Its Okay To Let Plants Die

Its Okay To Let Plants Die

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line. With skip rictor you.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Need about the.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Gas, we can use trim just watching as whirl gos
gassies and gas and that as so many good thanks
to supers in the bad bending the bassies like gas
and again you day almost grubles back taking the thing

(00:29):
out a sound, the glasses like gas.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Sun beam and down. Treating the gasses and gas.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
First, starting treating the gases like gas became you did.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Every thing is so see and never dare Sunday.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
All right, good morning, folks, welcome to garden Line. Good
to be back with you this morning. We got plenty
of things to talk about today, primarily your questions. If
you've got a question about gardening that I can assist
you with, give me a call seven to one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three

(01:19):
two one two five eight seven four be glad to
help with all of those kinds of questions. We spend
a lot of time yesterday talking about lawns specifically some
take all root right issues, and I suspect we'll do
some of that today as well. It sure has been
a big year for it. You know, anytime a grass

(01:40):
gets stressed, opportunities arise for diseases. It's kind of like
our bodies. The weaker we get, the more likely we
are to succumb to some type of a disease, get sick.
In other words. I I was thinking about that the
other day, and you know it. It just we all

(02:00):
been told these things.

Speaker 5 (02:01):
We know.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I mean, we know that if we get take good
care of ourselves and rest and eat right and get
plenty of sleep and all that kind of thing, we're
more resilient. So the same is true with plants and
the lawns. We have several diseases that just you just
don't see them until a plant is weak. And one

(02:22):
of them is take all root rot on grass. It's
in your grass right now, by the way, that that organism,
the disease itself is out there. But it's just not
it's not taking the grass down the grass. Let's just
say it hasn't hit a point of the grass being
weak enough to give it the opportunity. But when it is,
that's what happens. That's why I take all shows up

(02:44):
so much, especially in summertime. We got drought, and I
talk to you about not using broad leaf weed killers
post emergant weed killers in your lawn when it's blazing hot, well,
not even blazing when it's ninety degrees or above, because
the stress is a lawn, and a stress lawn is
more likely to get sick compactions. Another reason. Drought is

(03:06):
another reason. Maybe your irrigation system, maybe you're using it,
but its coverage is very uneven. I just did some
work on mine yesterday, trying to even things out. Typically,
our sprinkler systems are not super super efficient. They're not
and we water enough to keep the driest part green,

(03:26):
and so we end up wasting water on parts that
are already getting enough. We have to water more because
we're trying to get enough to those areas that our
inefficient systems just aren't covering well well. That drought symptoms
can or drought stress can bring on the take all
as well. So anyway, just some things we have to
deal with. Another good example of that is a disease

(03:49):
called hypoxylin canker, and you don't see it just everywhere.
Those listeners who are kind of a little bit north
of the Houston area and have a lot of post oaks.
We have a post oak belt that goes through Texas
and it comes down through you know, College Station area,
down all the way to Yokum and Quero and down
through there. I mean, it's a wide band lots of

(04:10):
post oaks, and they are very prone to stress related diseases,
and hypoxylin canker is one of those. And it's in
the trees. I talked to a State Texas and I
plant pathologist many many years ago, and he was saying
you could go out in the forest and find it
in any tree that's there. Pretty much it exists in
the tree. Tree gets weak, it takes over, and it

(04:32):
kills the tree, just flat kills the tree. Bark falls off.
You're left with the silvery underneath the bark or just
kind of an olive, dusty drab colors the bark falls off.
And I saw this actually happen one time when I
was actually living over in the Austin area east of
the Austin area, and there was a post oak and
the renger put a pin around it to pin up

(04:54):
his goats. And it was a fairly small pin area
around this tree. And so the goats are stomping the ground,
they are compacting the soil and post oaks don't like
you to do anything to the soil around them, including
put grass on them and start over watering it. But anyway,
within a year, that tree just completely died from hypoxylin canker.

(05:18):
Now do goats carry a hypoxylin caker No, of course not,
they don't. But that soil compaction and whatever else was
involved in the goats being there, it just stressed the
tree and it took over. And I see that a lot.
So anyway, just be aware of this that when we
keep our plants in good health, they're gonna be more resilient.

(05:40):
Doesn't mean you'll never get a disease, just like if
you work out and sleep and eat right and everything
doesn't mean you're not gonna get sick. It just means
you're gonna get sick less. And there's some things you
probably won't get sick with because of that. So something
to think about there when we start talking about diseases. People. Yeah,

(06:01):
some gardeners in general are just yes, this is a monologue.
I'm having fun. I hope it's helpful for you. Some
gardeners just look at problems is things that have to
be sprayed to fix. And we do have sprays. We
have spray that prevents weeds. We have spray that kills weeds.
We have spray that kills pest, spray that kills diseases,

(06:23):
and so on. But when you look at it like
you versus the plant problem, and you've got the wand
in your hand, you know, like the old West, you
got your six shooter, that's not a good way to
look at plant problems. The best way to look at
plant problems is number one, first and foremost, what does

(06:45):
a plant need to stay healthy? And let's provide it that. Now,
will you still have a weed pop up? Yes, Diseases, yes,
some insects could be. But if we only depend on
spraying to control everything, I don't care if you're if
it's organic or synthetic. If you only depend on spraying,

(07:05):
you're not doing it right. And by the way, that
is not an organic approach to only spray, even if
you're using organic sprays. Organics is all about healthy plants
and maintaining healthy plants. So anyway, bottom line on all
this is keep your plants as healthy as you can,
and then you find yourself having to do much less

(07:28):
of all of the above. Everything on my pest swede
and disease management schedule is what happens, what you have
to do when a plant is not being kept in
a good, healthy state, good care. All right, there you go.
We're going to take a little break here. We'll come
back with your questions in just a moment at seven

(07:48):
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well,
good morning, good Sunday morning, them. Good to have you
with us here on Guarden Line this morning. I was
talking about plant stress before that last segment, and I

(08:14):
I just want to emphasize one more time the importance
of keeping your plants as strong and healthy as you
can and not depending on being on a pesticide treadmill
trying to fight everything. It just is so much better.
And here's here's another reason for that. Pesticides do their work,

(08:36):
but they several of them, A number of them can
have effects on plants that we would rather not have
if we didn't have to. There are a number of
fungicides that have growth regulator effects on plants. And so
that I'm not just you know, saying like you use
a fundicide and your plant's going to die. I'm just

(08:57):
saying that it's a it's something you'd rather it's almost
not to this extreme, but it's almost like a chemotherapy
thing where you've got a disease, you got to get
rid of it, and you're using a medicine that's pretty
hard on the patient, right, And so you would rather
not do that if you didn't have to. But in
that situation, hey, it's it's the thing to do if

(09:19):
you're going to get that disease under control. And that
is true with insects. We have a number of things
that insecticides can do that are not helpful, such as
controlling other insects. I remember in second grade, Missus Ormond,
who was my teacher in second grade. I still remember her.
She walked around singing all the time. She taught us

(09:41):
the poem. I know an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don't know why it's swallowed a fly. I guess
she'll die. I know an old lady who swallowed a
spider to catch the fly, and then she swallowed a
bird to catch I won't make I won't put you
through the whole poem. Then she swallowed a bird to
catch the spider, and it just went on and on
until she swallowed a horse or something. It was ridiculous,

(10:02):
But the point was, you know you first you swallowed
the fly, and that no how you're going to deal
with the fly, Well, you got to get something to
do with the fly. And it's like one thing leads
to another kind of deal. And so when you spray
it in sex that even an organic one. I'm gonna
be clear about this. I'm not stepping into this should
you go organic or should you not in this these statements,

(10:22):
I'm just saying that whether it's organic or whether it's
not organic, it kills stuff and there are secondary effects.
So let me give you a really clear, simple example
that I use all the time just to help people
understand that any pesticide has effects. And so if you
were to use insecticidal soap to kill aphids, I can

(10:45):
think of no pesticide that is safer than soap when
it comes to contact with us. We take baths and soap,
our entire bodies covered with soap and wash it off
and we're fine, right, I mean, it hadn't hurt us,
but inseexcidal soap kills small soft beded insects like aphids

(11:08):
and like spider mites. It's great for that. It also
kills lacewing larva who eat aphids and other things. It
kills let's see what was the other, Oh, beneficial mites
that are helping control spider mites. It kills lady beetle larvae.
And when you have a parasitoid wasp that's put laying

(11:29):
eggs inside aphid. You see those little tan colored aphids,
they got a wasp inside that's going to come out
and continue to control ad If you kill that aphid
with the wasp in side starting to form, you're killing
that beneficial wasp. So even something that is about as
safe as you can possibly get when it comes to pesticides,
has secondary effects. So does that mean don't ever use soap?

(11:50):
Of course not, No, it doesn't. It's a great product
that has many good uses. But if you're out there
looking at a leaf and there's aphids and there's beneficials
on the leaf, the I don't use so because when
you kill a beneficial insect, you inherit its job. That's
how that works. A lady beata larva's gonna eat about
three hundred ephits growing up. That's a lot of aphans

(12:12):
in a lifetime. So you killed that one little larva,
and now you've got three hundred ephens to deal with. Right,
that's the way to think about this. So there's no
such thing as I perfectly say, no secondary effects, and
we would have rather avoid spring. If you're an organic gardener,
if you're a synthetic gardner, you would avoid you would
rather avoid spring as much as you can. That's where

(12:34):
it comes into a lot of good management practices. All right,
let's do this. I'm gonna stop for a second here.
We're gonna go out to Montgomery this morning and visit
with Brett. Hey, Brett, welcome to garden Line. Good morning,
how are you. This morning's good?

Speaker 6 (12:52):
I'm good, Thank you, hey. Following your schedules and seem
to have the same recurring shoe starts about this time
every year. I got a couple of places in the yard.
I gain there a little low and maybe getting over watered.
But I seem to get this little brown patch circles,

(13:15):
you know, in the same places. I don't know whether
to turn my water down or if I need to
treat with something, but it seems to happen right in
the same place. And it just started, I mean about
a week ago.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Okay, is this Saint Augustine. Yes, there it is okay,
And are you said you use the word circles? Are
they really circular like the cool season brown patch we see.

Speaker 6 (13:43):
Yeah, they're they you know, they're not exactly a circle,
but yeah, they're round and you know, maybe a little oblong.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (13:56):
Interesting part is the rest of the yard, you know,
was doing very well. This is in the backyard, and
I've done a lot of work to you know, improve
our drainage and all of that. But I just have
a couple of spots back there that it seems to
start every year about now. And I've tried some treatments

(14:19):
that you've recommended, but I'm wondering. I think maybe those
spots are maybe they're just getting too much water with
the recent rains we've had. Just trying to kind of
figure out a plan to stop it.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, I'm just trying to kind of get a diagnostic
picture here. Do the spots grow in size or do
they appear a certain size and then they don't really
change size much.

Speaker 6 (14:44):
No, they start just like they are now, you know,
two or three foot circles, and they will tend to
expand a little bit in those areas. But I don't
seem to get it any other places.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Okay, very interesting, Well, I think you may be right
about the moisture prone situation that you're dealing with. Bron
patches a disease, without getting too nerdy on it, it's
called rhizoctonia, but there's a lot of different strains of ryzoctonia.
There's one called summer patch that that you can have
even in hot weather. Typical bron patch needs to cool

(15:25):
off more than this for it to show up, but
it is the Riiseoctonias are promoted by wet conditions, longer
periods of wetness, and that's why a lot of times
in our advice on watering, we say water early in
the morning, and then when the water goes off and
the sun comes up, it dries up real quick and

(15:47):
it's not sitting wet all night, you know, for example.
So I think I think your your thing about watering
is a good idea. I would I would water as
deeply and infrequently as you could. So if you're going
to put on an inch of water, don't put on
a quarter inch four times in a week. Put on
one inch one time in a week. You know that
that sort of thing Uh, that would be we're using

(16:08):
the same amount of water. Yeah, okay, good, good glad
this morning.

Speaker 6 (16:12):
And that's the first thing I thought of. I go,
maybe we're just doing it too frequently and we cut
back and you know, just do them once a week
or something.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
So anyway, Yeah, then the disease, just to say, the disease. Folks,
they they tell us, they can tell you for a
particular disease like rose black spot, it needs to stay
a spore on the leaf, needs to stay wet for
x hours at such and such temperature and it sprouts.

(16:46):
I mean, they have it down to that.

Speaker 7 (16:48):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
And and it's all about how long does it stay
wet for diseases, And so yeah, I would, I would.
It's good you read that.

Speaker 5 (16:55):
That.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
That's why I put all that in there, just to
get people thinking like that. Plus, you get more your
watering dollar. If you watered a quarter inch four times,
you would essentially get nothing in the soil and it
would all be on the leaves and evaporate away, making
hoston more humid, which we already I think are humid.
En offer in your case, Montgomery more humid. So it
makes sense to put on an inch because you get

(17:17):
that drinking water you paid for down in the soil
where it can do your lawn some good. And so
would I would back off that. You know, there are
fungicides that will prevent the rizoc tonia's, but once you
get the brown circles, it's a little late to do
the fungicide. Most of our fungicides are preventative, way way

(17:37):
better than their curative. And so I think the watering.
And then if you have an ongoing problem and you
wanted to head it off with a fungicide, that that
would be fine. You could, you know, essentially prevent it
if you know it's going to arrive. But I'll bet
that cultural practices of what you already said, you're watering, scheduling,

(17:58):
I think that alone will probably fix this for you. Yeah,
it sounds like it will.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
I always get frustrated.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
I would do the funge side, you know, kind of
on our timing that we all go through.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
And I'm going but I'm too late.

Speaker 6 (18:12):
The circles of art started, so you know, anyway.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
I'll cut back well anyway, and just to say something
about that, you know those circles are going to be there,
but maybe you're preventing other circles from appearing or from
or preventing those circles from growing in size. So there
is some benefit to it. But I think you're on
the right track on all that. Just and and one

(18:37):
last thought. You said you tried something to think maybe
even some stuff from the schedule. There is such a
thing as resistance to disease. And sometimes you have to
switch products because a particular fungicide is no longer working
against the strain of In this case, where is ac
tonia you have in your yard? So just one final

(18:57):
thought there, Yeah, I appreciate it. You have a great day,
have a wonderful Sunday. Thank you. All right, folks, who boy,
I'm almost out of time. You know what, I like
being disabled to talk about plants. Sometimes we stay so
busy with everything we're doing that we just don't have
time to kind of unpack some of these issues. So

(19:18):
I hope that I hope this is helpful for you,
because understanding the principles is important. I read a quote
one time that it was somebody I don't need to
find the exact quote, but talking about basically they were saying,
my green thumb is a result of mini trial and
error periods learning how to see things from a plant's
point of view. And that is so true. I'll come

(19:40):
back to that a little bit later. We're gonna go
to a break. How that thing you do? How many
of you saw that movie? If you haven't seen it,
you need to go see it. Tom Hanks, I tell
you that guy is like incredible. I mean as an actor,
just his his creativity. Do you know he wrote most
to the music, if not all, of the music for

(20:02):
that show, and it sounds like stuff from the fifties,
but he created it. I just find that pretty amazing. Anyway,
What does that have to do with gardening. Absolutely nothing. Hey,
you're listening to garden Line and we are going to
talk about gardening. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and I
found that quote. By the way, it's a guy named h.
Fred Ayle. He's a gardening author and an editor I

(20:24):
believe up in the north northeastern Northwest one. Anyway, he said,
my green thumb came only as a result of the
mistakes I made while learning to see things from a
plant's point of view. That is true. I wrote an
article for Texas Gardener that will be in the next
coming issue that November December actually issue, well, I say,

(20:48):
next coming, the one they're working on now anyway, And
it was on things I wish gardeners knew. And one
of the things that I wish gardeners knew was there's
no such thing as a brown thumb. I bet she've
heard me say that on garden Line. And what do
I mean by that, Well, what I mean is when
someone says I have a brown thumb, what they're saying
is I can't grow things. I try and I just

(21:11):
kill everything. Okay, Well, that may be the results that
you're getting. There's nothing wrong with your thumb. If you
think something's wrong with your thumb, tune into garden Line
and we'll talk and we will turn the thumb green
to bring it in because the problem is your thumb
is uninformed. It's not because it's brown. Okay, So tune

(21:32):
into garden let's inform your thumb, and suddenly you will
find that it's looking like you've got a green thumb. Okay.
And that was the point I was making. That's one
of the things I wish gardeners knew. I see people
all the time. You know, my grandma, she could grow anything.
I mean, if if Granny was walking across the yard
and a pencil fell out of her pocket and stuck

(21:54):
in the ground, it would root and grow into a
pine tree. Okay, well, maybe Granny wasn't quite that good.
But the reason Granny could grow things if you do
have a garden in Grannie, is because she knew what
plants wanted. She that maybe she didn't even know why
she knew that, but she just had learned, and now
she knows what to do, when to plant a seed,

(22:15):
how deep to plant a seed, you know, proper water
or whatever she was doing. That's why it looked like
some people. It looks like some people have a green thumb.
So all you got to do is learn to see
things from the plant's point of view. Plants have opinions,
did you know that they do? Kind of like people.
People got opinions, a lot of opinions, and an opinion

(22:39):
is neither right nor wrong. It is an opinion in
terms of you know, what people think, although I will
say that I've heard some opinions that I think are
not right. So anyway, yeah, it is right or wrong.
But if you give a plant sunlight light, that's number one.

(23:01):
Some plants can take shade. Some plants even need a
little less sun. But sun is the energy that drives everything,
and when sun shines on a leaf, this wonderful biochemical
process takes off that we end up with carbohydrates being
produced and a lot of other things that plants need
to thrive and we need because of why we're growing

(23:23):
the plant. For example, you want flowers on a rose bush.
Sunshine on the leaves makes that happen. Can you grow
a rose in quite a bit of shade? Oh, yeah
you can. Can you get flowers? No? Can you grow
a tomato in a pretty shady area? Yeah? Can you
get tomatoes?

Speaker 5 (23:41):
Not?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Really, No, you can't. It takes sunlight to make fruit.
It takes sunlight to make roots. So we would say
that about carrots and beets and whatnot. So when someone
has a garden and that garden has a really sunny
area and then over here it's bright, but maybe three
hours of sun, not so great. Put your leafy greens

(24:04):
in the not so great because it doesn't take as
much carbohydrate energy to form lettuce or spinach or charred
or kale as it does to make fruit like tomatoes
and squash and peppers and eggplant and green beans as
those are fruit or to make roots like carrots and beets, radishes.

Speaker 8 (24:28):
And so on.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
So that's important. Number one is sunlight. Number two moisture
soil moisture dependable soal moisture. Some soils, like sand, they
just drain real fast and the water and nutrients just
go right out. And it's hard to have a dependable
ongoing supply of water nutrients in a sandy soil unless

(24:49):
you're adding it all the time. Moisture also, though, means
good drainage. Roots need oxygen. And when you are in
the Greater Houston, you know when we say when it rains,
it pours, we can go through days and days of
soggy rain. When I lived in Cyprus is when we
had the hurricane that came through and gave us d

(25:11):
two inches in a few days, fifty two inches of water.
So you need raised beds for that, and so it's
always a good idea to have raised beds in your garden.
Whether it's a box bed. You know, one of these
could be made a lumber, it could be made of
cinder blocks. It could be a nice little veggo bed
out there. Uh, those are really nice because you can

(25:31):
put a great mix in them, and they drain, drain
so well. If not on the ground, make a box,
make a raised bed so that the excess water drains away.
So we're talking about seeing things from plant's point of view.
You interview the plant. Plant says I want sunlight, the
more better, more is better. Number two, plant says, I
want soil moisture, not too much, not too little, but

(25:51):
I want sow moisture. And then plant's also going to
say I need nutrients. Everything I make in my plant
factory is going to need the raw minerals that help
me make it. That would be the many different nutrient
elements nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, calcium, magnesium, micronutrients like iron

(26:16):
and manganese and zinc and others. It needs all those
and so you provide that. So this is what I'm
droning on about here, is just to say, give plants
what they want, and they'll give you what you want.
Whether that's roses or tomatoes, or whether it's a beautiful
green lawn that is a nice dark green color. It

(26:39):
looks good, it's healthy, it's uniform, it's thick. So weeds
having trouble weed seeds have a very difficult time getting
enough sunlight to sprout. That's all seeing thing from the
plant's point of view. All right, well, there you go,
speaking of some of the pests and diseases and things

(27:02):
we were talking about earlier. When you're dealing with pests
in your lawn, things like chinchbugs and sod web worms
and fire ants, for example, but also when you are
dealing with like fleas and ticks, which our pets are
taking in and out, there are areas of yr lawn.
If you've got a pet with a flea problem, there's
going to be areas of your lawn where the flea

(27:24):
larva or down in the thatch developing, and they when
they become adults, they hop on the dog when it
goes by. That's why Nitrofis has bug out Max. It's
a product that kills insects period, and you put it
out and you water it in, it washes off the
granule and into that thatch area. So those kinds of
pests which we're dealing with, we are in chinchbug season.

(27:45):
We never know how bad of a sod webworm year
it's going to be until we get into it. But
sid web worms are also down in that thatch area.
Nitropous bug Out Max is available in a lot of places.
You know, you go to Plants for All Seasons right
where two forty nine and to come together, you're going
to find night fossbug Out Max. You go to Fisher's
Hardware Done in Baytown or Stanton Shopping Center in alvin

(28:08):
Ace Hardware City, a Memorial Drive another place that sells
night to Foss products. Let's take a little break here,
we will come back with our last segment of the
six o'clock hour. All right, welcome back to the Guarden Line. Hey,

(28:29):
good to have you with us. I hope you're enjoying
this morning. I very seldom get a chance just a
tog gardening for extended periods of time. Maybe I need
to do the podcast where I just do nothing but
talk about topics of gardening. I don't know, I got
enough on my plate right now. Anyway. I have been

(28:52):
talking about different aspects of success with gardening and just
kind of been for those of you just tuned in,
talking about learning to see the from a plant's point
of view? What are the basic things that plants want?
How do we provide that for them? And therefore, how
do we have success? That's a lot of fun. Another
thing that I think gardeners need to hear, and I

(29:15):
hope you're listening for this one, is it is okay
to kill some plants. Yes, I just said that it's
okay to kill some plants. In fact, I think you
should be that. You should expect that you're going to
kill some plants. Don't be afraid. If I told you
how many plants I've killed in my life, you probably

(29:36):
would turn the radio off and seek better advice. No, seriously, seriously,
we all learn by doing and failing as part of
the process. Don't worry. Just get out there and have fun.
You guys, buy more seeds. You can get another plan
if you need to. And I'm not saying we're out
killing plants to have fun. I'm just saying it happens.
Nature throws us curves. We try things that don't work.

(29:59):
We you know, oh, I want to grow tomatoes and so,
and this happens with people. Typically he moved down here
from the Midwest, where the gardening season timing is way different,
and someone in May will go out there and buy
some tomato seeds and put them in the ground. Outside. Well,
that's not a recipe for success, but you learn something
from that. There's a famed horticulturist. His name is doctor J. C. Ralston.

(30:25):
He is, in fact, you can goat in North Carolina.
Is it Raleigh? I believe Raleigh. I've been there.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
The J. C.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Ralston Arboretum is there, well known. He probably introduced more
plants into the landscaping trade than anybody during that period
of time where he was doing his work. He's now
passed on, but he made a statement one time, and
this is coming from the guy who's like the expert
of the experts, right. He said, if you're not killing plants,

(30:56):
you're not really stretching yourself as a gardener. Hear me
when I say this. You can't fail unless you quit.
Gardening is a lifelong habby hobby. Those who keep learning
and trying will succeed. Imagine if you want to learn
how to paint, and you painted five things and they
all looked like a bunch of monkeys dipped in paint,

(31:19):
wrestled on a piece of paper. Here go throw that away.
I don't anyone to ever see that. That's how you're
learning to paint. That's how you're learning, and in gardening
is the same way. So don't worry about that. Have fun.
Gardening is supposed to be fun. And when people get
all tied up about, oh, I don't know how to
do this, I'm going to fail or whatever, I understand that.

(31:40):
I'm not making fun of that. I'm just saying don't
don't do that. That takes all the fun out of it.
And this is all about learning. It's a life long
hobby and those who keep learning and trying will succeed. Okay,
that is something that I hope you will hear because
it is so so true. I have a master's degree

(32:02):
in horticulture from A and M and learned a lot
of important gardening principles. I learned about the science behind gardening,
the value of research, and many things. But the vast
majority of what I know in horticulture, in gardening has
come through years and years and years of reading and
learning and studying, but most of all doing doing, getting

(32:26):
out there and trying something and realizing what happened, and
those A lot of that comes in failing at something,
trying a planet, it didn't work, neglecting a plant and
seeing what happens. Uh, just on and on down the line,
never quit learning. And it's a great, weird part of

(32:47):
the I think the greatest hobby that there is. It's
part of being out in nature. We were made to garden.
If you have ever noticed, it wasn't called the cubicle
of Eden. It was called the garden of Eden. In
other words, you know, we're made to be in nature.
And there is so much research on the benefits of

(33:07):
being out there in nature. So enjoy, enjoy it, have fun.
Relaxed now if you want to minimize the failing, I
think that's a great idea. Okay, and let's talk. You
mean a call, by the way we got I think
this happens when I drone on. But the lines are
open right now, somebody is interested in given as call.
I know we're about to hit our top of our break.

(33:28):
But just because I'm droning on doesn't mean you have
to just stop and listen. Anyway, have fun, learn how
to do it. I guess we could go on doing
this all day, these kind of topics. But I've learned.
I've talked to so many gardeners in my life. I've
learned from so many gardeners in my life. By the way.
That's also a way that I've learned is talking to

(33:50):
other people who do things different, who've tried something different
and experience experimented with it. So be a learner and
don't be afraid to fail. All right, there you go.
I wanted to mention Houston powder Coders. I talk about
them all the time on Gardenlane Ahead Houston powder Coders

(34:13):
on the air in the summertime. I have a lot
of guests on so we can talk and delve into
topics deeper, and it's one of our more popular shows
this summer, having Houston powder Coders explain the whole process
of powder coating and what it does, how it works
in this company. This is a leader, the largest powder
coder in a whole region. And they I thought, you know,

(34:35):
I used to say, well they do the Houston area,
and it's like now they actually they've gone over to
as far as San Antonio direction to pick up some
furniture and bring it back. They will come to your house,
so pick it up, they will bring it in, do
their work and bring it back to you and deliver
it again. So you don't have to figure out what
w how am I supposed to get that metal outdoor

(34:57):
table and metal chairs over to Houston. Well, that's how
you do it. They do it. What they do is
they give you options of over one hundred different colors
that you can look at. One hundred different colors. That's
a lot that you can choose from, and they bring
it in, they clean it up, they deal with the
rust they put on. They're going to put fresh stainless

(35:19):
steel bolts and things on it, anything that's needed to
get it in top shape. And they don't just do furniture,
by the way, they are going to do things like
barbecue pits. If you got nice barbecue pits kind of
getting rusty and you want it to have that nice,
brand new look, they can do that. They can do
any kind of outdoor metal and maybe something hanging on

(35:40):
the side of the house it's decorative and kind of
an artwork piece. They can do it. Just send them
a picture and let them give you a quote. Send
the picture to sales at Houstoncoachs dot com, sales at
Houstoncoders dot com, the website Houston Powder Coats die go

(36:00):
see the work that they'll do. When I first saw that,
I was like driving up Nun Street looking for somebody
throwing away their metal furniture, because I know how to
get it brand new, kind of cool. Alrighty, folks, we're
gonna put this hour in the books. We'll be back
with your calls at seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four here in just a little bit.

(36:23):
Thanks for being a garden Line listener. Uh, and we
will be answering your gardening questions as we come back.
I got plenty of other things we can talk about too. Hey,
welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line, folks. All right,

(36:48):
here's a number if you'd like to visit with me
about something regarding your plants in general in gardening seven
one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two. So we've had a little
bit of time to philosophize, if you will here on
g garden Line this morning, talking about some principles and

(37:09):
things that I think are very hopeful for you to
put into practice or to consider as you're going about
your gardening activities. One other thing I want to mention
about gardening is horticulture. One thing I like. One way
I like to put it is there are science disciplines

(37:29):
out there there is entomology, and there's plant pathology, and
there's soil science, and there's plant nutrition, and there's a
lot of disciplines. I think of horticulture not as a discipline,
but as a combination of disciplines. So when I walk
up and I see a leaf and it looks yellow

(37:51):
on a plant, I'm considering things like, is there a
borer in the stem that is blocking the movement of
water and nutrients up? Is the soil pH high and
so it's not getting enough iron? Or is what is
the nutrient deficiency? Because depending on where and how it
presents itself on a plant, yellowing leaves could be several

(38:13):
different nutrients that they cause it. Is it a disease
that is causing this? Has this plant gone through a
drought stress and now it's getting water again, but because
of the drought stress, it's dropping a bunch of old leaves.
They're turning yell and falling off. See what I mean.
It's a combination of putting it all together into practice,
and that's kind of fun. That is a really I
really enjoy that. So you kind of have to be

(38:35):
an amateur entomologist and pa pathologists and soul scientists and
nutritional specialists and on down the line. And as a gardener,
you're kind of doing the same things. You're learning to
see things from that plant's point of view and learning
how to assess it properly. Let's go on after the
phones here, we're going to head out and talk to

(38:56):
Greg this morning. Hey, Greg, welcome to garden Line. Hey,
good morning.

Speaker 7 (39:01):
Uh painted these man of sunflowers?

Speaker 2 (39:05):
And now I got to go black bugs? Won't they
eat them?

Speaker 7 (39:10):
We reckon? Those? Are how many tiny little black bugs?
And they just decimated one one flower over night?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
How tiny is tiny? How tiny is tiny? Are they
the size of an English p or the size of
a BB or how big are they?

Speaker 5 (39:28):
No?

Speaker 7 (39:29):
No, I'm talking like a parent head, little tiny thing.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Okay, huh yeah, well I don't know. You know, based
on two factors they're black and their pinhead size, it
could be several things. If I were just going to
shoot from the help, I would say it's probably a
bug with piercing sucking mouthparts that's feeding on those. When

(39:53):
you say decimate, are you seeing like the petals are
being eaten off? Or are you just seeing h the
petals are dropping?

Speaker 7 (40:01):
And I suppose they're eating something because there's not as
many petals as was on there on the ground. Yeah,
and yeah, man, it's a beautiful flower. It's just gone.

Speaker 5 (40:10):
Now.

Speaker 7 (40:11):
So I had this tomato vegetable fungle and uh, insects
ray bone eyde. I spread that on the leaves on
the top and the bottom, and is there anything else?
I probably should go and get it, you know, if I.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
Knew the.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, if I knew the ingredients that are in that
product you bought it just just being bone eyed without
a product name, then then I could probably tell you
if I well, we don't have to we don't have
to figure that out now. Uh, I got the bugs.

(40:55):
If the bugs are really the problem, and we always
have to remember that, you know, it could be something
else going on, but the bugs happen to be present,
but they're not really the only thing hurting that plan.
And so if it's the bugs, we're trying to get
rid of that. There are some products that are organic
that are natural that work really well on a number

(41:18):
of different kinds of insects. Something that that contains name ingredients,
not nam oil, but there's an ingredient. If you look
at a product that contains name and you look at
the label ingredient, it'll eave the same name oil, or
it'll have a word that begins with a z A.

(41:39):
It's azadirected. But if you see the AZA, then then
that sprayed on those sunflower heads wherever you see the
bugs sprayed on there, and that should knock them out.
There's another ingredient called pyreethren. It's p y r E
T h R I N. There's a synthetic version and
organic version, and that would also be a quick way

(42:01):
to knock out bugs quicker than the name, and that'll
knock around.

Speaker 7 (42:09):
A quick There is called mammoth and they were supposed
to be tennis diameter, and I got four inch diameter
flower heads.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Okay, let me ask you a couple of eyes.

Speaker 7 (42:22):
When I first put them in and then I put this.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
U yeah, the high middle number.

Speaker 7 (42:29):
Flowers put that in?

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah, you know, three four weeks ago? With all right,
grace deal, let me ask you a couple of questions
of a couple of questions about these When you planted
the seed? Were they as big as sunflower seeds that
we eat, the kind that's sold in packages to eat?

Speaker 7 (42:48):
Yeah about.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Okay. Second question is how tall. Are your plants.

Speaker 7 (42:57):
Three and a half feet tall?

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Okay? And how many blue heads? Yeah? Does each plant
have one blue head? Or or more than one blue head? One?
Just one? Okay? Well it could they could be mammoth
growing in a for whatever reason and conditions that they
just can't thrive in. Okay. I think it may be
that that's not the correct seed in the packet based

(43:23):
on the label. Oh that makes a big difference. Yeah, okay, Yeah,
that's very restrictive, very restrictive. Yeah, very restrictive for them.
But anyway, that's my best shot at it. Thanks, you know,
just get another try, put them in the ground, put

(43:44):
a lot of compost in there. I'll do it. Have
a great All right, take care. You're listening to the
guardline if you have a question seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
one two five eight seven four, and we'll try to
get to the bottom of the questions that you might have.

(44:06):
I was talking about some different plant principles and things
plants want and how to have success with plants, and
then a little bit on perspective. You know, don't don't
worry about failing. It's okay, and and why that why
that is important and important part of what we do.
The thing I do want to mention in addition, though,

(44:26):
before we go to a quick break here is try
new things. Try some new things. Maybe you are just
into lawns and trees, and you know that's the extent
of your horticultural interests. Why not try growing some vegetables,
are growing some flowers or growing some herbs. Try that out.

(44:48):
Maybe you don't have room for the back forty to
be plowed up into a giant vegetable garden, it's fine.
You can grow them in a container on a patio.
You can grow them in a raised bed box. You
know these metal rais dud boxes now that can be
settled in a driveway even if you want fill them
with soil. They'll grow stuff. And then try some different
kinds of plants. Have you ever grown an orchid in
the house? Have you ever grown sprouts in the house

(45:12):
for eating? Have you ever you know started seeds, are started, cuttings,
rooting plants. See, there's so many fun things in horticulture
you can learn, and I would suggest that expand try
some new things. I think you're going to find that
there are some new aspects of it that become some
of your favorite aspects. Let's take a quick break. I'll

(45:33):
be right back if you'd like to be first up
when we come back. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Alrighty, you can't have summer without
some Jimmy Buffett. Noh, Surrey Bob, that's for sure. How
about beats? I've played beach Boys, all Indians eat. Welcome

(45:56):
back to the Guardenline. Good to have you with us.

Speaker 9 (45:58):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
You hear me talk about Southwest Fertilizer a lot, and
it's because there isn't a place like it. There really isn't.
You go in there, and no matter what product you're
looking for, if it's a good product that works, not
snake oil, they're going to have it.

Speaker 8 (46:18):
They do.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
They stock up on everything. The way you're treated when
you walk in, they greet you, they're helpful, they know
what they're talking about. Boy, is that ever worth the
price of admission? You bring them a sample, you bring
them a photo, and you say, look, this is a
weed and it's all over my yard and I can't
get rid of it. They'll take you right to the
thing you need to do. They'll tell you how to

(46:39):
use it, how to apply it, what you need to do.
And if you're looking for a gift for a gardener
on your list, go check out the tools ninety foot
wall of tools at Southwest Fertilizer. It's some really nice
things like that. And when it comes to any kind
of tools. Also, there's the small shop in the back
there where you can take your small shops, small engine

(47:00):
repair shop in the back where you can take things
to get them repaired. I mean, it's just a it's
a it's a one stop shop, that's the bottom line.
And when I'm talking about fertilizers and proper ones to
put down and the things you need to have success,
Southwest Fertilizers of place. If you're an organic gardener, you
will not find a larger selection of organic options anywhere

(47:24):
in the greater Houston area as Southwest Fertilizer, Southwest Fertilizer,
dot Com Corner, Abyssinet and Runwick if you want to
give them a call seven to one three six sixty
six one seven four four seven one three six six
six one seven four four. Getting back to some of
the things we were discussing earlier, I was kind of

(47:46):
going through some things. I wish gardeners knew another thing.
And this is more for people that aren't veteran gardeners,
but really all gardeners, really they need to consider this,
and that is select a garden center that's an independent
garden center. Some people call them mom and pop garden centers,

(48:10):
and you hear me talk about them all the time.
Here in the Greater Houston area, we are crazy rich
with garden centers, meaning north, south, East, West, Central. They're
outstanding independent garden centers here, all right. And just because
something's for sale in a garden center, like the big

(48:30):
box stores they're the worst about. This doesn't mean it'll
thrive where you live. There's a type of BlackBerry called
a black cap oscomery raspberry, black cap raspberry, I used
to I worked for three years in Missouri as a
fruit specialist, and Missouri was too far south for great

(48:52):
success with black cap raspberry's, and the southern part was
and you know it's the you can't grow them here,
but I've seen them for sale in the big box stores.
Conquered grapes, you know, conquered grapes, Welch's grape juice, and
what's the wine Mogan David wine that's made out of
conquered grapes. They are great in New York, not here.

(49:15):
You bring them down here and they ripen essentially one
berry at a time in a cluster. It just it's
not a grape for us seeing them for sale lilas
those of you from the Midwest. I lived in Missouri
for three years and had a lilac bush. I understand
the love of lilax, the beauty of the fragrance of lilax.

(49:35):
It's great. Don't bring them down here. They're not going
to perform well for you. If you want the closest
thing you can get to a lilac down here, plant
a crape myrtle and spray it with perfume. Then you
got a lilac. High bush blueberries, not southern high bush,
but the standard high bush blueberries like or planted across
the Midwest and whatnot. They don't do well here. They

(49:57):
just don't do well here. Better then you know that
blue spruce that you may or someone you know may
have brought back from their Colorado vacation. You know they'll
sell you those to bring back to Texas. There ought
to be a society for the prevention of cruelty to plants.
A checkpoint at the Texas border, so when people are
hauling those poor plants back, they confiscate the botanical victims

(50:19):
before they are brought back to suffer a long, slow
death here in Texas. Yes, they're beautiful. I love blue spruce.
Don't plant them here. See what I'm talking about. You
go to a local independent garden center. They're going to
have well trained staff. They're going to sell locally adapted plants.
They're going to give you helpful and this is important,
accurate advice, and they're you know, they're willing to help

(50:42):
you even if you have questions about plants you purchase
somewhere else, because they know that helping you have success
is going to bring you back in the door, and
it should bring you back in the door. Trying to
save a nicol going somewhere, or especially plants that are
about to die and so that you see them on
sales some place. Don't do that. Don't do that. Independent

(51:04):
garden centers deserve our business. And in the long run,
they're very economical option for plants and products that work,
because there's nothing economical about buying a plant that struggles
and you end up having to pull it out or
be so disappointed in the results and then buy and
plan another one. There's no need to do that. Find

(51:26):
somebody that can help you, and that's our independent garden centers.
These people know, they live here, they know here, they
understand and remember, cheap doesn't always mean cheap. If it's
not adapted, if it wasn't taken care of, and it
doesn't take long in some of these big boxes for
the lack of care, you'll have a plant that is

(51:47):
on its way to death when you bring it home.
So anyway, don't tolerate mediocre results, don't waste your time
and money. Go to an independent garden center, get good
advice and support them their local busins. They're here, they
live here, they're your neighbors. They live here. All right.
I have I beaten that horse to death? Well, I
hope so, because that that is a really important one.

(52:09):
I have been in a lot of cities, spend a
lot of time in San Antonio, Austin. Spend a lot
of time in Austin. Certainly traveled many times to Dallas
Fort Worth. When I go someplace, I go visit the
garden centers. I was in Atlanta while back visit the
garden centers. I mentioned Raleigh, North Carolina where the Ralston
Arboretum is. Visit the garden centers out there. And there's

(52:32):
no place like Houston with the number of quality, independent
garden centers that we have here. Again, north, south, east, West,
and central. You we should just do a garden center tour.
Take more than a day to do it, but just
get in a bus and go all over the Houston
area visiting all these great garden centers for people that
haven't been to the the other ones that are around.

(52:54):
Each has its personality, Each has the specific things that
you can find there, you know, the depending on the
kind of plants you're looking for. All Right, I'm gonna
stop there. Let's go out to Seabrook, Texas, and we
are going to visit with Lisa. Hello, Lisa, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 9 (53:11):
Good morning.

Speaker 10 (53:12):
I have a question about growing some plants and containers,
specifically a dwarf fig tree, an encore azelia, and I
have a small Chinese twinch tree.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Okay, well, let's take them one of the time pot. Okay,
you can if the pot is big enough. That is
true of all plants. I mean you can grow a
sequoia in a pot if the pot is one hundred
feet across thirty feet. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
You can.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
So for the fig you get a smaller type of
fig and you can grow them in a pot. There's
one called, I think a little miss Figi or something.
It's kind of smaller. Chicago Hardy is a pretty good
one too, for a container, but it needs to be
a decent size. And here's why. Now, if you're sitting
there with an automatic drip system watering it every day

(54:08):
just the right amounts and stuff, you can get by
with a little less pot size because you're able to
put the nutrients in there and everything it needs. I
have containers where I put a plant. I've got a
container right now that has a lime tree in it.
And the container is too small. And the other day
I went a couple of days without watering it. I
was busy, and I looked and I saw the stress

(54:29):
on the lime tree because I hadn't watered it. So
it needs a bigger container. So yes, you can do
a fig. Absolutely, you can do an azalea because in
a container you can give it a really nice PD acidic,
well drained sol mix where it can thrive. The other
one you mentioned, what was the third one was a
bigger plant, a fig azalea Chinese little one.

Speaker 10 (54:52):
Someone gave me there about two feet tall.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
You know, I don't know on Chinese friends. That is
a it's not big for trees compared to other trees,
but for a container, big container, and definitely don't let
it stress. You might end up with a dwarfed Chinese
fringe that performs. Okay for you, that's a little bit

(55:17):
of a stretch, but hey, I've been talking all day
about experimenting and not being afraid to fail. Give it
a shot, see how it does. Just get as big
a container as you can for it, and maybe have
a little system that drip automatically comes on and so
you know it's getting water and nutrients and everything. Thank you,
all right, thanks for the call. Good luck with that. Hey,

(55:38):
if you do some of these, send me a picture.
I'd like to see how that turns out. Yeah, that
would be fun. Chinese trees reminds me of Affordable Tree Service,
Martin Spoonmore's company. They've been around for over fifty years
and they know how to do stuff. Maybe when it

(55:58):
comes to everything from starting training a plant to a tree,
to making sure that it's properly fed. It's properly cared for,
to making sure that it's prune properly so that the
storms which will come they do every year when the
storms arrive, they don't tear it up that it's been

(56:19):
prune to do its best job at being resilient in
a storm. Affordable does that. Martin Spoon Moore's company, they
know how to. Martin's been doing this a very long time.
You can give them a call at seven one three, six,
nine nine two six sixty three. Now maybe you haven't
had your trees looked at for the last few years.
Have him come out and do a lookover on him.

(56:40):
He'll tell you what he thinks needs to be done,
if anything, and you can have that work done. If
you were going to do any kind of a construction
put in a let's say in a driveway, and you
got a tree five feet away, you need to call
them because there is a lot of image it gets
done building a house, building a driveway, running trenches through
the ground round trees, and he can advise you on that.

(57:02):
Don't wait until after the damage is done cal Martin
seven to one three six nine nine two, six sixty three.
And right now is a very important time. We're in
the big middle hurricane season. Get him out there to
take a look at your trees for many reasons for
safety and liability as well. We'll be right back, all right,

(57:27):
Welcome back to garden Line, folks. Good to have you
with us. Appreciate you listening again and calling in as well.
So let's run right out. Speaking of calling in, we
will go out to spring now and visit with Bonnie
this morning. Hey Bonnie, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (57:43):
Good morning, Skip. I think I had the dread to
take all root rot and send you some pictures. I
wonder what you think.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
I did. Look at those pictures, and yes you do
the dreaded take off. Now, diagnosing diseases from photos can
be a little iffy, but based on the symptoms of
the grass in the back where it's it's drying out
now because it's not getting water because it doesn't have roots,

(58:12):
and some of the yellowing that you're seeing, that's one
of the earliest stages of this takeoll process. And then
your close ups those little runners you put on a
white piece of paper by the way, good good photos there.
Putting on a white piece of paper, I can study
the roots, and there's not a living root on those runners.
So you might as well have taken a healthy runner,
pulled it up and thrown it on the driveway, and

(58:33):
it's going to have the same end result as what
you've gotten on your photo there. So you need to
jump on this with both feet. Have you been to
my website by any chance?

Speaker 11 (58:45):
Yes, I have the article and I have some Scotch
disease X to put on.

Speaker 5 (58:51):
Is that the first guy.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
That's a zoxystrobin. I don't have good research on the
benefits of using it at this time of the year,
but I know people that do take all believe it
or not. Even though we see all this in the summer,
it's infection times are primarily in the spring and in
the fall when it's a little bit cooler. But then

(59:16):
as the grass loses roots and the temperature goes higher
and higher in the heat of summer and it's not
raining as much, that's when we see the die back.
Because you know it doesn't have roots, and so we
could do the the That product is the only over
the counter form of a zoxystrobin that I know of

(59:38):
on the market right now. We used to have something else,
but unless you're unless you're a pesticide professional, pesticide applicator,
there's not one. But anyway, the main things that I
would do are the cultural things. Make sure it has
adequate water. Normally we're saying, you know, you want to
water deeply and infrequently. And this case, when you got

(01:00:01):
a grass plant with one little root still alive, you
need that to never dry out, and so you're gonna
water a little more often, but just trying to help
it along. Putting the supplement on that is like a
nutrient micronutrient supplement that's on my list. I have several
of them on that list. That kind of helps bypass

(01:00:23):
the roots to try to get some nutrient there into
the grass. And people have tried a lot of different things.
In that publication, it was already two pages long, so
I tried not to go any further. But there are
a lot of concoctions out there, and I would throw
whatever you got at them. You know, we got products
from Medina. You know, Medina has to grow. The Medina

(01:00:44):
plus I think would be a good one. Microlife has
got things with my beneficial microbes and whatnot in them.
I would put those in a those in sprayer and
try them too. We just don't have research on all
of that, and we're not you know, it's it would
be weird difficult to set up a research trial on
a product like those, but I would try those to

(01:01:05):
do anything you can to help the grass that the
fungicide is going to fight the disease. But here's the thing.
Your lawn is so far into this that, like you
look at the area out toward the corner where it's
basically already browning. Well, even if you were to kill
the disease with the zoxy stroban, you've got grass with
no roots. So for days, the sun is baking down

(01:01:31):
and it can't get can't take up anything. In fact,
it can't even cannot even take up the azoxy stroban
because that is taken up by the roots. So that's
why I say throw everything at it. Everything on the list.
Peat moss will help green it up. Within a week
or two, you'll see a greenup from one third inch

(01:01:51):
layer of peate moss watered in. You got to water
it in after you apply it. You're going to see
a little green up from that. But the micronutrient's not
going to kill the disease. The peat moss is not
going to kill the disease. But they're all trying to
keep the patient alive. You know. It's imagine somebody in
a hospital and they can't eat and they can hardly breathe,
and so you put an oxygen mask on them and

(01:02:14):
you feed them through an IV. You see what I'm saying,
Keeping the patient alive is step one. And then when
we get to fall. You'll see in October and November
on my schedule there is a treatment for take all
root rut then.

Speaker 11 (01:02:28):
Okay, so through medena plus or other stuffs.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Yeah, I would. I would, And I say that in
that way because you know, I have no research evidence
that those work, but they're good products. When you're putting
out microbes, when you're putting out substances, you know, whether
it's seaweed or whatever it is, you're putting out things
there that give that grass a chance to get some

(01:02:57):
health outside of what its root system is a to
do right now. And and so I would, I would
not hesitate to do those things. You won't see those
on the schedule that I put because someday somebody's going
to do a trial or I don't have take all
in my lawn right now. I have in the past
lost a lawn to take all, and that's where I
learned a lot about it. But if I did have it,

(01:03:20):
I would be trying all those products to see what
it responds to.

Speaker 11 (01:03:25):
And do the whole yard, not just the parts that
looks a guest or the worst.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Yeah, yeah, I do do it all because the part,
the part that looks half alive in the middle of
your picture, is that that's the part you have the
most ability to try to help, because it hasn't gone
so far yet.

Speaker 11 (01:03:44):
All right, Okay, yes sir, I'll try, I hope.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
All right.

Speaker 11 (01:03:49):
Okay, thank you very.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Much, you bet, thank you. I appreciate that. Take care
by all right. That is the kind of stuff we're
dealing with here, folks. Hey, pierscapes. Speaking of landscapes, you
want somebody to come in and transform your landscape from
boring to beautiful pierscapes. If you look when you drive up,

(01:04:12):
you come down the street and drive up to your
house and look around, is it a sea of green,
green grass, green ground covers, green shrubs, green trees. Greens
are pretty color. It's not the only color there is.
Have Pear Scapes come in and really turn it into
a show's stopping place. They can do that. They do
all kinds of things. Go to their website and see
what they do. Look at the pictures Piercescapes dot com.

(01:04:35):
Pierscapes dot com two eight one three seven oh fifty
sixty two eight one three seven five zero six zero.
Let's see here. I tell you what we're going to
go to a quick break when we come back. David
lke Conroe and Frieda. We'll try to get to you
two in our last segment here right now, let's take

(01:04:55):
a break. All right, Welcome back, Welcome back to Guardlinem.
Good to have you with us, folks. Yeah, I was
visiting with Bunnie on the take on a root Right call,
and I find out I'd throw a lot of things
at it, a couple of things that I'm going to
put out there. And I just want to be real clear.

(01:05:15):
I'm not saying I got research that's done this and
shows it works and stuff. But when you're looking at
losing a huge section, if not the entire lawn, it
is legit to try some things that might work and
see how that works. And I can tell you this
Microlife's got a couple of products. There is Microlife AF

(01:05:36):
bio inoculent, and that is I think six different strains.
I need to go back and look at the lake.
It's got a bunch of strains of beneficial microbes that
we know fight certain diseases. Okay, Now, whether it's too
late to do that or not, we're gonna have to see.
But I would do that. That is not expensive. And
you can put it in a hose in sprayer and

(01:05:56):
you can spray your grass and get it on those
runners and get it down at the soil surface US.
And then I would follow up with a micro grow bioinoculant,
which is a granular product, and buy it in the
big bag, buy it in the jars, and I would
spread that out over an area like that and water
in in as well. I might do the bioinoculant granular
first and water it in real good. Then do the

(01:06:17):
liquid AF biinoculant and put it in a hoseen so
get plenty of water out there to move it down
into the thatch. Not just a spray that sticks to
the leaves, and that's as far as it goes. I
would give those a try. Micro Life has so many
good products, so many things that work, from fertilizers to
things that help fight disease to you name it, things
that stimulate microbial activity. That is important. But I'd give

(01:06:40):
those a shot. Let's head out to Lake Conro. Now
we're going to visit with Dave. Hey, Dave, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:06:46):
Hey, Hey, skid, Hey, thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Hey.

Speaker 12 (01:06:49):
You know, I like your when you talk about don't
give up man, my mom, dad and all my coaches
and everything. And if you if you fail on like
even a planner or something like that or something in life,
you know, get up, figured out what you did wrong,
and then go back and analyze the situation. But as
far as gardens, you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Know, well that thank you, that's true about it. It's like, well,
what did Thomas Edison saying? He said something like, you know,
he tried like thousands of attempts at a light bulb,
and he said and that people were like, aren't you
tired of failing? He goes, no, Now I ain't know
a thousand ways not to do a light bulb. They
kept going till they figured out the way to that,

(01:07:32):
figure out what you did wrong.

Speaker 12 (01:07:34):
Hey, okay, there you go the new house over here.
I've got some weed and feed and I got hey,
I got one of these new fangled we weedn feed distributors.
There's four double A batteries on there, and then you
just walk around. I hadn't tried it yet, but I'm
going to put that on there. And I got that
figured out. But what about uh, I know, I got

(01:07:56):
Saint Augustin grass, can I put can I put some
ride grass on there and we can put.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Them on the Okay, so you mentioned weed and feed.
In general, I prefer not to do a weed and
feed because often, depending on which herbicide is in it,
it could be a pre emergent or a post emergent.
Often the time to weed is not the time to feed,
or vice versa. Now there are some windows where that

(01:08:24):
would apply. What I would rather see you do is
get you a good quality fertilizer and put in on
when you should, and then when it comes to weeds,
by the product that goes after the weeds you're dealing with,
and put in on when you should. And I think
that's a better way to do it. My schedule online
at my website gardening with skip dot com tells you

(01:08:44):
it's got two big rows going across the page from
January to December. When do you put a pre emergent down?
When do you put a post emergent down? And they're
listed on they're the ones to use. Now that what
was the last thing you ask on the oh rye grass? Yeah,
rye grass is put out in when we really cool

(01:09:08):
off a lot, like we're talking late October early November,
putting the rye grass out and getting it sprouted and
going for an overseeded lawn. However, the benefits of that
is you have green lawn in the winter. The negatives
are yet to mo all winter. You may be watering
and fertilizing more because you have a living, actively growing

(01:09:29):
grass rather than a dormant from season turf. It looks good,
that's the upside, but the negatives are you got to
take care of it all winter. And the other negative
is in the spring when your grass is trying to
wake up, it's like you planted thousands of weeds in
your lawn because each rye is a plant competing with

(01:09:49):
your turf grass. Plant. Now, for if you've got a
commercial landscape where the property owners want it green all year,
they overseed that. There are reasons and places to overseed,
but I'm just saying, understand the negatives of it is
it's an additional stress because essentially the rye grass is
a weed if it's growing in a Saint Augustine lawn.

(01:10:10):
And what you do when you overseed, Dave is you
want to use a mix of about twenty percent annual
rye grass and about eighty percent perennial rye grass, or
vice versa. You can do different blends, and the annual
grows fast, but it doesn't have a nice deep green color.
The perennial is a little slower moving, but it has

(01:10:31):
a better deep green color. And so with that mix
you kind of get as best you can the best
of both worlds.

Speaker 12 (01:10:36):
I know you, all right, but light wait on the
mom the pop deal. There's one hole seventy five over
here in the willis and yeah, you walk in there
and it's all family in there, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
So that, yeah, that's the way to do it. You're
on the right track, man. The Grand Tour, all right,
that sounds like a deal. Hey, thanks Dave, I ap appreciate,
appreciate your call. Thank you very much for calling. Speaking
of a good garden centers. If if you're looking on
the west side of Houston, your destination garden center is

(01:11:13):
Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery, Nursery and well water gardens,
you go in to Nelson. I've come up with a
new term I think that Nelson's ought to use, and
that is your acoustic therapy garden center. And here's why.
I was just noticing that they while back, they had
the bamboo on sale, the Alphonse Car bamboo. That's the kind.

(01:11:34):
It's got a yellow stem, so it's will pretty against
the green leaves. It'll get about I think Alphonse Car
is going to get fifteen to thirty five feet tall,
depending on where it's growing. It's a clumping type. It's
not going to run all over the place and take over.
But when you hear wind blow through bamboo leaves, those
little stiff papery leaves, it sounds like it's raining. It

(01:11:55):
is a it is in another just like the water
gardens that they have there. It's another acoustic therapy features.
So they are officially the acoustic therapy garden center, but
don't limit them to that. They have every kind of
plant you can imagine in need. They certainly have everything
for water gardenings, and then they have the products to
help your plants grow. Well, how do you get there?

(01:12:16):
Will you go out to Katie Turn north on Katie
for it Ben Road and it's just up the street
on the right hand side. Nelsonwatergardens dot Com. We're going
to go out now to Freda in Pasadena. Hey, Frida,
welcome to garden Line. Let's see if we can get
your question answered here before the music starts playing.

Speaker 13 (01:12:34):
Okay, I finally got everything take care of with a
cheer leaded arm in the spring of most moss, and
I just wondered to add fertilize now do fall fertilizing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Fall fertilizing in October? I wouldn't worry about fertilizing right now.
It's not a lack of nutrients, and you don't want
to if it could. You don't want to stimulate new
growth right now because you didn't have a root system
to support it. Let's get your grass healthy and a
little bit of fall fertilizing is important. It helps it
go into winter. Stronger. So the effects of this take

(01:13:06):
all and the weakening that's done to the grass. You
kind of can can break out of that as we
come out into spring because you got a better, stronger
grass plant. But follow my schedule for the what do
you use. It's a different fertilizer ratio than we use
in the summertime that we would put on in October.

Speaker 13 (01:13:26):
Okay, my quick question. I sent you an email with
the pomerea that had some problems and I'm just wonder
if you'd had a chance.

Speaker 5 (01:13:34):
To look at it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
I did, I actually replied, was this It had like
on one side of the leaf a bunch of brown
going through it. Yeah, I don't That is not a
disease and it's not an insect. Something happened when that
leaf was unfolding that caused that damage, because then as
the leaf continued to get larger. Now it's kind of

(01:13:57):
is bent and twisted and all of that. But that
on there, that's not a disease or an insect pattern.
I don't know what did. It could be physical damage.
I don't know. I have to say I don't know.
But what I do know is you don't need to
spray that plume Aria.

Speaker 11 (01:14:14):
Okay, thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
All righty, all right, hey, thanks for the call. There
you go, folks putting an hour in the books. We'll
be back with your questions and calls. If you would
like to be first up when we come back by night,
Durham break, go ahead and call in. You'll be ready
to go. Seven one three two one two fifty eight

(01:14:38):
seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. I need to go get me a cup
of coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Welcome to KTRH Guarden Line with Scip Richard.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
It's rim just watch him as the world.

Speaker 14 (01:15:16):
Us so many things to say. Again, they're not a sign.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
All right, folks, welcome back to Guarden Line. Glad to
have you with us today. We got plenty of garden
talking to do, so if you'd like to ask a question,
just give me a call. Seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two k t r H. Those of you who have
emailed and I'm awaiting your call to help answer the

(01:15:55):
email with the photos that you sent. That's kind of
how we do it here on Guarden Line. Unfortunately, I
just don't have the timeframe available with my other endeavors
and things to be able to just type out emails.
And there's a lot more of you than there are me.
So I just asked it. If you send an email,
send me photos, and then call in and we'll talk
about other people will have the same questions that you had.

(01:16:16):
That is a fact for sure. We hear a lot
of the same questions each year because they're common to gardening.
And that is okay. I like to say on garden
Line that there's no such thing as a stupid question,
just stupid answers. So the pressure's on me. Okay, you're
sitting there thinking, I've heard some stupid questions in my life. Well,

(01:16:37):
that's not how I look at them. If it's a
question that you don't know, you ask away. We'll respect
that and we will give you an answer for it.
All right, that's how we work. So you know how
they say, do as I say, not as I do.
You know I've been telling you that hummingbirds are here
and you need to get those feeders out there. Well

(01:17:00):
guess he didn't have a feeder out Guess he was
sitting in his living room the other day looking out
the yesterday looking out the window, watching a hummingbird. Fortunately
I had a couple of flowers that were there to
help out the hummingbird. It was like, oh my gosh,
I got to get feeders out. So guess what I've
been doing this morning. I'm mixed up some sugary water
one part sugar to four parts water and let it

(01:17:21):
cool off real good. I warm it up to make
it dissolve faster, let it cool off, and then I'll
put a little bit of a nectar defender in it.
Now that's from Wildbirds Unlimited, by the way, So it's
my favorite hummingbird feeder. The one I was using this
morning is the hype perch feeder. It's a flat feeder
and it's called high perch because you can look at
it and see all the hummingbirds all the way around

(01:17:43):
the feeder. In other words, it's it's they can't hide
from you on that one, or they don't accidentally hide
from you on it. So anyway, I'm getting it all
set up, and yep, if any hummingbirds are listening, just
hang on. I'm gonna have it out there sometime after
ten o'clock when I'm done with the show today. Wild
Birds Unlimited has the hyper Peter. They have the hummingbird
neck the nectar defender that you put in so that

(01:18:04):
it lasts in the heat. It doesn't last. If you
don't believe me, make you a glass of sweet tea.
I'll drink a little tea out of it and go
out and set it on your picnic table or patio
or something like that, and leave it for a few
days and then see what your tea tastes like. That's
what it is like for hummingbirds when they don't when
we don't change out the nectar regularly, and also when

(01:18:27):
the temperatures are like they are right now, So replace
it regularly every few days, two or three days, you
should definitely be replacing it. And if you put the
hummingbird nectar in there, you can go seven to ten
days without having to replace it. It prevents that spoilage
from occurring. Anyway, where's wild birds unlimited? Well, you only
have six to pick from, so yeah, that I'm being facetious.

(01:18:50):
They're everywhere, not hard to find one no matter where
you are in the Houston area. For example, Kingwood has
one on Kingwood Drive in Houston. There's one on Bell
Air and one on Memorial Drive in Pearland on East Broadway.
Up in Cypress, there's one on Barker, Cypress, and out
in clear Lake on El Dorado Boulevard. Go to WBU

(01:19:11):
dot com WBU as in wild Birds Unlimited WBU dot
com forward slash Houston and you can find all the
great stores near you. And when you get in there
you can get your high perch feeder, your nectar defender,
and just an unbelievable array of wonderful bird seed that

(01:19:31):
is full of seeds birds want to eat, not the
junk they kick on the ground like a bunch of
cheap o bird seed has. Alrighty, let's go now out
to talk to Eddie this morning. Hey Eddie, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:19:45):
Yes, sir, thank you very much for kicking my call.
I seem to have an evasion of snails in my yard,
all in the garden areas. And other than the commercial
products you can buy at the big box stores, any

(01:20:06):
other thing I can do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
You go to a ace hardware store, a good independent
garden center places like that. You're going to find snail
baits that are based on things like one of them
is the slug obate is called It has iron phosphate
in it, and what happens is it's a bait, so
the snails eat it and then that iron gives them well,

(01:20:31):
just to put it mildly, a terminal case of constipation,
and it works that way on them. It's not you know,
it doesn't have that what you would call a chemical poison,
I guess, but it does work very well in any
bait though, Eddie. You want to make sure that it's fresh,
keep it inside where it's cool. Don't let it go

(01:20:51):
bad outside, because if it loses its attractiveness, it's not
going to work because the snails aren't going to eat it. Well.
Put enough out where they get a good dose of it,
not just a taste of it, and get a little
sick and then say, hey, I'm not going to eat
that anymore, but a good dose of it and it works. Well.
That's probably your best best way to get rid of them.

Speaker 5 (01:21:12):
Okay, Well, I sure appreciate you answer my question. It
just seems like I can't get rid of them. They
multiply very quickly or something I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
Yeah, yeah, they do. And they also like it wet,
so the more often you're sprinkling and wetting the thatch
and the moult and the plants and everything out there
that that just makes nails and slugs even worse. So
letting the surface stay a little on the dry side
helps well. Thanks sir, I appreciate that call. Good luck

(01:21:44):
with that. Have you been outside lately? Have you noticed
it's been a little on the warm side. This week
has been a nice break, but I still our AC
units are running all the time, trying to keep up
with it. Arctic Insulation Solutions specializes in helping you keep

(01:22:05):
your home as cool as possible for the least money
as possible. We have a lot of ways that we
lose our air conditioning. Maybe the unit's not efficient, maybe
the insulation's not adequate, maybe your roof attic area isn't
properly vented. They can fix all of that stuff. What

(01:22:27):
they'll do is they'll come out, they'll evaluate your whole situation,
and they'll tell you here's the things we think you
need to do, and you can start from number one,
go all the way down to number whatever it is,
and depending on your budget, you can talk with them
make the choices. I may be sealing up some of
those places where a wall socket or a switch or

(01:22:48):
a ceiling fan in the ceiling has air leaking around it.
They all do. Have you have you ever noticed you
take the plate off a wall socket and what do
you see? Well, you see the thing inside, but there's
air gap all around it, and so airic can move
from the wall or the ceiling and the attic in
this case down into your home and then you can
fix all that stuff. Arctic Insulation Solutions. Here is the

(01:23:10):
phone number eight three to two five eight six twenty
eight ninety three. Eight three to two five eight six
twenty eight ninety three. And here is the website Arctic
a rc TIC Houston dot com Arctic Houston dot com.
Give them a call. Don't don't quit wasting your hard

(01:23:30):
earned money just to air condition the outdoors, as it were.
Make those things go to work for you, keeping your
house cooter, taking easy on your air conditioning unit too.
I'm gonna take a little quick break here at one moment.
When I come back, Patricia and Livingston and Jake and
friends WITHOO you're the first two. Hey, welcome back, Welcome

(01:23:51):
back to the garden line. We are going to jump
right on in here and head out to Livingston, Texas.
Talk to Patricia. Hey, Patricia, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (01:24:00):
Good morning, sir.

Speaker 10 (01:24:02):
I am dealing with an issue. I love crape.

Speaker 11 (01:24:05):
Myrtles and I have three in my front yard.

Speaker 15 (01:24:10):
The top of the leaves is turned is black now,
but I can move it off with my hand if
I've got water going underneath the leave. On the underside,
a little white dots.

Speaker 10 (01:24:21):
Look like eggs. And I want to know how I
get rid of these.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Well, there are several things that can cause the black
city mode that you're seeing. One of them is crape
myrtle bark scale that will appear on the trunk and
you'll see little white things on the trunk. That's the
bark scale. Another one are white flies and white fly
pupa are little spots underneath the leaf. That is one

(01:24:51):
of the stages of white flies. Mealy bodies will do this,
and aphids can do that. All those insects produce sugary
water and the city mode growth on that. So one
thing all those insects have in common is they're sucking
juices out of your plants. So and sect aside. If
you put as a stomach and sect side down on
the ground and watered in, it will move up in

(01:25:15):
the plumbing and any of those all the above, they
will receive the poison from sucking it out of the plant.
So if a lady gain is crawling across the leaves,
you know, the poison's not on the leaves to hurt
that that way. So we generally try to minimize it
when when a great myrtle is blooming, because when honey

(01:25:38):
bees take the nectar, there is a little bit of
that in the nectar. It doesn't kill the bee, but
it disorients them and makes them less able to survive.
So I would I would, I would get that done now.
I would get that done now. And there's an ingredient.
Do you have a pin or pencil handy.

Speaker 10 (01:25:55):
Hold on?

Speaker 5 (01:25:57):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Okay, we'll do that. Uh So there there are a
couple of systemics on the market, and I'm going to
give them to you in the order of preference for
this problem. Okay, all right. The first one, yeah, uh
is dino tephroon. Think of d I N O like
dinosaur t F. You are a n dino TEF, you're ron.

(01:26:25):
The other greeting you don't need both, you just need
one or the other is in mid o cloprid and
it's I am I.

Speaker 10 (01:26:34):
D O.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
C l O p r I D mid o cloprid
h So either of those I would I would look
for the Dino Tephon first, depending on where you shop.
You're up there in living stcenario, I'm not familiar with.

Speaker 5 (01:26:50):
All of your darning centers and.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
Livingston Texans, right correct, Okay, technically I'm Aska. Oh yeah,
so you know you may find some of those. If
you got an ACE Hardware store up there, they may
they may have some up there. If you're ever down
in Houston. We got a lot of places to sell
them down here. But anyway, that's what you do. Follow
the label very carefully, and do it sooner rather than later.

(01:27:16):
Kind of start to shut these things down, all right.

Speaker 13 (01:27:20):
So by if you're on and what was the second one.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
In mid dough cloakprid in med dough clobrid, I'm gonna
that's all right, all right, I'm gonna have to run
to another call. But good luck getting those things under control.
You take yeah, thank you, you take care. Yeah. ACE
Hardware is a good place to get all kinds of
things like that. You know, they carry the products to

(01:27:44):
control pests and disease and insects. If you're preventing weeds,
that's called a pre emergent. If you're let's see killing
existing weeds, that's a post emergent. ACE has got you
covered on all of that. By the way, today is
the last day of the grand reopening of the ACE
store up there on Spring Cypress Road, Spring Cypress Road,
and they got promotions and demos and giveaways and vendors, raffles,

(01:28:07):
food and a lot of reasons to go out there.
Ten percent off everything, by the way, at the store
that day, and fifteen percent off still products steel, you know,
the the power equipment company. When you're at an ACE store,
you're going to find way beyond just fertilizers and lawn
and garden supplies. You're going to find barbecue equipment. Oh gosh.

(01:28:27):
They have the best of the best at ACE Hardware.
And you're going to find some really nice power tool
brands too. You know, ACE has its own brand. There's
Milwaukee and Stanley, Blackendecker, Craftsman, and my personal favorite is Dwault,
the yellow and black tools like the Dewault. But that's
Ace Hardware. You can find ACE Hardware's everywhere. For example,

(01:28:47):
if you go up to northeast. There's a K and
M in a task Caasita on Timber Forest. There's a
K and M in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. There's Jnar
Importer Jnr's Importer on FM thirteen fourteen, and a Crosby
Ace up there on FM twenty one hundred. You can
have an ACE Spring. Ace is on Spring Cypress. Going north,

(01:29:09):
let's go southwest Plantation ACE Hardware on Mason Road in
the Richmond Rosenberg area. Then I could just go on
and on and on to find your ACE Hardware store.
Go to ACE Hardware Texas. Don't forget Texas dot com.
You can sign all the stores right there. Now we're
going to go to Friends with and talk to Jake
this morning. Hey, Jake, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:29:31):
Thank you Skip, Good morning.

Speaker 9 (01:29:32):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
A couple of questions.

Speaker 16 (01:29:34):
We have a nice, nice pecontree in our backyard. It's
been here since we've been here for twelve years. It's
probably about a fourteen inch diameter and it's loaded with pecans.
And this spring started in March. I made it my
mission to relocate squirrels, and I relocated thirty six squirrels,

(01:29:55):
so I don't have an issue so much with squirrels.
What can I do it's loaded with pecans, what can
I do to at this point to ensure that they
make it all the way to mid October or so?

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
And yeah, yeah, up until about the first of October,
those pecans were growing in size and then the shell
inside the shuck hardened became woody. Now it can't grow
in size anymore. So after that it begins filling that
shell with kernel. So when we're looking August September, that

(01:30:29):
is a very important time for the tree not to
lack for water because it won't fill kernels if it
doesn't get enough water. It also is a time to
protect the foliage. If your pecan is prone to leaf diseases,
that literally just take out some of that green carbohydrate
producing area. You know, all the kernel carbohydrates in the

(01:30:50):
kernel and the protein everything that all came from the leaves. Okay,
So protecting them before they're you know, like you've lost
half your surface area. If that's needed. Not all the
time is it needed, but if it is, make sure
and protect them so water and keep those leaves on
the tree. And those are the secrets to getting well

(01:31:12):
filled kernels at harvest.

Speaker 16 (01:31:13):
Okay, so waters, I can take care of the water.
As far as is there any nutrients I'm a big
believer in as mite and super seaweed. Is there any
of that that I could add to the either the
soil around the tree or the tree directly.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
Yeah, Well, in general, the fertilizers and the micro like
azamite and the you know things like you mentioned seaweed.
Things you want to put on it, go ahead and
do that. It's just because what that does is, you know,
having nitrogen through the season for example, that grows lots
of fresh new growth. It encourages vigor and green leaves

(01:31:51):
and things, and that's part of the process of you
getting pecans out of the deal. So that's true of
micronutrients is needed, that's true of anything that you want
to put on them and just keep the trees healthy.
But the main thing at this point in the season,
you know, is that water and then the healthy leaves.
Those are the two critical points in getting filled kernels
in October.

Speaker 16 (01:32:11):
Okay, more quick question about tomatoes. We had a very
bountiful tomato crop this year and we cut the tomato
plants back. Is there any hope that I can We'll
get fall tomatoes off of the We basically have cut
them back to like twelve inches tall, as.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
Long as they have leaves. Well, if as long as
they have leaves on them, they will. Sometimes if you
cut them back and it's nothing but little tomato stems,
they don't survive well. They go downhill. But if they
have some leaves they will. If you have any vines
left that are still alive. Instead of cutting them back,

(01:32:50):
what I would recommend doing is taking that vine. You
can need to cut off the last eight inches of
it and put it in a glass of water inside
to get each to form and then replant it. Or
you can just take the vine and bury a section
of the vine about a foot away from the end
and it will root, and then you can cut it
off from the mother plant, get the mother plant with

(01:33:13):
all the spider mites and stuff out of there, and
let that new when you started become your plant for fall.
So either way you go is good, all right, sir?
That says thank you very much, sir, you bet, thank
you for the call. I appreciate that sweet green from nitrofoss.
It's a fertilizer that is great for this transition between
summer and fall if you have not used a slow

(01:33:35):
release fertilizer like Natrefass super Turf that we used earlier
in the summer. If you haven't used one in a while,
do the Sweet Green now and then you'll be ready
to go in October for the fall fertilization, which is
a different product for fall fertilizing. But Sweet Green acts fast,
it moves quick, it makes green and you'll like the
results of it. You can get nit Foss products at
M and D and Cyprus and Luetta. You can get

(01:33:56):
them at Langham Creek Ace Hardware on FM five twenty nine.
Go down to the Richmond Rosenberg area. There's an M
and D in Rosenberg on Avenue I and a Plantation
Ace on FM three fifty nine. All those carry Nito
Foss products. Let's see, Sam, I'm going to start your call.
I have an absolute heartbreak in about forty five seconds.

(01:34:19):
But you had emailed me a picture of some lemons
and what I see as a tree that lost its
leaves during due to stress, and it's in a container,
so it's really easy on a hot summer day for
them to get too dry and drop their foliage. I
see new growth which is a good sign that's just
starting to push back out on them, and I see
some signs of citrus leaf miner. So get you some

(01:34:44):
spinosat or something like that, and be ready to spray
the new growth to prevent the leaf miners from also
taking away that growth. I know I'm jumping on you
here real quick. If you want to hang on, we
can continue this discussion after the half our break, but
that's in a nutshell of what I'm seeing there, So

(01:35:05):
hang on, we'll keep talking if you like. Hey, welcome
back to the guardline. Kind of hit hard there on
that last call, Sam. I don't know I've ever done
that before, but that a few seconds to put an
answer out there, So rather than make somebody sit and
wait through another break, I like to get them an

(01:35:26):
answer quick. But yeah, Well, basically Sam's picture was a
centrist tree and almost every leaf is gone from it.
It's got plenty I think it's a man lemon and
there's got plenty of fruit on it, but no leaves
to support that. And so a lot of things can
cause a plant to de folio, especially when they're in
a container. Remember this, when you have a plant and

(01:35:48):
a container, and I got a bunch of plants and containers.
That whole root system is limited to that little cylinder
of soil in the pot. That's it. So in the ground,
that same plant would have root's going far and wide
and a container. Every drop of water, every element, molecule
that it's going to get to support its growth is

(01:36:09):
coming out of the soil in that pot. So if
it gets a little dry for a while, that's a stress,
and it will it'll often drop lease. If you overwater
it and the drainage holes aren't good in that pot
and say soggy, you're going to get some serious concerns
and you will see a leaf drop sometimes even root rock.
That leads to the demise of the plant. But when

(01:36:30):
it loot, when it drops leaves, so that now all
the carbohydrate production has been lost from that plant. You've
got a bunch of twigs, but no leaves on them.
That's okay. The plant's going to bounce back, it's going
to put on new foliage. But if when that new
foliage comes out the citrus leaf miner, which I'm going
to post something this week to our Cardenline Facebook page
about that, I just need to edit the video. The

(01:36:52):
citrus leaf miner gets in and now the plant is
using stored energy to grow more leaves. But before they
can get out there and start making carbs those leaves,
you're just getting all bogogered up by the leaf minor.
Now it's even weaker trying to put out another settle leaves.
So on new growth coming out, you need to deal
with the leaf minor and the leaf minor. The two simplest,

(01:37:16):
safest ways to do it are two different products that
are both organic. One of them is called ASA directin.
The name we use for it is name name n Eem.
Now name comes in two forms. One is an oil
that is not going to be helpful for this leaf
minor situation. The other form, when you look at the

(01:37:37):
ingredient and stay instead of saying whole clarified extract of
name oil, it'll say as a directin is the name
ingredient Aza. Just look for Aza, not as a mite,
as a directin. Okay, just to clarify that both begin
with Aza. So when you see that ingredient, it says

(01:37:57):
name and you see as a directin you that on
there it soaks in the tissues. No kill that leaf
miner even inside the leaf after they've hatched. The other
ingredient is spindo sad and it's easy to spell. It's
spin the letter O and the word sad. All right,
Spino said, or asa direct either of those. I had

(01:38:18):
some citrus that you know how I say, do as
I say, not always as I do. I got busy
and it sent out a bunch of new growth, and
I knew I gotta spray. That's it's because these leaf
miners are everywhere. And sure enough that all that new
growth got hit by leaf minor and now I'm out
there spraying to stop future damage to it. So very

(01:38:39):
important to do that. That is full sure. Hey, Medina
products earlier I was talking about, you know, applying them
to the lawn. Anything we can do to our lawns
to keep them strong, to keep them healthy, even to
help out compete the diseases on the surface of the
runners and things like take a root rot and the

(01:39:00):
root surfaces as well. Medina Plus is now available. Well,
it is available in a hose in sprayer. You just
took it up to the hose. You go out there
on your lawn, follow the instructions and just spray the
whole line with it. And does it kill disease. No.
Does it help a lawn stay strong and healthy? Yes?

(01:39:21):
Does it help the lawn prevent disease, to avoid the disease,
to be in a condition where the disease isn't going
to take it over? Absolutely it does. Medina Plus ready
to spray in that hose in sprayer that it comes in.
That's a great one to use. And by the way,
when you get those hose in sprayer things, you know,

(01:39:43):
a bottle with the sprayer on top, save that because
you can put out anything on your lawn with that
same bottle. You've already got the hose in sprayer. You
just need to after you use them, you want to
wash it out, put some wash it ay as best
you can. Put some water in the bottle and then
go back and hose in spray and have that clear

(01:40:05):
water go all the way through and clear out, because
otherwise the residues left in there kind of gunk it up.
But there's no reason to throw that away. If you
got it, you could buy, you know, some product, like
buy their jug of Medina Plus, put it back in
same bottle and use it if you want to go
that route. I'm just saying those are great little devices.

(01:40:25):
People go out and buy hose en sprayers and then
they try to figure out how to calibrate them in things. Well,
you've already got one ready to go there, So just
tip for the wise. But main thing is you didn't
want to take all route right. You need to do
some things to keep that grass as healthy as you can,
and you need to start that as soon as you can.
If your lawn is half dead, it's a little late
to accomplish what you could accomplish if you cut it

(01:40:48):
early on and begin to help that lawn earlier on. Anyway,
where do you get Medina products everywhere? Everywhere? Feed stores,
garden centers, independent garden centers, the Ace hardware stores you know,
and Southwest Fertilizer. Of course they have one of everything there.
Menina products work. You are listening to Garden Line and

(01:41:10):
we're here to help you. Have a bountiful lawn, a
beautiful landscape, a bountiful up. It's that bountiful lawn, bountiful
flowers and vegetables. How about that a beautiful landscape. I
guess you could say a bountiful lown. Anyway, all you
got to do is get me a called seven to
one three two, one two fifty eight seventy four. Will
be glad to help you with that. Uh, you know

(01:41:31):
my mantra on garden line. One of my mantras is
brown stuff before green stuff. And all that is is
a simple quick way of saying, Look, if you want
to have beautiful plants, I don't care if it's a
vegetable garden, a flower bed, a vet, a herb garden, shrubs, trees,
and lawns. Start by getting the foundation right, get the

(01:41:51):
soil right, and then your plants can thrive. Now, how
do you get the soil right? Will you go to
a place that sells good stuffs, and heirloom soils are
sold all over the place. Airloom soil products. They have
the rose and other bloomers blend. They've got the veggie
and herb mix, they've got they've got soils for fruit
type plants, interests and fruit type plants. They've got lawn

(01:42:14):
mixes for when you're renovating your lawn, kind of filling
in those areas and stuff, getting it, getting it ready
to go for the new side to go down. Airloom Soils,
that's also the website Airloomsoils dot com. Go check it out.
They've got a nice little calculator on the website. So
if you're going how much do I need to cover
one thousand square feet two inches deep? Well calculator, it'll

(01:42:38):
tell you. Airloomsoils dot com they can you can buy
by the bag in many, many places. Many of our
sponsors carry airloom by the bag. You can buy it
by the supersack. They bring this giant, one cubic yard
sack out and set it on your driveway. I've used
that before. It is so easy to shovel out of there.
It's not such a mess to try to clean up.

(01:43:00):
And you can also have them just bring a bulk delivery.
If you're gonna do a lot of yard work, you're
going to need a number of cubic yards to do that,
and they can do a bulk delivery for you as well.
Airloomsales dot com. Let's take a break. I'll come back
and we'll do the last segment of this eight o'clock hour. Hey,

(01:43:21):
welcome back to Guardline. What are you gonna talk about?
You got another hour after this hour. We've got a
few minutes left in this hour. I can take a
call or two if you call quick seven one three
two one two k t R eight seven one three
two one two k t R. H Uh, have you
been to Plants for All Seasons recently? And if you haven't,

(01:43:45):
you need to go check it out. First of all,
check out their new website. It's really good. It's Plants
for All Seasons dot com. Excellent, excellent site. When you
go to Plants for All Seasons, what you're gonna find is,
I would say, first and foremost two things, Uh, the
plants that want to grow here, that many of which
you may not even have heard of before, but they

(01:44:06):
know them, they've tested them, they're gardeners, they've been doing
this since nineteen seventy three as a professional garden center.
The second thing is you're going to find advice that
is priceless. I mean, I really mean that getting good
advice is so important. Don't go to social media and
you know all the different places bouncing around at everybody
who proclaims themselves an expert. Go to a garden center

(01:44:29):
where you're going to get experts and know what they're
talking about. And that is Plants for All Seasons. It's
one of our great independent garden centers. Here in the scenario,
you can take them a plan or a picture or whatever.
And even if you're just kind of dreaming. You know,
I've got a patio and it's kind of blind, and
I want I want to put some containers and I
want color and I want it to be I don't know,
maybe you want to miniature citrus tree to put on,

(01:44:52):
or maybe you want it to be a fall colored container.
Then in October it just looks like Halloween out there.
They can do that. They can get set up and
do that. Plants for All Seasons dot com. Plants for
All Seasons dot com two eight, one, three, seven, six,
sixteen forty six. Simple as that. Well, I've been talking

(01:45:13):
about a lot of different things today. Earlier I was
throwing out all these product names and ingredients and things.
You know, there are some ingredients that are available in
eight hundred different products, So you know, how do I
how do I cover that? When I'm answering a question.
While ago someone had centru sleep miner and I was
talking about azib Durrachtin and spinosid. Now you're trying to

(01:45:38):
write those down and remember them, and yeah, you can
get them. Do you know where I guarantee you can
get more than one version of both of those products.
Southwest Fertilizer corner of Bisnett and Renwick, Southwest Houston. In fact,
you just walk in there and you told Bob Are
one of his team, Hey, Skip says I got Leap Centro,
sleep minor what can I use? And you wouldn't even
have to have the name of those products. They would

(01:45:59):
walk right over and show you your options. That's what's
so nice about being able to walk into a place
where they know what they're talking about and where they
have what you need, and then some fact that you
get options for all the things that you need. At
Southwest Fertilizer again corner Abyss and that and run Making
Southwest Houston. You need to go buy there. Plan a

(01:46:21):
trip this week. You're going to get out and about
go buy and check it out. See what I've been
bragging on all these years with the tools and the
products that they have, and the equipment that they have,
and on and on down the line. Southwest Fertilizer. I
have a little bit of a moment here. I get
to talk about something else that I want to talk about,
which is good. For example, I've talked about a number

(01:46:46):
of philosophical kind of things today. You know, be encouraged,
you know, don't be afraid to try things out. You're
not going to fail unless you quit, and all that
kind of stuff. I want to tell you one more
and that this isn't probably a fun thing to have
to hear, but it's you need to hear this, read
and follow the product label. It is as simple as that.

(01:47:09):
I know us guys don't. We don't ask directions and
we don't read instructions. We just glog, glog, glog glug.
That looks like enough, Let's fill it with water and
spray it. Don't do that. I'm telling you. If a
teaspoon is good, that does not mean a tablespoon is better.
Every pest is controlled. Disease control and weed control product

(01:47:30):
has a label where the product works well with a
minimum of harmful unintended consequences underdosing and going to give
you adequate control. In fact, it may help build up
resistance to that ingredient. Overdosing, it may kill your plants,
or at least lower performance or weaken them, resulting in decline.
Members morning, I was talking about how when our plants

(01:47:51):
get weak diseases move in and that could be something
that you helped cause. Let me ask you to think
about this way. If using more of a product then
the label says would result in better results, wouldn't the
company selling that product tell you to use more so
they could not only you'd get better results, but they'd

(01:48:13):
sell more product. See what I mean. There's a label
rate for a reason. It tells you how to apply
a product carefully and correctly. That is so important. Sometimes
the application equipment minimum hours before a rain. You know
you're going to go spray some herbicide out there on
your leaves and it's going to rain in an hour.
Probably not a good idea, but that'd be on the label.

(01:48:34):
Are their temperature restrictions? So many broad leaf summer weed
control products say don't use them when they're over ninety
degrees or something close to that, And there is a
reason you will see damage if you don't. Pre Emergent
herbicides very helpful. The simplest, easiest way to prevent a
weed is to prevent it for the seedling ever comes up,
as opposed to trying to kill it once it's a big,

(01:48:55):
strong plant. If you overuse a pre emergent, you will
stunting of the roots in your grass plant. And with
stunted roots, how does it take up water? How does
it take up nutrients? How does it overcome take a root?

Speaker 4 (01:49:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
You see what I'm saying. Read the label. That's very
very important. All right, let's go out here to the
woodlands and we're going to talk to Jay this morning. Hey, Jay,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:49:22):
Good morning. How are you doing this morning? I'm watching YouTube.
I was watching YouTube last night and I know that's dangerous,
but I saw I've been eat up with the nuts
edge this summer and they had a product called Imperio
and it's what how a sulfur on metal seventy And

(01:49:45):
I'm just wondering all that would do here on our
Santa Augustine grass.

Speaker 2 (01:49:51):
It does good. If you go on to my website
Gardening with skip dot com if you haven't been there.
There's two nut sets publications. Once a quick look and
one is an in depth look. Do you read the
in depth one because it helps you understand the nuts
edge monster? And when you when you read that, you'll go, oh,
I see why I need to or I see how

(01:50:12):
to or whatever. And one of the main The best
product that a homeowner can get a hold of for
nuts edge is halosulfur on. It comes in many brands.
There's a brand called Sedge Hammer, I believe there's some
other brands, and the Impiro you mentioned that's just another
brand that's not so widely available here in the Houston area.

(01:50:32):
But the important thing is the ingredients like titlanol or
generic titlean al same ingredient. Okay, and so yeah, that works,
But read that publication on how and when do you
use it because if you don't use it right, you're
not going to get the results you want.

Speaker 9 (01:50:49):
Cool, And if I could have a second question related,
there's something real quick. It's very thick and it almost
looks like it's woven in my Sant Augustine and I'm
warnering what that might be.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
Hey, could you I'm gonna put you on hold. My
producer will give you a email if you can send
me a photo before the end of the show day.
I got one more hour left, uh and follow up
with a call or if I look at the picture,
I may just say it on the air what I'm
what I'm seeing, But it'd be better if you'd call back,
but we will certainly do that. Let me not guess
at what that weed is. Let's take a look outstanding.

(01:51:24):
Thank you you bet Jay, thanks a lot, appreciate that.
All right, folks, Well got another hour left in the weekend.
We got any questions seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Let's talk about it and a
lot of things you don't like, weeds and things. You
can describe them and I can try to picture them.

(01:51:45):
Or maybe it's a bug, or maybe it's a disease,
or maybe it's like I'd like to identify this plant
and it's green and it has flowers. M Semi picture,
semi picture that way, we'll get to the bottom of it.
Why would we waste your time and money going out
and buying products and spraying when we don't even know

(01:52:05):
what we're praying for.

Speaker 1 (01:52:10):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip rictor.

Speaker 4 (01:52:16):
Crazy Gas Trim. Just watch him as world God.

Speaker 14 (01:52:29):
Many things to seepot crazy great.

Speaker 4 (01:52:34):
Gas again.

Speaker 14 (01:52:39):
Not a salad gas.

Speaker 4 (01:52:44):
Sun beamontee.

Speaker 2 (01:52:51):
All right, folks, we're back. Welcome back to guard Line.
Good to have you with us this morning. Listen, if
you have not done a long fertilization and a good way.
You didn't do a slow release that'll carry you through
summer like we generally talk about. Now would be a
good time to put that sweet Green down from nitrofoss.
Sweet Green is a product made from a molasses base

(01:53:11):
with microbial activity to create eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer. That's
an immediate release, and you put it down now. Put
in a moderate rate. Don't overdo it. We just got
through talking about overdoing. Put in a moderate rate out
there and it will green up your lawn and it'll
look good and it'll carry you all the way until
it's time for that October fertilization, the fall fertilization where
we use a different ratio of nutrients in order to

(01:53:34):
get good success with your lawn. You're going to find
nitrofoss products like sweet Green at places like Enchanted Forests
down in Richmond Rosenberg area. Up in Stafford on South
Maine Court Hardware. It is another place you can find
Langham Creek Ace Hardware on FM five twenty nine in
the Copperfield area. They carry nitofoss products there as well.

(01:53:56):
We're going to head now to Texas City. If I
can find my button and talk to Allen this morning. Hey, Alan,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 17 (01:54:06):
Good morning to Skip. I sent a couple of pictures
to you earlier. I don't know if you received it
or not. My yard used me an ic and green,
and I started having what I thought chinched bud, brown
patch whatever, and so I trade it from everything in
a timely matter separated. But I've also phiped the liquid
iron down and I used.

Speaker 2 (01:54:23):
The further loan.

Speaker 17 (01:54:26):
Funge aside stuff. I still have horrible, horrible, like dead
looking areas.

Speaker 5 (01:54:34):
Hum.

Speaker 2 (01:54:35):
I was just I do not I don't see your email. Bummer, Uh, John,
let me do this. I'm gonna put you on hold.
My producer will pick up, make sure we got the
right email, and uh, if you're still here, I'm gonna
do a caller and when I come back, we'll continue
on with or without it. But let's see if we

(01:54:57):
can get the right an and just hang on all right,
He'll take care of you. Let's go to West Houston
now and talk to Steve. Hello, Steve, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 8 (01:55:07):
Yes, sir, Skip, how are you? Uh good?

Speaker 6 (01:55:13):
I remember meeting you.

Speaker 8 (01:55:15):
I think it was at Moss nursery. Enjoyed your presentation.

Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
I'm good. I got a place.

Speaker 8 (01:55:24):
I've got a place in the country. This is not
in Houston, outside of La Grange. It's an old peer
and bean farmhouse. And two questions. I have another a
pine tree. It's healthy, but I was driving by. It's
the back of the road and it's got vines growing
up the trunk. It's not poison ivy. My question is

(01:55:46):
should I spread with something or just cut the roots,
kill up roots and let it down its own. I
don't want to hurt the tree.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
Yeah, well, I won't hurt the tree to spread. You know,
if I saw picture what the vine was, I could
give you a little better answer on it. But the
bottom line is I think I would just cut it
off at the bottom, and then if it reached sprouts,
you can spray it either way. The pine bark is
not going to take in a herbicide, and pines don't
create root suckers like some trees, where if you spray

(01:56:17):
it you might get some on the leaves on that
root on that sucker coming up, so I wouldn't worry
about it. You could do either way. If it's climbing
a pine tree, chances are it's probably a Virginia creeper.
That's possible that that'd be my first thing that I
think about. And the only way that hurts the tree

(01:56:39):
is if it gets up in the top and shades
the leaves. It grows so high and vigorous that it
almost becomes a little umbrella over the tree itself and show, yeah,
you're not big concerned.

Speaker 8 (01:56:50):
But either way, I'll try pulling it up, tear it
that way, and then if it doesn't, I'll send you
a picture to determine sectly what it is. The other
question that this is an old pier and bean house,
and I but I've had it uh uh as Kurt

(01:57:12):
put around it and a nice one. But I'm still
having trouble with Armadal's getting under the house.

Speaker 5 (01:57:17):
Now.

Speaker 8 (01:57:17):
I have trapped them with a live trap, but it's just,
you know, it's just good you go in cir because
you trap them. And then and then and then here
comes another, here comes another. My question is I've got
mouth balls, and I was going to put the long
blower blow mouthballs in there, but is that excuse me,
is that any kind of deterrent for armadillo's.

Speaker 2 (01:57:40):
That is a good question. I've never heard that question.
I've never heard anything said about munthballs under there.

Speaker 8 (01:57:46):
Uh yeah, I have done it with thunks before. They're
long gone. They never came back.

Speaker 10 (01:57:56):
I guess it wouldn't hurt if you ever.

Speaker 2 (01:57:58):
Have you ever been locked up with the mothball. That's
a rough thing to have to breathe, So it would work.
I've talked to people that used it to keep cats
out of the flower beds and things like that. But
I don't see why. I don't see why it wouldn't work, Steve,
And it wouldn't hurt anything. So get somebody to video

(01:58:22):
you shooting mothballs under the house with a leaf blower
and send me the video. I got to see this one.

Speaker 8 (01:58:29):
Well, probably the truck will come get me.

Speaker 2 (01:58:37):
Yeah. Well whatever, all right, Well, good luck with that,
Thank you very much. All right. Hey, by the way,
if you're still down in the Moss area, I'm going
to be there on October fourth. I'll be out there
around lunch on October fourth, so I hope to see you.
All right, let's see here, We're going to go now

(01:58:58):
to the Woodlands and talk to Chris Estin. Hey, Christine,
welcome to Gardener there.

Speaker 18 (01:59:03):
Hi, Happy Sunday, Hie. Thanks okay, So I am calling in.
I we had our yard completely re landscaped about two
years ago, and I mean new soil, brought in new grass.
We're in the woodlands. We have lots of trees. We
were having trouble with our grass growing, so we completely
redid it in our front flowerbeds, sprinkler system in all.

(01:59:26):
In our front flower beds we have uh boxwoods and
I've been having some major trouble with the boxwoods.

Speaker 5 (01:59:33):
In fact, I've.

Speaker 18 (01:59:34):
Replaced them several times in the last two years. Finally,
my landscaper said, I think that they have a fungus,
and so he came out last week. He removed the
dead box woods. We sprayed insectis insecticide and he called
it a certain name. I can't remember what he called it.
But we sprayed a fungus you know treatment, and he

(01:59:55):
did everything well in the last week in a different bed.
It's not far from there. But I did notice. I
have about ten Japanese youths planted, and yesterday I noticed
the same thing. They're brown. There's actually a couple that
have already died, and I see the brown now spreading
to those. I was telling your guy, we have we

(02:00:18):
have Eagleston hollies that are, you know, super close, and
I'm just kind of freaking out because I don't know
if we need to spray again. I know we've had
a lot of rain, but you know, our sprinklers are.

Speaker 19 (02:00:31):
Set, right.

Speaker 2 (02:00:32):
I just don't know what to do, Okay, Well, uh,
all right, I don't know. I don't think boxwood blight
attacks Japanese.

Speaker 9 (02:00:43):
You.

Speaker 2 (02:00:44):
I've never run across that up to now.

Speaker 19 (02:00:48):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:00:49):
They they are. They're good and tough, independable plants. We've
got them all over Houston. The boxwoods have a few problems.
They can the boxwood blight is the worst, uh, and
it just kills what he called that section at a time.
They can also get nematodes and they can also get
oh gosh, what's the other boxwood? Oh, Fusarium verticillium, a

(02:01:13):
wilt that gets in the plumbing of the plant and
so water can't get through, and it's like you pulled
it up and set it on the driveway, just declines
like that. I don't know which one it was on
those box woods. Certainly when you put a new plant
in and it's hot weather. You got to water that
little roots cylinder that came out of the pot, because
the roots are going to be in that spot for
a good while for weeks. They're going to gradually start

(02:01:34):
to move out. But if you don't keep water in
that spot, uh soon after planting, you can have plants
start to die out. So it's gonna be one of
those things as far as the you you know, I again,
I go back to the house being watered after the planting,
how often and how much and stuff, and then the

(02:01:54):
possibility that there could be some other disease in the soil.
But if you how long go where the US planted Christine, Well, so.

Speaker 18 (02:02:03):
We had the youth have been there about a year.
We had this problem last summer.

Speaker 10 (02:02:08):
And again the.

Speaker 18 (02:02:12):
Sprinkler I don't think that they were getting watered enough.
And my sprinkler, you know, the the yard crew guy
came back. He adjusted our sprinkler heads. He said, yeah,
I think that they weren't getting enough, and so he
replanted them for us. And so they've been in the
ground for about a year and they've been doing fantastic
up until you know, about a week or two ago. Yeah, Yeah,

(02:02:36):
and we're watering, you know, we're go ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
If they've been in a year, then we're not gonna
worry about the water so much. There may be something
else going on in the soil, but at this point,
based on me trying to picture the things you're describing stuff,
I think my advice would be considered taking one that
you see as yeah, this is dying too before it's dead,
pulling the thing up, whether it's a boxwood or you

(02:03:03):
and sending it to the State Plant Clinic at A
and M. You can drive it up there. You being
in the woodlands, you're about an hour away, maybe an
hour and fifteen. You can drive it up to the
lab and drop it off. That's the best. You can
mail it if you want. It's just best if it
arrives early in the week. Like if it arrived late
on Friday and had to sit there all weekend, it's

(02:03:25):
not as good as sample on Monday morning as it
would have been. So I would do that. Let them.
What they'll do is they'll culture it out. They do
charge a fee for it, but you're losing a lot
of expensive plants, so it's worth it. But they'll culture
it out in a petri dish. And actually look at
the fungus. You know, it could be cotton root rot,
it could be urmilaria or oak root rot. It could

(02:03:46):
be fight top through a root rot. And knowing that
then tells you the way to go going forward. But
it needs to be a sick patient, not a dead patient,
because they can't do autopsies. They can only do diagnosis.
All right, That's that's what I would recommend. Yes, do
you think that.

Speaker 5 (02:04:07):
It could be?

Speaker 18 (02:04:08):
We do have a long crew that comes every week.
Is it something that can spread from yard to yard?
I've told my husband, I'm like, I would rather kill
the plants myself than have someone else do it.

Speaker 5 (02:04:18):
Should we should?

Speaker 17 (02:04:19):
We the.

Speaker 2 (02:04:24):
Some diseases can well, some can spread like that, but
they're not the crew isn't bringing in the disease that's
doing this. I'll tell you that, Okay, okay. If if
it is a disease, look I'm up against a heartbreak.
But good luck with that. I hope that helps. If
you want to do the plant clinic thing, the website
is Plant Clinic dot T A m U dot E

(02:04:48):
d U t A m U is in Texas and
m University. It's a state plant clinic.

Speaker 10 (02:04:53):
Very good.

Speaker 2 (02:04:54):
You dot dot ed you you bet, thanks, Christine. We
got to go to a break here. I'm overdue on that.
I found your email. You'll be first up and we'll
talk about that when we come back. Hey, welcome back
to Guardline folks. Glad to have you back, all right.
You know, I, uh, you were talking to Alan earlier.
I'm head out to Alan here on the phones. Hey, Alan,

(02:05:16):
I did find that email and uh looked, looked through
the things I had applied. I had replied to you
on that too. By the way, with you, do you
do have to take all root rot? Yeah, that's okay, No, no,
not a problem. You do have take all root rot
that particular product, the propaganda's old based product and yours
the one you had it from fertiloan on a hosean.

(02:05:36):
That's good, you could do that. Just remember that when
the grass doesn't have roots, it can't take up nutrients
very well. Uh, and so just trying to help it.
That's important. You sent me uh what was the other
oh gosh, trying to find the other ingredients that were
in that email.

Speaker 17 (02:05:58):
All the fertile iron liquid rollo, the liquid iron.

Speaker 2 (02:06:03):
It it's liquid, it's liquid iron and other micro nutrients,
and iron and manganese are the two most important supplements
for take off root. Right, So it's got both of
those in the in that fertile and product. That's one
of several products that has that. So I would start
using them. Uh, just follow the label carefully, don't overdo it.

Speaker 9 (02:06:22):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:06:23):
The sooner you get going on it, the better, because
when you see grass it's yellowing, it's already losing a
lot of the root system, and that's very important, uh,
you know, to for it to have roots.

Speaker 20 (02:06:36):
So uh, well, I just attacked the area of the
whole yard.

Speaker 2 (02:06:39):
But it looks Yeah, I didn't see did you send
me a picture of the yard in the original email?
I'm trying to h here, I don't. I don't know
if you did.

Speaker 5 (02:06:54):
I didn't see some of the pictures because they wouldn't.

Speaker 17 (02:06:57):
Yeah, I mean part of the yard is just looks fantastic.
It's just it's just the front yard here, just very
front of the house.

Speaker 2 (02:07:03):
Okay, Well, in that case, I would focus on that
and for the rest of the yard. At the first
sign of yellowing, start to do something.

Speaker 4 (02:07:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:07:13):
At the first sign of yellowing, if it shows up
in other areas. So anyway, that that's what I would do. Uh,
just do the best you can with it, especially important
it's going to be October and November doing funderside treatments
at that time of the year. Correct, and you could
stay with the protoconazole, or or you could go to
the other ingredient in my information sheet which you've seen, uh,

(02:07:36):
the as oxystroban. I just went blank. I've spoken all
my words today. My brain's quit working.

Speaker 6 (02:07:43):
So that's okay that all the time.

Speaker 2 (02:07:48):
There you go, all right, good luck with it, man,
Thank you, all right, take care you bet you bet
for sure you're listening to Guardline and we're here to
help you have success, and so I want to do
everything we can do to help you out success and
a lot of advice. Today. I had a lot of
time to just talk about stuff and a lot of

(02:08:10):
those principles, you know, don't delay on getting on stuff
because and I'm not blaming anybody out there on this
that is called in today. I'm just saying, the further
along a problem goes, the less you can do. And
we're coming up in defall that's when large patch used
to be called brown patch, those big circles appear. If
you wait until your yard is full of circles, well,

(02:08:33):
there's not much you can do except maybe stopping some
additional circles if you get it in time. But you're
gonna have brown circles all winter until it warms up
and the grassroom fills those brown circles with green leaves,
So sooner better than later. We're in storm season, we're
in hurricanes specifically seasoned, and when hurricanes come and knock

(02:08:54):
out power, it's a mess. And maybe you don't want
that freezer full of food going bad. Maybe you have
to work online and you need internet dependable all the
time to do the work you do. Quality Home Products
of Texas will sell you a Generaic automatic standby generator.
Those automatic stand by generators they just pop on when

(02:09:17):
the power goes off. They're awesome equipment, very good equipment,
but quality home. That is the distinction that you need
to hear. These folks have unmatched customer service, unmatched absolutely,
from Better Business Awards to Business Bureau Awards, to Houston
Chronicle Best of the Best, to five star reviews and

(02:09:40):
the tens of thousands. These folks take care of their customers.
They do it right. They start at the beginning. They
help you pick the right one, and there's a lot
of generator options. What serves what you need most. They
explain things to you. They go through all the hoops
of permits and things like that. You don't have to
do that. They take care of it, and they do

(02:10:02):
quality from the top to bottom. They don't bring a
little prefab slab and drop it on the ground, a
little skinny slab that's not going to work well in
a long term. Your lawnmower could knock it out of place.
They pour a new slab for you.

Speaker 5 (02:10:15):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (02:10:16):
Just I could just go on in all about why
I'm saying what I'm saying, but I'm telling you Quality
Home Products of Texas is a family owned operation. They're
the ones They offer financing and there is a process
in getting a generator. So when there's a storm in
the Gulf, it's too late to get a generator for
that storm set up. It's a process. So call them now,
get the information, think through things, and get on it

(02:10:40):
so that you are ready to go when that comes along.
Qualitytx dot com is the website qualitytx dot com and
the phone number. It's easy seven to one three quality
seven one three quality. That's that's what you need to know,
simple as that. Oh boy man. And if we've been

(02:11:00):
talking about a lot of things today, this has been
a quite an interesting endeavor. I was earlier, you know,
giving advice and things, and I want to give another
piece of advice. And you need to hear this, especially
those of you on social media that love social media.
The rise of influencers and the human fascination with strange

(02:11:24):
and novel things has brought a tsunami of horticultural hogwash
online that mis leads people who just want to garden
more successfully. I call Pinterest and Instagram the Mary Poppins
of social media because they have stage photos that are
practically perfect in every way like Mary Popinjell remember that,

(02:11:46):
but they mislead you into wasting time and money on
deceptively staged results. It's one thing to try something new
or fun, but I hate to see enthusiastic gardeners believe
things that are untrue and lower their chance of success.
If you read a social media posts, it says don't
ever plan a tomato until you've done this first exclamation point.
Are ten uses for beer in the garden by the way,

(02:12:07):
I can only think of two, and if I have
two beers, the slugs can't have one of them. Or
here's another one. If you're not growing roses this way,
you are doing it all wrong. Run away. That is
either they're going to give you pablum nonsense, just simple
like hey, what are your roses? Or it's going to
be blowing. Social media platforms are teeming with such horticultural clickbait.

(02:12:32):
I'm on a soapbox. You're right, I cringe when I
peruse some of the advice and claims that are offered
out there. That doesn't mean that they are all bad accounts. Heck,
garden lines got we got social media accounts. I'm just
saying that every day. Yet the other day I saw
some Stata te about later when we come back. It's
just ridiculous. Stay away, run away, be smart. Whoa yeah,

(02:13:03):
good morning, last half hour garden Line here, you got
a question seven one three, two one two fifty eight
seventy four. You hear me talk about ACE Hardware all
the time. My ACE Hardware group here in the Greater
Houston area is ACE Hardware Texas dot com. That's how
you find them. You go the Ace Hardware Texas dot com.

(02:13:25):
You're going to find the ACE Hardware stores all over
little map of them. You can find the one in
your area that you want to go to, and there
are a bunch of them. We got them all the
way from out in Orange, Texas to down in Rockport
and Port Lavaca, Texas.

Speaker 5 (02:13:40):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:13:40):
There's an ACE Hardware Victoria ACE on Navarro Street in Victoria,
out in Deer Park on the east side on Center
Street down or go all the way to Orange and
Child's Buildings Supply on North sixteenth is out there. There's
also an ASH Hardware by the way on Uvalde Road
in East Houston. There's all Seasons ACE up on Interstate
thirty forty on the north side, and go all the

(02:14:02):
way down to Chalmers Ace on Broadway Street in Galveston.
There's a bunch more than that though. Acehardware Texas dot Com.
That's where you find them. Just one more shout out
to the folks at the Ace Hardware store up on
Spring Cypress Road. They're having their grand reopening. Today's last date.
Everything's ten percent off, fifteen percent off still power equipment products.

(02:14:25):
They got the shin dig with food and raffles and
demos and all kinds of things going on up there.
So go check those folks out. While are you there,
You're gonna find my products from garden Line, I advise you.
Here's a good fertilizer, here's a good pest control, we
control whatever they've got it at ACE Hardware stores. Plus
all the things you need for better living. You know,

(02:14:46):
that barbecue pit, that string of lights around the patio,
the furniture on the outside, there inside the house, things
to make the home beautiful and more comfortable. SACE Hardware.
ACE Hardware is the place to go, for sure, and
for all these kind of needs. Well let's see here. Gosh,
you know, we've been rolling here and I've kind of

(02:15:08):
almost lost track of Okay, what's next? Where were we?
What thing did I set down? I've had some folks
call in and some pictures and things. Now would be
a good time to go ahead and call me back
so we can discuss those. Some of them are gonna
be a little more involved in the answer, but I'd
be happy to help you with that as well. I

(02:15:29):
was talking about well, I wasn't talking about I was
on a social media tirade before we went to the
last break, just because I've seen so much I got.
I had a picture of a rose bloom, and this
rose bloom looked like, oh, you know how little peppermint candies.

(02:15:52):
How the swirls of white and red will add about
four more colors into it. And it was a rose
bush and the petals were perfect swirls of all those colors.
That does not exist. That is a lie, absolute lie.
It doesn't exist. And I saw that. What are some
others that I've seen? Oh my gosh, I wish I
could show you pictures on the radio, because they're just

(02:16:15):
you know what, pet Barnham said, there's a sucker born
every minute. He was right, he was right. Don't be
that sucker. Don't believe that. Suff Go to sources that
you trust, Folks that you know are going to give
you good, accurate advice. That's the way to do it
if you want to do some things on social All right,
we're going to head out here to Montgomery, Texas and

(02:16:37):
talk now to Terry. Hey, Terry, welcome to Gardenline.

Speaker 19 (02:16:41):
Hey, good morning, Thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 5 (02:16:45):
Me.

Speaker 19 (02:16:45):
Like other callers that came in today, I have a
lot of dead Saint Augustine Grass I'm not sure what
killed in. It could be brown patch, it could be
my quobe. I I'm not sure, but I'm I've pulled
up most of what I call the skeletons, uh, the

(02:17:07):
dead tendrils. And my question for you is, do I
need to do something to the soil before I put
in new Saint Augustine sawd.

Speaker 2 (02:17:21):
No, you don't just smoothing it out if it were
very compacted, you know, mixing a little bit of a
good soil blend that's got some some a little bit
of compassed in it, not a lot, just a little bit, uh,
will kind of be helpful. But whatever killed it, it's
not like you treat the soil and get rid of

(02:17:42):
that thing that killed it. There's not an option there.
I have a publication online for Take all Root rot.
I've got two of them on my website, and I
would encourage you to read the one. Read both of them.
They got pictures in them so you can see what
the disease looks like. You may have had that, and
it'll tell you what to do to protect the grass
you have not. You know, when you put the new

(02:18:04):
grass in, if it starts to yellow, starts to brown,
a little bit. You want to jump on it soon.
But my website is gardening with Skip dot com Gardening
with Skip. Okay, look at that. It's a free publication
to download. Uh, there's a chance that was at It
could have been due to some other stress, you know,
drought stress. It could have been due to certain kinds

(02:18:26):
of chemicals that can cause problems for the grass. Who knows.
But this right now, we're just getting so many takeoff
questions that it's the elephant in the room. But I'm
definitely not diagnosing that that's what you have, because I
mean senior lawn.

Speaker 19 (02:18:43):
But picture possibly be for over watering or just so
much rain and over I don't think, because it's only
in one certain area, So I don't think that's what
it is.

Speaker 2 (02:18:56):
Yeah, No, that that's a sign that it's not. Let
me ask you this. Let me ask you this is
the area that it's in. Did it start by a
curb or a sidewalk or a driveway or did it start.

Speaker 19 (02:19:08):
Out in that art fact, it's the grass that roves
the cemit pool decking in my backyard.

Speaker 2 (02:19:18):
Okay, Well here's the thing, all right, So what you
need to do is you need to go to my
website gardeningoskip dot com and look at the take all Thing.
Inside the take all Thing, one of the two publications
shows you pictures at chinchbugs, so you know what you're
looking for. And there's a direct link to a publication
by entomologists at A and M on chinchbugs, and you

(02:19:40):
can read about them, what they look like, what they do,
what to do about it. So you may have chinchbugs
as opposed to take all rerad that's a possibility for sure.
So go check all that out. It's a lot of
free information. And after looking at it, if you want
to call back some time we can talk, okay, but
next time send me.

Speaker 19 (02:19:57):
Pictures pinch yes, yes, okay, I'll.

Speaker 2 (02:20:03):
Do that church bugs. But all you got to do
is load it on your computer and just click on
the link and I'll take you right there. All right,
Thank you very much, appreciate that. Oh my pleasure. Definitely
good to know. I you know one thing that I
you know, one thing that makes me happy is uh

(02:20:24):
when a gardener calls about a problem early earlier in
the in the process, or maybe calls and says, you
know what, I just left the Midwest and I loved
my lilacs and my what's the spring blooming yellow for cynthia?
I love my forcythia and I want to plant those
here and I can save them some money. Don't plan them,

(02:20:46):
don't plant them here. They're not the best plant for
here at all. But there are others that are great.
You know, no matter where you live, there are plants
that will do very well in your area and there
are plants that won't. And here in Houston we may
not be able to grow some things from further north,
but they can't grow avocados and citrus and the tropical
hibiscus and you know all the things weak azaleas in

(02:21:09):
our area. So there's pros and cons. Hey, Nelson plant
Food has so many products. You know, their turf Star
line has great products. One for right now from turf Stars,
the Bruce is Brew. It's an excellent it's a hybrid
between an immediate release and a slow release, so you
can put it on right now. But they got the
nutri Star line that has so many products like rose food,

(02:21:30):
vegetable food, palm and ornamental grasses, plumerias, boogainvillias, a boom bella.
Let's take that last one. Any kind of a flowering
vine that booga and villa food works really really well on.
Just follow the label. You're going to feed them about
every two weeks as they're getting going until they bloom.
Once they start blooming, you go about once a month
with the nutris Star boogain villa from the folks at Nelson.

(02:21:54):
Just another great product widely available in the Houston area
from the folks at Nelson Plant Food. It's it's made
locally here in Southeast Texas and the stuff really really
does work. Let's take a break. We'll come back with
our last little segment and maybe a call or two.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

(02:22:17):
All right, folks, we're back. Hey, welcome to guard Line.
Good to have you with us. We got a few
minutes left here in this segment. If you don't want
to get if you want to give me a call,
I'll dare take a call maybe to if you hurry.

Speaker 3 (02:22:32):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:22:32):
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Our go to pest control operation here on Garden Line
is the folks at Pest Bros. It's a Regional pest
Control company serves a Greater Houston area. By Greater Houston Areio,
I'm talking about all the way from out West and Katie,
across the Baytown, from a way up in the Woodlands

(02:22:55):
on Interstate forty five north down to Texas City. So
they do cover the Greater Houston area. And they are
experts at all kinds of things. You know, if you
got termites, or if you don't want to have termites,
that's really the better way to go about it. Don't
wait until you got them. They know how to treat effectively.
They know how to do so in the most effective
possible way, in the safest manner, so you get those

(02:23:18):
long term results without worries. Long term control. I like
take termites for instance, they put a product in little
trench around your house that for ten years, it stops
the termites from getting through there and into the house.
I mean that that's long term, very long term. And
you know you're concerned about the kids and the pets

(02:23:38):
and stuff playing out on the yard and things. You
want somebody who will be straight with you and tell
you what they're going to use, how it works, what
you need to know, answer your questions. Give them a
call to eight one two oh six forty six seventy
two eight one two o six forty six seventy or
go to their website, the pestbros dot com the pest

(02:23:59):
b ros dot com. They're the ones that have those
mosquita buckets I talk about all the time. I've got
them in my yard. A family member I know has
gotten them for their yard as well. Pest Pros comes
out and services them every month, and it just takes
the mosquito numbers way way way, way way down, makes
it pleasant to go outside and enjoy without having a

(02:24:21):
nucle hole properly with the fogger or whatever else. We're
gonna go up to Brenham now and visit with Mark
this morning. Hey Mark, welcome to garden Line. Good morning.

Speaker 5 (02:24:31):
Quick question.

Speaker 20 (02:24:32):
I've got some tomato plants that are probably no exaggeration,
six feet plus tall. Wondering can I cut the tips
off of those things and put them in some root
stimulator and start some new plants for the fall.

Speaker 2 (02:24:47):
You Yeah, you can cut those tips off. What I'll
generally do is get a little sink full of water
and just slosh them really vigorously in the water, because
if they got any spider mites on them, you can
kind of knock all that stuff off, put them in
a glass the water in their root. I mean, they're easy.
The other alternative is to take those tips down to
the soil and make a little hole maybe six inches

(02:25:08):
deep in the soil, put that vine down in it
with the living tip sticking up about eight inches the
other side of the hole. Cover it up, keep it moist,
and within two weeks you're gonna have roots on that
thing and you can cut it loose from the mother plant,
pull the mother plant with all the diseases and mites
and things loose, and start over again. That's another option
for you.

Speaker 20 (02:25:29):
Unfortunately, they've grown through the chicken wire that I have
over the top of the enclosure.

Speaker 2 (02:25:34):
To keep the birds off to tomatoes and so.

Speaker 10 (02:25:38):
Possible.

Speaker 6 (02:25:39):
But yeah, I'm gonna have the glass of water and
let them start rooting.

Speaker 2 (02:25:43):
Thank you sir, all right, you take care. I appreciate
that call very much. We got time real quick here
to go to Jay in the woodland. Say Jay, welcome
to garden land.

Speaker 9 (02:25:54):
Well, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:25:56):
Think of the photos I sent, Remind me what they were.
I had so many photos come in today and oh
oh yes, yes, yeah, yeah, that's okay, that's true. Spurge
it comes back. It's an annual. It comes back in
the warm season. Sprout's a little bit late compared to

(02:26:19):
some weeds. A pre emergent herbicide in the early warm
season in the spring is the way to go on spurge.
And you can use a barricade. The barricade covers grassy
and broad leaf weeds. Another product just called Gallery and
it just works on broad leaf weeds. H And either

(02:26:40):
one of those is a pre emergent. Follow my schedule.
I would probably for spurge, I probably wouldn't do the
early February mid February kind of time. I probably would
go ahead and get into early March or mid March
to do the spurge pre emergent if that's the main
thing you're going after. But it's easy to hoe out

(02:27:01):
to or to pull out. It has a single tap
root and if the soil's moist, you can pull it.
If you don't want to stoop over and pull it,
you can just use a garden hoe just to get
right in the middle and just clip that little taproot.
It's done. Get the weed out of there because it's
loaded with seeds. The doveweed's a little different. Doveweed is
a very difficult thing for most products to control. It

(02:27:23):
loves wet areas, So letting your lawn dry out, dry
out a little bit between waterings. Now I'm not talking
about drought stress level. I mean just don't keep it
wet all the time. That helps. There's a product called Celsius,
like the temperature celsius, that is very effective against doveweed. Now,
there are other products that are fair in their efficacy

(02:27:45):
against doveweed, Celsius is pretty good, and it also you
can use it when the temperature is a ninety or
above and it's not going to damage the lawn as
much as some of the other products. I would still
if it's hot summer, well they're going to be up
in the upper nineties. I'd still do my applications early
in the morning, but with the celsius not so much

(02:28:06):
of a secondary concern.

Speaker 9 (02:28:09):
Okay, well, excellent, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (02:28:13):
All right, thank you appreciate the call. Hey you're the
caboose today. Congratulations. Good to have you here on garden line.
Oh gosh, I was going into a lot of pontificating
today and talking about all the different things that I
wish gardeners knew. If you want to see that article,
it will be out in Texas Gardener Magazine and listen.

(02:28:34):
If you're listening to garden Line and you have not
subscribed to Texas Gardener Magazine, you need to go to
Texas Gardener dot com and you can sign up for
the print copy or a digital copy or both. I
get both. I get the print copy and I also
get their digital copy and just read it right there

(02:28:55):
on your computer screen or iPad or whatever you use.
And it's nice. When you say subscribe, you get access
to past issues that digital edition as well, so there's
a lot of past issues where you can read other
articles I write for it a activities checklist. Every issue
comes out six times a year. By the way, I

(02:29:16):
write an activities checklist, that is in every issue, I
write something called ask skip or I answer to questions
in the magazine and then usually have some sort of
a feature a feature article in Texas Gardener Magazine, and
the one coming up for the November December issue is
Things I Wish Gardeners new and Listen. The magazine is

(02:29:37):
written by Texas gardeners like myself, for Texas gardeners like
all of us. It's good advice, no fluff. This isn't
something that just you know, you read about something nobody
on Earth is going to do in their yard. This
is hands on good stuff from the folks a Texas gardener,
So Texas gardener dot com go check them out. I

(02:29:58):
highly recommend that I like Nona, come see me at
one of my events and I may give you a
sample copy