Interview with microlife

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's shoes crazy gas can trim. Just watch him as
wool gases gas us so many good thanks to sup
bout basic grasses and gas can you dass backing not

(00:29):
a sound gases gas sound beaming down between gas starting
in a tie.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Well, Well, good morning, good Sunday morning, and welcome to
garden Line. We are glad you are listening. Congratulations you
are an early bird, and well, I hope you got
a cup of coffee and at least one eye open.
We're going to talk about gardening today and there's a
lot to talk about. If you've got questions, you'd like
to give us a call, it's pretty easy. Number seven

(01:07):
one three two one two k t r H. Seven
to one three two one two k t r H.
Look for visiting with you about the things that are
of interest to you. Well, I wanted to mention this summer.
You know it's it's it's heating up. We're about to
have a warmer week. And when that happens, Uh, some

(01:31):
plants struggle along a little bit that are not really
set up for summer. We got petunias and things that
you try to coax through summer, but it's a little
hard on them. They're just not as productive at that time.
But we have other plants. It just thrive, plants that
laugh and just laugh at the summer weather. I was
looking at my turk's cap that I've got back in

(01:52):
the yard. That's a wonderful Texas native plant. It has
big red tubular flowers that are beautiful, and oh my goodness,
it is just thriving, just through, absolutely thriving. Angelonia is
another example of a flower you see all around now.
There's so many different colors and it is going strong.

(02:12):
And there are many many examples. And our turf, for example,
can take whatever heat our local area throws at it,
which is a lot, by the way, but it does
need adequate moisture that doesn't need overwatering. And in the summertime,
people tend to overwater their lawns. I would say overwater

(02:32):
and miss water their lawns. And here's what I mean.
The best way to take care of a lawn is
to give it a good deep soaking, filled that root
zone with water, and then turn off the water and
let the turf use it. Some's going to evaporate the
turf's going to use some and transpired out of its leaves.
Some it may even soak down a little bit deeper,

(02:54):
and as it does, that air comes down in the soil.
You know those spaces where water once filled the poor
space between soil particles, Well, now air is in there,
and oxygen in the soil stimulates microbial growth, stimulates root performance.
Roots need oxygen, even though they're underground. They need oxygen
to thrive and do what they do. And by allowing

(03:15):
it to dry a little bit, it just rejuvenates your grass.
The opposite end of the spectrum is to squirt it
every day with just a little bit of water, and
what that does is barely what the surface. It promotes
shallow rooting rather than a good deep root system or
resilient root system that can take some grubs and can
take droughts and things like that. But it also increases diseases,

(03:37):
and we're seeing some of the summer diseases right now.
There's types of rhizoctonia that have hit some lawns. There
certainly is great leaf spot that we were dealing with,
especially when we're having all that rain. Well, it's still
time to provide nutrients for your lawn, and Sweet Grein
by Nitroposs is an example of a product like that.
When you put sweet Green out, it is going to

(03:59):
dissolve a pretty rapidly and release those nutrients which are
based on molasses that microbes have done their work on
into the soil to stimulate microbial growth and also those
nutrients to stimulate turf growth. Sweet Green is eleven percent
nitrogen fertilizer and it's widely available. You're going to find

(04:20):
it in places like Ace Hardware City on Memorial Drive
at Katie Hardware, Ace on Pennoak Driving Katie, It's not
hard to find. Stanton Shopping serves another one down in Alvin, Texas. Now,
I would suggest that you apply, rather than the full
pound of nitrogen at one time, which would be ten

(04:41):
pounds of Sweet Green, that you apply five pounds now
and six to eight weeks later apply the other five
pounds and that'll give you a much smoother feed through
the summer season and just really benefit your turf in
many ways. Well, I am your host, skipt Richter, and
we're here to help you with whatever kinds of gardening
questions you might have. I tell you I was out

(05:03):
in my backyard this week, and oh, the mosquitos. They
would not leave me alone. And I hate that. I
hate to be working. And you know, you're just being
bugged by mosquitos the whole time. And it's all that
rain we had. And who knows where these particular mosquitos
are reproducing. They love to find little bits of standing

(05:23):
water that they can reproduce in. Some can reproduce in
as little as like a thimbleful of water. And they
like water that's got decaying organic matter in it. At
least some types of mosquito dunks are made for that.
Mosquito dunks are a disease of mosquitos. I can't think
of a better thing to happen to a mosquito than
to die of a disease based on a microbe b tee.

(05:46):
It's not the b tea for worms. It's a bettee
for mosquitos and fungus, notts. There's a strain that does that.
Mosquito dunks are widely available by pretty much anywhere. If
I talk about any garden center or hardware store or
bead stores here on garden Line, all of those places,
all of those places carry mosquito dunks and You just

(06:09):
throw a dunk in about ten ten by ten area
of water hundred square feet and it'll soak there for
about about a month releasing. It's a disease of mosquitoes. Now,
don't worry about hurting anything else. It does not affect
your dog, your cat, your songbirds coming in to get

(06:31):
a drink out of the water. It does not affect
anything but the mosquito larvae. It's very specific.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Now.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Mosquito dunks are also available in a granular farm, or
you can just crack a dunk apart to maybe put
it up in a sagging gutter where they're standing water,
or toss them into a hole in a tree. That's
another use for the mosquito dunks. But always have them
on hand because well, where do we live. We live

(06:58):
in the mosquito capital of the world, just about down here.
Because we get a lot of rain. Thank goodness for that,
but not thank goodness for the mosquitoes that come as
a result.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Of that rain.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
I always check out our garden centers and their websites
and you know, the online activities and things going on.
I was just looking at nature, the plants for all
seasons rather and plants for all seasons is the Garden Center.
It's on two forty nine Tomball Parkway, So as you're
going north up toward Tomball, you just exit Luetta and

(07:32):
cross over Luetta and then it's going to be right
there pretty quick on the on the right hand side.
This garden center has been around since nineteen seventy three.
The Flowery family has They have incredible amount of experience,
firsthand experience their gardeners themselves out there in the landscapes
and gardens in our area, where they've learned how to

(07:55):
garden properly. They've learned what plants work and don't work,
and they've the customer go there because they know when
they get there they're going to get excellent advice, dependable advice,
and they're also going to get products that are exactly
what they need for this area of the country, that
are designed for the issues that we have, that are

(08:17):
fertilizers and designed for the soils that we have. Uh,
you name it. If it's a pest control product, they've
got it, and they've experienced the pest they know what
they're talking about. They can point you to the right product.
And then there's the plants. Plants that we know will
do very well.

Speaker 5 (08:31):
Here.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
You're going to find at Plants for all seasons. Just
go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com
learn more about them. They do many things I don't
even have time to talk about here on the air,
or you can give them a call. Two eight one
three seven six one six four six. I'm going to
take a little break right now. It is time, and
I will be right back if you would like to

(08:52):
give me a call and ask a question seven one
three two one two k t RH you with us today,
Really good to talk to you. In fact, we're going
to go right out now to the phones and talk
to mel In Tomball with Mel. If I can find
the right button, we're going to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Here we go.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
How's it going this morning?

Speaker 6 (09:12):
Mel?

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Hello? Mil All right, I'm gonna put him. I have
to put him on hold, and I'll come back in
just a bit and we'll check in on it. Maybe
Chris you could check that for me. Well, I tell
you that I was talking earlier about our lawns are
able to take the heat as long as there provided
plenty of soul moisture. And I'm gonna talk a little

(09:37):
bit later about you know, some other aspects of good
lawn care, and including I mentioned a little bit how
to water properly, and you know someone would think, well,
why do you have that? Tell me how to water?
You turn on the hose, that's how you water well.
I think, as you heard me say earlier, there's a
little more to it, and we want you to have success.
And mowing, watering, and fertilizing really the three most important
things you do for your lawn. And so although those

(10:00):
may seem simple, there are some aspects of them that
are very important. Let's go back now, and we're gonna
give Mel a try. Hey Mel, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (10:08):
Hey, good morning. You've got the ride button this time.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
There you go?

Speaker 6 (10:13):
All right?

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 7 (10:15):
Oh yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (10:18):
Okay. I sent you an email, sir, pictures of a
weed that I think rivals button weed, and I don't
know what it is and how to treat it. I
sent you an email with three pictures of it.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Okay, I see it. It looks like crabgrass is the
predominant one. And you got a little bit of a
horse herb in there, as well as well as some
burd Is it a bermuda lawn?

Speaker 7 (10:47):
No, well, it's got bermuda grass mix it. I used
to have solid Saint Augustine, but different types of weeds
have taken over. I talked to you once before about
stage some stids in there, and I got some stage
hammer for that. But this stuff, I mean that when
you pull it, you pull it up about like a

(11:09):
bunch of them, because they're weeds are all very fine
and you know locking, and so I don't know, I
guess just a what common ordinary weed killer would you
prescribe for something like that? Or yeah?

Speaker 3 (11:23):
So the problem, yeah, I got you. The problem is
how do you kill a grass and the grass and
that that is something that kills grass, kills grass, And
so you got a couple of options. You could kill
entire areas of it, uh and then put side back
in there, you know, in those areas if it's just

(11:45):
kind of mixed in with your Saint Augustine everywhere, well,
that would mean killing the whole lawn. And so that
may not be an acceptable option for you, but it is.
It is one of the options. The other would be
to use some sort of a wiper type applicator Uh,
and you rub it over the tops of the grass
where you get it on these weeds, but not on

(12:06):
your Saint Augustine leaves. And then the pictures you showed me,
I don't see any Saint Augustine. So if you found
a way that you could apply carefully just to these weeds,
Oh what about.

Speaker 7 (12:20):
A spray on them? I got, I got a sprayer.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
If you spray something to kill these, it also kills
your Saint Augustine. But it sometimes it's the you know,
it's it's your last option. And you know that's.

Speaker 7 (12:41):
When you say wiper applicator would be just take a
rag or something and then soak it with the with
the stuff.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
They Yeah, they make wiper type applicators. People invent their
own wiper type applicators.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
It basically is just some sort of either a cloth
or a rope attached. Sometimes there's one version that's a
rope that's attached to PBC and the rope gets the
products soaked in it that you wipe it over. It's
not it's not easy to do them that way, but
it is an option. But I'll tell you, in the
photos I'm seeing, I just don't see Saint Augustine anywhere.

Speaker 7 (13:18):
No, I mean that's the thing. It completely, it takes over.
I mean, I've got Saint Augustine in spots is less,
you know, And I'm pulling like crazy, you know, pulling
weeds like all older head. But that's why. So it's
odd because when I pull and it doesn't happen with
these weeks because they're they clump together, their roots clump together.

(13:40):
But in a lot of them, even like in uh,
when I'm when I'm pulling a button weed, that's what's
so frustrating, because once in a while I'll pull up
a strand of Saint Augustine trying to make its way
through all that mess.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, pulling button weed is don't even do that. It's
not it is not going to accomplish anything.

Speaker 8 (14:02):
You know what.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
I'll give you my opinion. You can do as your wish.
If if I'm seeing what you're sending me in pictures here,
I would get something out there to get rid of
all of it. And then if you need to plug
some Saint Augustine and fine, you may want to do
part of your yard. I don't know if you want
to take on replanting the whole yard, but you could
do part of it and then later on come back

(14:24):
and do part of it if you want to spread
that work and expense out over time. But the bottom
line is you got to get there's some there are
some weeds in here that are going to coexist in
your Saint Augustine, and I just would start with a
clean slate personally.

Speaker 7 (14:41):
All right, I appreciate it, sir.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Speaker 7 (14:47):
Oh that's all right, thank you, all right, bye bye.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, there are situations that there there's just not a
great solution to you know, sometimes hand weeding is infected.
That's a great idea for a lot of things. I
minimize the times I have to spray. I don't like
to spray. I don't like to put out week killers
and things like that, and so I minimize the times
I have to do that. There are certain weeds that

(15:13):
I fight by hand, pulling the fall aster that appears
in our lone. You'll see it in October that one.
I know what it looks like, and I know there's
a certain area of the lawn where I have a
neighbor that has it, and the little seeds blow over
in my yard. So I'm constantly to fight it in
my yard. But I just get out there and it

(15:33):
comes out of one spot in the ground when the
soil is moist, whittle it. Get my little kneeling bench
to kneel down on, makes work so easy, and get
those pulled up and deal with it that way. Some
people would spray it, but I prefer not. At the
bottom line, though, is there's times when it's just a
mess and you either live with all of the above

(15:55):
or you bite the bullet. I have a friend who
is and he used to be extension horticulturists. Now he's
us just private, but he is very tolerant of weeds,
and he says the way he gets rid of all
his weed problems is to take off his glasses. You know,
if you mow weeds. I've seen some LUNs around my

(16:16):
neighborhood that they look decent, and if you walk up
to them, you see it's about eighty percent weeds. They
just these grassy weeds. They're just mowing those. For a
lot of people, that's not acceptable, but that's your call,
your business. Where you're listening to guarden Line our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three, two, one two, five eight seven four.

(16:38):
You hear me talk about fertilizers all the time, and basically,
when I'm talking about a fertilizer for the lawn, I'm
talking about something that has the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium
levels that are that are what we are wanting to apply.
In other words, those are the big three big meaning
you need a lot more of those nutrients. There are

(17:00):
other nutrients that are just minuscule amounts are needed. They're
called micro nutrients, are trace minerals. Well, azamite is a
product that is full of those, and when you put
out asamite, you don't need to do it every time
you fertilize. Don't overdo it. You know, all fertilization really

(17:20):
should be driven by a soil test because a sol
test tells you what you have and therefore what you need,
and so fertilizing blind in any way, shape or form
is not something we should do for too many years
in a row. Occasionally have that sole test, have it
checked well. Asmite is taking care of those trace minerals,
the little beaty ones, if you will, are needed in

(17:42):
little bitty amounts. I should say and you can go
to asimite Texas dot com and find out more about it.
Asmite is widely available. You know, our garden centers, feed stores,
hardware stores, they're all going to carry azimite here pretty
much in the greater Houston area. And it provides those
trace minerals that are needed. I would say about once
a year, again based on a sol tests ideally, but

(18:04):
in absence of a test, about once a year is
adequate to get out there and put some asmite out
in most lawns. Full tests may tell you you need more,
but that's a that's a good general that's a good general.

Speaker 7 (18:17):
Guess.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
I have been.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
I mentioned that I was out and the mosquitoes were
getting after me. I was out recently, I was taking
care of my lawn. In fact, my lawn needs mowing.
Don't tell anybody, but it's been a little too long
since I got back to it. But one principle of
mowing is to mow at a proper height as often
as you can. And so the lower you mow your lawn,

(18:44):
the more often you need to mow. Because we don't
want to cut off half of the grass heights when
we mow. We want to cut off about a third
of it. And now I know when it rains and
it gets away from us can't get out there because
it's wet. Then we have to bite the bullet because
we've got talk grass and it's just what is. But
in general, where it is in your control, you should
mow often. If you can mow every seven days, seven

(19:07):
days is a cycle we live on. So if you
like to mow on Saturdays, that's ever seven days. If
you can mow more often, the grass looks even better.
The more often you hedge trim your grass with a lawnmower,
that's the principle we're talking about. The more often you
do that, the better your lawn is going to look.
So it's time for me to get out there and
get back on that schedule. These storms we just went

(19:31):
through really reminded us of the importance of proper tree printing.
You know, when trees grow and we don't train them right,
we get narrow angles and crowded branches and all kinds
of other issues that happen. We're run into problems down
the line and as a result of that, you can
cause significant damage. Not only do you lose sections, if
not the whole tree, but it can fall on something

(19:53):
a house, a car, God forbid, a human being. And
we need to build trees that are stronger. We need
right and then we need im prune properly. And one
of the aspects of life down here on the Gulf
Coast area, this whole region, is that we have hurricanes
that come through, but we also have other storms that
come through. We've had two what was a hurricane and
one was just not a hurricane, just a really bad

(20:15):
strong storm that put out power because power lines are
damaged by trees and other things. Well, Martin Spoon Wort
Affordable Tree knows how to prepare trees for that kind
of weather. There is a proper way to prune, and
there's there are many wrong ways to prune, and you
need to hire somebody that knows how to do it correctly,

(20:36):
and that's Martin Spoon. More, it just makes your trees
safer and heavy winds. It sets them up as best
you can for storm readiness. You know, there's some storms
no matter what you do, what's going to happen is
going to happen. But there are things that are in
your power, and that's having your trees cared for properly,
and that care goes beyond just pruning trees. It goes
into a proper feeding of trees. It goes into proper

(20:59):
water of trees. It goes into not adding insult to
injury by putting a trench right across the tree's root
system and severing the very things that that tree needs
to stay well anchored and to take up the water
and nutrients it needs to survive. Give Martin spoon More
a call. You can go to the website first of all,
it's a fftree service dot com. Or give them a

(21:21):
call at seven one three six nine nine two six
sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six
sixty three. It drives me nuts. And this happens all
the time, drive around town looking at trees and going,
oh my gosh, they had somebody to know what they're doing.
Come in here, and they've runed that tree. And when
you when you miss prune a tree severely, you can

(21:45):
run it for life. You everything you do to try
to bring it back to some semblance of structural integrity,
UH is just your best best effort. But bad pruning
is for a lifetime. And so don't let people that
don't know what they're doing loose with your trees. Just don't.

(22:07):
Because you have a business card, own a pickup and
a chain saw does not make you a tree service,
that is for sure. And I could take you for
a ride around town, any neighborhood, drive around, and I
can just show you where they are not doing things properly,
and eventually that catches up to you. We're going to
go now to the phones and talk to Scott. Hello Scott,

(22:28):
and welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Hey, how you doing.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 9 (22:36):
I'm building a house out in Belleville, Texas. And because
of how much I had to get done, I said,
no way I can afford to put sod down on
three quarters of an acre. So I had a hydroceiter
come out and spray through the grounds. And about four

(22:56):
days later, five days later coming up, okay, and we
had this little hurricane come through in a whole bunch
of rain kind of did some damage or did some
hurt to the seed, you know.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
What I mean.

Speaker 7 (23:10):
So it's not as thick and and it just it
is what it is.

Speaker 9 (23:15):
And I got a comment about mowing the weeds down
like you use it in the other parts of it's
two point one acres and probably about nine tenths of
an acre. I got hydro seated. What can I what's
the process?

Speaker 8 (23:31):
Now?

Speaker 9 (23:31):
I know the hydro seed has a lot of wood
moults and there's a lot of fertilizer and whatnot, but
it's it's fairly sparse right now in this hot sun
is just killing it.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
So yeah, well what do I need?

Speaker 4 (23:44):
What's the process?

Speaker 9 (23:45):
What do I need to do to kind of make
it fill in or help it fill in or whatever?

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, I understand. And when you got that much land,
you have two options. Actually, you've got hydro seating and
then they're sprugging where imagine just taking a bunch of
bermuda grass and digging it up and chopping it up
and put in big old bags, keep it moist, and
then spread it out in an area and lightly disk
it in.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
That is another way to do a big area. And
there you're starting with a stronger plant because you've got
the actual rhizomes and things of the you know, already
ready to root and go. When you do, see, you're right.
A good gully washer rain and it washes all the
seeds into clumps. In some areas, have too much and
some don't have enough. And then those tender seedlings in
hot weather, trying to keep them alive, going, it's going

(24:30):
to require water. And how do you can you water
that area? Is there a way to move poses around
and to give it? Probably every day every other day,
depending on how much water you put on a little
bit of water on all the seeds. And as they
get going, you need less less and less supplemental or

(24:52):
less frequent too supplemental. But that's kind of the bull
and it's God is is you know? Can you keep
can you take care of those tender seedlings that have
almost no root system at all as they're trying to
get started?

Speaker 9 (25:04):
Well, I've actually it's not too bad, but it's just
it's sparse and I imagine FLF hide receding starts out anyway,
you know, it's not like a bed.

Speaker 7 (25:15):
Like saw it.

Speaker 9 (25:15):
I don't know how they get the saw it so thick,
but yeah, I did, and I've already had. I've already
cut it once. Like you said, I kind of cropped
off the top third of it and with a zero tourney.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
I mean, you're cutting out of me, Scott. I didn't
really hear the last thing you said.

Speaker 9 (25:34):
Yeah, I'm out in the middle of nowhere right now.
My my daughter in law is having a baby and
I am out in the middle of nowhere heading towards off.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
So all right, listen, I'm having to go to a break.
If you want to hang on, let's continue this. Maybe
you'll get into a better sell and I'll be right back.
But sorry, I got a hard break. I can do
that I need to, right.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Here all right, folks, if you want to give us
a call seven one three two fifty eight seventy four
for listening with us today. Remember that the most important
thing you do if you want to have success with
plants is prepare the soil properly. Plants live in their roots.
That is the source of everything they need but sunlight.

(26:15):
And so when you reach into the soil with organic matter,
with nutrients, with all the things that make that structure better,
that make it better air rated, you create a big
root zone and plants can thrive. That's the bottom line.
It holds water well, it drains better. It's all part
of the brown stuff that you start with. And Cienamlts

(26:37):
is a company that specializes in the brown stuff. When
you drive into Ciena Malts, you're going to find your compost.
You're going to find, for example, the Heirlooms soils Veggimx,
They've got that there. They have a lot of quality
versions of things that you would want to put into
a bed to improve the soil. They also have the
fertilizers that I talk about on Guardenline. All of them

(26:59):
you're going to find them there at Ciena Malts. So
when you go home, you are ready to set a
foundation for success. So you can get to Cienamultch's website
by going to cienamultch dot com. I'd recommend you go there.
They're down south of Houston, just north of Road Sharon
on FM five twenty one. They deliver within about a
twenty mile area, by the way. They're hours are Monday

(27:20):
through Friday seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty
to two. They're closed today, but they'll open up seven
thirty tomorrow morning. Don't put a plant in the ground
until you've prepared the soul properly, or you're wasting time
and money and you will end up disappointed. Ciena Maltz
can make sure that does not happen for you. I
want to head back to the phones we were talking

(27:41):
with Scott. Scott, are you still there? I am, I
am okay. So the bottom line on it is that
a little seedling and you know, when it starts to sprout,
if it dries out, it dies, and so every day
that goes by it has more of a root and
therefore more resilience. And so aside from having they're not

(28:03):
going to be able to come in and do that
hydro seating again because you you know, it'd be very patchy.
If you can find out from them what specific type
of bermuda did they use, you could get that with
one of those little hand crank walkarounds and you could
fill in some areas, maybe rake rake a little bit

(28:23):
and start to create more. Once a bermuda gets established,
it's going to fill in, but you probably don't want
to look at it for as long as it's going
to take to fill in on its own.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
Well.

Speaker 9 (28:37):
Yeah, and again I've called the guy because of after
you know, the hurricane came through and really kind of
put a hurt on some of the areas. There's some
bare areas and whatnot, and I did have to go
in and get some sawd to take care of a
section that was kind of eroding because of the way
of a driveway funneling water in the area. And he

(28:59):
said that the closest thing that a solid farm would
have would be celebration. And I was able to get
some top soil and put it down where the erosion
was happening, and then we had the big rain about
a week of pretty good solid rain after that, which
did me good. I mean, the stuff came up good,
the sod is firmly established, the erosion has stopped, so

(29:22):
I'm feeling good about that. But I was just wondering,
you know, maybe I could go back to him and say, Okay,
what's the type of seed. I'll figure out where to
buy some bags of seed. One other questions that I
had was there was one or two areas because this
is new construction where you have a lot of that
red soil that they build the pads out of, and
there was not a lot of top soil on there

(29:44):
is there an amendment that I can put on top
of that that would kind of break up that clay
in that area a little bit. I know up in
the Northwest, we used to put lime down for certain areas.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, lines don't do the line here. If if you
have high sodium water, then gypsum may help that. You
need to kind of scratch it into the soil in
those areas. Otherwise it would just be organic matter composted
type materials.

Speaker 9 (30:12):
Just compost the material and top dress it.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Huh. Yeah, that's that's what's in your control.

Speaker 9 (30:19):
Okay, Well, I've got a horse fire another next to me,
so I'm going to go get some truckloads a horse
maneuver and compost it.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
All right, I need to run another call, but thank
you and good luck with that, and have a safe trip.
By the way, in that right time, we're going to
run now to the woodlands and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike,
welcome to Guardenline.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
Tell you good morning, Skip. I just moved into a
new home that's it hasn't been lived in for a
long time. And the flower bed I've got a weed
that's just taken over the flower beds. I sent a picture.
I don't know if you you can see it yet
or not. Yes, I did get Okay, I'm just wondering

(31:03):
what would be the best way to kill that weed
amongst all the other plants.

Speaker 6 (31:10):
That are in there.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah. Well, first of all, if you if you are able,
doing hand hoing promptly is important because that little booger
starts to set seed really fast. And yes, as a result,
you just you're ending up kind of going backwards, and
so that that's why getting it out of there with

(31:32):
a hoe right now is the most important. Spraying it
with a post emergent weed killer would kill the weed,
but all that seed that's on it, and the picture
you showed me, it's got plenty of seeds on it.
They would just be you know, in your in your lawn,
and I mean in your flower bed. So I would
spurge comes out of one spot and then it comes

(31:54):
up and spreads out sideways in all directions. If you
can just grab a hold of it comes out real easy,
or you hoe it out real easy. I'd do that,
and then I would follow it up with what are
you growing in the flower bed?

Speaker 5 (32:07):
Well, there's some foxtail ferns, and don't I don't even
know the name of some of the some of the
plants you.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Are there, are you seeding? Are you seeding flowers or
anything or just transplants and existing plants.

Speaker 5 (32:25):
Yeah, I would put probably some transplants in there. Okay,
after I get get rid of the weed, get.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Some barricade and put it down. Follow the label. It
goes on at a certain rate, don't overdo it. Follow
the label, and then you're going to need to water
it in after you apply it, and it moves into
the surface of the soil, and when seeds try to germinate,
it shuts them down. And so that's that works. Now,
if you go in and you spade or you hoe

(32:52):
or you pull up a plant, you're bringing your exposing
soil that hasn't been treated to the surface, and so
you're going to get re sprouting as seeds. But if
you can do whatever soil disturbance you need, you're gonna do,
and then put on the barricade and then water it in.
It'll give you some time. The next thing is mult

(33:14):
just don't ever leave bear soil for the sun to
shine on it, because wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature
plants a weed. And so that would be probably the
simplest way is to just constantly maintain a good thick mulch.

Speaker 7 (33:30):
Okay, so.

Speaker 5 (33:33):
Try to pick it up with a hoe and then
put down the barricade and then.

Speaker 6 (33:37):
Mulch over it.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Well yeah, I mean if you do, if you do
the malt, you might not need the barricade. But I'm
just saying barricade prevents the seeds that are going to
sprout from establishing. They just die before they get started. Okay,
all right, well good luck with.

Speaker 5 (33:56):
Okay, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
We say spurge is this urge because it is a
very pernicious weed. It just it's it's unbelievable its ability
to reproduce and to show up and how did they
ever get there? Well, who knows? Esk spurge. It's a scourge.
Thanks a lot, Mike, appreciate the call. If you've been

(34:18):
out too. Ingenet Gardens it's out enrichment. It's on the
Katie fullsher side of Richmond. Let me first of all,
let me just give you the website, because this website
is awesome. It's a wealth of information. Enchanted Gardens Richmond
dot com. They have everything. It is a beautiful spread
out place with so much to see and do you

(34:38):
ought to see the fairy gardens, the container gardens, the
amount of every kind of plant you could want, Do
you like succulents. Oh my gosh, they're loaded with suckings.
Do you like salvia's They're loaded roses, fruit, trees, shrubs,
just on and on and on and good advice in
the process. Enchanted Gardens. It's on FM three point fifty nine.

(35:01):
Just if you're in Richmond, just head north third Katie.
It's on FM three fifty nine. And you got to
see the place. Don't let my description fill your brain
you it won't be an adequate picture. Go see it
all right? Well, I hear music. That must be time
for me to turn the mic over to the news.
I'll be back if you'd like to give us a

(35:22):
call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
He c RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to kt r H Garden Line with Skip rictor so.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Trim just watch him as.

Speaker 5 (35:57):
So many.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Well, Welcome to garden Line. It is good to be
here today. I tell you, I love every I love
the beginning of the day. You know we've it's dark outside,
but you just know that as it starts to get
some light, it's the coolest part of the day. It's
the best time to be out. The birds are just
going nuts. I mean they are. They start the day

(36:34):
with song, for sure, and it's just a good day.
It's a good day. It's always a good day for gardening.
Even again, as I say, some people will go, what
if it's freezing and raining and hailing outside. Well, you
I got house plants. You can do cuttings indoors, get
them started. You can make your plans for the next
garden planting or some renovation. You see what I'm saying.

(36:55):
It's always a good day to get out and enjoy gardening,
that is for sure. If you've not fertilized your lawn
in the last few months, this is the time to
get it done because our next fertilization is going to
come in the fall. Now. If you go if you
go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com and
you look at the lawn care schedule, there's two schedules

(37:16):
on there. One is how to care for your lawn, mow, water, fertilized,
how to care for your lawn. The other one is
the lawn pest, Disease and weed management schedule. That's kind
of like the Lions Tigers and bears oh my version.
In other words, what goes wrong? What is out there
to eat your lawn, attack your lawn, or infest your lawn? Well,

(37:37):
the lawn care schedule talks about you knowing, applying, fertilizing
and slow. You'll see if you go all the way
over to fall late September October, those are big times
to do your fall fertilization. So if you want to
do one now to carry until then. Nitropos super turf
is an excellent products. A silver bag from Nitrovos. It

(37:58):
gradually releases neutris over time, and that's the nice thing
about it. You're not going to mow as much because
you are not providing this flush of extra nitrogen that
just causes the grass to grow real fast. You got
to mow more. The root system actually is reduced. When
you overfertilize with nitrogen, you get a lot of green

(38:19):
top growth, but the root systems reduced. Nitroposed superturf won't
do that. It gradually feeds it over time. And you
can find nitrophs superturf in a lot of different places.
You know, we know our ace hardware stores are always
good places to find a quality product.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Like that.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
The Plantation Ace Hardware be a good example of one
of those kinds of stores. You find it at Southwest
Fertilizer too, by the way, Bob carries it there. Well,
anytime you fertilize too, just I want to mention this.
You want to make sure and water it in really well.
You want to get the nutrients from the granules down

(38:57):
into this soe if it's an organic fertilizer, then what's
going to have to happen is microbes are going to
go to work on that, and keeping it moist helps that.
I mean, microbes can't live in a desert it's too dry.
I mean they've got to have soul moisture and they
got to have moisture in those particles of the organic
product you put out. So water and keeping some moisture

(39:17):
there is very important to getting the nutrients from any
kind of product you put down into the root system
where the plants are able to use it. Well, this
is a call in show, and the goal of our
show is to help you have a more beautiful garden,
a more bountiful garden, and certainly a more beautiful landscape
as well. So in order to do that, give us

(39:39):
a call. It's seven one three two one two kt
rh seven to one three two one two kt rh.
Speaking of beautiful and bountiful. Pierce Scapes is the premiere
company when it comes to being able to turn any
landscape into something really really spat and whatever level your

(40:02):
landscape is at, from a low end to a very
high end, pier Scapes can come in and they can
work wonders. They can fix irrigation systems. Most irrigation systems
are not properly designed or aligned or have repairs that
are needed. They can do that. They can put in
landscape lighting, they can put in hardscape. They can do

(40:24):
all kinds of things to enhance your landscape. Do you
want a little patio with barbecue and all that? Pier
Scapes can do that. Excuse me? Do you want them
to have them come out for quarterly maintenance, to trim,
to weed, to feed, to check the irrigation, to change
out the color when it needs to be changed out seasonally,
to add some mulch to the surfaces. They can do

(40:45):
all of that. Just go to the website pierce Scapes
dot com Piercescapes dot com, or if you'd like to
give them a call. Here's the number. You might want
to write this down seven or excuse me two eight
one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three
seven o five zero six zero. But go to pierscapes

(41:09):
dot com. I want you to see the kind of
work they do. You will see why we think so
much of them here on Guardline. Well, it's time to
go out to the phones now. I think i'll hit
out to Kingwood and we're going to talk to Joe. Hello, Joe,
welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 10 (41:23):
Good morning Skip. I was wanting to know what fertilizer
you'd recommend for Mexican firebush to promote more blooms on them.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Well, the fertilizer is, you know, to provide support growth
of the planet itself if your phosphorus were low. Phosphorus
is an important nutrient in helping plants promote. Among many
other functions of phosphorus, it also helps promote bloom. Potassium
is also, of course important. I would just say a

(41:55):
good balanced fertilizer for firebush. Don't overdo the nitrogen, just
give it a moderate amount of growth rate. So something
that's on a lower end of the nitrogen with a
lawn type fertilizer or a bloom producing fertilizer Nelson couldn't
think of the name. Nelson Plant Food has a color

(42:17):
Star line that would be excellent for that. We also
have a blooming food for tropicals, and although fire bush
isn't a tropical, it would do well with their blooming
their product for tropical plants as well. But sunlight is
the number one key and fire bush. You know, you've
got to have good sun to get good blooms or

(42:37):
foliage color on fire bush.

Speaker 6 (42:39):
That's great.

Speaker 10 (42:40):
Yeah, I've got Nelson's Color Star and also have Medina
growing green organic as well.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Okay, that'd be fine. Yeah, either of those would work
fine for it. Firebush is one of the plants that
I don't worry a lot about doing extra fertilizer. You know,
some things are very heavy feeders and some things not
so much. And if you look at your fire bush,
if the soil moisture is right and the sun is
right and it's not growing, then give it a boost,

(43:11):
even some extra nitrogen if needed. But otherwise it's a
pretty tough plant. Number one thing it needs is consistent
soil moisture.

Speaker 10 (43:20):
So if fertilized two three times a year.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
That good, that should be plenty. It's only going to
be interested in growing when it's hot, so that might
be in your you know, maybe you're putting something out
in May or even probably do a little late April, probably,
and then I would probably come back in June or July,
and then probably toward the end of August, do the

(43:44):
last fertilization if you do it September. But it's primarily
going to be interested in growing when it's hot.

Speaker 10 (43:51):
Thank you, Skip, I appreciate.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
It all right, thanks a lot, Thanks for the call.
Appreciate that very much. Out now, talk to Sean and Cyprus.
No false alarm this time. Sean, how can we help?

Speaker 9 (44:08):
No problem?

Speaker 11 (44:09):
Hey, after about thirty five years living in the place
I'm at now, I've got to move. And probably about
thirty years ago, we planted a magnolia tree as a
sentimental for a past mother, and I'd like to take
a part of it with us. And the seed pods
are dropping, and I want to know what it takes

(44:31):
to try and grow a magnolia tree from a seed
pod or even a cutting off of the tree.

Speaker 7 (44:38):
Any advice.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Are you there?

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (44:46):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 7 (44:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (44:47):
You cut out at the end, go ahead and say
the last part again, I was.

Speaker 11 (44:52):
Just wondering what it would take to grow a magnolia
tree from a seed pod or a cutting.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Well, the cuttings are going to be extremely difficult. In fact,
I would suggest you not even try that. You can
go online, but it's gonna take certain certain types of
magnolia branch tissue, wood tissues, and a very high level
of rooting hormones and other conditions that are going to

(45:20):
be just have to be just about right so you
can harvest your own. You want to wait and let
them turn really bright red and be fully right. You
want to take all that flesh around the outside of
the magnolia seed pod it is a little tiny like
a fruit. It's a berry actually, and just soak those

(45:41):
seeds in nice warm water and remove that outer coating
of the seed. You can use like a wires piece
of metal screening, not the nylon or whatever that plasticky
screening is, but something kind of firm to rub that
outer seed coat on it, and that's gonna be helpful

(46:01):
in helping it to germinate. They go through a normal
stratification period because in nature, the seeds are cast and
those seeds go through winter and then sprout the next year.
They require that cold temperature. So you can put those
seeds that you have in moist sand, or you could

(46:23):
use spagnum, peat moss, you know, some of the mosst lines,
hanging baskets, whatever, something to keep them moist. Put them
in a zipplock, close it up, and then put it
in the refrigerator, and I would say probably leave it
for at least two months, maybe three in the refrigerator.
Check it periodically, make sure it's still moist, make sure

(46:45):
it's not already sprouting in there, and then take them
out and plant them in a container and get them going.
Or you can plant them directly where they're going to
grow in the ground, if you want to go about
it that way.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
Wonderful.

Speaker 11 (46:58):
I appreciate it, all.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Right, Good luck with that. Appreciate that. Yes, sir, you
take care for those of you up in the Montgomery area.
You have got a hometown garden center called Ana Plants
and Produce. And I say Montgomery area, I mean all
of Lake Conro all through that region anywhere out there
nearby Montgomery. Ana Plants and Produce are on one oh

(47:21):
five on the east side of town. They carry a
wide variety of things. Of course, their plants are awesome.
They're always getting in new plants. They've got some really
cool things for the landscape. I call it bling. You know,
things like maybe a metal artwork or a metal arch way,
or maybe you want a chiminea to put out on

(47:42):
the patio and just enjoy when we get into these fall,
cool crispy nights. Enjoy a little fire there on the patio.
They can do all of that. They also specialize in
carrying every fertilizer I talk about on guarden line, and
I'm talking about nitrophos I'm talking about Nelson microlife and
then soil, airloom, soils, Nature's way resources. Both of them

(48:03):
are available there at A ANDA Plants and Produce. They
usually keep my schedules there at the counter, so you
can just grab one when you go in, or better
just print it before you head that way. But you're
going to find everything you need to have success with
your landscape at A and A Plants and Produce. I'm
going to head now to Baytown and talk to Alan.

Speaker 6 (48:24):
Hello Allen, good morning, and my question is about the
fertilization schedule. I just bought a new home, but the
grass has been established for almost a year, just houses
setting on body till I did. Can I go ahead
and do I need to wait for the winter rising?
Or can I go ahead and backtrack a little bit
and start with the three one two and just delay

(48:45):
the winter rising later on?

Speaker 3 (48:48):
We're going to do the fall application in October, and
so if I were I would do I would do something.
Now you might want to use do you typically or
fertilizing organically or synthetics or what what do you prefer
to use?

Speaker 6 (49:06):
I don't know, to use the nitro falls whatever that is.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Well, I would get you could do the silver bag,
but that's going to carry a pretty far distance into
the fall too, so you could do that. That is
a What does a long look like right now? Is
it looking healthier?

Speaker 6 (49:25):
Because yeah, I know it's pretty green. Santa Augustine is
pretty green because I guess they're trying to sell the
house that kept it watered so it speaks better than
most people's. But yeah, I just know it hasn't been
fertilized at all.

Speaker 7 (49:37):
Yeah, I don't do that.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah, I certainly get that. Well, you could, you know,
if it's looking great, I mean you could, you could
wait and do it in the fall, but you could
also put the nitrophoss imperial. That's the red bag. It's
a fifteen to five time down, and I would put
I'd go a little lighter on it right now. I
would probably put about five pounds per thousand square feet
of that. That's a little on the light side. But

(50:02):
your lawn already looks pretty good, and it's an immediate release,
and we don't want to push a lot of you know, growth,
too much of it, So go a little on the
light side with them.

Speaker 6 (50:14):
All right, thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
All right, all right, watered in rod, thank you, bet
you take care. I you know, fertilizing, we give you
these rules of thumbs. You know, I tell you on
your gardening vegetables, you put two cups of this thing
down per ten feet a row or some. We throw

(50:38):
these numbers out there, like with with lawns, a pound
of nitrogen per thousand square feet. That is basically the
lawn fertilization rate that researchers have come up with as
being the best a pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet. Well,
some fertilizers have a lot of nitrogen. Some don't have
a lot of nitrogen, so that varies. But what about

(50:59):
your lawn? How much phosphorus do you have in your lawn?
How much potassium, how much magnesium? And a soil test
gives you an idea where you are. And it may
be that my standard rule of thumb fertilizing is not
the best, exactly the best for your particular lawn. Maybe
you need to tweak things a little bit. Maybe all

(51:20):
you need is a little nitrogen. Maybe you need to
really move the magnesium and the potassium up. You see
what I'm saying. The rules of thumbs are good and
they will carry you a long way, and you could
do that for years and not have a problem. But
it's good every few years to do another soil test
to find out where you are with things, and that
way you're able to fertilize, you say, more accurately, more intelligently,

(51:44):
more accurately, to fit the needs of your lawn when
it comes to soil, the brown stuff that I'm always
talking about, fertilizer and soil, so brown stuff. Landscaper's Pride
is an excellent company with excellent resources, excellent products. It's
still time to be mulching In fact, we're talking someone
earlier about a weed. You know, where sunlight hits a

(52:07):
soil nature points of weed. Landscaper's Pride has a number
of different mulch products that'll do just fine. But the
soil now is the time to prep soil for the
fall garden. You know, even though temps are high, when
you add organic matter, you're improving the soil for root growth.
And so why not get those beds ready now, whether
it's herb planting or vegetable planting or flowers. How about

(52:28):
Gardener's Magic. It's an organic pine based blend that contains humus,
green pine screen, pine, the composted riceholes, and a chicken
pellet fertilizer that last up to three months. So there
you're kind of providing a little bit of food along
with everything else. Mushroom compost Gardeners have long known that
mushroom compost is a wonderful potent product that really helps

(52:50):
to green things up. And then there's healthy soil compost
one hundred percent recycle composted plant material. It's got a
neutral pH. And then there are black humous, a dark,
rich organic mix of composted bark with loamy topsoil really
helps that soil the whole water while at the same
time draining well. It's good for a brand new bed
you're putting in, or really for just a mending in

(53:12):
beds that are already existing. Go to Landscaperspride dot com.
That's where you can find out about all their products
and where they're available, and they are widely available here
in the Greater Houston area. I wish that, Let's see,
I probably wish more than two things, but I'm going
to say I wish for two things. One is for

(53:32):
spring fever for us to bottle it up and pour
it into the drinking water supply in fall, so people
would get as excited or more excited in fall as
they do about spring. Listen, Fall is the best planting
season of the year. There are very few things that
falls not the best time to plant. And basil doesn't

(53:53):
like cool weather, so basil would be an example. But
you talk about woody ornamental shrubs, trees and woody vines,
you talk about perennials, you talk about herb perennial herbs.
Fall is great. There's lots of fall flowers, lots of
faull vegetables. Fall is a great time. Get the soil
ready now so that in fall you're ready to go.
You're ready to plant, because here's what's going to happen.

(54:15):
About the time you decide this weekend I'm putting in
that garden. Here comes some storm through or whatever, and
it rains and it rains, and now you're having to
wait because you can't work soil when it's sloppy, wet,
un till later. And you didn't plant when you wanted
a plant. See what I'm saying. Do your soil prep now,
get up early in the morning, get it done when

(54:36):
it's cooler, and you will find you have great success. Well,
it's time for me to take a break. Our number
seven one three two one two KTR eight Welcome back
to the guard Line. Good to have you with us today.
We are talking about all kinds of things gardening. If
you've got a question you'd like to ask or get
some help or advice, give us a call seven to one,

(54:57):
three two to one two kt RH seven one three
two one two k t r H. You've heard me
talk about Southwest fertilizer. You hear me talk about them
a lot, and the reason is a Southwest Fertilizer is
a place that has such a wide variety of all

(55:18):
the different products and tools that you need to have
success that it's just a one stop shop. There is
no fertilizer on my schedule that's not a Southwest fertilizer.
And then there's more than that. Uh, there is more
selection of things to control insects, to manage diseases, to

(55:39):
prevent weeds than any place I've seen. It is an
outstanding selection of quality products. You walk in there, you
talk to Bob, or you talk to Aaron, or you
talk to any of the team there, and you're going
to get knowledgeable advice.

Speaker 12 (55:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
They don't say stuff you don't need. So you walk
in maybe you got a bug, maybe you got a picture,
maybe you have a sample of a plant, and you
talking to him about it, and they'll say, well, here's
what it's gonna take. Here's the product probably work best
for you. You got two op you actually got ten
options there. But they really do direct you. Well. You know,
they have that folding kneeling bench that I keep bragging

(56:13):
on Top five tool and my tool shed is the
folding kneeling bitch. Absolutely up at the top. Did easy
to store. Because it folds up, you unfold it, you
can use it as a seat, you can flip it
over and kneel on it, and it the legs become handles.
So as I like to say, if you're anywhere north

(56:33):
of forty years old, you know what it's like to
wake up in the morning sore and you can't remember why.
Remember that. You don't have to admit it. We're on
the radio. I'm admitting it. But that folding kneeling bitch
is great because you know, I've had many times where
I work all Saturday and here I go, you know,
wake up Sunday morning and I feel like I'm in
the pre natal position because I can't stretch out because

(56:56):
I got up and down, up and down a thousand times.
Bob's got an eighty foot wall of tools. So do
you need pruning, do you need rakes or any kind
of tool you can imagine from small hand tools up
to large tools. He's also got a little grabber tool.
And I'm about to put something online that is instructions

(57:16):
for building your own weed wiper, and it needs a
certain kind of grabber tool. Bob's got those there at
ACE Hardware Stores. It'll be we're putting that publication up
early this coming week, may even get it up tomorrow,
but early this week. We're going to get that up
on the line. And when you go look at it,
you're going to go, oh, I want to build one
of those. We'll go over to Southwest Fertilizer and get

(57:39):
one of his suction cup type grabber tools. He's got
him there. They're on the corner of Businet and Runwick
in Southwest Houston. You can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot
com find out more information there or just call him
seven to one three six six six one seven four four.
Southwest Fertilizer was like going in there, and you know,

(58:01):
I tell you that they always have such new stuff
that it's like I go and just walk the aisles
and go when did that come on the market, And
you start learning about it and go, oh, we got
another option for things, because when it comes on the market,
he'll have it. The way I like to put it is,
if Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have something, you don't need it.

(58:23):
I think that's a good way to put it, because
it's true, absolutely true. Well, I was earlier talking about
different things, including success with the lawns, and things you
need to have success with the lawns. And I was
talking about for watering, how to water properly. If you
were to create the ideal soul moisture conditions for lawns,

(58:45):
a really pretty much ever plant, you would want to
give a good soaking to the soil, like a good
slow rain that thoroughly wets the soil deeply, and then
you turn the water off and allow it to dry out,
not powder dry, but allow all that space between the
saw particles for where there's now water to go away

(59:06):
and fill with air. As air is pulled back down
in the soil to stimulate root growth. That schedules the
watering schedule mowing I talked about earlier. The more often
you mowed, the better your lawn looks. Think of a
hedge around your house. If you had a boxwood hedge,
and if you went in once a year and you
cut it way back and it was all sticks, and

(59:26):
then it sprouts back out again, and eventually it comes
back out, and the next year you do that again,
it's gonna look horrible all the time. A lawn is
the same way. Frequent shearing with a lawnmower. I use
the word shearing, you know, I mean mowing, but it's
the hedge analogy. Frequent shearing with a lawnmower creates density
density density. First specialist told me one time that the

(59:49):
single most important thing you do to have a beautiful
lawn is to mow regularly. And I thought, okay, come on, man,
that that can't be true. Well, he knew what he
was talking about. It is very very important to do that. Also,
when you are dealing with your lawn mowing, you want
to mow it the right height it. Think of the

(01:00:09):
any plant, the above ground and the below ground parts
are in some degree of balance. So if you cut
a lawn very very low, the depth of the root
system is often less than if you had it a
little higher, a more top growth to support that root
growth and whatnot. It's going to improve on the root

(01:00:31):
system as well. But the more the lower you mow,
the more often you have to move because remember we
want to mow regularly. We don't want to cut off
more than a third of the leaf blade. That's ideal.
And I know when it rains, we get away, it
gets away from us, can't get back out there and
mow and then we have to come in and catch up.
But by the way, if you're catching up a lawn,

(01:00:53):
and it's what I do in mind, I'll go is
that the more really high, and I'll mover at once
and chop that up down in the and then I'll
drop it back down to the level I want to
mow and mow it again. And I know most people
aren't going to want to mow twice, but I do.
My mower is not the best at mulching, and so
a good multing more probably would work better for me.
But anyway, so mow at the proper height for something

(01:01:18):
down really low, like a dwarf type of Bermuda or
even yeah, you may be mowing down, you know, at
an inch down low for your lawn when it gets
to something like Saint Augustine two and a half three inches.
I know people that moight even higher than that, but
that gives you the best height. And the taller it is,
the longer it takes for it to grow, so that
you're cutting off a third. So a golf course green

(01:01:41):
gets cut every day because it's so low. They're mowing
so little off of it that it gets cut every day. Well,
you can't do that on your lawn, he used to.
I hope you don't have time for that. That's that
would be not my idea of fun. But just remember
to do it regularly. All right, We're gonna take a
little break here for the news. My phone number seven
one three two one two kt r H. Give Crystal call.

(01:02:03):
Let's get you on the boards and we'll visit with
you when we come back. Hey, I'm glad you're listening today.
You know, I enjoy talking with gardeners, and I just
think gardeners are the greatest people we can. First of all,
we understand what it means to get out there, get
our hands dirty, and joy nature, and that is so important.

(01:02:25):
There are unlimited benefits to getting outside in nature, whether
it's taking a walk or getting down on your hands
and knees and planting something in the dirt. There are
benefits from microbes. They're release substances that are helpful for
us in so many ways. For example, there are microbes

(01:02:45):
that release substances that actually cause you to feel better,
cause you to be happier.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Serotonin is a't important something in our in our world,
and it just I don't know whether it's microbes in
our in our intestinal track or our gut systems as
they call it, or microbes in the soil. There's a
good connection right there. There's also the idea of exercise
and sunshine and fresh air that does a world for people,

(01:03:13):
even people that are maybe having trouble getting around. You
get the right tools, the things you need to be
able to do things like you want, and you can
continue gardening for a long time. There's ergonomic tools, there's
raised beds. That's a folding bench that I was talking
about it. There's all kinds of things. Gardening is a
wonderful hobby. Don't wait until you are an older person
to start gardening. Start gardening now and teach your kids

(01:03:35):
to garden. Kids that grow things and eat things out
of their garden that they grew are more likely to
be willing to eat healthy as they grow up. That
is our number one problem I think with our health
in this country is our lack of exercise and our
poor eating habits. We all know the stories of fast

(01:03:56):
food and all of that kind of thing. Gardening is
the opposite of all of it, and I hope you
take advantage of that. You're listening to Guardline. I'm your host,
Skip Richter. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. While I'm talking about nature,
I'll just tell you about Microlife fertilizer again. I talk
about it all the time because Microlife is designed to
work with the soil. The what okay, quick quiz for

(01:04:19):
garden Line listeners. What's the most important thing to have
success with plants? That's right, the brown stuff, the soil,
the foundation for everything. When you create soil where roots
can thrive, microbes can thrive, You're going to have success
with your plants. And Microlife's designed that way. By the way,
you know, when you buy a Microlife product, you are

(01:04:40):
also buying a lot of microbes. And when I say
a lot, I mean lots of different kinds and bazillions
of them at that. So, whether it's the green bag,
the sixty four, whether it's Microlife Humates plus that's the
purple bag that's concentrated compost in a bag, whether it's
one of their liquid products like the Biomatrix, the orange
label that is, they're all excellent products that do two things.

(01:05:04):
Number One, they have nutrients to feed the plants, but
they have microbes as well, and they stimulate microbial growth,
and that is how nature was designed to work so
that plants could thrive. You can go into space. You
can create nutrient water and spray it on tomatoes hanging
in the air and space with artificial light shining on,

(01:05:24):
or grow a tomato. That's not how nature grows things.
Nature has a way of building soil better and better
as time goes on, and we can too right now
by using a product like the many products available for microlife.

Speaker 7 (01:05:38):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
When you want to have successful gardening, soil is important.
Another important thing is to give plants the basics of
what they need. Plants need sunlight. Some don't want direct
sun they'll burn up. Others need full sun to do
what they're going to do. In general, as a very
general guide, if you're going to grow let's say a
vegetable for root or fruit, so that would be a

(01:06:02):
carrot or a tomato. It could be a turnip or
a squash. You see what I'm saying. You need the
most sunlight you can give it. If you're going to
grow stuff to eat the leaves like kale or lettuce
or whatever, it can do Okay, on less sunlight doesn't
want to be in the shade, but it can take
less sunlight and still perform. So when you're locating your

(01:06:23):
garden and maybe you got a pretty good sun over
here and not as great over there, put the leaves
in the nut as great over there. Put the roots
and fruit and the good stuff over the side. That's
true many other plants, you know roses, they want sunlight.
Most blooming plants want good, good sunlight. We have a
few like impatience and wishbone flour that grow in quite

(01:06:45):
a bit of shade. They can do with lower levels.
But giving plants what they want, giving them good drainage.
Do I need to tell you When it rains, it
pours around here. So when soil gets water logged for
extended periods of time, plants suffer. It can cause root rots,
it can cause a lot of other problems. And so
a good raised bed a well drained internally well drained

(01:07:09):
soiled That is what we do when we add like
expanded shale into a clay, when we've put compost into
the soil, we improve the internal structure and drainage. That
is very important. And so I keep saying that gardening
is not that difficult. There's no such thing as a
brown thumb. There's only an uninformed thumb. And we're we

(01:07:29):
here on garden Line, are here to inform your thumbs.
The smarter your thumb gets, the better you grow stuff.
Here's what I'm saying by that I just went through.
You know, plants need light, plants need drainage, plentsy good nutrients,
plants need you know, my craigire like to be well
drained soil and on those. That's the basics. And there
are few other things we could add, but that is

(01:07:49):
the basics. And when you give a plant what it wants,
suddenly everybody thinks you got a green thumb. Well, your
thumb just got smarter along with the rest of you,
and we spend a lifetime learning about grow. You know,
I've been gardening for over sixty years, while I've been
around for over six years. I mean, I've been probably
actively gardening since oh, I don't know, I was a

(01:08:10):
maybe grade school for sure. Grade school we had a
garden in our backyard. And I still learn stuff every day,
every day. There's no end to it. That's another reason
why gardening keeps you young. In addition to the physical
and the mental. It's just the fact that you're stimulating
your brain, you're learning, you're enjoying things. You know, my

(01:08:30):
best garden you know when it when the best gardening
year of my life. Next year, there's hope in gardening.
It's always something else cool that's coming along. So I
think you, I think you get the idea. Well, what
I'm saying, basically, to just cut it to the bottom

(01:08:50):
line is learn and learn and learn. Don't be afraid
to fail. The more you learn, the better you get.
And it's just a great hobby, and it's an unending
supply of opportunities to get better and better, to have
more success. Don't be afraid to kill a plant. You
got to kill a lot of plants to be a
great gardener.

Speaker 13 (01:09:09):
You do.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
It's just part of the deal. Well, there was a spiel,
so I just sort of went off on a tangent
right there. I do want to I do want to
remind you that our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. That is important. Well,

(01:09:33):
time flies when you're having fun. I hope you're having fun.
I share am today I hear the music. That means
it's a top of the hour. We're about to take
a little break here at the top of the hour.
When we come back, I'm gonna spend a little bit
of time, uh, talking with Mike Orant about Oba Oba
as organic cordic culture benefits alliance and you're going to
hear a lot about this organization, what it does and how.

(01:09:55):
You remember how I said you need an informed thumb.
Oba answer a great way to inform your thumb top nod.
Do you hear more about that in a minute. But
we're gonna pick his brain and talk about some of
that kind of stuff. We may talk a little bit
about organic gardening in the process as well.

Speaker 4 (01:10:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
I hope you stick around for it. We'll get back
to your calls right after that, So hang around in
the meantime seven one three two one two k t
r H and don't forget my website, Gardening with Skip
dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor It's.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Crazys. Just watch him as well. Maybe gives to set Brasy.

Speaker 14 (01:10:57):
Again.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
Not sorry, Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back on a
wonderful Sunday, and you know every day is a good
day for gardening. I don't care if it's going to
rain outside. I don't care if it is zero degrees outside.
You can always come inside, take care of your house plants,
plant seeds for starting transplants, start cuttings. Gross. How about this?

Speaker 5 (01:11:21):
Have you ever?

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
I don't even talk about this much, but growing microgreens.
That is another very healthy thing we can eat and
something you can do completely enough and do completely indoors
as well. It's always a good day for gardening. Thanks
for listening. We're glad you're here. I'm gonna not be
taking calls for the next couple of segments here because

(01:11:41):
I have a very special guest. When we get about
the half hour, we'll start taking calls again. So hold
on to those questions. We'll get back to them. But
I have a very special guest, mister Mike's Errant. Mike's
Rant is the owner creator of Microlife Fertilizer and very
active with an organization called Oba and Mike.

Speaker 14 (01:12:03):
Do we have you on the line there, Yes, sir,
Good morning, Hello, good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
How are you?

Speaker 4 (01:12:11):
I feel terrific? How about yourself, mister Skipp.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Thank you very much.
I appreciate you taking time to come on. I wanted
to tell people that listen to Guardline about OBA and
what OBA is. It's HbA organic hordiculture benefits alliance, but
what does that even mean? Tell us a little bit
about OBA and what OBA does.

Speaker 4 (01:12:36):
Well, Skip, thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity.
OBA is a five oh one C three organic education nonprofit.
We prevent science. We provide science in really good information
in non commercial way. Now, I think really our principle
is is so we can all grow the environment in

(01:12:58):
humans together healthily. We are part of the environment. You
can't separate humans from the environment, and we can't have
a meaningful civilization unless we have a healthy environment. So
we're doing that interface teaching people how to take great
care of themselves nutritionally and also how to manage ecosystems,
be it college campuses or backyard gardens with nature and

(01:13:21):
organics in mind.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
Okay, now, who who is OBA? I mean who you know?
Who can anybody join?

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Or you know what?

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
What kind of folks make up OBA?

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
Well, it was a five to one C three, So
we're open to everybody and we welcome all people to
come as members or to come as visitors, volunteer opportunities.
It's made up of professionals in the landscape industry, of
the medical industry, of the soil microbiology industry, of homeowners.

(01:13:57):
Really a great group of volunteers. We're very low in staff.
All of our money basically goes to supporting education. We
have a tremendous event coming up this next weekend, as
you're aware of, called Oba Palooza, and happy to talk
about that if you'd like.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Yeah, we definitely are going to get to OBA Palooza
for sure. So anybody can come to an OBA event
or can join OBA and be a supporter. And you
do have a lot of very interested gardeners in there, Mike.
And I'm not just saying this because you're on the
phone with me today, but I see a lot of
programs done by a lot of organizations and a lot

(01:14:38):
of places, and I don't know anyone that consistently brings
in the high quality educational speakers as does OBA always.
I'm always very impressed with OBA events. And you mentioned
Oba Palooza. I'm sure it's going to be the same.
I looked at the lineup and things about it. But

(01:14:59):
first of all, I think the name is great Oba Palooza.
How could you not have fun name? How could you
not have fun at something with Polusa in the name?

Speaker 4 (01:15:07):
Right, So totally agree.

Speaker 3 (01:15:09):
So anyway, tell us about tell us a little bit
about Oba Palooza.

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):
Well, yes, and thank you very much. As I mentioned,
this is their twentieth year. We are completely unique to
the Houston metro area organization OBA is there's nothing like
it in all of America. And we bring in the
finest scientists, medical doctors, human medical doctors, soul scientists, economics, farmers,

(01:15:36):
very successful grounds maintenance, landscape contractors, gardeners, horticulturalists that we've
even had this really famous guy by name of mister
Skip Richard come a couple of times which we were
just amazed by his presentation. So even go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know how that got through
the quality control, but thanks a.

Speaker 12 (01:15:55):
Lot, Thank you too.

Speaker 4 (01:15:57):
You've done a lot for all of us for over
twenty years. So we do these great education events and
they're open to the public, and of course we also
have a lot of professional horticulturalism gardeners come in and
we do about five major educational events We also do
lunch and learns for colleges and for high schools so

(01:16:21):
kids can realize that there's some great opportunity in the
horticultural world. We interlign with Texas agur Life. In fact,
they're one of the sponsors at Oberpalooza and one of
the exhibitors, and we interlign with the Texas Department of Agriculture.
They're one of the exhibitors as well. But Obaluza is
a Saturday event, and I have a feeling it's going

(01:16:43):
to be kind of hot this coming Saturday, I think
like around ninety six ninety eight. So I would invite
your listeners to come to the very cool environment, enjoy
the cool vibe over Balooza is joyful, it's happy. We
teach fantastic education. There's about twenty five exhibitors. You will
meet all sorts of really great people. We do a

(01:17:05):
terrific lunch that's provided lots of social networking. Let's make friends,
let's make connections, and then we have just an incredible
education of selection that people have multiple classes to choose from,
from how to raise chickens to why eating organic foods
is important, to understanding soil, how to build healthy ecosystems,

(01:17:29):
lawns and gardens. Another class is the Feminazi sequence, which
is a fascinating mathematical look how nature has this incredible
synernistic movement about it, does dance about it. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
thank you. So we got We're going to learn about
how to have beneficial insects in your gardens, going to

(01:17:52):
learn about herbs how easy you can grow them. I know,
as you mentioned about micro greens, and I recently read
that watercress, according to one source, is the most important,
most valuable food source in the world. Now, maybe it's
not a herb, but we're gonna learn about how herbs
can be grown easily and used for pictures or flavoring foods,

(01:18:15):
or taken as minasial medicine. So it's a great event,
and I would encourage people to come if I could
mention that it's best to buy the tickets online. It's
kind of a limited attendance because of space, but if
they go and it's kind of long, but if they
go to OVA online dot org, the homepage will take

(01:18:40):
the interested person to registration. The cost is very very low.
Over members are fifty dollars and non over members are
seventy and non over members are completely welcome. All net
profits go to benefit the community into further education.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
Well and for that, for that registration, I mean, you're
you're getting some really nice breaks, you guys. Put on
a good break and then a very healthy lunch as well.
And Mike, I've got to I'm up against a break here.
Can you hear on for a little bit and we
come back and do this. Yeah, and that by the way,
for those of you listening, that's at the United Way
of Greater Houston at fifty wad Drive and we'll be

(01:19:23):
right back.

Speaker 12 (01:19:26):
With us.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
Today we are visiting with Mike Sarant about an organization
called OBA HbA Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance and an event
coming up called OBA Palooza. This event again is Saturday,
August tenth, that's this coming Saturday. Goes from eight in
the morning until three point thirty in the afternoon, and
it is a constant lineup of some of the best speakers,

(01:19:50):
the best, most interesting topics you're going to run into.
And in fact, there's three different concurrence sessions. Mike, are
you with us, they're still hey, yes, sir, thank you. Yeah.
Three concurrent sessions, so you get to pick between the
topics that are most of interest to you.

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
Well, that's correct. I'm sorry, I thought there was a pause.
I was just going to say. The most challenging part
about Opalooza is which class you're going to take. We
have two open main hall classes where everybody's listening and
learning together, and then, as you mentioned, there's concurrence sessions

(01:20:33):
in the in the subjects are just like you want
it and tend them all just incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
So anyway, well, I see you have a doctor, doctor
John Novac, and you know, Joe was my vegetable professor
when I was getting my masters at A and M
and keeping up with that. I had to work out
and wear tennis shoes to keep up with that guy.
I still consider him a friend, and he is a

(01:20:59):
wealthy good information. I can't imagine anything he would talk
about that's not going to be eye opening and really
enjoyable for folks that attend. That's just one example.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
Well, there's doctor Joe, and you're right, he's incredible. He
heads up the community garden at Rice University.

Speaker 10 (01:21:17):
We have another Rice.

Speaker 4 (01:21:18):
Professor of Glenn Olsen, who's going to talk about the
College of plants, pollinarian birds, how they all relate together.
So and they're going on at the same time.

Speaker 7 (01:21:29):
So who do you choose?

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
Yeah, yeah, Well you got John Ferguson, who pretty much
knows more about soil than anybody when it comes to
how to build and create good soils. You've got, oh,
doctor Mark Vordenbrugen. Now that guy is quite the character.
And I'm telling you, if you ever walk up to
a plant and wonder if you can need it, he'll
not only tell you that, but he'll tell you what

(01:21:51):
Native Americans did with it, how to make a new
hat out of it, and everything else. He's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:21:58):
Yeah, I just picked I mean yeah, yes, And we've
been blessed with a wonderful summer. I think the best
summer I've ever seen in Texas. When I'm looking at
a countryside right now and everything is green and lush
and Mother Nature is not angry, looks very very happy.
But going back to John Ferguson, we ultimately we want

(01:22:21):
to work with the soil. Can have a healthy soil,
healthy plants, healthy people, right, and so water is an
issue always, drainage is always an issue. How about if
we work within the principles and guidelines of nature to
improve aeration, to improve drainage, to improve water holding capability capacity,

(01:22:42):
and reduce the need on bought irrigation water. So John's
subject matter is going to talk about that soil as
your reservoir. John and I calculated many years ago after
the twenty eleven drought that we could actually work the
soil so for each rain irrigation event, we can hold
up to one hundred and eighty thousand gallons of water

(01:23:07):
beneath our feet. And think about that. That's just an
amazing amount of water that we can use and not
have to pay for it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
Yeah, that is cool. Well, you're gonna you're gonna word
to learn about native plants. There could be medicinal herbs.
There was one teaser I saw out there, even the
secret Language of trees. That's one I gotta hear.

Speaker 6 (01:23:26):
I got.

Speaker 3 (01:23:29):
I knew they were talking about me. I just have
no idea what they're saying. So now I'm gonna find
it out.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
Well, I'm sure to say very kind things about you
because you've been a friend of the environment for your
entire career. So they're probably saying, hey, skip, what a guy,
What a guy?

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
Yeah, I'm gonna go on believe in that rather than
that decoding what they're saying.

Speaker 5 (01:23:49):
Did you believe in that?

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):
Okay, gotcha believing that?

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
Yeah, that's that's for sure. Okay. This is Oba Palooza
and this is the third annual Organic Fair and Workshop.
Now OB does a lot of other things, though, Mike,
I've you guys, you know how to have fun too.
I can tell you that it's a good reason that
well we do itself is worth joining OB.

Speaker 4 (01:24:10):
Right, thank you. You'll find that other people, people that
believe in the organic philosophy are very hopeful, they're very joyful.
They go through the same events of life everybody does,
but they just have a certain type of spirit and
optimism about him. You will find, like I mentioned earlier,
very cool, happy vibes. We would love to for everybody

(01:24:33):
to come and attend, but register if you could early,
because it is a limited attendance and we'd just love
to have your audience there. There'll be more than welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
Well, and it's only six days away or five days.
I have to recount the six days, I guess, but
so yeah, early is like today. You better get that done,
don't delay, and if you want to register, folks, it's
OBA online dot org. So here it is OHBA online
all one word dot org, Oba online dot org to

(01:25:07):
be part of to attend Obapalooza, Mike. Then, by the way,
I'll just remind you again, it's going to be at
the or excuse me, United Way of Greater Houston, which
is on at fifty wad Drive here in Houston, Texas.
The United Way have Greater It's a wonderful facility and
you guys have a lot of your programs there. It'll

(01:25:28):
start at eight in the morning, go to three point thirty.
You're going to get a really nice healthy lunch as
part of the registration, including some good breaks. And you know,
anytime I go to one of these events, Mike, I
probably learn as much just visiting with people on the
side as I do from some of these incredible speakers,
because there are so many enthusiastic people with a wide

(01:25:50):
range of expertise that are attending the thing as well
as those that are speaking at it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:56):
I agree, great people and of course we always love
to see you there. I know your time is limited,
but it always great to see you. You always add
a lot of zip to any grouping, So thank you
very much.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
I appreciate that. So I want to visit a little
bit with you. You, of course, your day job is
a micro Life fertilizer, and we talk about that a
lot here on Garden Line, and I realized we're here
talking about OBA. But I just think that we would
do well. I would like to hear a little bit
about how did Microlife get going and how long have

(01:26:32):
you guys been around. I know right now I would
say it is the premiere organic product that we find
throughout this greater Houston area. You have really saturated and
gotten the message out.

Speaker 4 (01:26:43):
Well, well, it's a good story. I think I'll try
to keep it short. Please help me on that one.
But my mom and I started to come me back
in nineteen eighty four, and she was my business party
for twenty nine years, pass away when she was eighty nine.
Came to office every day. And Microlife is basically owned

(01:27:04):
by the parent company which I now own, Sandysono Environmental Supplies,
And we started selling back in eighty four chemical fertilizers
and pesticized because that's just what you did in the
mid eighties. And I realized my mom did to that.
The more chemical fertilizers we sold to our clients, which
the grounds maintenance companies, that the more pest problems they had,

(01:27:27):
and we thought that was strange because in our way
of being taught that all plant foods were the same.
And then we come to realize that chemical fertilizers are
basically jump food, and so we're causing malnourishment when we're
feeding the plants chemical fertilizers, and the malnourishment leads to
pest insects, disease, and weeds coming in. So we looked

(01:27:50):
for a better way, and we found the organic path
and we started manufacturing Microlife in nineteen eighty eight. Thirty
six years later, we're the second oldest continued organic fertilizer
in America and we sell throughout Texas fortunately, and we've
been very, very successful and very grateful to the people

(01:28:11):
that support us, that sell it and buy it. And
there was a Japanese word I learned last week. It's
called aikeja, and what that means is uh so akija,
what is your purpose in life? And my company and

(01:28:31):
I we found a really a tremendous purpose and we
put mission over profits. I know that may sound kind
of contrived, but that's really true. We believe in helping people,
and our way of helping people is to help them
to get healthy. And the way for people to get
healthy is to have a healthy environment. So by going organic,
you're gonna your food, you're gonna be more nutritious. Uh,

(01:28:52):
there're gonna be a lot safe to eat. You want
your ecosystem be at your front yard, your backyard, sports
fields to be free. At past society, we don't have
any exposures. And the beautiful thing is is that when
you work with nature, guess what, it works, So cheaper
to go help here, to go more rewarding.

Speaker 3 (01:29:12):
Well, it's been working without us for a long time.
Right before we decided we wanted a garden in a plot,
somebody was taking care of it. Speaking of health, one
of your speakers is doctor Mila McManus, and I think
she's quite the interesting lady. Will you tell us a
little bit about her at coming up on this Oba Palooza?

Speaker 4 (01:29:33):
Yes, thank you very much. She discovered organics kind of
like the way that we did with the landscape, and
she was a brilliant, very dedicated young lady. She got
her medical degree from the University of Texas, and she
became a doctor because she had a lot of health
problems growing up and she wanted to solve those health problems.
So going through the typical medical program eight years et cetera,

(01:29:57):
she learned the latest and greatest of farm and so
she was diagnosing herself and you know, putting, taking these
different pharmaceuticals, and nothing was getting better. The problems were compounding. Gee,
that sounds like chemical pesticides. So she started diving into
an area called fundamental medicine, which is holistic homeopathic. It's

(01:30:20):
about raising the level of all parts of an ecosystem
and the human body, and its most defined definition is
an ecosystem into itself. So you raise the water in
the harbor, you raise all the ships at the same time.
So she's fascinating. We've got a tremendous practice up in
the woodlands. She helps people get healthy and stay healthy,

(01:30:43):
not through prescriptions, although she can't do that, but through
lifestyle changes, diets, supplements, et cetera, et cetera. Wonderful woman
and she'll absolutely let us know why it's so important
eat organic foods, which will be the basis of our
healthy ecosystem.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
Good well, that is and of itself going to be
a really really good talk or showing up at the event. Well,
we're kind of running short here on our time, but
I did want to just remind her by some people
I find have joined in and at different points in
the show, so I always have to or not everybody
heard everything. This is the third annual organic fair and

(01:31:25):
workshop called Oba Palooza, put on by the Organic Corticulture
Benefits Alliance. It's this coming Saturday, August tenth, from eight
am in the morning till three thirty pm. You get
some good breaks in there, you get a good lunch
in there, and you have the opportunity not just to
hear a lot of really good speakers, but also to

(01:31:45):
visit with the other folks that are there and to
see the trade show. You know, you've got a lot
of really good sponsors and I always enjoy spending time
walking up and down learning about their products, visiting with them.
So there's just a lot of opportunities. Is that the
United Way of Greater Houston, which is fifty law drive,
So there'll be some opportunities from CEUs, I'm told as

(01:32:10):
well in this for people that are in, you know,
on the professional end, of Horticulture. But if you are
interested in going, don't delay because our time is running short.
It's OBA online dot org, HbA online dot org. There
you can sign up. It's worth kind of getting on
the mailing list finding out what's going on. There will

(01:32:32):
be other events coming up. These guys do this all
the time, and like I said, I've I'm always impressed
with the lineup of the kind of quality of speakers.
You know, to be a good presenter at a conference
like this or a program like this, you got to
know what you're talking about, but you also got to
be able to talk to people. You know, there's two
different things. You probably have run across people that knew

(01:32:55):
a lot but couldn't communicate it. Well, well you get
the whole package here, Mike. I so appreciate you coming on.
I hope people will take advantage of this opportunity.

Speaker 14 (01:33:05):
I just want to thank you again, well my gratitude
G two Skiff for always helping everybody all the time,
and for this opportunity to visit with you and explain
OBA and to have the garden Line folks listen in
and thank you guard Line folks for caring about the world.

Speaker 4 (01:33:23):
In the environment.

Speaker 3 (01:33:25):
All right, well you take care. I hope you have
a wonderful weekend. UH and thanks thanks again much much
appropiate two one two Kate k t r H. How
many times have I said that? Seven one three two
one two k t r H. To give me a
call on garden line. Let's talk about the things that
are of most interest to you, and I'll tell you

(01:33:48):
something that's of interest to me, and that is a
quality garden center. Garden centers that are mom and pop
that are independently owned, that are local, that are staffed
by people that know what they're talking about, that bring
in the plants that want to grow here. Well, Buchanan's
Native Plants in the Heights is a prime example of that,

(01:34:08):
speaking of plants that want to grow here. Native is
in their name, Buchanan's Native Plants. They have native plants
from the region that you can even they even have
a table like where there's native plants from just natives
from here in Harris County. Local that's about as local
as you can get. And they specialize in that and
they're beautiful and they're knowledgeable about it. And that's one

(01:34:31):
reason why I say go check out their website. Buchanansplants
dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. There is checklists for what
to do during the month. There's articles that are educational,
videos that are educational announcements of their upcoming programs. By
the way, the next three Saturdays in August, they've got

(01:34:51):
educational programs going on there. At Buchanan's Plants. It's at
Eleventh Street in the Heights. Eleventh Street in the Heights.
You will find every kind of plant you're looking for.
And so when I stress the natives, it's because they
do a better job of that than anybody I know.
But it also they've got a greenhouse of house plants

(01:35:11):
for example. That is a huge, huge selection of house plants.
So any kind of thing you want to grow, the
advice you need to grow it right, and the products
you need to have success with that. Buchanan's Native Plants.
By the way, it's time to get those tomatoes in.
If you want to fall crop, you can and just
stocked up on tomato plants. You want to get a

(01:35:32):
little basil to go along with it. You know, we're
going to do some cooking here. They've got that. They've
got that as well. I'm going to head out now
to Jersey Village and we're going to talk to George. Hello, George, Hey, Skip,
good morning to you.

Speaker 8 (01:35:45):
That was an interesting presentation to have a little bit
of ready yourself anyhow.

Speaker 7 (01:35:49):
Yeah, was interesting, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:35:52):
I was about the plant from California poppies, and my
wife yells at me all the time.

Speaker 7 (01:35:57):
So is it's too late to plant anything? You should
plant only.

Speaker 8 (01:35:59):
In the spring?

Speaker 3 (01:36:00):
John, That was my first question, And the second question.

Speaker 8 (01:36:03):
Was my blueberry plants have half of the stamas turned
brown and dying on the end, and the rest of
them looks like it's okay, should I cut that off
or break it off?

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
Just snip it off. It's not going to come back
to life, so you can just snip it off. Now.
That may be a sign of a little bit of
a root issue. Maybe they got a little dry. Blueberries
root systems are not really efficient at taking up water
compared to some other plants, and so we have to
keep them adequately moist. They don't do well with drought happening.

(01:36:34):
Fall is the best season of the plant. Perennials, woody shrubs,
woody trees, woody vines, all those kinds of perennial plants
and seeds of wildflowers is a good time. And also
things are going to come up in the spring. Now
if California, if you had California poppies in your yard
last year, let's just say, for example, they bloomed and

(01:36:57):
they cast their seed way back then, and the seeds
been sitting there all summer waiting for fall to sprout. Well,
the percentage of success goes down when it's that long
before it's time for a lot of things can happen
in the meantime. So to sprinkle your poppy seeds out
in September October, that is great. I probably would plant

(01:37:18):
mine in late September or early October, but as being
ideal because they're going to come up, they're going to
sit there as little tiny plants through the winter and
then go crazy in California Popuca gorgeous.

Speaker 7 (01:37:30):
Yeah, so I saw. All right, Thanks very much.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
All right, man, thanks a lot, appreciate the call, George.
You take care of it. Poppies, poppies. I wrote an
article on plants that you plant in fall that bloom
in the spring, and poppies is a big part of
that article. It's going to be in Texas Gardener magazine.
If you do not subscribe to Texas Gardener, you ought to.

(01:37:56):
It is an outstanding magazine and I'm really excited. I
think it's the September October issue that's coming up. It's
going to be in there, and you ought to take
a look. Because poppies aren't the only thing I talk about,
but I really talk a lot about the many kinds
of poppies and how to have success with them. I
think you would enjoy it myself.

Speaker 12 (01:38:17):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:38:18):
I talk about soil all the time, the importance of soil,
the fact that the brown stuff is the key to success.
Brown stuff before green stuff. And you're not going to
find a purveyor of quality brown stuff products, then Nature's
Way resources. Nature's Way has been around for over thirty years.

(01:38:39):
They've been a pioneer in the organic movement. You can
go back to products that we now they just slip
off our tongues like they've always been around. Well, leaf
mold compost a. Nature's Way is the one that came
up and made that famous fungal composts, the rose mix
that people talk about that working with the rose side

(01:39:00):
Nature's Way, that's it, and by the way. You need
to be aware of this this summer. So I wouldn't
delay on this, but twenty percent off all of the
brown stuff. That would mean compost, that would mean mulchz
that would be soil blends. At Nature's Way. That twenty
percent off is good for the bagged products, and it's

(01:39:21):
good for the bulk products. And they do deliver or
you go get it, or they'll deliver while you're out there.
If you go get it. Check out their native plant collection.
They've got a wonderful little garden center nursery right there
on the property as well. But in order to get
that twenty percent discount, to listen to this part, it's
important you need to tell them mentioned garden Line to

(01:39:42):
the Nature's Way staff when you go. So I heard
about it on a twenty percent discount on garden Line,
and that will open the door and listen. It's always
a good time to build the soil, always a good
time to improve the soil. Fall planting season, the best
planting season of the year is coming. How's the time
to get the soil ready. We got a dry wheat

(01:40:02):
coming up here. This is a great time to get
that material brought in. Whether you're creating a bed or
just amending and improving soil. You have get that done
now so when fall comes, even if it's too rainy,
you're already ready to go and you can move right
in and plant. That is that's the tip of the week.
Get your soiling. We'll be right talking to you with

(01:40:27):
your gardening questions. Seven one three two one two kt
r H. I want to tell you a little bit
about Nelson Plant Food. I was just thinking about this yesterday.
They you know, when I talk about these products, I
mentioned one or two, But with Nelson's there's so many
many products out there, and Bruce is Brew is one

(01:40:48):
of their turf Star products. It's for lawns, and Bruce
s Brew will release nutrients right away, but it continues
to release some on and on as months go by,
and it just continues to provide that it's got a
eighteen four to nine ratio of nutrients, which is a
really good ratio. Basically, it's strong in the nitrogen, which

(01:41:08):
for your lawn that is what you want to do.
You can use it any month of the year. We
talk about their product which is slow and easy that
even releases for longer. We talk about that all the time,
but Bruce's Brew would be an excellent one to apply
now to your lawn to carry on into that fall fertilization.
They also have a tree and shrub that's part of
their nutris Star line. So you got the Turf Star,

(01:41:30):
you got the Nutris Star, you got the Collar Star
for all the flowers. This nutri Star tree and shrub,
it's about a twenty one six eight fertilizer that is
very slow release. It's five different sources of slow release
nitrogen in that product, two different sources of iron in
that product, and it's going to feed for three to
four months.

Speaker 4 (01:41:51):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:41:51):
Listen, trees and shrubs grow all through the growing season.
A lot of growth in the spring, does grow through
the summer, and there's also growth that occurs in the fall.
So by getting that down now, you're providing nutrients for
that young tree that you have. This is a canister.
You can buy it in a two pound jar or
a four pound jar that you sprinkle it around, Just

(01:42:11):
follow a label, sprinkle it around and water it in.
Because the goal on trees is to get them to
grow fast when they're young. You don't want to sit
there and look at a broomstick in your yard for
four years. You want something to hang a hammock in
when you urge them along, provide that feeding with nutris, tar,
tree and shrub.

Speaker 6 (01:42:30):
You do just that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:31):
That's from Nelson Plant Foods widely available. Also. I want
to head out to Kingwood now and we're going to
talk to Pamela. Hello, Palm.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
Hi there.

Speaker 13 (01:42:41):
I enjoy your show so much.

Speaker 8 (01:42:44):
I have a question.

Speaker 13 (01:42:45):
I have a water oak tree, huge tree, right behind
my bedroom and with all the trees that came down
and split houses in half in my neighborhoods from the storm,
I'm going to have this thing cut down or it
comes down. Can I leave some of it standing and

(01:43:05):
have some ivy grow on it?

Speaker 3 (01:43:10):
Well, you could just remember that as it's dead, it's
starting to decompose inside over time, and a big tree
has got in the past times when limbs have been
cut or broken and it's got some decay inside. They
usually do when they get older, So you just want
to be careful with that. I wouldn't have a trunk
so tall that if it fell it would hit something

(01:43:33):
you care about, But yeah, you could. You could leave
it like that as a trump but just remember it
is going to fall and break off later and then
you're going to have to hire somebody to come back
in again. So that's just the only drawback I would
particularly see.

Speaker 13 (01:43:49):
Okay, because it's there's a lot of led lighting and
a zind garden and ferns and stuff underneath it. It's
really quite gorgeous.

Speaker 14 (01:43:59):
And so on.

Speaker 13 (01:44:00):
I was thinking, well, just you know, leave it four five,
six seven eight feet tall. It wouldn't hit the house.
But how long before it starts decomposing?

Speaker 3 (01:44:11):
Well, you know, I like I say, there's probably some
areas inside that already have some decomposition going on. But
you're going to get you're going to get a number
of years before you have to worry about that, especially
as low as you're cutting it off eight feet even
that you're okay there and if you want that effect.

Speaker 4 (01:44:30):
Then go for it.

Speaker 13 (01:44:33):
Okay, great, Yeah, electrician may even put some lighting on
it for me, so you know it could be really
pretty Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:44:42):
Well, thanks, it's not dead currently, right, No, No, it's not.

Speaker 13 (01:44:48):
There's been some dead limbs. In fact, affordable came about
fifteen years ago because I had a dead limb and stuff.
But you know, it's beautiful.

Speaker 12 (01:44:59):
I love.

Speaker 13 (01:45:00):
The squirrels run up and down it and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:45:04):
So the reason I ask that, the reason I asked
that penla is because it's going to probably try to
re sprout if it's a living trunk, and you probably
don't want that to happen. So you may have when
they cut the trunk off, you may have them treat
the cut surface right away. I mean cut it off
and within the hour, treat that cut surface with a

(01:45:26):
product that kills brush or poison ivy. It contains trickle,
and that way that'll help go ahead and make sure
it doesn't resprout, because then you got branches trying to
grow and they're not going to be firmly attached. And
so that would be my.

Speaker 8 (01:45:41):
Okay to the tree.

Speaker 13 (01:45:43):
About twenty two years ago, I took a maple tree
down on the other side of the property and I
have lots of maple trees now and I love it
my backyard. Everyone goes, it's it's cooler back here. Well, yeah,
it's fifteen grease cooler. I googled it, yeah, and it's

(01:46:04):
really nice. And I realized they can't fall and hurt
my house. All these other trees. It's it's like having
the green belt in my backyard.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
All right, I got I got to run to another
couple of good luck with that. Sounds like you got
a plane go in there. Let's uh, let's head out
to Butcher, Texas and talk to Peter.

Speaker 1 (01:46:26):
Peter.

Speaker 3 (01:46:26):
Where is butcher Texas?

Speaker 4 (01:46:29):
It's Brookshire, b r Okay, Brookshire?

Speaker 7 (01:46:34):
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:46:38):
Call?

Speaker 5 (01:46:40):
I have two questions.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
Is it okay to take fresh grass clippings and put
them around the base of my fruit trees.

Speaker 9 (01:46:48):
It's kind of compost while it's still green.

Speaker 3 (01:46:52):
And then I'll ask my second question.

Speaker 6 (01:46:53):
If you answer that, yes, uh.

Speaker 3 (01:46:57):
Number one, if you treat your lawn with broad leaf
weed killers, I wouldn't use those clippings for mulching, for
composting whatever. You're just transferring things over probably wouldn't be
a problem, but I wouldn't do that. If you're not
treating your lawn with broad leaf or products, then yes.
If you put them thicker than about an inch at
a time, they kind of get gooey nasty under there.

(01:47:21):
You know, they're all nitrogen and they decomposing and it
just kind of makes a i don't know, not a
very nice thing. So don't put them too deep. Put
them a little bit, let them drive for a day,
put some more, let it drive for a day. And
that's how I would go about it. I wouldn't put
like five inches of grass clipping through it.

Speaker 4 (01:47:40):
Oh great.

Speaker 7 (01:47:40):
And another quick question is I've got a couple of fruit.

Speaker 9 (01:47:44):
Trees that planted in the spring and getting kind of gayly.

Speaker 4 (01:47:47):
Dedicate to they need to cut a foot off of them.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
You know I wouldn't do it now. Well, it would
be okay to cut a foot off now, but we're
getting late and this is a time when they're setting
buds on the new growth, and so cutting now the
regrowth you're going to get is not going to have
time to set fruit buds for next year. So you know,

(01:48:13):
you kind of caught me on the line here. If
we were back in June, yes, if we're in September,
definitely know and so you can go either way. But
just realize that they are from now in the next
couple of months setting buds, and they wouldn't have time
to grow wood shoots that could set buds for next

(01:48:35):
year if you cut them now.

Speaker 7 (01:48:38):
Okay, I appreciate that.

Speaker 9 (01:48:39):
Guys, Thank you, sir, you bet you bet, Thanks a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:48:42):
Good luck with that all we ask is that you
bring us half the fruit that you get off those trees.
As Penman for free advice. Peter, take care. Hi folks,
you're listening to the Garden Line. We're about to take
a break for the top of the a one more
hour this weekend. So if you'd like to call in
seven one three two one two k t R, here's

(01:49:05):
your warning. Get call Chris, get on the board. You
can be some of the first ones up when you
come back. Appreciate you guys listening. Just remember that I've
got the website where I continue to put things that
I think you would be interested in, and that coming
up is going to be a publication on controlling nuts
edge and a publication on building your own weed wiper.

(01:49:28):
It's a really cool deal. You're going to see on
Monday or Tuesday. We should have them up by then.
Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):
Gardening with Skip necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H
Garden Line with Skip Richard.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
Just watch him as man, they've got things to see.

Speaker 3 (01:50:01):
Things well, Hello and welcome to Garden Line. We're good.
We're glad to have you back. We always enjoy getting
to visit with you about the things that are of
interest to you, about the questions that you might have,
and you can give me a call at seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. This is

(01:50:22):
our last hour. So if you're interested in asking a
question or talking about something, now would be the time.

Speaker 7 (01:50:28):
To do it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:29):
You hear me talk about ACE Hardware, and I tell
you all the time, there's forty Ace Hardware's in the
Greater Houston area. Let's just say that's a lot. There's
plenty of them around. There's gonna be one near you.
And all you have to do is go to Acehardware
dot com and find the store locator and it'll give
you this nice little map with the red dots all

(01:50:51):
over the place. You can find the ones that are
closest to you, because you know, when you go to ACE,
you're gonna find everything you need for your lawn and
for your garden. Now that we've had rain, firing are
starting to show up. I found two mounds in my yard.
I didn't even know there were fireans living in the yard.
And with the rain now I got this soil coming
up to the surface as they build their nest up
higher to get out of the wet, and so it's

(01:51:14):
time to get fire baited out. What else comes with
the rain Mosquitoes? They have mosquito bait skip mosquita dunks
to control the larvae. They've got mosquito rapunts, They've got
fogging machines. Whatever approach you want to take, Ace Hardware's
got it. All the fertilizers you hear me talk about
on guarden Line, they're all there at ACE, as well
as many many more things. By the way, it's summertime,

(01:51:36):
it's barbecue season. You got to check out their selection
of the big Green Egg and Treger and Weber quality
pits with all kinds of accessories that are cool. Anything
you want to make that patio a more inviting, enjoyable place,
You're going to find all that and more at ACE
Hardware stores. I always enjoy going in because you know,

(01:51:58):
ACE Hardware stores are there independently owned, so that means
that each store, the owner can do things a little
bit different. They have all the standard stuff, they got
all the basic ACE stuff that we talk about, but
they may decide to do something a little unusual, maybe
that another store doesn't have, and it's always cool. Stuff.
Was amazed at the way that they put things together

(01:52:22):
with the ACE hardware. By the way I talk about
the birds in the backyard. You know, I used to
not be a birder. I had nothing against birds. I
just was an endo that. And then I went into
a wild Bird's Unlimited store and it was like a
kid in a candy store. I looking around the feeders,
the bird houses, information like books on birds, all of

(01:52:46):
the equipment you need for hanging of feeders, and they
just have some technologies that are amazing for like a
Purple Martin house. You know, the telescoping poles and the
removable sections make it easy to clean and stuff you
go into you didn't even know that was a question
you had. And then you go into ACE and you
learn about it.

Speaker 5 (01:53:04):
ACE.

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
I still talk about ACE wah Birds Unlimited and you
learn about it. But a huge reason to go in
there is the feeds. Quality feed. You can buy cheap
bird feed and it'll have typically over fifty percent of
those little red bebies that birds don't eat. That little
Milo in there, the Milo that is not getting a

(01:53:28):
good deal on feed. If you go and buy a
quality feed for MACE, you get stuff that birds eat,
and they have blends for different kinds of birds. They
have blends for different seasons of the year. Now's the
time for nesting. Super blend. It's got protein and calcium.
It's made out of this sounds good to me. Most
of it sunflower chips, peanuts, dried mealworms. I'm going to

(01:53:49):
be out on that one. Bark butter bits, half flower
tree nuts. It is good, high protein stuff. You know,
when birds are having young and when birds are molting
and other things, they need a good quality feed at
all stages of their life. Wabirds unlimited carries just that
right now. I would suggest you consider seed cylinders. That

(01:54:10):
is a packed cylinder of seed. It's like one of
those little candles you put on, you know, a little
five inch six inch high candles. They come in different sizes,
the bird cylinders, but they're packed in so you stick
it up there you go on vacation. When you come back,
the birds are still getting fed. It's not like, hey,
where are you? Why didn't you fill the feeders? And

(01:54:30):
it's also good because it takes somewhere a little bit
to kind of peck it loose from that cylinder, so
they hang around a little bit longer you get to
enjoy them and watch them a little bit more. All
wabirds Unlimited stuff. Hey, while Birds Unlimited. Here's the website
WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot Com forward

(01:54:52):
Slash Houston that will show you the six while Birds
Unlimited stores that are near you. When we've got a
little break here in the cause that it gives me
the opportunity to talk about some things that I think
are timely and interesting and hopefully that you would be
interested in. I was talking earlier about the importance of

(01:55:15):
building soil. Now it's always a good there's never a
month of the year that's not a good time to
build and improve and prepare soil. You can go about
that different ways, but now is an important time because
fall is coming, and there is not a better time
of the year to plant trees, woody shrubs, woody vines

(01:55:37):
than the fall. There's not a better time to plant
perennial whether it's perennial herbs, perennial flowers, than the fall.
The fall gives plants all the winter season until spring
growth starts up again. To get a root system established,
that is a big head start and it makes a
difference on how much little daily tilc you're having to

(01:56:00):
give a plant. If you put it in now, it's fine,
you can keep it going, but you got to take
care of it because it's using a lot of water
every day the day after it's planted, and in the
fall planting you get even more time though, and so
it's also an economical time to plant. And let me
explain it this way. If you were to buy, let's

(01:56:23):
say there's a plant, like a particular salvia that you wanted,
and if you were to see it in a four
inch pot and maybe in a one gallon pot, well,
the price difference is huge between those two. If you
were to put the four inch pot of that salvia
in this fall, and you were to wait and then
in late spring put the gallon pot in number one,

(01:56:44):
it would costs more money at that time. But then
you go to mid or late summer and you look
at those two plants and you almost can't tell them apart.
So it's in a sense, if you want to save
your gardening dollar, falls a good planting time for that
reason as well. And I could go on and on.
There's a lot of reasons why you want a plant
in the fall, but just get it done. And if

(01:57:05):
you're going to be able to plant in the fall,
you've got to have the soil ready because when fall
comes typically we got rainy weather coming in, maybe the
end of the hurricane season in September, and there's always
coal fronts coming in bringing rain with them. Why not
make hay well the sunshines, why not prepare your soil
while you can right now? You can go buy it

(01:57:26):
by the bag, you can have it delivered. We got
some great suppliers that a our sponsorshare on garden Line
that I believe in the product they make. They make
good products and because of that, you get that in.
You do it right now, and when it comes time
to plant, you're ready to go. It doesn't matter what
the weather is, You're ready to go because you did

(01:57:47):
it ahead of time. So I can't stress enough the
importance of soil prep now and fall planting really really important.
Our phone number if you would like to give a
skull seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
I'm gonna take a break when we come back. Go
ahead and call now, give Chris a call, get on

(01:58:09):
the boards and you'll beat the first few up. When
we come back. Three two one two KTRH is a
phone number. We are entering our last couple of segments
here on garden Line. And so if you have a
question for this weekend, you want to don't want to
wait till next weekend on now would be a good
time to give us a call and we can take
care of that. Uh, when was the last time that
you were out in Channe Forest out in the Richmond

(01:58:31):
Rosenberg area. That's a garden center. That is if you're
heading from Richmond towards sugar Land heading up fifty nine,
it's off to the right on FM twenty seven fifty
nine FM twenty seven to fifty nine now and Chenna
Forest is always a good place to go visit because
every month of the year there's something going on there.

(01:58:51):
Right now, there's selection of fall vegetables outstanding. They got
to mate it transplants. They got cucumbers of writing called
homemade pickles. Was like pickles yourself. It's not hard to do.
You gotta try that that patty pin squash, yellow straight
and egg. They even have pumpkins small sugar pumpkin transplants,
so you can get those things in and grow you
some pumpkins as well. One thing that is really impressive

(01:59:14):
to me is the hanging baskets that they have right now.
Beautiful hanging baskets, the begonias, the angel wing begonias. Uh,
just so many night blooming serrus fern hanging baskets. Boy,
all of those plants love the weather we're having and
they will thrive right then. They've got an excellent collection

(01:59:35):
of blooming cacti as well. One of my favorite native
plants is Lendheimer gara. Sometimes it's called butterfly. There's a
variety of it called whirling butterflies because these little wary
stems with white to pink flowers on top. They kind
of move in the wind, so it almost looks like
a bunch of butterflies or fluttering above the above the plant.

(01:59:58):
It is an ex one to have around. They have
good cool things for bling in your garden at enchanted
forest as well, wind chimes, really nice wind chimes, and
some very unusual things. Gives a neighbor something to talk
about as well as you as a cool rain gage
is just you have to go see these things that
I'm talking about, because when you see them, you'll realize

(02:00:22):
why I think This is really cool stuff. Shrubs and trees. Remember,
fall is the time to plant. They have an outstanding selection.
Maybe you lost a southern magnolia during the incredibly hot
dry weather we had last summer. A number of people
lost their magnolias. They got to restock. You can get

(02:00:43):
in there. You can get you some good ones and
keep going, as well as many many other types of
falls and trees. Earlier, I was bragging about my turk's
cap that is a bulletproof plant in the backyard. Attracts hummingbirds.
Just just cool native. By the way, they've got those
at enchants, so, in other words, they got everything there

(02:01:03):
FM twenty seven to fifty nine, Richmond, Texas. It's easy
to get to go and check out the website. I
really enjoy visiting with the folks that are there. You're
going to find when you go, the Danny and Clay
and the whole team. They know what they're talking about.
It is a very very helpful group of people. The
web is enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond,

(02:01:30):
TX dot com. All right, we are, let's see, I
want to talk about a couple of other things. By
the way, I want to give you the phone number
again seven one three two one two k t r
H seven one three two one two kt r H.
I have not talked about much about vegetable gardening, and

(02:01:52):
I want to do that. We're in the season now.
And by the way, you may have a vegetable garden,
or you may be a person who goes, I don't
have room for a vegetable garden. Well, I would say
almost everybody has room to grow vegetables. You can. I mean,
if you want to go down to the bottom line,
a five gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom,

(02:02:12):
filled with a quality mix will grow you pepper plants
for fall, and egg plants and squashes and other things.
You can get some beautiful containers that you would love
to have on your patio to grow vegetables in. You
can get a bed, a raised bed that you sat
on the ground, on top of the ground, filled up
with good mix and grow vegetables. So it's always a

(02:02:34):
good time to prepare to purchase the containers, that purchase
the planting beds, to purchase a swell and get ready
for it, because now's the time. Listen, tomatoes take a
while to go from planting to harvest, and fall is coming.
I know it's hard to imagine cool weather right now
this week, but it's coming, and you need your plants

(02:02:54):
to grow bloom set fruit in the milder days of
fall so that you can enjoy that in the fall.
Now's a good time for cucumbers to go. When we
get a little further along into especially into September or
even early October, then all the cool season crops that
we begin to plant, like the blue leaf vegetables, the
coal crops, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, colabie, collareds, and kale. Brussels

(02:03:20):
sprout to be another one to go in. Then cools
off a little bit more. We're talking about lettuce, and
we're talking about carrots, and we're talking about spinach and
other cool season greens like rocket roquette or rocket arugulus
another name for it. Those can all go in and
you can enjoy all of that and that creates really
healthy food for salads, for cooking, for all kinds of things.

(02:03:43):
So now's the time to be busy with those kind
of things. Herb planting. Herbs can be planted now. If
you're perennial herbs and you want to wait and do
them in the fall. You can, but there's no reason
why you can't put them out right now if you
give them a little bit of water to help them
have success. Most herbs need lots of sunlight, lots of
sunlight to do their best. That's one reason why I

(02:04:05):
like to put them in containers. In fact, I don't
have an herb garden. I will plant herbs in my
gardens at the end of a vegetable rope. I like
to put a regano or a rosemary bush, or chives
or something like that. Basil is a good one to
plant at the end of a vegetable row, or I'll
put them in containers. Containers are versatile. I've got a

(02:04:26):
big container out front that is waiting for me to
put a rosemary in it. Right now. There's a beautiful
glazed pottery container just just attractive in front. And I
just say this, that rosemary bush in there is going
to do well because it drains well and yet it
has enough soil to support it. So don't let not
having a garden stop you from gardening. No reason for

(02:04:49):
that at all. We can have very good success and
growing all kinds of things. You may be dealing, or
you may have dealt with bugs in your lawn that
were doing damage to your lawn in the past. Last
year I had the worst case of chinchbugs I've ever had.
In fact, I've never had to treat for chinchbugs in

(02:05:11):
my lawn. I just never have. I don't know. I
guess I got lucky, but not last year. Boy, they
came and I mean it was like a Sherman marching
through Georgia.

Speaker 12 (02:05:22):
It was.

Speaker 3 (02:05:24):
They left the path of destruction all the way across
the yard. I was gone, didn't see it happening. And
then when I came back, at first I didn't know
what it was because I went I just needed to
be watered because our water system had gone off, and
that was a big part of it.

Speaker 7 (02:05:38):
Well.

Speaker 3 (02:05:38):
Nitro Fuss bug out Max is an insecticide you put
out by a granule in your lawn. Follow the label
as always carefully, and if you've got ants crawling around
in the thatch area, it will kill them. It dissolves
off the granules when it gets either rain or irrigation
to water it in fleas hiding in the thatch. Yes,
fleas grow up that thatch also outside. That's part of

(02:06:02):
the cycle. Breaking the cycle on your dogs and cats
is you do things to your dog to control fleas,
but you also do things to your yards so the
flea the fleas never have a chance to get going. Chinchbugs,
we are in big time chinchbug season. If they're going
to have a big year this year, now and the
next month is when we will see a lot of

(02:06:25):
This is a coming month, all the month of August,
even early September. We should be seeing those putting out
bug out max now rather than waiting until they're all
your grass is all dead from chinchbugs. It's not a
bad idea, right. So if you've got side web worms,
they're going to show up this year. Late summer falls
early fall is the time that we see them. Nitro
Fuss bug out Max is widely available, Like nitrofuss products

(02:06:48):
all are. You're going to find it at places like
for example, Kingwood Ace Hardware store or the hardware up
in Tascasda, the hardware there, the Arbrigade up in Tomball
and Shades of Texas on Genoa, Redbuff down at Southeaston
are all places you can find nitrophos products like their
bugout Max. Let me give you a number again. We're

(02:07:13):
going to head to a call here in just a second,
but if you'd like to give us a call before
we wind up the show today, it's seven one three
two one two kt RHS. I think now I'm going
to head out to sugar Land and talk to Fred. Hey, Fred,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (02:07:29):
Good morning, Skip. I'm gonna bother you again this weekend. Well,
I think your picture of some by Burnham plants. They're
on the north side of the house. Although they do
get afternoon sun. With the sun the where it is
through the summer months, and we have severe rusting or
browning of leaves are all curling up and dying.

Speaker 2 (02:07:49):
Now.

Speaker 12 (02:07:49):
The plant did have white flies, and it does on
these leaves. We do see some white flies now. But
are you noticing fungus occurring now this time? After all
the rain well on.

Speaker 3 (02:08:02):
Some plants, but you're by Burnham. That is not a fungus.
I need to take a break and I have to
hit a a quiential break. Let me come back to you, Fred,
and we will finish this discussion. Thanks a lot, We'll
be right back. We are happy to visit about all
kinds of things related to gardening. The number is seven
one three two one two K.

Speaker 10 (02:08:24):
T R H.

Speaker 3 (02:08:24):
If you'd like to give us a call. We're going
to head back out here now and talk to Fred
again in Sugarland. Fred, I've looked at those pictures, and
that is not a disease.

Speaker 1 (02:08:34):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:08:34):
It looks to me like sunshine is making exacerbating or
making that symptom worse.

Speaker 12 (02:08:42):
If you look at that little we thought maybe because
the sun really hits on their hoard like in July
and August, and maybe it's sunburn or something. Yeah, it's
not on the side next to the house where the
sun doesn't get so much. It doesn't seem to be
as pulmon dis is on the outside there where the
sun where I took that picture it is.

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
And I see, I see a leaf in the picture,
and I look for this a lot when it comes
to wondering if it's sun The leaf may start off flat,
like the sun just shines directly at a right angle
right on the leaf, and then the leaf crawls down
and the curl down part doesn't have the burn on it,
just the part that is, you know, most being directly
hit by the sun. So I think that's it now

(02:09:24):
by burnum should be able to grow without getting sun
scaled everywhere. So it could also be that the soil
moisture is a little in the short side there. It
could also be that maybe mites or you mentioned white flies.
I don't think this is white flies causing this, but
something else may be making it a little more prone
to the burn than it normally would be. But I

(02:09:47):
think it is a sun related thing, which is actually
good news because you can print that out and get
fresh new growth.

Speaker 12 (02:09:54):
So just print it out and then let it go.
The white flies. We did have white flies on it.
I spray twice with a spectrocide and secticide. Seemed like
I got them under control, and all of a sudden,
this has just happened in the last week. So should
I continue to spray for the white flies.

Speaker 3 (02:10:11):
I would hold off and wait and see what it's
gonna what it's going to do. I'm not a big
proponent of spraying for white flies. I know that there's
times that we have to, but white flies have natural enemies,
and what I've found is that when you spray, you
kill some white flies, you definitely kill the natural enemies,
and then you're left with a worse. White fight problem

(02:10:32):
sometimes interesting. Just uh, just be a little careful with that.
If you start experiencing that, well that is what's going on.
But I think this is sun I'd leave it for now,
and then as we get into maybe a few weeks
from now, just if it hasn't gotten much worse, just
go and print that stuff out.

Speaker 12 (02:10:51):
Okay, thank you, sir.

Speaker 7 (02:10:53):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (02:10:55):
Thanks for appreciate your appreciate your call a lot. Bye
bye our phone number seven to one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two kt r H. I have been working on a
couple of publications three actually, but I'm going to put online.

(02:11:17):
Two of them are on nutsedge, and one of them
is on a tool that you can make yourself to
wipe products on leaves of plants that you need to kill,
but you don't want to get the product on nearby
plants that you don't want to kill, you know. So
for example, uh, you got nutsedge coming up under your roses,

(02:11:37):
you know, do you how do you get something on
there without getting it on the rose. Also, you've got
a particular weed, maybe it's a you got a nice
mode lawn, but here comes up above the lawn nut
sedge or some other weed. There's a wiper that you
can build, and I've got the plans of it almost
finished that are about to go up this week early
this week that you'll find on my website Gardening with

(02:12:00):
Skip dot com. Now, the nut sedge publication, that one
has been a long time coming. I know that we
you know, we think in terms of I have nutsedge,
I spray it, that it goes away, that's it. Well,
those of you who have fought nutsedge know that it
is not that simple. You're pulling it, you're chopping it,
you're spraying it, and then you look and it's like

(02:12:23):
I just made it worse. Well, there are principles to
what's going on with nutsedge that you can deal with.
First of all, you got to know which kind you have,
purple or yellow. It matters because there are products that
will do a good job on purple nutsedge, but not
on yellow nut seedge. They when it comes to yellow,
for example, you know, don't worry about remembering all this,

(02:12:44):
it's all in the publication. When it comes to yellow,
wet spots are especially prone to proliferation of yellow nutsedge,
and the reason is on a nuts edge nut or
it's actually a tuber. They're in the skin. There are
inhibiting chemicals that prevent the buds from growing. Because there
are like seven eight, there can be as many as

(02:13:08):
ten or more buds on that one nutsedge stubord. That's
why when it grows the shoot and you chop it
off with the hoe, it laughs and grows another shoot
and you chop that off with a hoe. It's got
seven or eight or more of them on there. It
can do that. And so what we have to do
is that when we get things wet, that inhibitor is

(02:13:29):
washed off the surface and buds are set free to
just grow, send out shoots, and you get a much
faster proliferation of yellow nutsedge and wet areas. So what's
the first step in yellow nutsedge control? Dry out the soil,
don't keep it soggy wet all the time. That doesn't
kill it, but it keeps one nuts edge plant for

(02:13:50):
becoming hundreds of nutsedge plants. And yes, that is possible.
Just to let you know what you're up against when
it comes to nutsedge. I've been doing research on this
for a good while, looking at a lot of different
research that are out there. Its reproductive ability is incredible.
I mean it is just its ability to take one

(02:14:13):
tuber and make more. For example, there was a study
up in Minnesota. I know this is nerdy stuff, but
hang with me. I think you'll find it interesting. There
was a study up in Minnesota, and can I just
tell you that Minnesota is a cooler place in Texas
and has a shorter warm season than Texas. A single
nutsedge tuber was put out in Minnesota. This was a

(02:14:33):
trial where they're looking at its reproductive ability by fall
from one tuber. There were six thousand, nine hundred tubers
and in the spring they nineteen hundred, one thousand, nine
hundred daughter plants came because one tuber was allowed to

(02:14:54):
grow until the following year. That's why it's such a
problem of control, and that's why controlling it needs to
be timely and the principles are all in this publication.
It's more than you want. It's three pages, but I
think if you really want to understand what's going on,

(02:15:15):
remember how we said there's no brown thumbs, there's uninformed thumbs.
When it comes to the nuts said, you need to
inform that thumb about this one it's going to have
a one page version for those of you who are
just like I don't care about all that. I don't
care that the Egyptian mummies took it in their tombs
in the pyramids so they could eat it in the afterlife.
Yes that happened. Give me a break anyway, you don't

(02:15:38):
care about that. You just want to know what Osbury?
How do I kill it? Now? Okay, there's a one
pager for those of you who are in that case.
So those are going to be up as well as
the weed Wiper publication. Just watch for them. I'll let
you know next weekend again. But in the meantime, if
you're curious you want to get the head start early
this week, those will be up online where you can
do something with them. Well, you are listening to Guardline.

(02:15:59):
Normally we get toward the end of a show and
now everybody starts calling in. Today is about the only
time I ever remember it being the very opposite where
it actually gets quiet towards the end. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two k t r H.
I want to take a break. I'll be back for
our last few minutes, our last segment. We've got a

(02:16:20):
few minutes here left seven one three two one two
k t R h seven to one three two to
one two kt r h.

Speaker 13 (02:16:30):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:16:31):
The fall season is up, is coming soon, and now's
the time that we got to get some things done
in order to enjoy that fall season. And I've talked
about soul prep today. I've talked about a number of
different things. I just want to remind you that when
when it comes to success in the fall, it's about
starting things earlier or ahead of time and being ready

(02:16:54):
to go when fall arrives. I used to know a
gardener up in Conrod, Texas. His name was mister Alden Colston.
He was ninety two years old and he was a character,
which I think you're allowed to be at ninety two
years old. He you know those baskets that sometimes you
buy like a houseplant, maybe you're having it given to

(02:17:15):
somebody in the hospital, and it's like a houseplant, but
it comes in this like a basket, a woven basket
that comes up around the pot and then kind of
flares out, you know what I'm talking about. He wore
those as hats. He had one of those. It was
ridiculous looking, but that was Alden and he was a
hoot too. He told me something that is stuck with

(02:17:35):
me now for decades since then, and that is you
can always add water, but you can't take it away.
And what does that mean. Well, what he was saying was,
you know, when if something is if the souls dry,
you can add water to it. But when the soul's wet,
you got wet soil, and you gotta wait. You gotta
wait for it to dry out and drain away. And
that was good advice. And he did all his garden

(02:17:57):
preps in the season before you know, whether if it
was spring gardening, he was going to be doing anytime
he could get a little bit of a dry period
in the fall or winter, which is harder to find
in the winter sometimes, but he would get the soaprep
done and as a result, let's just say, that's the
wisdom that comes with age, and he certainly had that
kind of wisdom as well. But that was a community

(02:18:21):
garden that was really interesting. They had a shed in
the middle that kind of was a little pavilion area
with tables and stuff, and we called it the loafers
lounge because people would just go sit there all day
and visit and you know the important things about gardening,
relaxing and lying about what you grew last year. And

(02:18:42):
your tomato gets bigger every time you tell the story.
You know, that kind of thing. That's what went on
in the loafers lounge at the Community Garden up at Conrod, Texas,
outside Montgomery County. I want to talk about a couple
of things before we go away today about fruit trees.
Fruit trees are wonderful to have in the garden and landscape.

(02:19:05):
You know, if you have property and you can put
a little orchard in, that's great. If you don't, you
can include fruit trees in your landscape. I had a
landscape when I lived in Conro, Texas that was had
beautiful beds in the back, and I had a peach tree,
one peach tree that was just part of the landscape.

(02:19:25):
And just because it's edible doesn't mean it's not ornamental. Peaches,
beautiful flowers in the spring, and there's even a variety.
It's a little bit on the higher chill side for
those of you way down south easton, but it's called
red barren, and red Barren has beautiful red blooms and
a quality edible fruit. Some of the ornamental peaches like peppermint.

(02:19:46):
The fruit isn't It's not worth planting that for the fruit,
so I would just plant a regular peach tree. You
do need excellent drainage when you do fruit trees. So
if you want to plant fruit this fall or this
winter or next spring, you got to get those beds
raised up. If it's just something in the yard, you
can create a raised mound like a pitcher's mound, but

(02:20:08):
you get it up high enough to get those roots
up out of the water. If you want to box
it in, you can box it in with whatever kind
of things. I'm planning some fruit trees this fall in
a little low, not very high sided bigo bed that
big sections. The soil in that area is not well drained,
and so I'm raising them up in those sections and

(02:20:30):
getting a bed to kind of help them out and
get them going. That's important. Sunlight is critical. Sunlight makes carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates make sweet fruit, and so if you're going to
grow fruit, you need sunshine. Strawberries, blackberries, peaches, apples, pears,
per simmons, the Rodney danger Field of the fruit world.
Per simmons are wonderful. They ought to get more respect.

(02:20:54):
It's a really cool fruit. It's ornamental. It grows in
a season when most other things are not fruit than
ceterrius and maybe pecon nuts. But percentage are great. Good
sunlight is critical for success. There are a couple of
fruit that put up with a little bit of shade.
They don't like it, but they do okay with a
little bit of shade. Citrus is that way. A lot

(02:21:16):
of as citruses can take a light shade and do okay.
I found that figs do okay when they're not in
the full brunt of the sun. But sun is better
than not, so that is important. You want to pick
varieties that want to grow here. And our good garden
centers are mom and pops, the independent garden centers. They

(02:21:36):
are not going to sell you something that doesn't grow here.
They're going to say the things that are successful. So
first of all, go there. I was in a big
box store and looking at fruit last late winter, and
there were four or five things that absolutely will not
survive here. It's a complete waste of money. Thompson seedless grapes,

(02:21:58):
concord grapes and be grown here. Black raspberries were for sale.
High bush blueberries not southern high bush, but high bush blueberries.
They don't, they're not for here. There was something else,
yellow raspberries was another one. I don't know. I couldn't
remember it all. I just took pictures of it all
so when I give a talk, I can put it

(02:22:19):
up there and go see. This is why I tell
you go buy stuff from a place that you know
you can trust. But picking varieties that want to grow here.
Some fruit like per simmons and peaches being examples, and
figs don't need two varieties to cross pollinate. Some fruit do,
apples and pear. Most pears do better, and most plums

(02:22:42):
will do better with pollination. There's a couple of self
fruitful plums and some that aren't. You can find out.
You can go to the Aggi Horticulture website. It's Aggie
hyphen Horticulture dot t A m U dot edu, Aggi
hortic Just remember Aggi Horticulture and go search it front page.
There's a fruit and not button. Click on it. There's
a publication on every fruit you want to grow here,
including avocados. Publicational avocados on there. Read about them and

(02:23:06):
learn so that if you're gonna plant fruit you know,
to plan a Let's say you plant an apple and
three years down the line starts to bloom really good
and no fruit. Four years no fruit, and then you
find out, oh I needed two varieties. Well that's a
sad situation. Find out ahead of time what varieties need
pollinators and which ones don't. And find out ahead of

(02:23:28):
time what varieties are there that will thrive well here.
And when you're out and about this weekend, pick up
some medina. Has to Grow, by the way, has to
Grow is an outstanding product. Cooks up to a garden hose.
You spray your laun with it. You can spray your
vegetable gardens too, by the way. It's a sixteen zero two.
It's got humus and a humic acid, and it's got molasses.

(02:23:52):
It's got a keylated form of iron and citrus extract,
and that's sixteen percent nitrogen, two percent potassium. Part of
that nitrogen is even slow release. It works well, it's easy,
covers what four thousand square feet and do it in
ten minutes. You can't beat that. You know, has to
go super grow spot particularly well, maybe we'll talk more

(02:24:14):
about fruit trees when we get to the next oh
one thing. I forgot to mention. A lot of fruit
trees need the right chilling hours. When they go into
winter and are dormant, the buds can't grow because they're
chemically inhibited. When you have hours in the forty forty
five maybe throw down to thirty five range, those are
chilling hours, not cold or not hotter, and they break

(02:24:36):
down the inhibitor so when warm weather comes they can
come out in spring. So if you get a fruit
that is too low in chilling hours, it starts booming
in February or January because it thinks it's spring Time's done.
I've had my hours. If you get one that's too high,
we're in May waiting for the thing to wake up
and start pushing out blakes. Not a good situation.