,
you need to get ready to start that swing. After
that pitch first comes out of the pitcher's mound and
the ball's on its way, you better start swinging. Or
if you wait until it's in the catcher's mound, you
can swing all you want. You're not going to hit
the ball right. Well that's a silly analogy, but it
makes a point. If you wait until the weeds are sprouting,

(02:30:46):
the baseball's and the catcher's mint too late for a
pre emergent herbicide for most of them. And so get
ahead of time. Get it done. Go online to gardening
with skip dot com. Download those schedules. I say that
so many times ever showed that I think people have
got to. I don't need to tell you anymore, but

(02:31:06):
constantly talk to people who listen to garden Line that
haven't downloaded the schedules. Well, you know, I can't come
to your house and click on the computer for you,
But would you do that lawn care schedule and lawn
weed disease and pest management schedule, they're there. I spend
a lot of time researching those, putting those together. They're
very extensive, full color. They're even pretty, I think because

(02:31:28):
of colors. Download them, pin them to the refrigerator door.
You can take your kid's artwork down. That's not as
important as this schedule. Oh my gosh, I can't believe
that came out of my mouth. Put them on the frigerator,
or put them in the garage, stick them on top
of your fertilizerspread or in the garage. Where have you
got to put them? Have them ready to go because

(02:31:50):
timing is everything very important, and as you go through
these schedules, you're going to see the right time to
do it. Also, on the website Gardening withtheskip dot com,
you're going to find a lot of other helpful information.
So take a look at it. I see how it does.
See what you find up there that's helpful for you.
I've got plans for several of the things that I'm

(02:32:10):
working on, hoping to get on there really soon, so
check it out. It will definitely be helpful for you.
So as we get the music in here, I just
want to remind you that gardening is supposed to be
fun and it's supposed to be healthy exercise, Get out,
walk around and enjoy yourself. If you're not having fun,

(02:32:34):
you're not doing it right. I mean that you don't
panic over whether you can make a plant grow or not,
or if you're going to kill it or whatever. J. C. Ralston,
one of the best horticulturists in the recent history of
our country out in North Carolina, says, to be a
good horticulturist, you got to kill a lot of plants.
And he is right, absolutely right. So in other words,

(02:32:55):
you have permission to not do things perfectly. To lose
a plant, do is get another one. It's kind of
like etches, sketches or the use that example before turn
it upside down and shake it and you get to
start all over. That's what a road tells. Have fun
out there, good healthy fun. Go visit that garden center

(02:33:16):
this afternoon and all week