Keys to Gardening

Skip takes listeners phone calls all morning.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Katie r H. Garden Line doesnot necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcometo Katie r H. Garden Line with
Escape Rictor It's crazy what a trimJust watch him as so many ties.

(00:27):
The sept Crazy Gas Club not asign. Welcome to garden Line. Good
Sunday morning. Congratulations on being upat this hour of the morning. I
appreciate you being here to listen togarden Line. If you look at the

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window and your neighbor's lights are off, you want to go bang on the
door because they're missing guard Line.You need to tell them that and they
will be so appreciative if you do. Maybe not today, though maybe not
today. Well, I just wantto talk about a few things before we
get going here. First of all, I should give you our phone number
if you'd like to call in sevenone three two one two five eight seven

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four seven one three two one twofifty eight seventy four. That'll get you
right in here on the phone withme and we can discuss whatever is of
interest to you. Well, firstof all, I want to start off
and think the folks out at enchantedfor us any and the whole crew out
there for having me out there yesterday. I had a great time. Got

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to talk to a lot of gardeners, A lot of you brought in samples
of this, that and the otherto look at, and we even wandered
around the nursery a little bit witha few few of you and picked out
some plants if we were trying tofill in some spots on areas where it
was a little bit of a challenge. I always like that, you know,
I I'll caricature the question, butI get these questions and it's like,

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Okay, I need a plant thatis green year round, that blooms
year round, that doesn't get anydiseases, doesn't get any insects, that
grows quickly to the size I want, and then doesn't grow anymore. You
get the idea what I'm talking about. Oh, and it grows in absolutely
zero light. And so you know, as I'm listening to these qualifications of

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what they want, I'm kind ofgoing, Okay, eliminate that group,
eliminate that, And I'm left with, Well, there are silk plants and
there are plastic plants, and bothof those do well. Silk plants,
however, do get dust mites andI'm told might be attacked by silkworms.
Just wondering. I'm just saying,seriously, though, good time out there

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at the encented forest in Gendi Forest. For those of you who haven't been
there, it's outside of Richmond asyou're going north Church sugar Lands off to
the right. It's on FM twentyseven fifty nine. And they always have
beautiful things. I was admiring someof the hibiscus that they had yesterday.
The vine, a lot of thevine that the native coral honeysuckle vine is

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just beautiful. Of course, theygot plenty of that out there. And
oh my gosh, if you wereinto butterfly gardening, they are ready to
go. They even give you acaterpillar to go home with you. We
had some little samples there of milkweedthat had monarch caterpillars already on it,
so we take them home. Thekids get to watch that whole process go

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through the crystalist to the adult stage. We saw some go fridillary caterpillars on
passion vine and other things. Butif you want to create a butterfly garden
out there, they have not justthe plants, but if you want you
can go home with a caterpillar.I find that to be very very very

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interesting. You know, at EnchantedForest, you're always going to find plenty
of what you're looking for in awide variety, and the plants are an
outstanding shape. I was admiring someof the salvias that they had, and
oh my gosh, they have somany varieties out there, and just standing
there the butterflies and the bees andeven a hummingbird coming by. Those folks

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know where the enchanted Forest is andthey hang out there because they got the
good stuff. Anyway, thank you, thank you for having me out.
It's a good time out there.If you're looking for a natural fertilizer to
put out in your lawn, youought to consider sweet Green. Sweet Green
is by Nitrofoss and it is afertilizer that's made. It starts off as

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a molasses base through microbial activity,it's turned into an eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer,
which is pretty amazing. It reallyis amazing. That is one of
the higher rates or higher levels ofnitrogen you're going to find in organic products.
Sweet green is available widespread. You'regoing to find it at places like
Bearings Hardware, both on Bissinet andin West Timer. You're going to find

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it out in Richmond Rosenberg at thePlantation Ace Hardware out there on three point
fifty nine. You're also going tofind it at Hiden and Feed on Stuben
Airline, kind of up north partof Houston. It is, it is
a very effective product. It smellsgreat too, by the way. Bringing
it home, you'll enjoy enjoy thefragrance of it. But it's easy to

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spread, easy to put out there, and it really stimulates microbial activity because
microbes, especially bacteria, they lovesugars, carbohydrates, simple sugars, and
this is one of the things thatis very, very stimulating to their activity.
Get you that green lawn. Ourphone number is seven one three two

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two fifty eight seventy four if you'dlike to give us a call. If
you are planning on doing some yardwork later today or getting out and doing
shopping whatever, it's going to bea good day for it, Absolutely good
day for it. I would highlyrecommend that the first thing you do when
you're trying to revamp any area orcreate a bed in any area of your

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yard is to take care of gettingthe soil right. That is so very
important. I see shoppers all thetime. They go to a store,
they grab a flat of plants,and they head home and walk around trying
to figure out where am I goingto put these things? And that that
is not a good way to havesuccess. Start with the soil. Ciena
Maultch down south of Houston. That'san example of a place that has awesome

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so in fact, they're now carryingthe airloom soils leaf molt compost. So
if you want to do some topdressing you're a do it yourselfer, well
you can do it there. Leavemole compost has many many uses. But
at Siena you're going to find everything. You're going to find a vegetable and
nerb mix, You're going to findall the blends that you need to have

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success with your plants. They alsohave all the fertilizer I talk about here
on guardline. So how do youget to Ciena Maltch. Well, first
of all, let me just giveyou a website. Why don't we start
there. That's a good way tobegin. Cienamultch dot com. They're located
on FM five point twenty one justnorth of Roast Sharing FM five north of
Roach Scherner. They're closed today,closed on Sunday, but Monday through Friday

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seven thirty to five, Saturday seventhirty to two. It's easy to swing
by there and grab what you need. And when you do start with a
quality product from Siena Mulch, yoursoil is going to be so inviting that
the roots will thrive. And whenthe roots thrive, the plants thrive.
That's how that works. We're goingto head now out to Katie and we're

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going to talk to Hank. Hello, Hank, Hi, good morning morning.
I had a question about the fertilizer. I think it's ncor Falls maybe
bruces Brew. That's a Nelson product. Uh huh yeah, mate, Okay,
Nelson, I apologize. Do youknow anything about it? Yeah.
It's a good immediate release fertilizer.Anytime you want to put something down,

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whether you're doing early greenup or whetheryou're just wanting a quick boost, it
is designed for that. Hey,Hank, can can I get you to
hang on? We're hitting a breakhere, but I do want to keep
talking with you about this. We'llbe right, ok, you bet,
and just hang on a second.Our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Welcomeback to Guardline. We are glad to

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have you back. I was talkingabout enchanted for us while ago, and
I forgot to mention this morning elevenam today, Uh, Clay is going
to get Dan excuse me, isgoing to get out there and give a
little spring time talk. That's right, little springtime talk. We're gonna be.
Uh he's going to be just discussingall kinds of things to be doing

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right now in the spring, andjust whatever your questions are and concerns,
come on out and he'll help solvethem for you. They're gonna have cousins
main Lobster truck out there too,and that's but again that starts at eleven
o'clock, so you can get thereput it in your order for lobster.
It takes them about thirty minutes tomake a wonderful dish and then you're ready
to go enjoy a good meal anda nice stroller on a wonderful place.

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I'm going to go back to Katieand we were talking with Hank about bruces
Brew. So, Hank, doyou have some additional questions about it or
how do you use it or anything? I think I'm pretty good on it.
But I've used it, and Ithink that really worked well as far
as greening up and making a richcolor. But on a time release,

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truly, I'm more apt to saveit, says, you know, set
and set a square foot, cutit and have and do it more often.
Well, you could do that.I mean, you can use something
like Bruce's brew and just apply itin small doses. But a lot of
people don't want to do that becauseyou're having to fertilized three times instead of
once, for example. But anyway, you do have that option to go

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either way. The slow and easyis Nelson's gradual release version. Is there
anything you would put with bruceus Brew, say every other one that just keep
your yard as happy as it couldbe? Now, bruceus Brew pretty well
covers it. You should be goodto go. It's got a three one

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two ratio of nutrients and they myexperience has been it works very well,
makes a very beautiful green lawn.I put the micro like humates on my
yard once a year. Yeah,that often enough. Well, the humates
has got a little potassium in itthe third number, but you're putting it

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down to provide the humous addition tothe soil to improve soil structure and for
the other benefits that humus involves.So although it has a little potassium in
it, don't think of it somuch as fertilizing as a building building soil
and improving the root zone of theplant. Yes, sir, I understand

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that, But I was going toask how often should I do it?
There's not a black and white answeron that one. Some people do it
a couple times a year, somepeople do it once a year. You
can do as much as you want, you know it just it's a matter
of with any kind of organic system, we're gradually building the soil over time,

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and so each addition, each growingseason, as you return the clippings,
as you do occasional aerrations, thoseare all part of a long term
soil improvement that gives long term resultsfor your lawn benefit. One more question.
I'll let you go and thank youfor everything we do. You prefer
bruces grew over microlife six two.Those are two different creatures. They both

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have the same ratio of nutrients.One is synthetic, it's going to dissolve
and release very quickly. Microlife willalso release fairly quickly. But microbes break
those particles down and release the nutrientsout of them, and so it's is
your preference organic or synthetic. That'skind of one of the differences because the

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ratio is very similar. Now inthe microlife, you're going to have a
lot of other nutrients because it's comingfrom plant materials. So you know,
a plant that took up boron orzinc or manganese, you're going to have
those nutrients present in the in thefertilizer itself too. But I you know,
either way, you're not going togo wrong. Thank you, all

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right, thank you. I appreciatethat very much. If you're looking to
purchase a tree, you need togive the folks at Verdant Tree Farm McAll
now. Verdant has three locations.There's the one out on the West side
on Barker Cypress down in Pearland,there's one on Broadway Street and up in
the Heights where Yell and I tencome together as another Verdant Tree Farm.

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The website you need to go there, it is very informative. Verdanttreefarm dot
com Verdant Treefarm dot Com. Thereyou can scroll through a lot of the
different trees they carry and have goodinformation on each of those trees. So
if you're thinking about this or thatpalm tree, you want to know the
differences. It'll tell you on there. Or you can just call them up

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or drop in, take up,take a picture of your yard and say
what do you think would work here? You tag your trees, they bring
them, they plant them, andthat equal success. You know, the
best time to plant the trees fortyyears ago. Second best time is today,
so go ahead and take advantage ofthat. They offer a one year
warranty with the installation of the tree. That means they plant the tree.

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So they absolutely have the stock youneed, quality stock. They absolutely know
what they're doing when it comes toplanting. And if you're looking to hang
a hammock soon they have trees allthe way up to seven hundred gallons.
That is a big tree. Andso yeah, you can even get a
good head start that way with theVerdant Tree Farm. I'm going to go

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out to Spring now we're going totalk to Chris. Hello, Chris,
Hey, go on skip. Howyou doing. I'm good, I'm good.
How are you very well? Justgetting off work and I have a
question about a blueberry smoothie rosa sharingAnd last year I had a lot of
bloom I guess call it bloom lock. They just wouldn't open up fully or

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wouldn't open up at all, Andsame thing this year. There nothing's opening
up for me. So I'm justwondering if you had a product, not
just a chemical, because I thinkI called maybe last year maybe and had
a chemical, but I couldn't findanything to help this plan out. And
those blooms start opening up, I'mnot sure what's doing that, or the

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petals brown on the outside as thebloom would try to open. It could
be thrips that are in the bloomsthat are affecting them. I don't think.
I'm not certain of that at all, but that's one possibility. And
if it were thrips, sprays ofspinocid can be helpful for that. It's

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hard to get the spinocid into wherethe thrips are, or get any spray
into where the thrill. If youdon't mind, why don't you take some
pictures of it when the sun comesup and send them to me here on
garden line. Let me take alook at them, and I'll pursue it
a little bit further, nothing isringing a bell right off hand as to
what that that might be. Yeah, that's a beautiful plan. Yeah,

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I'd love to see it in fullaction. But again nothing, just a
lot of blooms and they just keepkind of just going on. They don't
open up. All right, Well, I'm gonna put you on hold and
uh just get an email from Joshand let me see some pictures, especially
close up to the blooms. Thatwould be very helpful. All right,
take care. Yeah, that thatis very unusual rose of Sharon not opening

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up. I'm gonna have to huntthat one down. See see what else
can cause that I know on roseson rose bushes, sometimes we get pedal
blights and as that pedal is tryingto as a bloom is trying to open
up, the pedal blight kills thepedal. So instead of a soft supple
tissue that will open up, isthat rose on furls. Uh, you

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now have a little hard, driedpedal strap. Essentially it's going around the
bloom and it just can't unfurl.And that that is a fungal problem.
He and the rows of Sharon didn'tindicate any browning or anything of the buds
and pedals. So I don't know. We'll see, see. I we
can figure that one out. Rowsof Sharon is an old Southern favorite,

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really really really popular. Hank wastalking about microlife, fertilizer and the humans
plus. Humage plus is are purplebag for those of you who aren't familiar
with it, and it is basicallyit amounts to concentrated compost in a bag.
So I mean, the way Ilike to describe it is, you've
got a pilo leaves, you decomposethem. You got compost, You have
compost, you let it decompose allthe way you have humus. Humus is

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that final state a very good placefor microbes to thrive. It's a very
good thing for soil structure building,for developing a good quality soil and putting
that as a supplement out there toyour lawn can have benefits long term.
So just with lawns, we wantinstant gratification. I understand that, but

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a lot of things we do inaddition to Hey, you throw fertilizer out,
the lung gets green. I getthat. That's that's fine, But
long term, what are you doingto build to build the soil to build
the root system to improve on things. That's why you hear me talk about
correoration and compost, top dressing andthings like that. Microlife has a wide
variety of products. They also havethe standard green bag that's the six two

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four and it's an excellent fertilizer.It will it will easily turn your lawn
into a really healthy, dense lawn. It's I wouldn't call it fully slow
release, but it's not an immediaterelease either. It's kind of in between
there, and that's how it iswith organic type products and microbile. They

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break down the nutrients that are inthem. The six two four, if
you will, gets released into thesoil for the plant roots to benefit and
grass benefits as a result. MicrolifeFertilizer dot COM's website there you can learn
about all their other products. Icould sit here all day just talking about
all the different products for micro LifeFertilizers. They pretty much have everything that
you would need for your organic gardening, landscaping and lawn care in one place,

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and they're widely available to Our phonenumber is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four.
You can give me a call.We can talk about the things that
are of most interest to you.I Uh, I'm going to be at
RCW Nurseries next Saturday. I'll tellyou more about that as we go through

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the morning, but I'd just likeyou to get that on your calendar and
come by and see me. RCW. That's the nursery where belt WAG eight
and FM or Highway two forty nine, Tomball Parkway come together, really easy
to get to. Uh. They'vegot a lot of cool stuff out there.
I'll be there answering questions. We'llbe doing the standard thing, meeting,
talking with people, helping diagnose,help identify issues, pointing you toward

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the plant that I think is goingto give you the most success in what
you're looking to try to accomplish.When was the last time you were in
an ACE hardware store. I wasthe one the other day looking at their
barbecue pits. Oh my gosh,they got the big green egg, they
got the trigger. I'm slobbery andsomebody's having a mop up on Aisle five
because I'm just drooling thinking about thisbarbecue. Well, you know, ACE

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is a place to get all yourfertilizers. It's a place to get all
your fire ant control, it's aplace to get your mosquito control and repellent
type products. ACE is easy tofind. There are forty of them.
Go to Acehardware dot Com find thestore locator. It'll give you the stores.
And I do mean that plural nearyou. There's forty of them in
the Greater Houston area. It's easyto find an ACE and you know when

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you walk in there, if I'vetalked about it on guarden Line, they're
going to have it at Ace Hardware. It's as simple as that. It's
a one stop shop, makes itreally easy, really convenient, and you
know you're going to get quality productand you're gonna get quality service too,
which is really important. Well,I'm gonna turn the microphone over to Nikki
for the news. We'll be rightback if you'd like to call seven one

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three two one two kt r H. Welcome back to Garden Mine. Good
to have you with us today.Hey, if you're out in Kingwood,
you got Warren's seven Garden. Yougot Kingwood Garden Center out there, and
I'm telling you Warrens is just continuingto offer some really great deals out there.
Their most sale is still going onand four for fifteen dollars through the

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month of April. Here they've gota great stock of the kalladium bulbs and
the plants, the low kaladium plants. If you've got a shady area you
want color and you want it instantly, there you go. Kalladiums. Boogainvillias.
Another sale there two you can buytwo and get ten percent by two
at the regular price, get tenpercent off and that's going to last through

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the twenty first of the month.Lots of tropical color, oh my gosh,
in you know Houston with our hot, warm, sultry climate. Place
a place it's like hibiscus, oleanderpassion. Find men to Villa x or.
They all love that kind of weatherand they'll really put on a show
for you, a gaudy show ifyou will. Lots of gallon sized color.

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Also listen to this they've got ifyou're looking for slow release for your
lawn. The super Turf from Nitrofossand Slow and Easy from Nelson are both
in stock there at Warrence and KingwoodGarden Center. Just another reason to swing
by there. We're going to goout now to Alvin Texas and talk to
Danny. Hello Danny, Good morning, Stiff, and good morning Nikki.

(21:33):
I'm like you just for a fewminutes. Talk about the two clovers from
the forties we had that we welcomeso much, the three pedal with John
dear Green to make the shape pedals. Is that Irish clover? I don't
know based on that description, it'snot enough for me to tell you specifically

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which clover that is. Okay,well, it was a real common one
that we had all my life,that same five years. But here just
recently we've had this one that's aplague. That's uh, that's either sandburs,
Chinese sandburds or Kakka birs that hasthe three three little petals that they're
not John near Green. They're justa green with the wine bottle shaped pedals,

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three of them that are such anuisance, such a nuisance. But
on them when you talk about whenyou talk about a bird, you talk
about little flat spirally bird that's notreal real strong points like a grass bird
would be, but a little bita little bit softer pointed. Well,
mainly they're they're they're going on inthe clovers in the grass. It's down

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low. It mainly was growing horizontally, but here, just in just this
last year, it's growing vertically andit gets into the chain link fence and
it gets into the chain link gates. We came open the gate. Okay,
Yeah, So we have a numberof plants that somewhat fit similar descriptions.
There's various clovers and there's also somethingcalled medic but it doesn't matter which

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it is. You can control themwith the broad leaf weed control products.
It'd be best to put it onyour calendar in future years to start that
a little earlier, before the cloverhits the stage of growth. It's easier
and you prevent seed production. Butanything that is designed for post emergent broad
leaf weed control will knock those cloversout. So a product like it's not

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it's not that I'm want to getrid of the clover, it's the sandburs
that are in. The sand bursare just the grass taking over. Okay,
sanbur. And I want to knowwhat the name of that is,
the proper name. Is it cockerburs, sandburs or Chinese sandburs? Well,
and how do they multiply? Arethe little seeds coming out or is
it the burrs. That is thereseeds in there, or is there burrs

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that fly in the air or whatevertheir seeds. There are seeds inside the
sand burr. The sandburr seed witha little pokey points on it to stick
in the foot they had. That'sthe seed structure that holds the seed of
the of the sandbur Now, theonce they're in your grass, it's hard
to kill them without killing the grassbecause they're a grass plant. But using

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a product like barricade by nitrophoss,for example, getting that done by the
end of February will help prevent Itwill give you about sixty or maybe more
days, sixty to ninety days ofprotection and then you'd have to repeat it
again to carry on through summer.For the grass burr, the sand burr,

(24:38):
but skip I'm trying to compare itto brushia orango. Bush orangos a
nuisance. But bushia orango only lastone year. But these sandburs, if
we call them that, they justgrow on like grass does. But they're
not grass or weeds. Is thatright? Yes, If it's the if
it's what I'm thinking about. TheThe only other thing I know to do,

(25:00):
Danny on this one is for youto just pull them up, set
them on a dark surface, takea good clock picture of them, and
then then I know we're talking aboutthe same plant. But samber is a
grass plant. It's a weed.People call it grassbur two around here.
It's an annual comes up in thespring and then it just creates those seeds
that that sentence you a lot moreproblems I'm looking at to eradicate them,

(25:26):
just to try to dig them up. If what the ground they're in sandy,
sandy black sandy soil, you know, tok so black, and they
only seem to be spreading where it'shigher and drier. Yeah, Also they
grow in dramways where there's limbstone orsandstone. Yeah, Danny, the samber

(25:47):
does love poor sandy soils. Thatis very characteristic of it. So even
just fertilizing kind of gives your otherplants a little advantage over them. But
yeah, if you want to dothe pulling them up when the soil is
more, that's a good idea inthe sense that it removes all those seats.
Hey, I need to run ontoanother call, but I appreciate your
calling. Good luck getting ahead ofthe Okay, thank you, bet.

(26:10):
Yeah, they can be a problem. I was out at Chenney Forest.
I was talking about being out thereyesterday and someone was coming by. We're
giving away some Medina products and theywere asking me about the Medina has to
grow twelve four to eight liquid lawnfood plus and now they have Medina has
several products that you can hook upto the end of a hose. This

(26:30):
is one of them. It's alittle little bottle. You know, got
the content that you're wanting to putout. You hook it to the hose
and you essentially just go over yourlawn spray in the lawn with water water
mixed with this product the little applicator. It blends the product as the water
flows through the end of the ofthe bottle, and it makes a real

(26:52):
nice application. You can do thatabout once every quarter through the growing season.
Like in other words, you doit in the spring, you do
it again in early summer. Youcan do a bit a late summer.
You can do it again in thefall if you want to early fall.
And the has to grow twelve foureight. By the way, congratulations to
the lucky winner of that. Itreally does a quick green. I tried

(27:15):
it one year on my lawn justto see how it works. I always
like to do that with the productsI talked about, and it works very
well, very very well. Soif you got a really crummy lawn,
or if you're removing the grass clippings, you need to do it every month,
just every month, get out thereand give it a boost of that.
This would be in lieu of yourstandard fertilization. The has to Grow

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by Medina twelve four eight liquid lownfood plus it's an affective product. We're
going to go out now to Cyprusand talk to Melanie. Hello, Melanie,
Hi, Skip. I just usedsome has to Grow yesterday on a
newly sawed yard. Well, justI only had a small part. Is
that okay to use on there?Oh? Yes, uh huh absolutely?

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And what about potted plants? Canyou use it in your potted plants too?
Are we talking now about the longfood twelve four eight has to grow
or past to grow? Yeah,regular astro grow they have. They have
several products that have I think it'sregular has to grow. I didn't say
lawn on it, So the regularhas to grow. Yes, you can

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use that anywhere anytime for anything.I mean you're adding basically, you're you're
improving the microbial content, you're improvingthe soil. It's a it's a general
purpose. There are two has togrows. One has twelve four eight and
it typically used for lawns, andthen there's six twelve six has to grow

(28:47):
that that one contained. That's theone. I always say use it when
you're transplanting plants because it's phosphorus.I was doing. Yeah, hihosphor's very
good. And one more question,I use that. We made that.
That stuff is beautiful. It workedgreat. I get it about the end
of February. But now should Iput something else on? I've got sweet

(29:07):
Green and I've got hummates plus both. You're just loaded up there. I'm
loaded up. I'm gonna use I'mgoing to use something. But should I
use something now or just wait?Well, the weed Nator is a slow
release fertilizer in addition to having theweed control in it, and so it's
going to give you if you putit out at the proper rate, it's
going to give me. It's goingto feed that lawn for several months.

(29:30):
So you don't need to come backwith something else right now. Now humates
you can use that. That's notsomething that's going to make the lawn just
take off growing. It's not ait's not a nitrogen fertilizer, so you
could use that on any other slowrelease. I'd wait and do that a
little further into the summer. Allright, Melane, I'm gonna have you

(29:51):
onto a break, but thank youfor the call. Appreciate that. All
right, love you take care ofseven one three two one two k t
r H is the number. We'llbe right back. Welcome back to garden
Line. Good to have you withus today. Hey, we are here
to talk about gardening. What doyou want to talk about? I tell
you one thing I want to talkabout is your trees. If you take
good care of your trees, theywill make your property more and more valuable.

(30:15):
They will make your outdoor settings moreand more enjoyable, providing shade,
providing ballooms, whatever kind of treeyou have. Trust your trees to Affordable
Tree Service. Martin Spoon Moore hasbeen doing this for over thirty years now.
He knows what he's talking about.He knows what he's doing. By
the way, when you call,tell him you are a guarden Line listener
and that'll get you to the frontof the line because he stays very,

(30:37):
very busy, So don't expect,you know, call today and he's there
tomorrow. I mean, it mighthappen. But when you do things right
and you have a reputation like hedoes, you stay busy, you stay
booked up. So give him acall, have him come in, Have
him look at your trees. Doyou need any pruning? Do you need
some feeding of the trees to supportthem? You want to make sure they're

(30:59):
ready for the storm. Do youwant to do anything around the tree?
Definitely call him before you take actionlike a trench or a sidewalk or something
like that. He knows how toguide you and to do the best to
protect the tree. Afftree Service dotcom. That's his website. Afftree Service
dot Com. The phone number sevenone three six nine nine twenty six sixty

(31:23):
three. Martin and his wife Joe. They answer their own phone. So
if you don't talk to Martin orJoe, hang up. You call the
wrong place. Martin or Joe sevenone three six twenty six sixty three.
Affordable Tree Service. We're going togo now out to Jersey Village and talk
with Ed. Hello, Ed,good morning. Skip sent you in some

(31:47):
photos yesterday. I had discussed withyou yesterday about some rosebush issues I have.
Yes, I saw those very unusual. They don't they don't fit in
any specific cause. My first thoughton them was that maybe you got some

(32:07):
broad leaf herbicide drift onto them,something like that happened. It looks a
little like that. Also, thereare some things that look a little bit
like a virus, but the patternof it isn't quite right. If it's
a virus, you just keep watchingthem. If it's a virus, the
new growth is not going to becoming out normal. All the new growth

(32:29):
that's where viruses show up most,and it will not be coming out normal.
The third possibility is some type ofa piercing sucking insect that's working in
the leaves and as they're trying todevelop, it's causing a deformation of the
leaf. But not all the symptomsand the photos you sent me fit that
either. So it's somewhere in thoseyeah, free And I don't have anything

(32:52):
on my other bushes that are youknow, close by, So I don't
think it's some kind of varmit.Okay, Well, like it would be
a little insect like a piercing suckingplant hopper type of insect doing that.
I think I would just watch themand if the growth, the growth,
if this problem gets worse, especiallywith new growth, then I'd say it's

(33:14):
the virus and I'd get the roseout of there, because an insect can
transmit that to other healthy roses.Yeah. Well, I've noticed some of
the real pretty new purple growth thatyou know you first get on your rose
bush. It's it's it's into that. Yeah, I can see it.
It's in the new I think Iworry about a virus just because it spreads,

(33:37):
and so why don't you get thatrose and get it out of the
area where any other roses are.It's in a container, I can see,
so yes, move it, moveit away, find it, find
the equivalent of your on site rosehospital and move it over there. Let's
watch, let's wash that patient.Because I'm leaning toward you're going to need

(33:58):
to get rid of it, butI don't want to that just yet based
on yeah, only well it's Itrimmed it back real hard year before last.
It had a little bit of itagain last year, okay, and
uh you know this is my thirdyear. Yeah, with that and uh
yeah, the nursery couldn't tell mewhat it was, and now you've put

(34:20):
your eyes on it, so I'mI'm having to agree with you. Okay.
Well, I'm leaning towards virus now, and just to be safe,
we're going to put it somewhere elsewhere. It's not so easy for a
bug to fly from that rosebuster orany Secondly, if you do any pruning,
make that the last one you pruneor oh yes, pun uh spray

(34:43):
your pruners with al and you know, scrub them off. But I would
just make it the last one youprune and then still clean your prunters with
lyesol M. Well, thank you, skip all right, good luck with
it, and keep me posted.I'd like to know if it develops now,
I'd get it moved away. Iwas already contemplating that, so we'll

(35:04):
do it. Yeah, all right, And I don't think the consent is
going to touch this one. Ithink you yeah, I think it has
it. I'll tell you that.Okay, very good, Thanks ed sire.
Take yeah, you bet you takecare. Speaking of roses Anti rosen
Porium up there in Independence, Texas, do you know where that is?
It's north of Brenham between Brenham andBrian College Station. Uh, it is

(35:29):
a wonderland. When you go tothe Anti rosen Porium, it's just like
you've entered another place in time.And of course they are loaded with all
kinds of antique roses. People fromall over the country order roses from Anti
Crows and Poorium because they know thatnot only do they have a selection,
but they got quality stock. Theygrow them in three gallon containers, so

(35:51):
you get a little bit better,more robust rose bush. To start with.
Uh, they are going to behaving some educational things going on on
t about the something they call tinkerGarden. It's a kids in the Garden
program Tinkergarden, and it's going tobe from kids age two to eight years
old. It's six weeks long.The curriculum starts April nineteenth and twentieth at

(36:14):
one pm and it goes all theway through mid May. Now you just
have to call them. You cancall them at ninety seven nine eight three,
six fifty five forty eight, oryou can go to the website Antique
Roseemporium dot com. Also in thetwentieth there's a beekeeping one oh one class
at ten am. They're going tohave a specialist there, president of the

(36:36):
Texas Central Texas Beekeepers, and they'regoing to be this person, Carl's going
to be telling you all about onobservation Hive. You'll get to see it's
really really cool antiq Roseen. Butalso while you're out there, I mean
make sure you go out with anempty car pickup because you're going to want
to bring home a lot of thecool plants. They have roses, but
they have so so much more.Let's go out out of Huntsville and we're

(37:00):
going to talk to Charles. Hello, Charles, good morning. I've got
the only fertilizer I've got available istwelve twelve twelve, and I've got an
apple tree at a pear tree,and I need to fertilize it. We're
expecting to rain about the next twodays. All right, you want to
take your thumb and measure how manythumbwds wide are those tree trunks. So

(37:23):
let's just say one was as bigas a Coca Cola can. That's about
three thumbwds across, about three inchesacross. You would get three to six
cups of that fertilizer. Now you'vegot it, So I'm saying use it.
But after this I want you toswitch to more of a lawn type
fertilizer on your fruit trees. Butit doesn't hurt to do this once or

(37:45):
you know, twice or anything.You just don't want to ongo constantly put
that high level of phosphorus in it. That's the only thing. All right,
gotch That was good? Thank you. One to two cups per thumb
with across the trunk. All right, good luck with those all I ask
on guardline. Our advice is free, but we do ask you to bring
half the fruit and leave it hereat the station and we'll call it even.

(38:07):
All right, Well, actually Itake the fruit and feed it to
the deer. Oh my gosh,you're breaking my heart. Thanks for the
call, Charles. I appreciate thatvery much. Hey, you've heard me
talk about superturf this morning. Superturfis night is nineteen four ten fertilizer.
It's got ninety percent nitrogen, fourpercent phosphorus, low number, ten percent

(38:30):
potassium. It's got fifty percent ofthe nitrogen is slow release, four percent
of iron content in the fertilizer forgood greenup. This is going to feed
your lawn for two or three months. Nitrofoss's silver bag Superturf fertilizer super super
widely available. You're going to findit at pretty much every ace hardware store

(38:52):
you could think of, and itplaces like Southwest Fertilizer down in south West
Houston. It's easy to find nitropossproutducks all over because they're so widely available.
We're going to take a little break. It's the top of the hour.
Put one hour in the books.Here for the news and if you
would like to give us a call, Josh you gets you on the boards
if you dial seven one three twoone two k t r H. Seven

(39:15):
one three two one two k tr H. I want to remind you
next Saturday, April twentieth, afterthis show, from eleven thirty to one
thirty, I'll be at RCW Nursery. I'm going to be giving away four
bags for forty pound forty four poundbags of a'sm I'm going to be giving
away four three sixty tree stabilizers becauseRCW carries those four tree stabilizers. If

(39:40):
you've got a young tree or don'tplanning the young tree, you need one
of these that they're very very effective, but that's at RCW Nursery. Of
course I'll be answering your questions.If you got a plant problem, put
in a ziplock bags, zip itup. Don't want to be carrying stuff
around the nursery. Bring it in. Let me take a look at it
in the bag. Bring me picturesof things are kite that don't look right

(40:00):
around the landscape. We'll try tosolve those for you as well. Well.
We'll be right back. Katie rH. Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or servicesadvertised on this program. Welcome to Katie
r H. Garden Line with EscapeRichard. It's crazy Trim. Just watch

(40:28):
him as so many gooties, thesuper brazy. Welcome back to the guard
Line. Good to have you back. We're talking gardening today, isn't that
a surprise? What do you wantto talk about? We'll talk about lawns

(40:51):
and trees and shrubs and tomatoes.And I've yet to get a call about
Cole Robbie. So if you've gota question about Cole Robbie, why don't
you make it the first I've evergotten about Core Robbie. I always joke
about three T's trees sharp and tomatoes. That's the thing that makes the phone
ring. At the Agro Life Extensionoffice and also at garden Line, people

(41:12):
always when it's vegetables, Tomatoes isthe number one question that we get.
We get some squash, we getsome cucumbers. We had other things occasionally
Okra, which gets me excited.Love Okra. I am the defender of
Okra. I guess you could sayI'm on a soapbox about Okra. You
could say that too, wonderful plant. Just if you want to know more

(41:36):
about it, just call. We'llspend an hour on the phone talking about
Okra. That's how excited about Okra. Am Why would I be excited about
it? Well, it's a wonderfulplant, and it thinks this place we
live down here is heaven. I'mtelling you, Hot sull Tree. It
just Okra just laughs and goes,what are you talking about? This is
heaven. This is God's country downhere. I love this place. That's

(42:00):
another reason I like it. Youknow our gardens, well, I'm kind
of on a little bit of abox there. Our gardens they typically here
in Texas are spring and fall andwinter gardens. That's primarily it. When
we get to summer. They're cropsthat will grow through summer, but they're
fewer than they are in the springof the fall, and even even really

(42:23):
in the cool season. But thereare crops that can handle it. Oka
can absolutely take summer. There's noreason your summer garden should dwindle away.
You get you a good drip irrigationsystem so you're not out there in the
blazing sun all the time. Getthings established, build good soil, build
good so I'm gonna say that onemore time. Build good soil. That's

(42:45):
a number one step. Get yourdrip irrigation system so you water efficiently.
Get your timer on the end ofyour hose. You can set those things.
I want you to water three daysa week for one hour a day
or whatever. Well, how youwant to set it, and it does
it all for you. And thenget you the crops for summer, like
okra, like sweet potatoes, theylove summer heat. There's a crop called

(43:10):
molakia. It's a green very popular, especially in parts of the Mideast and
other areas, and it also ismusulaginous like okra, but it's a very
very willing to grow here in ourclimate. Malibar is sometimes called Malabar spinach.
When when you see the word spinach, it's used on about eight different

(43:31):
vegetables and only one of them isspinach. Malabar is not spinach, but
they call it that because it's agreen and we don't know what to call
it, so let's call it malabarspinach. There's one called Egyptian spinach that's
more of a silosia type plant.It's not a spinach, but it takes
the summer heat well too. Andthere are many others. There many other
things that can grow through the summerheat. So don't let the upcoming summer

(43:54):
season be a reason for you tonot have things going on in the vegetable
garden. We have a lot ofthings that just blaze right through long after
tomatoes want to quit setting, andcucumbers and squash aren't doing as well.
Go ahead and turn your summer gardeninto a bountiful place with a little forethought,
a little bit of wisdom like that. While Ago I was talking about

(44:15):
the three sixty tree stabilizers, I'mgiving four of them away next Saturday at
RCW Nursery. Well, what isthe tree stabilizer? It is a very
strong arm, a stiff plastic armthat grabs the tree and grabs the steak.
And so instead of having these garwires to trip over and you're having

(44:36):
to buy wire and you're having tocut up garden hoses to go around the
tree so the wire doesn't cut inand then you trip over them. No,
this you put in like a teapost. Just hammer in a teapost not
too far from the tree, prettyclose actually, and the three sixty tree
stabilizer grabs it, strap it alittle bit, loose over on the tree
so the tree can move just alittle bit, and leave it on until

(44:57):
your tree is well rooted. Ifyou only use two of them, one
from a right angle, one froma left angle, if you will,
maybe north south east west is probablya better way to put it. Then
that just gives you absolute three sixty. Anyway the wind blows, you've got
a tree that is being held inplace without too much excess movement. Now
you can find it at our cwyou can find it be Cannon, you

(45:20):
can find it at Arborgate Plants forall seasons. Southwest Fertilizer carries them,
and Hora s Hidden Gardens down inAlvin Jorge has them. Down there to
three sixty tree stabilizer. Listen,these things last. This is an investment
that you your neighbor, you know, your your kids and cousins say,
hey, we're planting a tree.You go ah, let me get my
tree stabilizer. Here. I'm donewith it. My tree is in good

(45:42):
shape, and you just loan itto them to go. I mean,
it's a product that is well made, and it's so fast and easy compared
to wires and steaks and all thatkind of business. Let's go out to
Northwest Chiefs and we're going to talkto Paula. Hello, Paula, good
morning. Skip. Every year Ihave problems with yellow leaves on my tomato

(46:04):
plants. I sent you an emailwith pictures and then I'll sent you another
email yesterday with real close up picturesafter I cut them off. Yeah,
I saw them. I saw those. It is every year, right.
It is somewhat natural that older tomatoleaves tend to pick up issues and start

(46:25):
to turn yellow or have leaf spotsand things like that. Okay, that's
kind of normal. Looking at yourtotatoes. Overall, you've got a lot
of healthy leaves, and I wouldnot worry about this I saw a little
bit of early blight on these leaves. Is that me? That's a fungal
disease. But listen, it's ubiquitous, it's going to be here. You
can fund aside them all the timeto try to avoid it. I just

(46:49):
let it. I let it go, prune off the old leaves that have
it, and just keep that tomatoplant fertilized and healthy. Most years that's
just fine. Occasionally you need toget in there with the funger side and
spray to shut it down. ButI tend to be kind of slow to
grab the spray Wand just because II'd rather spend my saturdays doing something else
other than mixing up stinky, stinkywater. You know that that would be

(47:15):
make me feel good, thank youwell good that was free, So that
that's what I would do. Butpick all those older nies off and get
them out of there, because thosebrown spots have got spoils that are going
to read. In fact, ifcorking water the ground rather than the plant,
that helps. Every time you wetthe foliage, you increase foliage diseases.

(47:36):
Now they're in growboxes and there's awater reservoir in the bottom. Oh
that's right, that's right. Yeah, yeah, did you make those grow
boxes? My husband did well.You need to hang on to him.
He did a great job. Thoseare great, great looking. So they
are. I love them, lovethem. Our master gardeners used to make

(47:59):
those grow boxes when I was inAustin, Texas Master Gardener Group. Wow,
they would make those things up.And it's pretty cool. You can
find the plans online. Folks.Just get your big old rubber made top.
Yes you can, and yeh andit's pretty cool. But hey,
Paula, thank you, oh,thank you. We can we can go
worry worry about world peace and hungerand and not worry about these tomatoes for

(48:20):
the rest of the pot. Thankyou for I appreciate that. Uh.
The uh time to go to anotherbreak is hit here, and so I'm
just going to give you a phonenumber and get out of the way.
Seven one three two one two kt r H. Welcome back to Welcome
back to the guard Line. Goodto have you with us today. What
are we going to talk about?Something related to gardening? Get us a

(48:44):
call seven one three two one twok t r H. We Uh,
you know it's important uh to atthis point in the season to go ahead
and switch over to a slow releasefertilizer on your lawn. And the reason
is it gradually releases your lawn isbe taking up nutrients every day for the
next two or three months and onthrough the season. Really and by putting

(49:06):
down a turf Star Slow and Easy. That's prime example twenty two two ten.
That's the numbers on the bag.That nitrogen is designed to gradual release
over two or three months. Reallythe nutrients that are in there. Some
people say it even lasts longer forthem, but it's a quality product by

(49:27):
Nelson, which is the only kindof thing they make. It also has
sulfur in it, by the way, which helps with our high pH soils.
It helps a little bit with thefact that iron becomes tied up and
makes it a little more available tothe plants when you can drop that pH
dust a little bit. Now,a forty pound bag of Nelson's Slow and
Easy covers five thousand square feet bypromoting by feeding it gradually, it promotes

(49:52):
slow even growth. It also helpsdevelop a good root system. If you
just dump a whole bunch of nitrogenat once on the grass plants, they
grow a lot of top growth atthe expensive roots, so you're watering more.
It's less drought resilient, it's lessable to handle a little bit of
damage from grubs under the soil.Nelson's Turf Star Slow and Easy helps avoid

(50:13):
those kind of things. They sayit'll feed in some cases up to even
six months. But I can tellyou this, when you put it down,
you know you're going to have abeautiful lawn for a very very long
time. I want to. Bythe way, too, people often ask
me where can I get this?Where can I get that? Well,
if you're up in the in theLake Conro area, Triple A or at
Triple A A and A Plants andProduce in Montgomery, they have Nelson's Plant

(50:38):
Food, they have this Slow andEasy turf Star. By the way,
Ana carries everything. I mean,they have nitropos, they have microlife,
they have airloom soils, they haveNature's Way leaf compost. You can hire
Ana Plants and Produce. You canhire their landscape crew to come out there.
If you have one live in oneof those subdivisions up by the lake,
they'll come out there and they'll dosome landscape work for you. If

(51:00):
you need a little bed renovated orsomething like that. Just call them,
just find out about the details.They can tell you. They're on the
east side of Montgomery on one ohfive for all of the folks up there,
Montgomery, Conroe, Lake Conroe.This is your hometown garden center.
And of course they're going to haveall the plants that you're looking for,
and now's a good time to pickthem up and to plant them. I'm

(51:22):
going to go to Jamie now upin Spring, Texas. Hello, Jamie,
Hi, good morning, skip morning. I had I had sent you
some pictures. I talked to youlast week and I had sent you some
pictures of my yard. I wasn'tsure if I had thatch or I know
I have that, but you know, I'm just not sure what to do

(51:44):
if I need to scrape some offand put new soil down or in grass.
But anyway, you had said tocall you this weekend. Okay,
uh, let's see was this aWould it have been Janet that it came
through ass Not Janet. I'm notseeing your email, Jamie, could you

(52:08):
fooh boy? Okay? Well whendid you see Assue him? Maybe Wednesday?
And you wrote back and said you'vehad a lot of emails. Oh,
yes, yes, well I uhokay, is it would it had
come in from two eight one theaery code two eight one? Is that

(52:30):
possible? Okay, let me seeif I there we go. I got
him. Oh we got a Youhave a cat that likes to be in
every picture? Is that right?Yeah? He's just what a photo bomber?
Uh? All right, yes,I did see your picture. Sorry,
I just didn't have your Uh.The the lawn shows to me signs

(52:55):
of damage from take call root rot, which kills grasp I canilling roots.
It is often associated with droughty conditionsthat anything that stresses and weakens the lawn
opens the door for take all rootrot to come in. It could also
be that chinchbugs were involved, butbased on what I see in the picture,

(53:17):
I don't think chinchbugs were the bigissue. I think it was a
matter of perhaps droughty conditions, notbeing able to get enough water to it,
and then the take all root rotitself. That's what it looks like
now. There is so much lawndamage there. It's kind of a toss
up as to whether you resid orwhether you take the sprigs that are alive,

(53:37):
get them healthy and try to getit to fill back in. If
you can get them healthy, they'reclose enough together to fill that lawn back
in by midsummer, but that isgoing to require proper watering on a regular
basis, a little bit of aeration. That's such a small area you could
just use a spading for it togo straight down in the ground and kind

(53:59):
of a hole open and just doit in all those places. In fact,
make the cat do it. Itseems to like to liver. Make
those holes as many as you can, put a little compost top dressing,
leaf mold compost top dressing on thatand just rake it in watered in really
good. Also, do your springfertilizing with a gradual slow release. I've

(54:22):
been talking about different ones all morning. But do everything you can to create
a wonderful root zone and let's tryto get that growth back. Spraying for
the take all now is generally notvery effective. If you go online to
gardening with skip dot com, that'smy website, there will be a lawn

(54:44):
care schedule and then another one thatsays lawn pest disease and weed management.
And if you look at that oneand the disease section, it's the great
or the tan part. When youget over to October, there'll be a
treatment for take all and then aretreatment in November for take all. Those
are the two most important ones.Okay, okay, okay, we're kind

(55:07):
of outside the spring treatment for takeall, but the fall is more important.
But I would say, let's culturallydo everything we can to get that
lawn in tip top shape. Andthe things I described aerration, compost top
dressing, and fertilization. I woulddo the fertilization first, then the aerration,
then the compost top dressing, andwhat good. Okay, I've got

(55:30):
the aerration coming this week, soI'll get that part. Oh wonderful.
Okay, that's good, that's good. I can't I see some pine trees.
I'm assuming it's it's still pretty sunnywhere that lawn is. Is that
true? Yes? That gets theeast morning sun. Okay, okay,
well, it would be good toget a little more sun on it,

(55:51):
a little more energy. But keepthe foot traffic off as best you can,
and let's see if we can bringit back that way. All right,
Okay, so you want me toactually dig up some sprigs and replace,
try to put some new grass andthose if you if you want to
do the fast easy, it's toreside that spot. I'm just saying,

(56:13):
if you want to avoid the costexpensive residing, you have enough sprigs where
you might be able to get itto fill back in. Pretty good for
you, So it's your choice eitherway. All right, Okay, great,
okay, thank you so much.All right, appreciate the call.
Thank you. Jamis. If youare living in this area, you most
likely have a clay soil our Houstonblack clay soils shrink and swell. What

(56:37):
does that mean? They get wet, they get bigger, they get dry,
they shrink up, and you seecracks everywhere. Cracks everywhere, including
in the brick outside your house,in the sheet rock inside your house,
doors sticking, driveways and sidewalks,cracking. All of that can be fixed
by Ty Strickland. He is theowner of Fixed my Slab Foundation Repair.

(56:59):
Tie has been doing this for twentythree years. He knows how to do
it. I've sat down with himand picked his brain for an hour,
just you know, what about this? What about that? How do you
do this? And he knows thisstuff? Trust me, he really does.
Tell him. You're a guardenline listener, you get a free estimate.
That's what he will do. Tyis committed to charging a fair price,

(57:20):
to showing up on time, andto fixing it right. That's the kind
of service we like to talk abouthere on guarden Line. You can call
him two eight one two five fiveforty nine forty nine, or go to
the website fixmislab dot com. Remember, tell him your Guardenline listener for a
free estimate and have them come by, take a look, assess, and
do it right. We're going tonow go to Baytown and talk to Wayne.

(57:45):
Hello Wayne, Hey, Wayne,you hello, Ski. Are you
doing doing today? I'm good,sir. How can we help today?
Question? Bought some celebrity celebrity tomato, put them in the ground maybe a
week before Easter, and just wonderhow many weeks does it take before I

(58:07):
maybe start seeing some blooms on theseplants. Depends on the age of the
plant when you bought them, howbig then mature they were. You should
see some blooms within a few weeks. If the plants are growing healthy and
getting plenty of sunlight. Yeah,they're very healthy. I bought them out
there at the feed store. Yourecommend in Mount Bellevue. Yes, huh

(58:30):
and very healthy and bought some ofthe soil and it's organic. The name
the picture is like two big redtomatoes with a big yellow carrot on the
side of it. All right,well, if you put an improved soil
in, you got your plants in, just make sure they don't like for
water, and fertilize them gradually alittle bit every few weeks, and you

(58:53):
should be getting some tomatoes pretty soonif they're in good sunlight. Okay,
let's go to fertilizer real quick.What should I buy or and one should
I maybe fertilize them? I would? You know, if you bought a
lawn fertilizer from them, you couldjust use that on your tomatoes. That
would be just fine. If youwant to buy just a specific vegetable fertilizer,

(59:15):
you can find those from Nitrofosh,you can find those from Nelson Plant
Food there. You know, thereare a number of different ones on the
market, But a lot of timesI'll just use my lawn fertilizer on the
tomatoes in a pinch, rather thandriving all over town trying to find something
else. You know, if you'reoh, okay, what number would that
be triple thirteen or no, no, no, no, it's it's like

(59:36):
on my schedule at gardening with Skipdot com. One of those fertilizers on
the schedule, it's going to bemore like a fifteen to five to ten
or you know one of those yeah, one of those kind of ratio fertilizers.
All right, okay, well,I appreciate the information. And should
I fertilize them now or just waitea few weeks? No, go ahead

(59:58):
and fertilize them now. Get itgoing, get it moving. Okay,
thank you sir. All right,good luck with that. Appreciate that.
You know. Nitro Foss fertilizers likeSuperturf the nineteen four ten their slow release,
and that is what you need tobe switching to for your lawns right
now. We want to gradually feedthat lawn. Superturf has got fifty percent
of the nitrogen in slow release.It's got a supplemental iron in it,

(01:00:20):
which is very important. Superturf isthe silver bag. Nitroposs's silver bag makes
it really easy to pick out whenyou go to growers outlet up there in
Willis or when you go out toenchanted forests down in the Richmond Rosenberg area,
or perhaps RCW Nursery on I fortyfive, where I'm going to be
next Saturday. Well, it's timefor Nicky in the news. We'll be
right back our phone number seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four.

(01:00:45):
Welcome back to garden Line. Goodto have you with us today.
We are going to talk about allkinds of things related gardening. First,
I want to tell you about ChanningGardens down in Richmond Rosenberg area. If
anyone lives down in that area,you've probably already been. If not,
crawl out from under the rock gocheck this place out. It is on
FM three fifty nine north of Richmond, like you're heading Katie direction out of

(01:01:06):
Richmond FM three fifty nine. Itis a showplace. It is a destination
nursery. It's as simple as that. I mean, I couldn't begin to
describe all the things they have.Because if there is a plant that you've
heard about that people love, whetherit's bog and vieas for summer color or
annuals or perennials, or ornamental grassesor roses, tree shrubs, herbs,

(01:01:29):
vegetables, everything they've got it They'vegot it all right there at Enchanted Gardens.
They specialize in carrying everything, includingthe fertilizers we have on guard Line,
and they have a ton of landscapebling. I'm talking about the stuff
that it just adds the whimsy,is that right, whimsy, Yeah,
to the landscape, just fun stuff. Go check it out and see what

(01:01:52):
I'm talking about again. Enchanted Gardens, Richmond. That's the website in Chandigardensrichmond
dot com and they're open today,by the way, from ten am to
four pm. It is going tobe a good day to get out and
about why not drive over there andcheck them out. When you're there,
you're going to find all the fertilizersI talk about here on Guardline. You're
going to find the soils that wetalk about here on Guardenline, and that

(01:02:15):
is important, you know. Soperhaps you're interested in Microlife, you want
to get some of the Microlife fertilized, the humates plus that I've been talking
about, the green bag, thesix to four that I've been talking about,
they've got it there. You know. Microlife has a lot of quality
products that are widely available. Youcan you can go on their website Microlifefertilizer
dot com and you can learn abouteach one. They have products that are

(01:02:38):
fish and Molson type products. They'vegot seaweed type products. They have a
wide, wide variety. Do youhave azaleas or camellias or blueberries and you
want an acidic type plant food,that would be the pink bag from Microlife.
And so when you start off withquality fertilizer like that and you buy
quality plants like you're going to findout there in Chiney Guard, You're just

(01:03:00):
you're on your way to success.You are on your way to success.
And without hesitation, I can tellyou I've used the micro Life products a
number of times in my landscapes,and I always have been pleased with the
results. I want to go outnow to Cyprus, Texas, and we're
going to talk to Sandy. HelloSandy, Good morning, skip Happy Sunday.

(01:03:22):
I have a question my blueberries.My blueberry plant. It's the nick
container. It's a big, bigplant. But the last free some of
it died. So I have branchesthat look dead, but then they've got

(01:03:43):
branches that branched off that are green. Should I click the dead looking ones
to save the Yes, whole plant. Yeah, just take the dead out.
If it's dead, it's dead,so you might as well get it
out of there. Any little twiggygrowth, you know, the little tweagy
stuff inside that's not going to beproductive, go ahead and take it out.

(01:04:05):
I would start doing more regular wateringand fertilizing unless you already are doing
that. A boost a fertilizer likethat Microlife pink bag for example. That
is a natural slow release fertilizer,and all that organic material is very beneficial.
Blueberries really like that. Water itregularly with a good quality water.

(01:04:29):
One of the things we do thatblueberries don't like is we use waters that
have high salt content or high sodiumcontent or other issues by carbonates and other
compound they don't like. So asmuch as you can do like rain water
from a rain barrel, the happierthat blueberry will be. And also do
birds like blueberries because I get lotsof Okay, so I just made something

(01:04:54):
around it because I get them allthe time, and then I can't dig
them because yep, that's that's yourbirds. Yeah, you gotta have some
sort of netting over it, youknow, depending on the set up around
the house. I mean, youcan just throw a netting on it.
They may land on it and tryto peck through the netting with the berries

(01:05:14):
that it's sitting on. Some peopleput a little PVC hoop, a big
long PVC that's arched into a hoop, and that way the netting sits over
the bush. On that PVC hoop. You have to do kind of like
a north south hoop and an eastwest hoop, so it holds it all
up. But a lot of differentways to go about it. Just yeah,
you gotta you gotta screen those guysout. Okay, thank you so

(01:05:38):
very much. All right. Youtake quality soils. You know, let's
say you're gonna plant blueberries, youneed a quality soil mix. They have
a fruit and veged fruit mix.Specifically at the heirloom Soils they have a
veggie and herb mix. By theway, the fruit is called fruit berry
and centrus mix. There's a vegeherb mixed at Airloom Soils, which,

(01:06:00):
by the way, one hundred andnineteen dollars of qbicyard in bulk. If
you go out there, you canpick it up on your trailer. You
can have them deliver it and dumpit in the driveway. You can have
them bring a supersack out. Justthink of one of those grocery sacks from
the grocery store that's cloth and itholds a qbicyard. Yeah, that would
be a big grocery store sack.You've got a lot of groceries in that.

(01:06:24):
Well. They're going to have thatat Airloom Soils. Just go to
Airloomsoilsoftexas dot com. By the way, on that website you'll find an outstanding
soil calculator that will help you determineexactly how much you need. That is
important. That is important. NowI've just mentioned a few of their products.
They have many other quality products,and you need to go to Airloomsoilsoftexas

(01:06:45):
dot com and learn more about them. They're available by bulk, of course,
but they're also available in bags inmany, many, many locations all
around the Greater Houston area. Andbeyond that is important. That first step,
the soil, the soil, thesoil. That's where it all begins.
I keep talking about it. Iwas in my garden the other day.

(01:07:05):
I think I mentioned this yesterday,and I had not had a mosquito
problem this year until I got outthere and started pulling out some plants and
some debris and stuff, and I'mtelling you, those guys were swarming me.
That reminds me time to get themosquito dunks and put those out.
Where do you have standing water?Do you have a sagging roof gutter?

(01:07:27):
Do you have a dog bowl,a water bowl that's just been sitting out
there, or a bird bath thathas stagnant water in it. Well,
mosquitos, it doesn't take them long. They can raise They can go through
the whole life cycle in just acouple of weeks right there. In a
small small amount of water, andI mean small, like a thimble full
of water, a mosquito could growup in literally, So what do you

(01:07:47):
do? You put mosquito dunks inlarger bodies of water and it releases a
disease of mosquitos. Isn't that cool? And it doesn't hurt anything, doesn't
hurt birds, doesn't hurt the family, cat out of the water. I
mean, it is absolutely organic safeto use mosquito dunks. You can find
them a lot of places. Almostevery independent nursery we talk about, and

(01:08:09):
feed store we talk about, andcertainly the ace hardware stores we talk about
are going to carry those mosquito dunks. You can break them up if you
just need little pieces. There's alsoa mosquito bits that Summit Responsible Solutions also
makes a bag of mosquito bits,and I guess think of them like grape

(01:08:30):
nuts, remember that cereal. That'skind of what they remind me of.
And you can just scatter a fewof those here and there. The instructions
are on the bag as to howmuch to use. When you put a
doughnut or a dunk out there andit's floating in the water, it's going
to give you about thirty days ormore. It's going to protect about one
hundred square feet of water surface.So and that's where the regulars are are

(01:08:51):
up there on the surface of thosewater areas. So check for where the
mosquitos are. Toss a dunk inthat area, and you just pretty well
take care of them with that themin the spray pesticides out there to kill
the adult mosquitoes flying around. Nobodylikes squitas. Don't be a skeeter breeder.
That is a good motto. Ithink. Next Saturday, after the

(01:09:15):
show eleven thirty one, two hoursI'll be at Rcdew Nurseries. Rcdew Nurseries
is the get it, got itnursery if they don't have it, and
they probably already do have it,but if they don't have it, they
can do their best to find itfor you if it's available on the market
and bring it in so you canknow that when you go there, just
ask them if they have it.I'll tell you things I have. They've

(01:09:38):
got the best selection of roses youwi't see anywhere, pages and pages of
roses. They have got an awesomeselection of hibiscus and boogainbilia, and shrubs
and trees which they grow themselves upthere in Plannersville. You need annuals and
perennials and shrubs. They've got everythinglike that. They're at two forty nine
and belt wait eight you need towrite that down. Next Saturday, I'll

(01:09:59):
be there eleven thirty to one thirty, So I hope you come out and
see me, bring me some samplesand things like that, and we will
just be good to go. Behappy to diagnose, identify and recommend it,
recommend solutions for you. Time totake a break seven one three two
one two KTRH I'll be right back. Oh, we're just gonna western swing
right into this next segment with asleep at the wheel. You're listening to

(01:10:23):
guardline. We are happy to visitwith you about the things that interest you.
What is of interest to you?I mentioned while ago I was gonna
be at RCW Nursery this next Saturdayfrom eleven thirty to one thirty, and
while I'm there, I may begiven away azamite. I'm actually giving away
a lot of asamite, four fortyfour pound bags of azumite. While I'm

(01:10:44):
there, I may be given awaythe four tree stabilizers. Two uh.
People often ask me if they talkabout as mite like fertilizer, and it
is because it has nutrients in it. But I need you to separate in
your mind between the fertilizers that youput on your lawn to make it grow
fast and big and green and allthat and have density. That's what we

(01:11:05):
normally think of is lawn fertilizing.Asimite has nutrients, but they're trace minerals.
They're not the minerals that make thegrass take off growing, but they're
essential to plant growth. Plants need. We used to always say sixteen nutrient
elements. Now we know it's upto around twenty different things that are part
of various processes a plant has tohave. So if you take something a

(01:11:28):
plant needs a menuscule amount of,but the word need is in there.
It's an essential trace mineral. Ifyou took that out of the soil,
the plant couldn't grow, and sosupplying that into the soil bank account is
important so that it's there just insmall amounts, but it's there so that
your plant has it when it needsit. And that's what asmite does.

(01:11:49):
You can take asumi, you canblend it with composts when you're putting it
out on a garden bed, ormixing it into the soil. You can
go about it a lot of ways. Just follow the label instructions. It
doesn't take a lot in order tohave success. I mean, when you
overdo anything, I don't care ifit's nitrogen fertilizer or trace minerals or anything.

(01:12:11):
That's not a good thing. Sodo it in moderation. Follow the
label and it will provide that bankaccount of all those trace minerals that are
important for plant growth and for success. That's that is what as might does.
So show up at RCW next Saturday. Who knows, Maybe you'll win
a bag. If not, youcan pick one up there. They sure
carry it. Our phone number isseven one three two one two five eight

(01:12:33):
seven four seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. I was
at the house before I headed downfor the radio show, at the house
taking care of a few things.We were redoing so much. You've heard
me talk about redoing my lawn.Boy was that ever a project? Eighteen

(01:12:54):
hundred square feet of four different kindsof turf grasses. I've got two Zoisias
and two Seen Augustine's, very newSaint Augustine's that we are looking at to
evaluate. So when I answer yourgardening questions here, I'll at least be
able to say, yeah, itworks and or it doesn't work or whatever.
I know it's going to work becausethese have been tested as part of

(01:13:15):
the Southern turf trials that go onbetween all the langre institutions across the South.
Uh So, when you're going torelease a new Saint Augustine, like
A and M just released a releaseone called Cobalt, and so Cobalt was
tested in Georgia and in Mississippi andyou know Louisiana and all these universities that
are testing the same groups of linesof turf grass to see how they do.

(01:13:42):
And before it gets released, it'shad to prove itself. And so
we know they're going to be successful. I just want some hands on experience
with them, and that's what we'regoing to do. I've got him in
sun I've got them in a lotof shade, and I have two golden
retrievers, So we're going to findout how weare tolerant they are because they
get they get the zoomies when theyget to go outside and run around.

(01:14:03):
Anyway, that's been busy. Nownext is the flower beds. I've got
some wonderful salvias I picked up theother day that I'm putting into flower beds.
I've got an old blush rose,one of my favorite antiquroses, old
blush that's in a bed and it'sbeen struggling along. The bed had heavy
clay soil. I know better thanthat, but we had the rose,

(01:14:26):
didn't have a spot for it.We put it in there. I'm about
to pull it up and we're goingto rework that bed. Now that I've
got my drainage pipes in for thebed, and here we go. We'll
be off to the races. Anytimeyou need a product that I talk about
on Garden Line, any fertilizer.If you have an insect issue, a
disease issue, if you have aproblem with weeds, maybe you need a

(01:14:48):
pre emergent, you know, likewe always talk about pre emergent herbicides to
prevent weeds from establishing, like barricadefrom nitrophiles. Maybe you need a post
emergent. I've got weeds, Igot a spriam now and kill them.
Southwest Fertilizer has all of that.There's nothing you need for your garden,

(01:15:08):
landscape, lawn, you name itthat Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have. If they
don't have it, you don't needit. We'll put it that way,
because they have it. They haveeverything everything you can imagine. Do you
need fire ink control? Do youneed baits? Do you need individual mound
treatments? Do you want all thisstuff I've been talking about synthetic? Do
you want all this stuff I've beentalking about inorganic? They've got it at

(01:15:30):
Southwest Fertilizer. Bob and Aaron andthe team there they can identify things.
You bring a sample, you bringa photo in. I recommend doing that.
Don't you say, well, Igot this weed I need to kill.
No, show them what it is, because they'll point you to the
product or products that are most effectiveagainst it. And that way you know
you have success. And as theysay, that alone is worth the price

(01:15:53):
of admission. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. They're on the corner of Bissinet and
Renwick and Southward wes Houston. Ifyou've never been by there, I don't
care where you live and you're listeningto the show, you need to go
by. You will be very impressedand the way they stock up and you're
a home with plenty of the thingsthat you need to have a bountiful garden
and a beautiful landscape. I'm goingto head out to Katie now and talk

(01:16:16):
to Jean. Hello, Jean,Hi, I have a question about fire
ants. I need to know whatyou recommend for treating the lawn and the
garden with the product and also aname of a product that I can use
in the garden without poisoning my vegies. Okay, the only fire ant bait

(01:16:43):
I know of that is registered forgarden vegetable gardens is come and get it
by FURTI loan fur to loan,can't get. It's a light blue bag.
It's the chemical and it is spinosid, which is an organic andsecticide attracts
them. They eat it, theyget the spinosa. It does the job.
Anytime you're using a fireant bait gene, you want to make sure it's

(01:17:06):
fresh. I was talking somebody theother day who had tried a certain fireant
bait and they said it didn't work. And I know it works. So
but if it's a soybean oil anda corn grip base, and if it
gets rancid, the intern can pickit up and it's not gonna A bait
doesn't work if they won't eat it, And so make sure it's fresh when

(01:17:28):
you go to put it out.Make sure the ants are out foraging.
And one way to do it isto get a paper, a paper,
a potato chip, throw free potatochips out there on the lawn and just
wait a while, come back fiftyminutes later, and if fire ants are
on them, that means they're outfeeding, and that's prime time for putting
it out. In the summer,we wait till late in the day to
put them out, but two weekslater, any mounds that are still around,

(01:17:54):
you can do an individual mound treatmenton those, But always start with
the bait because that is the leasttoxic. You put very little bait out.
You don't dump it on the mound. You spread it evenly over your
whole property because anywhere there fire it. If you can talk your neighbors into
bating too at the same time,the results will last even longer because you

(01:18:15):
won't have fire names across the linethat come right back into your yard.
So the more people that do that, the better off. It is,
all right, all right? Nowthe product name for the lawn, is
it the same as of what Iuse for the garden. You can,
you can use come and get it. But in the lawns and stuff you

(01:18:36):
also have options. There's one calledextinguish, there's one called amdro. Those
are two other examples of good firebaits that will work. Okay, Now,
if I put it in the lawnand my garden is raised when it
rains, do you think that ifI use andro or the rain my wash

(01:19:00):
underneath the garden, no problem.If your garden is small, the answer,
are going to leave the garden andgo out there and find it anyway?
Yeah, no, it won't watchall right, good luck with that
controling those fis. Thank you forthe call. Ting Hey, you can
go to your ACE hardware stores outthere and Katie, you've got a couple
of them, uh and they willhave debates I'm talking about all right,
Thank you you bet take care.Uh I uh see, we're by time

(01:19:24):
to go to a break here Iam. When we come back, I
want to talk about a couple ofthings related to house plants and your calls
as well. Our phone number isseven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two onetwo kt r H. I want to
remind you next Saturday, I'm goingto be at where you've been listening this

(01:19:46):
morning. I'm gonna be at RCWNursery eleven thirty to one thirty. I'm
going to be giving away four bagsof as A my forty four pound bags,
four of them, four of thethree sixty tree stabilized. You will
need one of these. These arethe best way I've ever seen physic brand
new product. I throw away thewires, throw away all the steaks and

(01:20:10):
things to trip over and all thetrouble and hassle. Get you a three
sixty tree stabilizer. They carry themthere at RCW Nursery. I'll be answering
your gardening questions. I'd love tomeet gardeners. Bring me pictures or samples
of plants in bags. Please putthem in as as a blog bag.
Bring them on in. Let's takea look at them. We'll diagnose,
we'll identify. I'll take a lookat pictures if you want. Here's an

(01:20:31):
area in my yard where I can'tget such a substr pro What can I
do. We'll help you with that. Walk around there and find you the
right plants that'll fit that area.We'll be right back from break again.
Seven one three two one two KTRH. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse
any of the products or services advertisedon this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden

(01:20:56):
Line with Skip Rict. It's thecrazy here mans it in the bass.
He's like gas. They be canuse it? Why a shrimp? Just
watch him as world Golden Star.The grasses like gas and became you so
many con takes the sap hoops inthe bad ing the bassis like Gas and

(01:21:18):
began you Damos clubs back Chicken,but Canada sound in the red the glassies
like gascind you so beam and downgets it in the grass. He's like
Gas they be can use your handleby first starting in and out of the

(01:21:39):
dreaming ing in the basses like Gasbecome you Ja. Everything is so clean,
can see and every thing here Sunday, the hand, the rim so
so m son, so many Welcomeback to the guard Line. Good to
have you with us today. Wasenjoying the Have you ever heard that much

(01:22:01):
of the song before? That isa cool song, you know that's been
around garden Line, that music fora very very long time. Randy brought
that on and it was just kindof the theme of it and I've just
kept it with us here because familiarityis a good thing, right, So
we're keeping it with us for alittle while here. I don't know.
Maybe someday we'll come up with somethingnew. We have to have to figure

(01:22:25):
that out, but not for today. Buchanans plants in the heights. When
you go to Buchanans, you knowyou were going to enter a wonderland that
has absolutely everything you need. Itis like a little hideaway in the heights.
Really, you know, you're goingalong there on Eleventh Street, East
eleventh Street, and all of asudden you look over there and boom,
there it is. And when youwalk inside, you've entered another world,

(01:22:46):
a world where if you want nativeplants, well, there's a reason we
call it Buchanans native plants. Theyhave all kinds of native options there.
Do you need houseplants or vegetables oranything. Do you need the fertilized I
talk about on guardenline, the soilswe talk about on garden line. Buchanans
carries all that because what they dois they focus on quality products and quality

(01:23:09):
plants, and especially quality service,knowledgeable folks to help guide you. Very
valuable in a shopping experience at agarden center is to have knowledgeable folks,
and Buchanans has that they also have. You know, it's been we go
through these periods where we have rainhere, and it rains and rains,
and we got to go, Okay, how do I fix the drainage?

(01:23:30):
Well, how about making lemonade outof those lemons? Get something from Buchanans,
like a rain lily, like aniris, like bog coneflowers or inland
coos or cannons. All of thoseplants will be very happy in a soggy
mess that other plants are going.I can't live there. Buchanans as plants
that can, so go check themout Leven streetom Heights, Buchanans Plants dot

(01:23:53):
Com. We're going to go nowto Cyprus and talk to Martha. Hello,
Martha high Skip. I have beenfollowing the fertilization schedule for years,
but I am being nondated with dollarweed. Okay, it's just taking over

(01:24:14):
the gas. Looks great, butit's got a lot of dollared in it.
Yeah, well, there are differentdifferent approaches to it. First of
all, Culturally, when you havewet soil, dollar weed will proliferate.
So if it's in your control andin your control would be like, don't
water as much. Can't control therain, but you can't control how much
you water. If you've got waterthat's being diverted to that area, that

(01:24:39):
could be diverted somewhere else. Thatwould be another option. But culturally dried
out a little bit and that helps. From a spray standpoint, we got
a couple of different products out there. The fact There are several that you
can use on dollar weed. Oneof them is something called Celsius. Celsius
is a product that is a postemergent broad leaf weed killer, and so

(01:25:01):
that's what you need. You've alreadygot dollar weed up and growing. You
see the leaves, You spray thecelsius on there and it works. Bonnie
has something called weed Beater Ultra.Now, the weed Beater Ultra, if
you're going to use it, youneed to use it soon, and you
need to do it. I woulddo it in the morning. Once the
temperatures get up in the mid toupper eighties, I start to back away

(01:25:25):
from those kind of products because they'revery good on weeds, but they're a
little hard on Saint Augustine in thosewarmer temperatures. So weed Beater Ultra you
can use in the morning for thenext several weeks. Actually we can still
get good use out of it.Or the celsius will be another option.

(01:25:45):
How do you spell the celsius likethe temperature celsius fahrenheit and celsius the same
course. Yeah, go ahead,do you you spray it on? Yeah?
Sign you mix it up and sprayit. It comes in a those
I prefer no, I prefer apump up sprayer for a weed control.

(01:26:11):
You could do it through a hose. You're putting out way more than you
need to just because hose is puttingout all these big droplets, and so
I prefer to be able to justspray it enough to dampen the weed surfaces,
and that that will that will bethe best way to go about it.
You don't need to drench the weedswith it. In fact, you

(01:26:31):
want to avoid when using herbicides washingthem down in the soil. Well,
they have damage the grass, notthe not the bone eyed weed beater ultra.
If the temperature is below let's saythe mid eighties, you don't have
a problem. If you're using celsius, you can probably go up in the
lower nineties and still be okay upthere in Cypress, are you like north

(01:26:56):
of two ninety or south of twoninety. Okay, Well you've got you've
got M and D supply on LuettaRoad. Uh, and you've also yeah
set up I go, yeah,there you go. They're gonna they're gonna
have these products. Just just callthem up or go buy okay, right,
Okay, it takes a lot ofskip bye bye, Thanks for the
call. I appreciate that very much. We love feed stores here on Garden

(01:27:19):
Line and League City. Feed isjust one of those feed stores I love
going into. In fact, Iwas in there just the other day visiting
with Madison. Uh and uh,you know, we I love to go
by and visit the folks there.But Wes was out. I don't know
where he was gallianting off to atthat time, but I didn't get to
talk to him, talk to Madison. Her brother were there. Uh.

(01:27:41):
It's just one of those. Ohand Rushak Ruschak is a Dalmatian. You
got to go meet more Ruschak.Can you think of a better name than
than Ruschak for a Dalmatian? Youknow, it's kind of like a psychiatrist
says, look at that dog andtell me what you see That that's Ruschak.
They're on Highway three, a fewblocks south of ninety six, near
in the League City area. Soif you're in Santa Fe or Webster,

(01:28:04):
el Kamina, Reale, Clearlake,Lamark, San Leone Baycliff Dickinson, this
is your backyard feed store. Andyou go by there, you're going to
find all the fertilizers that I talkabout on Guarden Line. Of course,
it's a feed short premium pet food. You got backyard chickens. They got
food for that too. It isthe kind of place that'll take your bags
out for you and deliver them foryou, just like the old time service

(01:28:27):
was been around since forty years.The Thunderberg's third generation now running that feed
store at League City Feed. Here'sa phone number two eight one three three
two sixteen twelve. I'm going tohead up to Conro now and talk to
Bill. Oh excuse me, I'mnot going to head up to Conra and
talk to Bill just yet. Bill, you will be first up. I
spoke too quick. I got togo to a break. I get so

(01:28:48):
excited about this stuff. I forgetthe clock. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to Garden Line. Goodto have you with us today. Have
you been to Plants for all seasonslately? That's the nursery. It's on
Tombo Parkway Highway to forty nine.If you're going north up toward Tombull from
Houston, you cross exit Lutta acrossover Luetta and A's right there on the

(01:29:09):
right hand side. Been there along long time. The Flowerdy family has
created a brilliant just an institution forthat whole region up there. A lot
of people know plants for all seasons. They love it. They go there
because they know when they go there, they're gonna get plants they grow here.
They don't carry stuff that you're goingto take home and kill it right

(01:29:30):
away because it don't belong here.You're going to get advice, and boy,
this is the this is the elephantin the room when it comes to
the importance of choosing an independent gardencenter, a local owned, independent garden
center, and that is advice frompeople who know what they're talking about.
They are experts and all kinds ofthings. Plants. You can bring them,

(01:29:50):
samples, you can bring them pictures, you can just talk with them.
I got a shady area, Ineed this. They're going to direct
you to the things you need thatwill work because they if you've got a
brown thumb, they'll turn it green. If you've got a green thumb,
well, you've probably already been therebecause you know that when you get the
right soil mixes, the right fertilizers, the right plants, and you do

(01:30:11):
things the right way, you havesuccess. And that's what Plants for All
Seasons will help you do the websitePlants for All Seasons dot Com the phone
number two eight one three seven sixsixteen forty six get your green on It
Plants for All Seasons dot Com.Let's go up to Conra. Now we're
going to talk to Bill. HelloBill, Hi, skip Hey. Question.

(01:30:34):
I've got a parking strip that itlooks like the contractors just covered up
the bermuda with Saint Augustine's sad andover time it's just all save bermuda and
I dug it up yesterday. Butthe roots are really really deep, and
my question is how deep do Ihave to pull the roots up? Or

(01:30:56):
should I be using some I mean, all the green is gone, a
lot of the roots are gone,but you're still I'm gonna have to cover
it with dirt. Should I useround up at this stage and try to
kill the last little bits off?Or I would? You know that hand
digging is an option, but you'realways going to miss a few, and
so you're going to wait a while. Let it reach sprout and stick its

(01:31:18):
head up again. You see thatgreen sprout, and then go down in
there and find that rhizome underground anddig it all out and that that's tedious.
You can do it that way.The alternative is to spray it with
something that will go through the plant, kill the whole plant and round up
wud do that. I prefer tosay glay because round up is just one
brand. Sure that's the ingredient.There are grass only killers. They the

(01:31:44):
most common one begins with the boysname Seth se t H and you'll they'll
say grass be gone or something likethat. On the label. You'll tell
you it's a grass killer. Butagainst with Seth those work too. They're
not white as effective as round upor glyphissay at taking out the whole bermuda
plant, but they they're good.They're very good, and so that would

(01:32:08):
be the alternative. Some people don'twant to use the glaphas say, so
you have a different alternative. Butyou got to get some grass up so
you can spray the green stuff.You need green stuff to spray. And
this is going to be a littlebit of a process. If you get
in a hurry and you say,oh, let's go and put soil down
and sod, it's going to growitself back into the problem again. Because

(01:32:29):
you can get it all. Youdon't want that. I know you don't
want to say. Okay, well, how long you have to wait after
you put down some kind of killerspray. Well, it takes I'd give
it about a week to move intothe grass and start to really do its
work. By then you can dowhatever you're going to do, and the
grass is already going downhill. Asfar as the plants you want to put

(01:32:51):
in, you can spray soil,kill the weeds on it, wait about
a week, just kind of rotit till it in a couple days later,
put the seeds in the ground ortransplants, and it won't hurt them.
It it ties up with the soiland it basically think of it this
way. All these products we're talkingabout for killing grass, they they kill

(01:33:12):
green grass plant parts. Okay,so they don't make the soil toxic to
grass. So so yeah, youwell, I'm going to put Saint Augustine's
sod on top of you know whereit is because I want the grass.
Look, yeah, there were Sogive it a give it a week to
give it a week to work,lightly rototie the area, and then lay

(01:33:32):
your side down. A couple ofdays later, you'll be fine, okay,
all right, thank you, thankyou. Good luck Bill, good
luck. Uh. Compost stop dressingis one of the most important things that
we can do if you really wantto take an area that won't go grass
and help it grow grass. Now, if it's because of shade, well

(01:33:54):
no, you need sunlight. Butif it's because of compaction, which happens
our clay soils are tight there.We call them heavy soils and foot traffic
and things, they compact and composttop dressing with aeration first to air eate.
Then you put the compost top dressingdown over the top and it falls
in the holes and it opens upthat soil. It gets oxygen down in

(01:34:15):
the soil so the roots can thrive, and it just improves it over time.
You can do it again and againover the years as needed. In
general, with a heavy compaction,you may have to repeat it periodically,
but oftentimes yeah, you don't.But that initial application is very very effective.

(01:34:36):
Green Pro does that. Green Prois up there. Actually they're in
the Magnolia area, but they serveabout forty five mile radius for Magnolia.
So if you're done in you know, down to about roughly I ten and
over to about Interstate forty five justto draw rough lines. That's about the

(01:34:56):
area that they serve. They chargedepending on how far are you wait for
travel because they're bringing in a lotof heavy equipment and a lot of bulky
quality, finely screened compost to dothat, so about forty five miles from
Magnolia. They're who you need tocontact. So here's how you do it.
You call them two eight one threefive one forty seven thirty three two

(01:35:18):
eight one three five one forty seventhirty three, or go to the website
greenpro dot net greenpro dot net.If you've got a lawn that looks like
heck, and you're and a boy, I get these pictures from you guys
all the time here on guarden Line, and the lawn is just like there's
a few sprig gegrass here there inYonder and that's just really struggling. How

(01:35:42):
do I bring it back? Well, that's one of the steps in it
that, along with proper watering,fertilizing, and then of course mowing,
is the secret to success with aturf grass lawn. I was talking with
Jason at Pure Scapes the other dayand we were just talking about, you
know, the spring we're having inthe industry and things like that, and

(01:36:03):
they're staying busy. And you know, a good reputable landscaper is going to
be busy. They're going to bebooking weeks, if not months in advance.
Depending on the size of job youneed to get done. Puer scapes
can do pretty much anything that youneed. Do you need a patio,
a stone patio. Do you wanta stone walkways? Do you need construction

(01:36:24):
of landscape beds? How about landscapelighting? Landscape lighting pathways? How about
hard scapes of other types, porousheartscapes or concrete heartscapes. Do you need
drainage improved? Most people do aroundhere. Do you need your irrigation checked
on or adjusted or redone or fixed? They do all of that stuff.

(01:36:44):
But the thing they do that Ithink you really need to know about is
quarterly bed maintenance. You can hirethem to come out once a quarter and
they trim, they weed, theyfertilize, They check out the irrigation system,
see if it's still working right.They aerate, they do seasonal color,
They do mulching in the bed.They do all of that kind of
stuff and just keep your beds lookinggood. So that way through the year,

(01:37:10):
all twelve months of the year.You've got some of somebody coming out
quarterly. They need a new colorchange, now, well arrange it.
Do you want two color changes ayear, three or four? They can
do all of that at Pierce Scapes. So how do you get a hold
of them. Well, you cango online, go to the website Piercescapes
dot com. You're going to seesome awesome pictures there by the way of

(01:37:30):
the work they can do our givethem a call. Two eight one three
seven oh fifty sixty two eight onethree seven oh five zero six zero.
I said, I wanted to talkabout houseplants, and I do. We
are in the process at our houseof kind of renovating some of the houseplants.
We had one. It was astring. It stayed a little too

(01:37:53):
wet. I was part of thecause of that. I didn't realize.
My wife and I both were wateringthe thing, and it was in a
little too much soil for the sizeof the plant. And so when you
get a little plant in a bigpot full of soil, it's hard not
to overwater because there aren't roots outthere and all that soil. Yet pulling

(01:38:14):
water out of it, so itjust sits there and stays soggy. And
so that's just kind of a thingyou might want to watch out for.
But we're doing some trimming. Igot several plants that just got apathos excuse
me, a not apothos. Philodendronlooks kind of like apothos. It got
real long and stringy. I meanit had like ten foot strings on it,
and I want to keep it asjust a mound of beautiful foliage.

(01:38:36):
So I'm doing some trimming and cleaningup on it. Always with houseplants,
one of the most important things isgetting them in the right lighting. You
need success. Now, there's twothings you can say about lighting. There's
how much light does it take tokeep it alive, and there's how much
light does it take for it tothrive. Those are two different things.

(01:38:56):
More light to thrive than to keepit alive. We have low lighthouse plants
to do well, but they don'tthrive in that condition. You get them
in a little brighter light and theythrive. Sometimes I'll move plants by the
window, or put them under anartificial light, or put them even outside
on a bright porch that's covered sothey don't get direct sun to kind of
rejuvenate them and get them going andthen bring them inside for the decorating.

(01:39:20):
But it's easy to have a roomfull of house plants. And when you
put house plants in the house,it just makes it feel more at home.
It just softens less sterile. Iguess the setting. It just makes
it inviting. We're made to bearound plants, you know that. We
know at the Kingwood. Now we'regoing to talk to Bill. Hello.

(01:39:40):
Bill. My question are involve Augustineand take off patch. Okay, I've
had a problem in the past withit, and I thought I had reasonable
control. But I see yellowing ofthe the leaves in areas. Yes,

(01:40:03):
collect the areas, and I presumethat's take all patch. It could be
it could either be that or itcould just be an iron deficiency. So
you can try putting an iron supplementon it and see if that clears up.
If it does, then it wasn'ttake all pack. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:40:25):
well I'm assuming I have been assumingthat it take all pack. Okay,
And hey Bill, I got itabout have about thirty seconds to break,
so let's see if we can dothis. If not, I'll hold
you to the console. And Mikewill Yes, I have put on in
two week periods, but is thereanything I'm afraid that's preventive? Is there

(01:40:46):
something I can put on to killit? There's not a good curative for
it. You can hold it inplace with sprays, but there's not a
good curative. If you can findsomething that has a zoxystrobin in it,
have to go online to garden Gardeningwith Skip dot com. That's my website.
Hey, I'm gonna have to stophere. Let me come back and
finish entering that for you. Bill, thanks for that call. Time for

(01:41:09):
Nicky in the news. Well,we are welcome back to your garden line.
Good to have you with us today. We're going to go right back
to Bill. We were visiting theBill up in Kingwood. Bill, we
were talking about dealing with the takeall root rot, and on my schedule
at Gardening with Skip dot com youwill see that in October and November are
two very important treatments if you're dealingwith take all root rot. That is

(01:41:32):
a key time to get in andget ahead of it. And we do
two treatments separated. If you canfind a zoxystrobin products, that's a little
bit better. There is a percalled Heritage that is very hard to find.
It is exoxistrob and if you findit, get it. That's it.
Scott's makes one called disease X.Disease X by Scott's is also a

(01:41:58):
zoxystroban, but I would switch tothat product. There are some other options,
but I think that just in oneshot deal that that's probably as good
you're going to do in terms ofthe U application rate. A lot of
times on the bags they'll they'll say, uh, you know, preventative.

(01:42:20):
I mean, they won't take creditfor curing, right along the lines of
what you've just said. But isthere Well, I know there's a HANSWERD
to the micro content in the soil, but increasing the dosage beyond what's done

(01:42:42):
on the bag, you can't answerthat, can you. Well, I
would never say don't follow the labelin this particular case. I would not
do that for other reasons. Forexample, some of these products have a
little bit of a growth regulator effecton your grass. Some of the PUNO
sides do, and by excessive usethem. It's almost this isn't a good
analogy, but it sort of makessense. It's almost like a chemotherapy thing

(01:43:06):
where you're fighting a problem, butyou're also taking a toll on the patient,
and so yeah, I would notI would not go above the label
on these products for fungicides for yourloan. Yeah. No, no,
I mean obviously the patient. It'sgiving it a toll taken on them by
that they're already struggling, Yeah,without you giving them Yeah all right.

(01:43:29):
No, No, I had seenthat reference in a relative to northern grasses
as a cross in the York.Okay, No, I've tried to heard
each and before, but I willget back to it and just any previous
years. Yeah, just get tomy label or get to my schedule on
gardening with Skip dot Com. Thanksa lot for the call, Bill,

(01:43:51):
I appreciate that you know Landscaper's Pride. I keep talking about the importance of
soil, the importance of soil.Landscaper's Pride has twenty seven different bag and
they also sell by bulk too.Landscaper's Pride is always local. It's the
top quality resource. They've been inbusiness since two thousand and two, so
over twenty years of experience now,so they know exactly what they're doing.

(01:44:13):
They have a rosemex for example,very effective for any of the woody ornamental
plants or any things that are alittle preferring maybe of a little bit lower
pH soil. It's got fresh andcomposted pine, box pagnum and slow release
fertilizer. Gardner's Magic just another example, contains humus green pine, composted dry
cels and a chicken pellet fertilizer thatlasts up to three months. Other quality

(01:44:35):
examples from Landscaper's Pride. To lookfor a pot dirt which is actually an
organic certified soil blend and premium pintingsoil as well. You're not going to
go wrong with Landscaper's Pride. Goto the website Landscaperspride dot com and find
out where to get it because itis widely available. Let's head after Brenham
now and talk to Leonard. Hello, Lenyard, good morning morning. I've

(01:45:01):
got about thirty Japanese boxwoods, youknow as a hedge, and one by
one they're just sort of dying offon me, and i mean really dying.
They just look brown inside the green. The ones who was sighted at
the moment look really good. ButI'm afraid that it's going to catch is

(01:45:24):
some kind of disease or something.Yeah, it could be. Is your
soil sandy or clay or what.Oh, it's up close to the house,
and I think when they built thehouse twenty years ago that they probably
put some sand in there. Butit's predominantly white gumbo around here. And
a number of things can affect boxwoods. Nematodes can attack the roots that they

(01:45:48):
generally are worse than a sandy soil, the blights of the upper growth.
There are diseases. There's one calledboxwood blight that's very serious, very difficult
to deal with. There are someroot root fungi that plug the plumbing of

(01:46:09):
the plant. And when you havea boxwood that's half dead, you know
you're going to lose it. Youpull it up, take your knife and
slice down through the stem. Slicethrough the stem, and instead of being
a fresh, creamy color underneath therelike you would expect, it'll be brown
streak, almost like a cigarette buttstain, you know, that old black,

(01:46:30):
brown gray thing. It'll look likethat. That is a sign of
one of the vascular wilts that canoccur. So it could be a lot
of things if you have a rowof them. So you got some value
here. I would dig one upthat is still alive but on its way
out, and I would take itup to you can drive it up to
the path lab up at A andM. It's on the West campus.

(01:46:55):
Or you can ship it and havethem go ahead and analyze it. Get
some soil, shake the excess soiloff the roots, but get it all
boxed up in a big old trashbag and take it in there and let
them figure out which of these itis, because then they can prescribe which
of the fungicides if that's what's needed, you would use and you could then

(01:47:15):
try to save the rest of yoursto go out and just start trying this
and that product willie nilly, you'reis probably not a good way to go.
So fertilizer of any can it won'tgive it well, fertilizer. Fertilizer
will give it a boost, butwhat you're describing, fertilizer's not going to
fix. Yeah, yeah, thatdiet it is. And you need to

(01:47:39):
know which of the organisms is involvedso that we can try to shut that
down as soon as possible before youlose a lot. Okay, are they
dying? Are they dying in likea row like you know, it hits
this one and then the next one, then the next one. Yeah.
Well yes, if they're close together, it seems like it'll it'll get in
a row and three of them agoand uh well, uh, let's let's

(01:48:03):
get ahead of it because you needyou need to get a good drink.
If that's the case, there's probablygonna end up being a fungicide drench you
put on the all the all aroundthe root system. But let's let's start
with a good diagnosis. You cango online. The website is Plant Clinic
dot t a m U dot ed U, Texas and m Education Plant

(01:48:26):
Clinic dot TAMU dot e d U. There's a form there you can fill
out, or you can just drivethem up there and and get the form
filled out there. All right,very good, thank you. Do you
have time for one and more?Real quick, real quick. I've got
two nice raised beds. I've growntomatoes every year, and I've spent a
lot of time with my mulch andeverything else, and they look about a

(01:48:49):
foot and a half right now.They look pretty good, but some of
them are sort of yellowish in thelee's onmosis because they're kind of new.
Uh if I can put some ironor something in that the help. Is
it the older leaves at the bottomof the plant first, or is it
the new leaves at the top ofthe plant turning yellow? I think probably

(01:49:10):
you're right at the bottom. Orit's got some holes in them. Some
of them's got actually got of holes, and it don't look like bugs.
Yeah, well, it could bea beatle or a caterpillar, but we're
not worried about those. I wouldget a good quality fertilizer. You'd like
a lawn fertilizer that has a highnitrogen content, and sprinkle that on there
and watered in and see if itbrings it back. If it's just generally

(01:49:32):
yellowing, it sounds to me likenitrogen. And it could be occasionally getting
too dry, but with the weatherwe've had, I don't think it's the
latter. Yeah, I keep itnot too water, but yeah, but
water. And I thank you verymuch. In big help. You bet
a couple of tablespoons a lawn fertilizeror sprinkled around and watered in. We'll

(01:49:54):
see on each plant, Yeah,on each butt. That'll tell you whether
it's a nitrogen problem or not.Thank you. You appreciate your call.
Wow, we're already at another break. It seems like we're By the time
I get rollin, I have tohit the brakes again. Well, here
we go seven one three, two, one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to Gardenline. Good tohave you with us today. Hey,

(01:50:15):
are you gonna pot up some plants? Maybe for indoors like houseplants, maybe
for outdoors. Jungle Land distributed bynitroposs is a quality soil mix. It's
got Canadian blonde pete mixed with fourdifferent sources of aged organic matter and the
microrise of fungi that help the rootsto thrive. You know those fungi that

(01:50:36):
essentially make the root system more efficient. Jungle Land indoor plants has the water
saving crystals in it. Jungle Landflour and vegetable planting soil will do good
for anything you want to put inoutside. Where do you get jungle land,
Well, katie Is Hardware has itout there on Pinoak in Katie Ace
Hardware City on Memorial Drive down theMemorial area, and one more place,

(01:50:59):
how about Stanton Shopping Center in Alvin. All places you're going to be able
to get jungle land I'm going tohead out now to Dickinson and talk to
Janice. Hello, Jennis, allthere, I have a very nice bird
of paradise. The foliage is lovely, but it won't bloom. And also

(01:51:23):
the same problem with aga panther.I've used the color star and not doing
the job well. They need youknow, they do well in a really
really bright shade, but they needenough sunlight and it gets a little too
shady. They just don't have theenergy to bloom. It gets plenty of

(01:51:45):
sun It's a very puzzling situation.Is the bird of paradise? How long
has it been in? More thana year? Oh? Yeah, I
think I planted it last year ina nice big pot. Yeah. They
normally do bloom pretty well. Uh. I don't know what to tay you
if if you're giving it adequate moisture. It doesn't need to be in a

(01:52:06):
swamp, for sure, it needsgood drainage. But if you're giving it
a good, good, adequate moistureto keep drought stress out. If you're
fertilizing it with a quality product likethat, you should be getting blooms.
Add sunlight, and I don't knowwhat to tell you about that plant.
Not blooming if you're doing those thingsfor it. Now, the agapanthus those,

(01:52:27):
you know, we do need alittle brighter light for those. They
I see them in tall high shade, you know where it's real bright shade.
But they they also need that goodnutrition. And if you're if you're
which which of the products are youusing? Did you say color Star?
Yeah? For blooming, for bloomingplant, that's a good one. That

(01:52:50):
is a good one. Well,I tell you you're doing everything right.
I don't know what's wrong with thoseplants that they just wouldn't bloom through it.
Sometimes they can both be person couldbe like that. Well, I
guess that's the problem in their persnicity. Well, uh, now the color
Star, I mean, excuse me. The bird of Paradise. I found
that it does pretty well when itgets a little root bound too, so

(01:53:14):
that may I don't know if thatwould would help or not, but I
think that that would be one thingthat I would try. If you it's
in a nice big pot, sothere's not much chance of it being root
bound. It could happen. I'llkeep seeing it. Maybe, Yeah,
found Realdun's a good thing for that. We don't get to say that much
about about plants. Uh, yeah, but that you know, color Star,

(01:53:38):
that's a that's an excellent, excellentfertilizer. You should be Yeah.
It's got blood meal and bone meal, all kinds of good stuff in it
should make them boom, but itdoes. And how long how long have
you been using that color Star?About a year? About a year?
Okay? Well, I bought itbecause I wanted the bird a pair at

(01:54:00):
us to bloom. All my neighborshave them. They're blooming beautifully. And
mine's just a like a lush tropicalfoliage plants. There's not such a thing
as a male female, is it. No? Man, No, there's
okay, Well, I don't know. It's just a real puzzle. I
guess it'll boom sooner or later.Yeah, And I just don't tell you

(01:54:23):
other than be patient. It's ait's a you got a good it's a
good plant. You've got it ingood care from what you're telling me.
Uh, And that that's a goodfertilizer. So I think you're doing everything
right. All right, all right, Well, I thank you for your
time, you bet, thank youvery much. I appreciate your call.
Uh have you been to the Arburgatelatey and checked out the new parking lot

(01:54:44):
and back. Oh my gosh,it is so cool any of you like
me who've been out there and maybetried to park out on the road and
things, because you know, everybodywants to go to Arbrogate. I mean
people love that place and for goodreason. Well, now you just turned
down Trishl Road, which is thinkof it as a little loop that goes
around behind Arburgate. So coming fromthe east or the west on twenty nine

(01:55:05):
to twenty turned on Trichel you comeup to the back of Arburgate. Just
pull right in there. You gota really nice all weather pathway and they
have such a good selection right now. I mean, I don't care what
it is. You want fruit trees. You know, Arburgate carries fruit trees
year round and they have a lotof good information by the way online on
their social media on caring for fruittrees. Beverly and Angela Chandler collaborating on

(01:55:30):
some really good educational content. Whileyou're there, pick up the one two
three completely easy system. It's anorganic soil food. It's a food four
four to three plus calcium fertilizer.Anything with the roots. It will do
well. Organic soil complete it isa soil and it contains the expanded shale,

(01:55:51):
which is important in clay soils,and the organic compost complete also contains
that expanded sheal. Those three productsone two three together there's your brown stuff
and your plants are going to thrivein it. And you get that simply
as that is arbigate. If you'vebeen thinking about doing some bee keeping,
you need to call the folks inDayton at the Bee Supply b Supply out

(01:56:14):
in Dayton. They have a numberof options for educational programming, like a
beginning bee keeping class for example StrongFoundation. Those classes start at nine thirty
in the morning, they go toa three thirty. You even get hands
on experience doing hive inspections in theprocess. They have a honey extracting class
coming out. Here's the website dbsupplydot com. When you're there, if

(01:56:39):
you got property, let's say fiveto twenty acres and you're within forty or
fifty miles of Dayton, they willdo something called a b rental program where
they bring the bees out they setthem up on your property. There is
an ag tax benefit from having beeson the properly and they take care of
them for you. So it's awin win deal. Need to check it

(01:57:00):
out. Need to check that outat the bee supply. We're going to
go now out to Conroe and talkto Larry. Hello, Larry, good
morning morning. I've got excuse me. I've got a couple of pear trees
that I planted from seed. Uh, from a tree that was on my

(01:57:23):
uncle's property in Michigan. He claimedit was a Russet pair. And I've
done an Internet search and can't findanything at all on it. But the
tree have been in the ground sevenor eight years. They're thriving. The
first five six years they didn't bloomat all. The last couple of years

(01:57:45):
they're blooming a little bit well set, little little bitty fruit, and then
they'll fall off. Those things.Marble size, marble size fruit. That's
a rootstock you've got. It's arootstock. It's not a regular pair.
It's it's like the Bradford pair.That's an ornamental pair. It's that same

(01:58:06):
kind of pair. And so unfortunatelythe graft must have died on those.
You need to get another one.Yeah, Well, the way I the
way I got the seed, ofcourse, it was an old tree that
all had the best case in pearsI ever tasted. Yeah, yeah,

(01:58:27):
it was. It was on thislast leg. I got one of the
last couple of pairs off of thattree, brought them home and planted those
seas. All righty well, Idon't know what else to tell you,
but I'm a bear of bad newstoday on that Larry. But I'd find
you another good quality pair and getback in business as soon as you can
with it. And thank you,Thank you a lot. I appreciate the

(01:58:49):
information. Yes, sir, Iappreciate your call. If you live up
in Tomball, you're looking for yourhometown feed store. That's D and D
Feed, D and DE Feed.They always are getting in deliveries of baby
checks out there. And when Isay baby checks, I mean all kinds
of different variety. They are ontwenty nine to twenty west of Tumbull,
about three miles west of two fortynine. The Dover family has been running

(01:59:12):
that place since nineteen eighty nine.They've expanded it. It just keeps getting
better. If I talk about afertilizer, we talk about soil blends and
stuff that they've they're d and defeat. They will take care of you.
They will get it done right outthere. Give them a call two eight
one three five one seventy one fortyfour d and defeat. We're going to

(01:59:32):
put another hour in the books here. I want to remind you that next
Saturday, I will be at RCWNurseries, which is the nursery right there
where Highway two forty nine Tomboll Parkwaycomes into Beltway eight. Easy, easy
to get to, makes it reallysimple. I'm going to be there answering
your gardening questions, just visiting withyou, helping you design. Maybe you

(01:59:57):
want to create a beautiful bed andyou need some plants, suggest uestions.
I'll just take you around and showyou some of those out there. There
is going to be a lot offolks coming it has there been big shund
egg that they're having out there.You don't want to miss this at RCW
Nursery. Four as ofmite bags fortyfour pounds each, I'm gonna be giving
them away, four three sixty treestabilizers. I'll be giving them away out

(02:00:18):
there at r c W Nursery.Why are you out there? Check out
the roses um the believable selection ofroses and many many other kinds of plants
as well. We're gonna take abreak and I'll be right back. Kt
r H Garden Line does not necessarilyendorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip Rickard.

(02:00:43):
It's so crazy, Trim. Justwatch him as the world so many things.

(02:01:08):
They're not a sor. Welcome backto the Garden Line. Good to
have you with us today. It'sgonna be a nice day. Have a
little clouds out there, but don'tworry about those. They're not going to
do anything but block a little bitof the sun for a while. It's
a day to get outside this afternoon. I hope you will visit one of
our awesome local garden centers, ourmom and Palm Pop independence however you want

(02:01:31):
to put it. Uh, thoseindependent garden centers are the lifeblood of the
industry and they're how we get goodinformation and good plants and good advice because
these are folks that are knowledgeable,These are folks that have experience with gardening.
These are folks that grow the kindsof things and sell the kinds of
things that you need to have success. And you just can't beat that that

(02:01:56):
is the most cost efficient way inthe world is is to get good quality
products with good quality advice and serviceafter the sale. That very very important,
very important. If you haven't beenout to Neilson Water Garden and Nursery,
you ought to go out there.I know a lot of you have
been. Nelson Water Garden's been arounda long time. Listen, they're national

(02:02:18):
leader when it comes to water gardening. They even created, invented the disappearing
fountain that comes out of like alarge container like picture this large upright urn,
glazed pottery, gorgeous, beautiful watercoming out of the top and down
the sides. It goes into abed of rocks underneath and it recirculates back

(02:02:38):
through. It just adds It addsmovement, It adds a sound of water.
It adds a place that attracts birdstoo, by the way, in
your garden and in your landscape.And it's just stunning. And you got
to go see them yourself. Goout there, take some friends, because
this isn't just a regular garden center. It is a destination place when you

(02:03:01):
walk in the back. First timeI walked in there, I looked around
and I was just stunned. It'slike my first thought was, yes,
one of everything. I've got tohave one of everything, beautiful, all
kinds of designs, whatever attracts you, whatever's interest to you. They've got
those designs. Then Nelson folks cancome to your place and they can design
and build a pond for your yard. They can build a waterfall, a

(02:03:26):
little nice water feature for yard.They can set up one of those large
pottery material placed pottery that have watercoming around like I described. They can
set that up, or they canhelp you do it yourself if you want
to go about it that way.Do you need a fish pond with stunning
koi or beautifully sparkling goldfish, aquaticplants to go in your water. They

(02:03:48):
have that. But they're also anursery, a garden center, so when
you go out there, you're gonnafind a lot of different kinds of plants
available. Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Youneed to know Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Go
check it out, but most importantlyget out there and see it, because
I cannot do it service describing iton the air. It is inspirational,

(02:04:13):
absolutely inspirational. Let's go to pairline. We're going to talk to Mark.
Hello, Mark, Hi, Iam a country property in Brenham. Then
I want to do to kill tillfill thing to side the backyard, okay,
And the problem is is the backyardis pretty close to the wellhead,

(02:04:35):
like maybe twenty or thirty feet.I don't know what kind of a herbicide
to use. I've got every weedthat you can you can think of.
I'm more or less a weed form. Well, you're going to use a
post emergent broad leaf or are allbroadleaf and grass weed killer? There are
things that just kill broad leafs,are things that just kill grass, and

(02:04:58):
then there's glacis which kills But whenyou use any of those, you're going
to follow the label real carefully andyou're barely gonna wet the weeds. You
do not need to drench them.Wash it done into the soil. It
doesn't work on the roots, itworks on the leaves. So if you
get out there only in the morningwhen the wind's not blowing, and you
use a little coarse spray, nothigh pressure that creates a fog that just

(02:05:20):
drifts across the landscape, but justpump it up a few times, get
a little spray coming out and justbarely we the foliage. You're gonna be
okay, it's gonna be. It'sgonna sit there for a while. It'll
dry up, but it will havemoved in and it'll kill everything you spray
it on. And then you cando whatever you're gonna do, rototilling,

(02:05:41):
filling, anything you want to doto get the ground ready for sod.
And I'd say give it a weekto do its work, and after that
you can start mowing the weed back. And by the way, don't mow
before you spray. You want lotsof leaves to catch that spray, right,
Okay. So I did see somewarnings about glyco eight that you shouldn't

(02:06:01):
use it within fifty feet or somethinglike that water will don't I don't know.
Well, if you use it right, I wouldn't be worried about those
kinds of things, okay, Sothat light spraying it just on the leaves
would be yeah, and it wouldbe okay, right, it doesn't it's
not gonna you know, go downin. It ties up in the soil,

(02:06:26):
eventually breaks down in the soil itself. But I wouldn't be concerned about
that. There is a form oflife a say called radio used in ponds
to kill pond weeds. So it'ssprayed right on the water that one.
It's the formulations different. There's somethings in regular round up type stuff that
you wouldn't want to spray in yourwater because it's not designed for that.

(02:06:47):
But you know, hey, it'syour call. I'm not telling you have
to use something you can use broadly. If we control products, you can
use grass only products. They're allchemical. Every chemical has a potential to
cause damage. You've got to useit right to avoid causing those problems.
Right. And I was thinking aboutresting zoysia because it gets hot out there.

(02:07:12):
Man. I have a sprinkling systemto keep it watered well, but
I didn't know. What do youthink about zoysia grass? Good grassias are
good ones. I would choose abroader, a wider leaf type of zoysia.
It's still going to be about athird as wide as a Saint Augustine
leaf, almost almost as narrow asbermuda grass. But those are called Zoisia

(02:07:34):
japonica. And there's a lot ofbrands. There are a lot of brands,
a lot of cultivars out there ofit el Toro, Jammer or examples.
The one that I think the mostof is Palisades. Every time I've
seen Palisades, have been very impressedwith it. Now that that doesn't mean
it's the only zoisia that will growand look good, not at all.

(02:07:55):
But that's if you can find it. Go with Palisades. If not,
you've got you know, you've gotsome other options. Everyone has its pros
and cons, right, kind oflike people, kind of like people like
you and me, Mark, Wegot our pros and cons. That's right,
all right, Well, I appreciatethe information, all right, give

(02:08:16):
it a shot. Good luck,Okay, thanks you hope you have a
beautiful long come out of this.By the way, when you get that,
you get that lawn. In Nelson'sslow and Easy twenty two to two
ten, that's the fertilizer needs tobe going down right now. It will
carry you into summer. It lastsa very long time. I mean,
I say two or three months.I think you can even go you know,

(02:08:37):
up to as much as six months, depending on conditions and whatnot.
But the nitrogen is in a slowand easy form. So even though don't
let that big number twenty two scareyou, that's a lot of nitrogen,
but it's going to gradually be releasedover a long time, which is how
grass takes up nitrogen and other nutrients. So a forty pound bag will cover

(02:08:58):
five thousand square feet. By promotingslow growth, you have a good balance.
You have good top growth, andyou have good root growth. When
you dump a bunch of nitrogen onat one time, you get top growth
at the expense of root growth,new some slow and easy avoids at and
make some more drought resistant lawn asa result. We're going to take a
little break here. We will beright back. Welcome back to the garden

(02:09:20):
line. Good to have you withus today. Hey, if you are
interested in attracting birds to your landscape, and you really should be. Birds
add not only their songs, whichmy favorite part of the morning is waking
up and hearing the birds are loudmouths first thing in the morning. I
don't know if you notice that ornot, at least mine at my house.
Are I love that love to heartheir songs. I love just to

(02:09:43):
watch the beauty, I mean,very attractive, their antics, watching them
win. Have a little bird bath, you know, taking a bath and
the bird bath. Well, whybirds Unlimited is your shop and stop for
anything birds. They have very highquality material. We're talking about bird feeders,
bird houses, and bird seed.You can buy cheap bird seed and

(02:10:03):
it's not inexpensive. It's cheap.It's full of little red bebes and a
lot of it just gonna get kickedon the ground. So maybe you paid
less for the bag, but youpaid more for the seed the bird got
to eat, and then you havethis mess on the ground. Wawbirds has
blends for every season and for everytype or group of birds that you're wanting

(02:10:24):
to feed. Wide variety of qualityproducts. And they have holeless products,
so like there's not even sunflower seedholes that the birds are broken open to
get the seed inside. They alreadybreak the holes open and put the seed
instead of the whole land seed intothe mix. That's what I'm talking about.
Do you want to attract specific kindsof birds with housing with food,

(02:10:46):
They can tell you how to dothat. Very knowledgeable, very knowledgeable staff
that will take you through the seasons. If you're dealing with squirrels getting in
the bird feeder, they got solutionsto that as well. Wabird's unlimited.
Here's the website in Houston, WBUdot com forward slash Houston WBU dot Com

(02:11:07):
Forward slash Houston. Everything from hummingbirdsto the little tiny chickadees and tip mice
and other kinds of birds that areout everything you can imagine. Warbirds Unlimited
is the place to learn and tobring the things home that bring them to
your yard. We're going to headout now to Mike in the Woodlands.

(02:11:28):
Hello, Mike, Hey are youI'm well sir. How can we help
today? Yeah? I heard theprevious call about saw it out from the
gentleman that was on the review justa second ago. I had just had
my backyard resawted with Saint Augustine aboutsix to seven weeks ago. Okay,
uh, and it's taking. Willhad a sprinkle system put it in as

(02:11:50):
Will. It's taking. Well,it's growing. It's looks really really good.
But my question is it seems tobe bumpy when I'm walking around the
backyard where the seams for the differentsquares of sod were. Yes. Uh,
my kids like to play soccer inthe backyard, so I was wondering
what's the best method to kind oflevel it out? Yeah, you know,

(02:12:11):
walking around it's kind of like youcan almost almost feel like might twist
and ankle in different spots. Okay, should I try to? You know,
what's what's the best methods is tolevel it out? Uh? And
should I do? Should I dothat before the first cut? I guess
that's my question. It doesn't matterwhen you do it, but the sooner
the better. They should have laidthe sod better than that. But if
the if the if you do havethe big gaps, I would get a

(02:12:33):
little bit of a kind of asandy loam top soil material and just kind
of pour it in between those areasas best you can, you know,
kind of work it down in thereas the sod grows over it. It's
going to fix a lot of thatanyway over time. But starting off by
filling in the actual gaps sounds likeyou got some pretty good ones in there.
I would go ahead and just getthat done. You're gonna be able

(02:12:54):
to see it. It's gonna takea little while for the sod to grow
back over it, but before longit'll look just beautiful. Okay. And
I guess that with time, thegrass cuttings and things like that will feel
in the small little bumps and areas. Yeah, they well they do,
and the sod runners and everything andjust the soil kind of settling in and
coming together a little bit better.But for the big gaps, I'd go

(02:13:18):
ahead and put that top soil inthe air in those areas to fill them
in. And the sooner you dothat, the better off, because then
the grass can go right over throughthat. Okay, So you would use
to just more like a top soil, right, more like a top soil.
Yeah, if you use a compostor bed mixed type product, it's
going to decompose a way and you'llbe back to having a gap again.
The top soil is you know,it's stable, it's gonna it's just gonna

(02:13:41):
be there. Okay, so you'replaying, all right, take care,
Thank you so much. All right, take care. Good to have that
call. Uh. Jungle Land isa nitro foss product distributed by Nitropos and
it is designed for success and containers. So the Jungle Flower and Vegetable is

(02:14:01):
an outdoor mix. It should sayflower and vegetable and herb, and then
have an asterisk that says and everythingelse because it's good for all kinds of
things outdoors in a container with agood quality fertilizer in the blend. You
are gonna just add a little qualitynight Fosh fertilizer to it and you're going
to end up having bountiful flowers andvegetables as well. It drains well,

(02:14:24):
it holds water well. At thesame time, it just creates that perfect
environment for the roots. Even gotmicrose of fungi in there. Indoors,
there's a water saving potting soil thathas the crystals in it, and that
way, when you forget the water, the crystals have held onto the water.
A little bit after the soil isgoing dry, they still have some
water in it and the roots canstill get access while they're waiting on you

(02:14:46):
to get around or remembering to waterthem again. So where do you get
jungle land. Well, Shades ofTexas in the Woodlands has jungle d and
shanded gardens done in Richmond Rosenberg theycarry Nitrofosh products like jungle land. You
can get them in bo both ofthose places. I am going to go
now out to League City and talkto Bill. Hello, Bill, Hello,

(02:15:07):
how you doing. Yes, Ihave a question about I saw this
plan at one of the box stores. I just wonder if it does okay?
Here in Houston, it's called sweetbroom with a yellow flower. It
does. Okay, it's a goodspring bloomer. Sometimes people have trouble keeping
them year to year to year,and I don't know, you know,

(02:15:28):
I've never asked questions like how muchsun is it getting? Or you remember
to water it and whatnot like that, But it's here, is a stunning
little plant in the springtime. Okay, great, thanks. I was just
curious about that because I've never I'min the industry, but I haven't seen
that in any of the other commercialnurseries. Yeah, it does tend.
It does tend to come in seasonally. Here. You really see it in

(02:15:50):
spring. You know, when somehas a blue bonnet, it sells,
and so it is a spring bloomer. I get it. Yeah, it's
hard to sell a plant that doesn'thave blooms on it, even though it's
the most it may be the mostwonderful plant in the world, but if
it doesn't have blooms on it,people don't won't take it home. Okay,
Hi guy, that answers my question. Thank you very much, Thank
you very much. I appreciate callingit. Yeah, that is a little

(02:16:13):
bit of a soap box of mine. If you want to have success with
plants, don't be fooled by giantblooms and the plants are planting. I
watched people yesterday out at a chantof forest. They were going through plants
and they were look. I couldtell what they're doing. They're finding the
ones with the most blooms on them. And I get that. I understand

(02:16:33):
that, But listen, blooms arelike babies. The plant who's got to
make carbohydrates to go into those bloomsto firt make the bloom in the first
place, but then to go inand produce the seed that often comes after
the bloom, And so it's moreof a draw from the plant to create
and support blooms. You find theplant right next to it that is a

(02:16:54):
good, healthy, green, robustplant, and get it in the ground
and let the sunlight hit all thoseextra leaves and get going. It will
end up blooming better probably in thelong run in many cases. Now that's
not a black and white issue.But don't just find the big Sometimes the
plant is so small and the bloomsare so big that it's kind of like,
my gosh, how does that planteven support all those blooms, and

(02:17:16):
now you're going to take it outand put that little confined root system in
the ground and try to get itestablished. Make it easier on yourself.
Don't insist that it has the bigbloom. Look at the variety name.
Maybe there's a small bloom on it. You know the color you're getting,
And go out and plant it andtake care of it, treat it right,
and you have really good success withit. Have you been out to

(02:17:37):
Moss Nursery and Seabrook Those of youdown in that part of the country know
about Moss Nursery. It has beenaround a very long time. Do you
know that that place is not justanother garden center. I mean, it
is a it is a it's adestination, but it's like going to the
museum too. Jim brings in theseall kinds of exotic things from traveling all

(02:18:00):
over creation, you know, likemasks and a lot of those kind of
ethnic masks and things that you see. Every time you turn a corner you
may see some rock sculpture thing that'sgot water squirting out of I mean,
you just never know. At MossNursery, I tell you what you do
know though, we're about to entersummer and they are loaded with tropicals.

(02:18:20):
Did you know there are ten totwelve different kinds of elephant ears, that's
how many they have at Moss Nursery. They have gallons sizes. They've got
twenty five gallon sizes. Five tosix different varieties of bananas. You know
there's some small bananas. You cancover them up. You can actually grow
bananas here in the Greater Houston area. Bird of Paradise, that orange and

(02:18:41):
blue one that we're talking about earlier, they've got those. The legularia,
that's the one. It looks likean above ground lily pad. It's got
the round leaves on stems that stickup above the ground. And ligularia.
If you've got a shady area andyou want something that can put up with
a lot of shade, ligularia anddo it. Gingers one of my favorite

(02:19:03):
favorite print. I need to goon and on about gingers someday. Gingers.
They've got them. Philogendrins, they'vegot them. Do you need houseplants?
Do you need cacti and succulents.You're not going to see a selection
like that. Go check out thehouse plant house. You can be very
very impressed at Moss Nursery. Hey, Moss Nursery, eight acres of wandering
and wonderfulness. If I can justcoin a word. They're on Toddville Road

(02:19:26):
in Seabrook. Moss Nursery dot com. That's the website, Moss Nursery dot
com. Just go by fact.That's a good idea for this afternoon.
Let's head out to Seabrook and we'regoing to talk to Joe. Hey,
Joe, I was just bragging aboutyour nursery out there. Hey Joe,
that's a different Joe. I've onlygot to know about eight potted roses here

(02:19:48):
that pulled out of the ground,got no problem, pulled them out of
the ground back in the fall,and just to relocate them, but we
haven't assigned exactly where we're going toput them at. So I got them
in the thirty thirty galling spots andthey're they're doing real well with foliage wise,
but I'm not getting any kind ofbooms from them, any recommendations or
well, let's say, if thetime, probably if they're growing good foliage

(02:20:11):
wise, that means you're good andhealthy. That means you have water and
nutrients. That's important roses need alot of sun six hours minimum. So
if you can put those pots wherethey get lots of sun, then you're
doing everything you can do and it'sup to the plant to take it from
there. Okay, all right.I just thought it was kind of strange
that none of them, all eightof them are healthy, but just no

(02:20:31):
blooms. Yeah, they will,they will have them, all right.
I guess we'll get them back inthe ground as soon as we can.
All right. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you, Thank you. Appreciate
it. I appreciate it. Byebye. All right. Well let's see
here. What do we want totalk about now? I want to tell
you about sweet Green. Sweet Greenis a product from Nitrofoss and this is

(02:20:52):
a cool product. It starts withmolasses and then microbes get a hold of
it and turn it into fertilizer.That's the fast version. But it smells
wonderful, you know, I'm molassessmells. You put it back of sweet
Green in the car and you justwant to drive around on a hot day
for another couple of loops around townbefore you go home, because it smells.
It's a dark good outside it is. It's really good and it stimulates

(02:21:15):
my chrobial activity because they love.That's why you put molasses into organic gardening
systems and things, because the microbialactivity benefit. Where are you going to
buy it? Well, Sweet Greenis a nitrophos product, so you're going
to find it at places like Shadesof Texas in the Woodlands. You're going
to find it at Kingwood, atthe Ace Hardware Store. You're going to
find it at the Arbor Gate inShades of Texas down on Genoa Red Bluff

(02:21:35):
in southeast Houston. And so that'sabout all I can say about Sweet Green.
I think Nikki is here and sheprobably has a little bit of news.
Molasses cookies. Your plants love molassescookies. I bet you've never heard
of gardening show where they tell yougo buy fertilizer and drive around on a
hot day and smell and I loveit. But that's that's the way it

(02:21:56):
does, is sleep. It's athere there. I got to tell you
a little bit behind the scenes gardenline information here. My producer Josh was
just kind of give me half ofa hard time about some of my getting

(02:22:16):
lost in what reads I have andhaven't done for the day. And so
I'm like Toby Keith, I'm asgood once as I ever was. But
anyway, all right, we'll letit go at that. Yeah, that's
how the sausage gets made behind thescenes. Hey, listen, you're listening
to garden Line, and we're gladyou are, and we would love to
have you call if you got aquestion for gardening seven one three two one

(02:22:37):
two fifty eight seventy four, seventhree, two and two five eight seven
four. I would describe doing theGardening Line radio show as herding cats while
juggling state knives on roller skates onan icy pond. How about that?
Is that enough degrees of difficulty toyou? I know it sounds easy,

(02:23:01):
but sometimes it doesn't sound easy becauseyour host is trying to do all the
above. It all right, well, at least at least I'm having fun
to hope you are too. Listen, we were we were talking earlier about
A's Hardware stores and the fact thatwhatever you need, they're going to have
it. ACE is the place.That's that's their motto, The ACE is

(02:23:24):
the place. ACE is the placefor getting your fertilizer. If you hear
me talk about fertilizer and soil hereon guardline, ACE has got it.
If I tell somebody, well,you need to go get this insecticide or
fungicide or herbicide, ACE has gotit. It's time to treat for fire
ants. This is the big seasonthey start boiling up to the surface and
boy, that'll take that'll take thefun of a party real quick. To

(02:23:46):
fire ants in the art well.ACE will get you the proper baits to
have success. If you need todo individual mound treatments for the ones that
escape, ACE has that product aswell. Do you mosquito Do you want
some of those mosquito dunks, thelittle messita granule materials. They've got those
things mosquito bils they call. They'vegot those things there. And if you

(02:24:11):
need to get a fogger to fogin the backyard, they've got that kind
of stuff at Ace Hardware. BecauseACE is a place that makes it simple.
And what else makes it simple isthat they're forty of them, forty
stores in the Greater Houston area.Go to Ace Hardware dot com and find
the store locator and you get abig map with lots of red dots on
it. Pick the one you wantto go to. There's going to be

(02:24:33):
one near you. Let's go outto North Jersey Village right now and we're
going to talk to Candy. Hello, Candy, are you there? Do
we have a candy are you lookingfor? Yes, sir, I'm sorry,
I had my phone on speaker.Okay, I have powdery mildew on
my deal. Second year, Freshdeal, different, different deal. Can

(02:24:56):
you help me? Well, Well, pottery mildew likes very very humid conditions.
It doesn't like wet, but itlikes high high humidity and mild temperatures.
And that's kind of what we're havingright now. You can you can
spray with nim oil. Nim oil, but you want to be very careful.
Tested on a little spot. Knemoil will kill powdery mildew. And

(02:25:18):
it is a natural organic product.We're not talking about the name that just
has aser erect in it. We'retalking about the oil itself. Mix it
according to the label and spray iton. It will probably turn the color
a little bit. Of things thattend to be a little on the kind
of silvery side tend to get kindof a muddy, muddy green color when

(02:25:39):
you get any kind of an oilon them. But just check it out.
But as far as shutting the powderymildew down, that'll do it.
Anything you can do to improve aircirculation if that's within your power around those
deal plants helps, But the knemoil is probably the best. Otherwise you're
using a fungicide and you're about toeat that that deal, and so I'd
rather they're not send you to apowdery mildew fund your side. Okay,

(02:26:03):
so the knee oil is safe.NEMO is safe. Yeah, it's safe.
Yeah, it's safe. You're ina pot. It's it's stuffed together,
and there a bunch of plants arestuffed in a pot. I just
transplanted them from a pot that Ithat I got and maybe I should separate
them. Well, and it maythey may that that would help. Air
movement helps, but it doesn't.Mildew likes high humidity. Powdery most most

(02:26:26):
diseases like wet leaf surfaces. Mildewjust likes high humidity. That's that's what
it likes in mild temperature. Okay, So you may your deal may keep
growing and kind of the new growthnot have that issue on it, but
I would if you want to shutit down, I would try neem oil.
I will try that, thank you, and be ready for it to

(02:26:46):
change the color a little bit.That's fine, okay, I appreciate it,
all right. You take care,Jenny, appreciate that you too.
Years ago, a fellow named doctorLarry Barnes, who at that time ran
the State Plant Clinic Texas A andM. He did a study using nme
oil on daisies gerber daisies, Ibelieve it was, and they get powdery

(02:27:09):
mildew really bad too. And hefound that nem oil was as effective as
some of the other chemical fungicide likebeaylaton for example, it's really good on
powdery mildew. But nem oil wasan organic alternative that was very very effective
because powdery mildew sits on top ofthe leaf. It's a surface. That's
why we see the white. That'sthe nicelia, the fungal strands that are

(02:27:31):
on the surface, and so whenyou coat them with oil, it kills
them. You know, it doesn'thave to soak in. It doesn't have
to have a chemical poison if youwill, that kills the powdery mildew in
that way. No, it's justa physical thing, but it works pretty
good. In fact, it worksvery good on that well, you're listening
to garden Line. Our phone numberis seven one three two one two five

(02:27:52):
eight seven four seven one three twoone two fifty eight seventy four. We
are now in the season where wetransition into slow release fertilizers. Now you
still use a fast release fertilize.There's nothing wrong with using any of the
fast release fertilizers. Now you justwant to go moderate with it. And
you may want to even take yourapplications and spread them out a little bit

(02:28:16):
so they cover more time. Thatway, you don't have all of what
should be for three months applied atone time and dissolves a way, and
now it's all in solution at onetime. It's better to go a little
slower or get your quality product likeNitrofoss Superturf Superterf fertilizer by Nitrofoss is designed
to gradually release that nitrogen into thesoil over several months, several months,

(02:28:43):
and that is that's really a quality, a quality way to go about it.
Because here's why grass takes up nutrientsevery day, every day. So
the analogy I like to use tryingto explain slower lease fertilizers is imagine you
are a dairy farmer and you haveall these cows and you figure out that

(02:29:05):
each year the cows need how manybales of hay per cow and how much
feed per cow? And you walkout in what is it, April,
and you dump it all on theground and say, see you next year.
How well is that going to go? Well? I mean they're gonna
they're gonna feast right now, probablytoo much, but then they're gonna start
to get hungry several months from now, right when there's nothing else left to

(02:29:28):
eat. And that's why we liketo fertilize gradually over time. If you
use an immediate release, just breakit up, put several applications on.
It's a lot more work, morehassle. But why not just get a
quality product like Nitrofoss the silver bagsuper Turf. Super Turf is easy to
find. You know, Nitrofoss products, they are They're everywhere. I mean

(02:29:50):
it's very easy to find them becausepretty much every ace hardware store is going
to have Nitrofoss products. You're goingto find them at D and D feed
up in Tomball they carry Nitrofoss,including the Super Turf. Lake Hardware done
in Angleton and Fisher's Hardware and Baytown. They also are places where you can
get all of these quality nitrofoss products. I'm going to take a little break

(02:30:11):
here. Greg. When we comeback, you will be our first up.
Welcome back to Garden Line on abeautiful Sunday. It's going to be
a nice one out there. Hopeyou this afternoon you have an opportunity to
get out visit some of our gardencenters, pick up some of the supplies,
maybe a feed store. We gota lot of other great places around
the Greater Houstonario where you can pickup everything from plants to the products you

(02:30:33):
need to have success, and that'swhat we want you to have being out
on a good day like this thisafternoon, I think I am actually going
to do a little bit of plantingon some things. That is a happy
place for me to get out andrest, relax and just enjoy being working
in the soil and planting some plantsand doing some things like that. That's

(02:30:54):
what I consider a good day.I'm going to head over to a task
aseda now and talk to Greg.Hell, oh, Greg, Hey,
how's it going, sir? I'mwell, sir. How can we help
today. Well, yeah, wehave a magnolia tree that's probably about twenty
foot tall, and there's others inour neighborhood that we've noticed. The other

(02:31:15):
ones are just completely toast, driedout, dead, and ours is about
fifty to fifty. We need somehelp to save ours. Okay, when
magnolias die out like that, itusually is because of the heat and drought.
We went through our a severe coldsnap that caused splits in the bark
and things like that. Last summerwe lost a lot of magnolias, either

(02:31:39):
in whole or in part like you'redescribing, and there's no bringing dead back
to life. So the challenge isto take a look at that plant you
know you're going to prone all thedead out, and then say, do
I still like that plant? Becauseyou know, magnolias have a beautiful shape
normally, the one it gets verelydisfigured by entire branches turning birn on,

(02:32:00):
you may end up with a prettyweird, bones eye looking magnolia out there
in the front yard and you maydecide that's not acceptable. I'm gonna put
a new one in. But that'sthe call. That's the call that you'll
have to make Oh well, okay, and what's good health? Well,
what's the good health advice? Wecan do for hours if we decide to
keep it. Yeah, there areany type of I would fertilizer. Yeah,

(02:32:22):
I would get a lawn fertilizer thatis very good for magnols, just
fine for magnolias, and just spreadit around it. I mean, you
can do a regular fertilizer if you, you know, if you were I
want to go with an organic one. Microlife has a the pink bag is
for acid loving plants, and magnoliasdo like a little bit more on the
acidic side. Uh you can yourepeat the name again? Micro Life.

(02:32:45):
Micro Life is an organic crow Life. It's in a pink bag. Other
brands of fertilizers will also make onesfor acidic loving plants. But I just
use a regular fertilizer on them andfind that it does well because all you're
really trying to do is put somenitrogen in there to support good growth,
and their root system is picking uppretty much all the other things that needs

(02:33:09):
from the soil. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, So the real small quick
question, Sure, is it toolate to weed and feed are much still
okay, I've still got a goodtiming. You know, if I'm given
the choice, I prefer to dothose separately. There's a time to put
down the fertilizer, and you wehave many quality fertilizers, and then there's

(02:33:30):
a time to address weed issues,whether it's a pre emergent or a post
emergent. And so when you combinethem in one product, those can be
very good products with good weed andgood feed controlling them. But it doesn't
mean it always fits the situation thatyou have in your yard. And so
that's why I like to go,hey, here's when you're fertilize, and
when you go to my schedule ongardening with Skip dot com, that free

(02:33:54):
schedule shows you when to fertilize,and then it also shows you when to
do weed control, whether it's apre emergent to prevent weeds or a post
emergent to kill existing weeds. Andso you may call the show and say,
well, I've got some I don'tknow, some little amaranth type weed
in there. Those are easy tokill. Or you may call and say,

(02:34:15):
now I got dollar weed and Igot Virginia button weed, and those
are more difficult, So I'm goingto recommend a different weed control for that.
Then you might have it in someproducts. So I'm not saying don't
use the combos. I'm just sayingI think the best way is to go
prescription on the fertilizer and prescription onthe on the weed control to address exactly
what you're looking at in your yard. Wonderful. Thank you for the advisor.

(02:34:39):
I hope that didn't complicate it.Go online to my schedules on at
gardening with skip dot com and itlays it all out for you there,
really easy to give you, yeah, what to apply and when to apply
it. And if you listen toguardline you can hear where to get it
all day long. Yes, sir, have a great day. Thank you.
All right, Greg, take careof they're in a task Asida,

(02:35:03):
you bet. You know. Iwhen I moved to Houston, gosh,
what was it twelve years ago?I don't know, probably twelve years ago,
I guess roughly. I'm not goodat that time thing, but anyway,
Uh, it really threw me thatthere was an a task asita because
I grew up in Adiscosa County,south of San Antonio. Adiscosa and every

(02:35:26):
time i'd see a task asita,it would just throw me. It's like,
Okay, that's not the right wordthere, but it is. When
you're in the Houston area. I'vegot some listeners. I talked to some
listeners every now and then here fromAdiscosa County that grew up over there.
Well, you've been listening to thegarden line. We're going to go for
a little bit longer here, butit's been a good day. I've enjoyed

(02:35:48):
visiting with you and talking about thedifferent things. Uh, if you would
still like to give us a call, we got some time. We can
still take some calls here. It'sseven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. You may need tolet it ring a little bit. Josh
gets busy with one thing or another, but he'll get to the get the
phone and get you set up andget your online so we can talk.

(02:36:09):
I do want to remind you thatif you're going to do lawn fertilizing,
it's time to begin. It's timeto start that stuff, so get out
there. My preference at this pointis a slow release fertilizer, one that
gradually releases over time. That wouldbe the ideal. Remember that, and
this is counterintuitive, but the singlemost important thing you do for lawn density

(02:36:31):
is mow regularly. Now that isn'tthe only thing. I'm not saying you
don't do anything but mow your lawnand it's going to be pretty. No,
that's not true. But mowing,mowing mo The more often you mow,
the denser the lawn will be.It's the same way with a hedge
you're trimming on your landscape. Ifyou trim a hedge once a year,
it's not going to have the densityas if you trim it periodically through the

(02:36:54):
year. Every time you cut it, what was one shoot becomes two or
three shoots, and it's and thenyou do it again and again. So
the same is true with your lawn. The second thing that's very important is
to water adequately. When we don'thave water. Most Stonians that I've observed
overwater their lawn or they misswater.What is the difference. Overwatering means applying

(02:37:18):
more than it needs. If youlook at my lawn care schedule online at
gardeningwiskip dot com. As you goacross the page, I show you each
month of the year on average,historically which means it won't be the same
this year, because ye two yearsare the same. But on average,
how much water do we use inApril, And if you look at how
much water a lawn uses in April, it's about three quarters of an inch

(02:37:41):
a week on average. Now,if you have rain, that's taken care
of it, and so you don'thave the water. But applying the right
amount of water what is miswatering.Miswatering is putting a little squirt out frequently.
Proper watering is a good so lookinginfrequently. So if you're going to

(02:38:03):
put an inch of water on,which is what we do during the summertime,
that's what it needs in the absenceof rainfall, then apply an inch
to soak into the soil. Youmay have to turn on the sprink for
for a while, have it gooff for forty five minutes, come back
on again so you don't have runoff. But get that whole inch down in
the ground. Let's use an extremeexample of what I'm talking about. Let's

(02:38:26):
say that you were to apply aquarter inch four times during the week.
That quarter inch would hardly even wetthe soil at all. It would get
on the grass, it would geton the thatch. It would promote disease
because you're keeping it wet all thetime, but you wouldn't have very much
in the soil bank account. Butwhen you put an inch on, it
does wet the grass and the thatch. And then where does all the rest

(02:38:48):
of that go. It goes ondown into the soil. That's proper watering.
I'm going to go to Cheryl hereand a test as to Oh,
we have a teske asta epidemic goingon, Cheryl, how can we help?
Hi? Skip, I heard youtalking to another lady this morning about
dollar weed using celsius and I haveselsius, but I never used it in

(02:39:09):
a flower beds. I have thisdollar weed growing in the grow low growing
evergreen in my flower beds, andI'm wondering if I can from that.
Well, it's not label for that, and I don't know the results,
and I cannot tell you that's okayto use it for that because it's outside
the label. You may read thelabel again carefully. Maybe I missed it,

(02:39:31):
but I don't think it's labeled forornamental beds. All what you could
do is you could wipe a productonto the dollar weed using a sponge applicator
that they make a thing called awick applicator and wipe it onto the dollar
weed. So you're not spraying itto get on the desirable plants because you
don't want to kill those, butyou just kind of wipe it onto the

(02:39:52):
dollar weed and it moves into thethe But I use selfius on that.
We better do use something else.I would probably for that. For dollar
weed, I'd probably use something likea glyphysate herbicide because you're not spraying it
all over the soil and the plants. You're just wiping down. But you
got to find a wiper applicator.They're not easy to find. But that

(02:40:13):
would be one application that you coulddo for the dollar weed. And it
depends on what plants are growing inthat bed as to whether other things might
be applicable or not. You know, certain plants are susceptible to certain products,
and so I can't just paint witha roal brock brush. All right,

(02:40:33):
Okay, thank you appreciate. It'sa call, and that is it.
Dollar weed is a challenge in thebed. But remember dollar weed,
it thrives where it's too wet,So just drying things out a little bit
helps a lot. Well. Iwas talking about turf. I said,
you got to mow regularly. Thatis so important for entsity. You gotta
water properly, that is very important. And finally you got to fertilize.

(02:40:56):
I have had launs that ad infor lizh for two or three years.
Look chartroosee green and they weren't dense. When you want density and beauty and
health, to choke out the weedseeds, fertilize. Follow my schedule gardening
with skip dot com. Get theskate. It's free for crying out loud,
print it out, take it withyou when you go shopping. Hey,

(02:41:18):
we're done. We'll see you nextSaturday, six am. Hope you bake it